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Social Reproduction Quotes

Browse 7 quotes about Social Reproduction.

Social Reproduction Quotes

“La séparation d'avec nos camarades masculins ne s'est pas faite sans douleur. Il nous semblait qu'ils auraient dû se réjouir que nous élargissions par notre lutte le front anticapitaliste, mais pourtant nous n'avons pas trouvé beaucoup de soutien de leur part [...] Nous avons aussi souffert d'un manque de reconnaissance, puisque nos modes d'action n'étaient pas du même ordre que les leurs, ils ne les voyaient pas, et disaient que "nous ne faisions rien". De même qu'ils n'avaient pas vu notre travail domestique, ils ne voyaient pas notre travail politique autonome [...] De plus, les femmes "en mouvement" changeaient et les rapports, y compris personnels, se brisaient.”

FeminismSocial JusticeSocial Reproduction
Book:Femmes et subversion sociale: Anthologie 1972 – 2008
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“It should then be clear that it is not the power of working-class men (or women’s reproductive roles) that keeps women as the primary agents of reproduction within working-class households nor is it the power of men that creates segregated labour markets and other barriers to equality between the sexes. It is the power of capital which establishes structural limitations to the possible ways in which the propertyless class can have access to the conditions necessary for its daily and generational reproduction and it is the relative powerlessness of working-class men and women as individuals struggling for survival that forces them into these relations of reproduction which are both relations of cooperation and unequal relations of personal economic dependence. The contradiction between capital and labour, between production and reproduction, and the protracted class struggle thereby generated are the determinants of the contradictory nature of the relations between working-class men and women. The mode of reproducing labour power can thus be accurately understood as a unity of opposites, where bonds of cooperation and solidarity are also bonds of dependency grounded in the set of structural possibilities open to male and female members of the working class under capitalist conditions.”

FeminismHouseholdSocial ReproductionMale PowerMode Of ReproductionWorking Class Household
Author:Martha A. Gimenez
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“Unfortunately, when it comes to dominant narratives of capitalism, the discoveries of social reproduction theory have only added more epicycles to the received model, not fundamentally transformed it. The story is still essentially one about the eventual decline of the peasantry, the rise of factories, struggles of brawny wageworkers, and deindustrialization—even if one now adds a few more sections here and there about women. What’s so tragic about this is not only that the story is exclusionary and in many respects wrong, but that feminist scholars have already created the necessary elements for a completely revised, more inclusive, and nuanced history of capitalism.”

Social ReproductionMarxist Feminism
Author:Salar Mohandesi, Emma Teitelman
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“... by saying that the work we perform in the home is capitalist production, we are not expressing a wish to be legitimated as part of the 'productive forces,' in other words, it is not a resort to moralism. Only from a capitalist viewpoint being productive is a moral virtue, if not a moral imperative. From the viewpoint of the working class, being productive simply means being exploited. As Marx recognized, 'to be a productive laborer is therefore not a piece of luck, but a misfortune.' Thus we derive little 'self-esteem' from it. But when we say that housework is a moment of capitalist production we clarify our specific function in the capitalist division of labor and the specific forms that our revolt against it must take. Ultimately, when we say that we produce capital, we say that we can and want to destroy it, rather than engage in a losing battle to move from one form and degree of exploitation to another.”

Social Reproduction
Book:Revolution at Point Zero: Housework, Reproduction, and Feminist Struggle
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“Intricately connected to the restructuring of relations of production, neoliberalism has also entailed the restructuring of social reproduction in ways that have rendered it increasingly insecure for particular sectors of the population. In the US, Canada and the UK, the move from welfare to ‘workfare’ states is particularly relevant, though other cutbacks to government services, the hollowing out of public housing, the restructuring of pension plans in ways that render them increasingly dependent on global financial markets and the imposition of austerity measures (especially in Europe) post-2008 are all key moves that have contributed to the ‘reprivatization of social reproduction’. The latter refers to the ways in which the decline in social forms of provisioning in most OECD countries over the past several decades has resulted in an increase in the amount of work done by families, particularly by women, and/or the private sector.”

NeoliberalismSocial Reproduction
Book:Gendered States of Punishment and Welfare
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“But just as the material necessity to produce the means of production and subsistence does not determine the historically specific social relations in which they are produced, the biology of procreation does not determine the mode of reproduction, i.e. social relations in which children are born and raised, although it imposes limits on their variations. (,,,) this family form [nuclear family unit of parents and children] is prevalent in capitalist societies; it is not, however, universal because those functions can be fulfilled within a variety of social arrangements”

FamilyBiologyNuclear FamilySocial ReproductionFamily FormsMode Od ReproductionMode Of Production
Book:Marx, Women, and Capitalist Social Reproduction: Marxist Feminist Essays
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