Confronting Capitalism: Feminism, Work and Solidarity

This course explores the relationship between gender, the ideological construction of work and workers, and feminist mobilizations against labor exploitation. To interrogate how conceptions of the "ideal worker" are gendered, sexualized and racialized, we will engage scholarship on affective and emotional labor; domestic and reproductive labor; migrant domestic work; neoliberalism and service economies; feminism and racial capitalism; sex work; disability justice; and feminist anti-work politics. Additionally, we will ask what is "new" about neoliberal capitalism, and how the relationship between citizenship, the state and the "ideal worker" has morphed in distinctly gendered and racialized ways over time. As part of this effort, we will engage feminist political theory that interrogates the relationship between radical democracy, justice and the market, drawing from Marxist feminist, liberal feminist, radical feminist, decolonial feminist and Black feminist thought. In the latter part of the semester we will examine how these various feminist approaches to work have addressed issues such as solidarity and organizing; legalization of sex work; the wages for housework campaign; internationalism; anti-racism and anti-capitalism; labor outsourcing; alternative economies; and U.S. imperialism. "Prerequisite: Intro to WGSS or permission of instructor."
Course Attributes: EN H; BU BA; AS HUM; AS SC

Confronting Capitalism: Feminism, Work and Solidarity

WOMEN, GENDER, AND SEXUALITY STUDIES 371

Section 01