Women and the Politics of Class

Contents: Introduction. I. Toward a Historical Sociology of Gender: 1. Rethinking women\'s oppression. 2. Gender and the state. 3. Gender and class in U.S. labor history. II. Women and Social Policy: 4. The feminization of poverty, comparable worth, and feminist political discourse. 5. The politics of welfare reform. 6. Welfare reform: reframing the debate. III. New Politics of the Family: 7. Socialist-feminism versus communitarian conservatism. 8. Democracy, community and care. IV. Class Politics and Feminist Strategy: 9. Meeting the challenge of the political right. 10. The best of times, the worst of times: U.S. feminism today. Conclusion: Intersections, locations and capitalist class relations: intersectionality from a Marxist perspective. Index.

"Is there a future for feminism? The debate over the direction and politics of the women\'s movement has been joined recently by post-feminists and anti-feminists, in addition to competing feminist perspectives. In Women and the Politics of Class, Johanna Brenner offers a distinctive view, arguing for a strategic turn in feminist politics toward coalitions centered on the interests of working-class women.

Women and the Politics of Class engages many crucial contemporary feminist issues-abortion, reproductive technology, comparable worth, the impoverishment of women, the crisis in care-giving, and the shedding of the social safety net through welfare reform and budget cuts. These problems, Brenner argues, must be set in the political and economic context of a state and society dominated by the imperatives of capital accumulation.

Drawing on historical exploration of the labor movement and working class politics, Brenner provides a fresh materialist approach to one of the most important issues of feminist theory today: the intersection of race, nationality, gender, sexuality and class." (jacket)