From Social Reproduction Theory to Social Reproduction Strikes

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Notes

1 In general see Martha Gimenez’s “Reflections on Intersectionality,” and “From Social Reproduction to Capitalist Social Reproduction,” both in Marx, Women, and Capitalist Social Reproduction: Marxist Feminist Essays (Leiden: Brill, 2020) pp. 94–109 and pp. 278–308 respectively, and in particular the latter’s criticisms of Sue Ferguson’s version of SRT.

2 See Mariarosa Dalla Costa’s classic essay “Women and the Subversion of the Community,” in Women and the Subversion of the Community A Mariarosa Dalla Costa Reader. Ed. Camille Barbagallo (Oakland: PM Press, 2019), pp. 17–50. For a clear and precise account of Marx’s notion of “exploitation,” “value,” and the ways socially reproductive work relate to it, see Sue Ferguson Women and Work, pp. 122 ff. The version I offer here is close to Ferguson’s account of the “Marxian school.”

3 The “unitary” view holds social oppressions and capitalist exploitation together in a synthetic criticism of capitalist societies. For the advantages of this kind of approach to SRT see Lise Vogel’s classic Marxism and the Oppression of Women: Toward a Unitary Theory (Chicago: Haymarket, 2013). More recently, see also Cinzia Arruzza’s “Remarks on Gender,” in Viewpoint Magazine at https://viewpointmag.com/2014/09/02/remarks-on-gender/, and Tithi Bhattacharya’s “How Not to Skip Class: Social Reproduction of Labor and the Global Working Class,” also in Viewpoint Magazine at https://viewpointmag.com/2015/10/31/how-not-to-skip-class-social-reproduction-of-labor-and-the-global-working-class/. For a fine argument preferring the unitary view over and against other possible strands see Ankica Čakardić “Marxism and Social Reproduction Theory: Three Different Strands,” Marxist Feminist Theories and Struggles Today. Ed. Khayaat Fakier, Diana Mulinari, and Nora Räthzel (London: Zed Books, 2020), pp. 105–123.

4 Recent social reproduction strikes can extend the social reproduction analysis offered by Johanna Brenner and Nancy Holmstrom who tie an intersectional analysis of women’s social reproduction to waged work and resistance rooted in broader community connections. See their “Socialist Feminist Strategy Today” The Question of Strategy: Socialist Register 2013. Eds. Leo Panitch, Greg Albo, and Vivek Chibber (Pontypool: Merlin Press, 2012) pp. 266–287.

5 For an account that connects capital’s abstract valorization to social reproduction see Søren Mau’s “‘The Mute Compulsion of Economic Relations’: Towards a Marxist Theory of the Abstract and Impersonal Power of Capital,” Historical Materialism vol. 29, iss. 3, pp. 3–32.

6 Karl Marx, Capital vol. 1, trans. Ben Fowkes (New York: Penguin Books, 1976), p. 270.

7 Ashley Bohrer has compellingly demonstrated the intertwined roots of Marxism and intersectional thinking in ways that both traditions have insufficiently acknowledged. See her Marxism and Intersectionality (Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2019). See also Aaron Jaffe, Social Reproduction Theory and the Socialist Horizon (London: Pluto Press, 2020), pp. 71ff, as well as Vivian Rodríguez-Rocha’s “Social Reproduction Theory: State of the field and new directions in geography,” Geography Compass, first published online July 6, 2021.

8 Despite legitimate worries about the explanatory power of some “intersectional” frameworks, Sue Ferguson’s integrative approach coupled with her recognition of a diverse unity of capitalist social formations likely makes her version of social reproduction feminism open to the intersectional moment I am integrating here. See her “Intersectionality and Social Reproduction Feminisms” Historical Materialism vol. 24, iss. 2, pp. 38–60.

9 As Martha Gimenez has it, “struggles for the conditions of reproduction go beyond workplace struggles and entail struggles for housing, better schools, safe neighbourhoods, against police brutality, access to higher education, and so on,” “From Social Reproduction,” p. 286.

10 Though incorrect in claiming that all women have housework in common, Mariarosa Dalla Costa nonetheless provocatively challenged the assumption that a “General Strike” could exclude women’s reproductive work in the home: “No strike has ever been a general strike. When half the working population is at home in the kitchens, while the others are on strike, it’s not a general strike. We’ve never seen a general strike. We’ve only seen men, generally men from the big factories, come out on the streets, while their wives, daughters, sisters, mothers, went on cooking in the kitchens,” “On The General Strike,” in Women and the Subversion of the Community A Mariarosa Dalla Costa Reader. Ed. Camille Barbagallo (Oakland: PM Press, 2019), pp. 51–54, p. 53.

11 See Carla LeBlanc’s and Marie Ritacco’s accounts of how administration at St. Vincent’s took advantage of assumptions built into their and most other nurses’ gender in seeking to maximally exploit at the point of production: Aparna Gopalan, “Massachusetts Nurses Just Won an Epic 10-Month Strike,” The New Republic, January 6, 2022, https://newrepublic.com/article/164950/st-vincent-hospital-nurses-strike.

12 Mariarosa Dalla Costa, “Introduction to the Archive of Feminist Struggle for Wages for Housework,” Viewpoint Magazine, October 31, 2015, https://viewpointmag.com/2015/10/31/introduction-to-the-archive-of-the-feminist-struggle-for-wages-for-housework-donated-by-mariarosa-dalla-costa/.

13 Sarah Jaffe, “The Factory in the Family,” at https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/wages-for-houseworks-radical-vision/.

14 “30,000+ Chicago Teachers & Support Staff Go on Strike Calling on City to Invest More in Schools,” Democracy Now!, October 17, 2019, https://www.democracynow.org/2019/10/17/chicago_teachers_public_school_workers_strike. .

15 Nader Issa, “Poll: Chicagoans More Likely to Back Teachers than City over Potential Strike,” Chicago Sun-Times, October 15, 2019, sec. City Hall, https://chicago.suntimes.com/city-hall/2019/10/14/20914655/poll-chicagoans-support-teachers-strike-lightfoot-union-ctu-cps.

16 For the nurses’ broader social analysis and their concerted and successful effort to generate community support in Worcester see Callie Crossley, “St. Vincent Nurses Vote Today Whether to Ratify Their Contract, a Mark of Labor Relations in the Time of COVID,” WGBH, January 3, 2022, https://www.wgbh.org/news/commentary/2022/01/03/st-vincent-nurses-vote-today-whether-to-ratify-their-contract-a-mark-of-labor-relations-in-the-time-of-covid. .

17 Sue Ferguson, Women and Work: Feminism, Labor, and Social Reproduction (London: Pluto, 2020), p. 129.

18 For work connecting value-form to social reproduction see Aaron Jaffe “Social Reproduction Theory and the Form of Labor Power” CLCWEB vol. 22 iss. 2, Amy DeAth’s “Gender and Social Reproduction,” in The Sage Handbook of Frankfurt School Critical Theory. Eds. B. Best, W. Bonefeld, and C. O’Kane (London, Sage: 2018), pp. 1534–1550, “The Logic of Gender” in Endnotes 3 at https://endnotes.org.uk/issues/3/en/endnotes-the-logic-of-gender, Beverley Best’s “Wages for Housework Redux: Social Reproduction and the Utopian Dialectic of the Value-form,” Theory and Event vol. 24, iss. 4, pp. 896–921, as well as Søren Mau’s “The Mute Compulsion.”

19 See Verónica Gago Feminist International. Tans. Liz Mason-Deese (London: Verso, 2020), pp. 15–17.

20 For a social reproduction-based account of the real universality of capitalism, and the insurgent universality mode possible in a radical response to it, see C. Arruzza’s “Capitalism and the Conflict over Universality: A Feminist Perspective,” in Philosophy Today vol. 61, iss. 5 (Fall, 2017),

21 On the coordination of “identity” with “class” via reinvigorated feminist strikes see Cinzia Arruzza, Tithi Bhattacharya, and Nancy Fraser, Feminism for the 99%: A Manifesto (London: Verso, 2019), p. 8. In this way social reproduction strikes fit within the general purview, but also extend the analysis of Alex Gourevithch’s “Themselves Must Strike the Blow: The Socialist Argument for Strikes and Self-Emancipation,” Philosophical Topics vol. 28, iss. 2 (Fall, 2020), pp. 105–129.

22 See Verónica Gago’s three scenes, which provide phenomenologically rich accounts of Argentinian feminist strikers engaged in social reproduction strikes. “The Body of Labor: A Cartography of Three Scenes from the Perspective of the Feminist Strike” in Viewpoint Magazine at https://viewpointmag.com/2019/06/10/the-body-of-labor-a-cartography-of-three-scenes-from-the-perspective-of-the-feminist-strike/.

23 Ferguson, Women and Work, p. 134.

24 Nancy Welch, “A Semester to Die For,” Spectre Journal, June 7, 2020, https://spectrejournal.com/a-semester-to-die-for/ and “Tithi Bhattacharya & Susan Ferguson - Life-Making. Capitalism and the Pandemic.” 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg5ASSAjMCc.

25 Nancy Fraser, “Contradictions of Capital and Care,” New Left Review vol. 100 (Jul./Aug., 2016).

26 This holds for the ideal type of the white, heterosexual housewife too often imagined by the Italian post-workerist autonomist feminists, as well as for the often minority household workers hired to replace or supplement women’s work in the home. See Angela Davis’ criticism of the Italian feminist’s ideal type in Women, Race, and Class (New York: Random House, 1981).

27 In responding to a question about what the wages for housework struggle would look like if it proceeded today, Sylvia Federici stressed not cessation, but resources and reorganization: “We would ask not only for money, though money would still be important, but other material resources – housing, for instance – and then struggle more openly for a reorganization of reproductive work, organised not by the state but from below … we also need to reorganize reproductive work in a way that takes us beyond the nuclear family.” Revolutionary Feminisms. Eds. Brenna Bhandar and Rafeef Ziadah (London: Verso, 2020), p. 152.

28 See Aaron Jaffe’s analysis of the CTU strikes in Social Reproduction Theory and the Socialist Horizon, pp. 117–119.

29 Ashok Selvam, “These Chicago Restaurants Are Offering Striking Teachers Discounts,” Eater Chicago, October 17, 2019, https://chicago.eater.com/2019/10/17/20919523/chicago-teachers-union-strike-restaurant-discounts-public-school. .

30 See Lucía Cavallero on debt as a financial means to “colonize” life, and the feminist, social reproduction strikes in response to its damages in “Labor, Debt, and Reproduction: The Feminist Strike as a Revolution of Everyday Life,” New Global Studies, vol. 14, iss. 2, pp. 133–139. See also K. D. Griffith’s very valuable “Labor Valorization and Social Reproduction: What is Valuable about the Labor Theory of Value,” CLCWEB vol. 22 iss. 2.

31 See Kim Moody’s classic On New Terrain: How Capital is Reshaping the Battleground of Class War (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2017).

32 Kate Doyle Griffiths, “The Only Way Out Is Through: A Reply to Melinda Cooper,” Versobooks.Com (blog), March 26, 2018, https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/3709-the-only-way-out-is-through-a-reply-to-melinda-cooper.

33 K.D. Griffiths, “The Ranks and File Strategy on New Terrain, Part 2” for Spectre at https://spectrejournal.com/the-rank-and-file-strategy-on-new-terrain-2/.

34 M.E. O’Brien, “Why Queer Workers Make Good Organizers,” Work, Employment and Society vol. 35, iss. 5, pp. 819–836.

35 Ibid.

36 See Griffiths’ analysis of queer and trans workers’ roles in working at chokepoints of social reproduction in their essay “Queer Workerism Against Work: Strategising Transgender Labourers, Social Reproduction & Class Formation,” in Transgender Marxism, ed. Jules Joanne Gleeson and Elle O’Rourke (London: Pluto Press, 2021), pp. 132–155.