ABSTRACT
Waged labour is the term used to describe work performed for an employer: that is, the exchange of an individual's labour power for the payment of a wage. Surplus labour is defined primarily through an opposition to necessary labour. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, theorising the role of domestic labour prompted considerable debate, as feminists sought to determine whether women's involvement in household labour was functional to capital or whether it arose from patriarchal relations between men and women. Some of the most interesting feminist work on the labour market has emphasised the very local practices which shape microgeographies of employment within urban areas. Feminist readings of Lacanian and post-Lacanian theory have probably been most influential in the field of cultural studies, including especially literary studies and film studies. Feminist landscape art offers one medium by which masculine appropriation of the land can be challenged.
