Lilijana Burcar: Imposition of Capitalism and the Return of Housewifization
Channel: SkriptaTV
Date: 2013-01-04

Organizacija: Centar za radničke studije (CRS) / Organized by: Centre for labour studies (radnickistudiji.org)
Saturday_20.10.2012.  18h_20h

Lilijana Burcar

After socialism "only darkness of democracy prevails": imposition of capitalism and the return of housewifization

Re-imposition of capitalism has resulted in a massive scaling back of basic socio-economic rights, annulment of the extensive social welfare network and overall destruction of people's well-being, leading to the creation of differentially segmented and hierarchically organized categories of the exploited. The re-instalment of capitalist social relations affects women differently from men as it rests on the processes of re-patriarchalization. This is a direct result of the transfer of the costs and responsibility for social and biological reproduction of the current and future generations of labour force from capital owners to women as a specifically designated group of people, which helps to increase the accumulation of capital on the part of the owners. This, however, pushes women back into the isolation of their homes, casting them into the role of unpaid reproductive workers and economic dependents or semi-dependents, who in their newly cast role of unpaid, round-o-clock reproductive workers come to be perceived as merely secondary earners and a huge reserve army of labour confined mostly to the informal sector. The re-instalment of capitalist social relations thus abdicates on the socialist idea of gender equality which among other rests on the notion that the costs of social reproduction should be socialized. In capitalism they are instead privatized, which is directly related to the re-enactment and naturalization of conservative gender constructs. This very concrete materiality of capitalism thus shapes social structures and daily reality of people's existence and practices, and has a direct impact on the available forms of consciousness.

Lilijana Burcar, Ph. D., English Department, University of Ljubljana. Her area of research includes feminist theory, gender studies, postcolonial studies and neocolonial studies and contemporary british and american literature.

19-20.10.2012., Radnički dom, Trg Petra Krešimira IV 2, Zagreb
 
Conference: TWO DECADES AFTER THE END OF SOCIALISM

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