ABSTRACT
In the 1980s, feminist debates on women's paid employment focused on the inequalities experienced by women in the workplace and demonstrated the type of work women did, both historically and present day. A number of writers have provided historical analyses of men's opposition to women at work that strengthened the explanations for gender segregation. Patriarchy has been used as an analytical tool which explains male dominance and women's subordination and oppression not only present day, in the capitalist mode of production but also historically, across differing epochs and through various social formations. The concept of patriarchy sets up a fixity to gender categories that obscures the way gender is both relational and fluid. The problem encountered by Marxist-feminists in attempting a synthesis of Marxism and feminism and/or constructing a dual systems theory of patriarchy and capitalism were addressed in a now famous essay, 'The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism' by Heidi Hartmann.
