Women's Work, Men's Property - The Origins of Gender and Class (Paperback)

The key word is "origins." In this feminist anthology, the editors, along with four other American and French historians and anthropologists, systematically poke holes in the notion that male dominance is universal and has been with us since the dawn of the species, an idea most recently advanced by sociobiologists. The authors cite some of the simple foraging and horticultural societies in which there was no sexual inequality and conclude that male dominance resulted not from biological differences between the sexes but rather from socioeconomic expansion in early human communities and the increasing social complexity that accompanied it. Individual essays examine the origins of the division of labor be sex (which, the authors believe, came long before sexual inequality); the appearance of sexual inequality in pre-state kinship-based societies; the status of women in early slave-based societies; and evidence of the subordination of women in the mythology and literature of ancient Greece. The authors agree that the origins of male dominance lie in post-marital residence rules - especially "patrilocality," the system in which women move to their husband's kin group after marriage. For a variety of reasons discussed in the most persuasive essay, written by the editors themselves, this system offered greater opportunities for a local lineage to become more wealthy and powerful than did "matrilocality"; it thus became the dominant mode of organizing social relations. The authors disagree over the degree to which male dominance was a conscious creation of men and over whether it was the result of gradual evolution or more violent overthrow. A well-documented, if somewhat ponderously academic, treatment of a controversial subject. (Kirkus Reviews)

"To some a book on the "origins" of sexual inequality is absurd. Male dominance seems to them a universal, if not inevitable, phenomenon that has been with us since the dawn of our species. The essays in this volume offer differing perspectives on the development of sex-role differentiation and sexual inequality, but share a belief that these phenomena "did" have social origins, origins that must be sought in sociohistorical events and processes."
In this way Stephanie Coontz and Peta Henderson introduce a book which fills a yawning gap in Marxist and feminist theory of recent years.
"Women's Work, Men's Property" brings together specialist historical and anthropological skills of a group of American and French feminists to examine the origins of the sexual division of labor, the nature of pre-state kinship societies, the position of women in slave-based societies, and the specific forms taken by the oppression of women in archaic Greece.
"Men's Work, Women's Property" will be welcomed by teachers and students of women's studies and anyone with an interest in the biological, psychological and historical roots of sexual inequality.

General

Imprint:	Verso Books
Country of origin:	United Kingdom
Release date:	April 1986
First published:	April 1986
Editors:	Peta Henderson • Stephanie Coontz
Contributors:	Lila Leibowitz • Monique Saliou • Nicole Chevillard • Sebastien Leconte
Dimensions:	203 x 127 x 25mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback
Pages:	230
ISBN-13:	978-0-86091-112-8
Categories:	Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Gender studies > Women's studies > General Promotions
LSN:	0-86091-112-8
Barcode:	9780860911128

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