Materialist Feminism: A Reader in Class, Difference, and Women's Lives - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 041591633X ISBN 13: 9780415916332

Publisher: Routledge, 1997

Synopsis

During the 1980s, capitalism triumphantly secured its global reach, anti-communist ideologies hammered home socialism's inherent failure, the New Left increasingly moved into the professional middle class--and many of feminism's earlier priorities were marginalized. "Identity politics", often formulated in terms of social reconstructionism or multiculturalism, has increasingly suppressed materialist feminism's systematic perspective, replacing it with discourse analysis or cultural politics. Materialist Feminism: A Reader argues against the retreat to multiculturalism for keeping invisible the material links among the explosion of meaning-making practices in highly industrialized social sectors, the exploitation of women's labor, and the appropriation of women's bodies that continues to undergird the scramble for profits and state power in multinational capitalism.

About this title

Review:

"I believe this reader is a needed return to historical materialist critiques of social texts... "Materialist Feminism should be requisite reading for any class, or citizen, on the historical imperatives of feminist theory and praxis." -Sean C. Newborn, "Journal of Popular Culture ..."it is gratifying to find work that attempts to straddle both town and gown." -Jan Levine Thal, "Feminist Collections, vol 19, no 4, Summer 1998

Synopsis:

During the 1980s many of feminism's earlier priorities were marginalized. "Identity politics", often formed in terms of social reconstructionism or multiculturalism, has increasingly suppressed materialist feminism's systematic perspective, replacing it with discourse analysis or cultural politics. This reader argues against the retreat to multiculturalism for keeping invisible the material links among the explosion of meaning-making practices in highly industrialized social sectors, the exploitation of women's labour, and the appropriation of women's bodies that continues to undergird the scramble for profits and state power in multinational capitalism. In making 20 years of materialist feminist thought more accessible, this text should contribute to the development of feminism's third wave.

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 041591633X
• ISBN 13: 9780415916332
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224
• Editor: Hennessy Rosemary, Ingraham Chrys