Political Economy of Patriarchy: Origins
STUDY BLOCKS: POLITICAL ECONOMY, HISTORY
Image: “Across Brazil, hundreds of millions of women, militants, and social movements say #EleNão – #NotHim – to then-candidate of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro in the largest women’s march in the country’s history, 29 September 2018. Sâmia Bomfim / Wikimedia” Tricontinental.
STUDY MATERIALS
Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State, by Friedrich Engels.
In this text, Engels gives a materialist analysis of the family as a social unit came to be what it is today. He looks at the rise of class society and the development of the family through changing modes of production. It is best to read the entire piece for the full context of the analysis and the argument proposed, however, we will focus on Chapter II: The Family.
“The Accumulation of Labor and the Degradation of Women” from Caliban and the Witch by Silvia Federici
In Caliban and the Witch, Silvia Federici argues that the social position of women and control over their bodies changed drastically in the transition from feudalism to capitalism. For capitalism to exist the working class had to be created and this meant deep transformations in the lives and the society of those who would compose that emerging new social class. In this chapter, Federici discusses these transformations and the specific way in which they affected women.