ABSTRACT
In the development of recent feminist thought, conceptualization of the economic role of women remains elusive. Among early contributions, the exchange of women was seen as a structural element of all societies (Rubin 1975) and the foundation of solidarity among disparate kinship groups. For Hartmann (1981), gender systems and the economy are separate institutions, connected in a “partnership” between “patriarchy” and capitalism. For example, she outlines the ways in which patriarchy modified capitalism, such as with the exclusion of women and children from the wage labor force in the early years of industrialization (19–25). This analysis gave rise to the term “dual systems theory,” for the way in which patriarchy and capitalism remained conceptually distinct systems (Benería and Roldán 1987, 10–11; Pateman 1988, 38, 133–35; Fine 1992, 36–39; Nicholson 1986, 40–41). Lerner (1986) sees gender as the foundation of power relations, and integrally related to class. She writes: “For women, class is mediated through their sexual ties to a man. It is through the man that women have access to or are denied access to the means of production and O resources. It is through their sexual behavior that they gain access to class. ‘Respectable women’ gain access to class through their fathers and husbands, but breaking the sexual rules can at once declass them” (Lerner 1986, 215).
