ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how in the case of Marxism it has led to a diminution of the urgency with which female emancipation is sought, and a virtual disregard, both in theory and in practice, of the subjection of those women who are not employed in the market sectors of the economy. It discusses that the fundamental methodological weakness may only be satisfactorily avoided by a study of the role of domestic production in capitalist societies, in accordance with the principles of historical materialism. The chapter also discusses the infrastructural and determining relation between the sexes is based on a division of labour. The main functions of domestic labour in the proletarian class are first, the daily reproduction of the labour-power of those members of the family who work in the market economy, and second, the reproduction of new generations of labourers. Capitalist production requires qualitatively different types of labour-power in varying proportions, and at different stages in its development.
