num_pages: 192
description: In this exploration ot women and work, Maria Mies follows up the success of her earlier book, Patriarchy and Accumulation on a Worldscale. Her co-authors, like herself, are German feminist scholars who have specialized in researching the condition of women in Third World countries. They use their investigations and particular case studies in order to advance feminist theory's understanding of women under capitalism. Women's work, they suggest, is still a blind spot in political economy. Historical modes of production cannot be fully understood without explicit attention to the sexual division of labor, and its common features throughout history need to be explored. Similarly, understanding the history of Third World societies' incorporation into a European-dominated global capitalist economy requires a specific focus on its impact on women. The authors pursue these general perspectives in a series of essays on particular countries in Asia and Latin America. They examine how capitalism's penetration of rural societies undermines women's position in particular, may reduce their life expectancy (as in India), and imposes on them the double load of housewife and peasant. Even where women have been organized in labor unions or co-operative forms of production, their special burden of patriarchal oppression and economic exploitation often persists. The authors also show how Third World women are not just passive victims being integrated into the world economy, but have developed very creative forms of resistance.
language: English
title: Women: The Last Colony
titlecomplete: Women: The Last Colony
genres: Sociology, Feminism
ratings_count: 28
publisher: Zed Books