ABSTRACT
Within a capitalist mode of production, patriarchal relations which are characterized by male-female hierarchy and dominance assume specific historical forms, at the economic, the political and ideological levels. Even though patriarchal forms of control existed prior to the advent of capitalism, the economic and social subordination of women has, nevertheless, become an integral element of the capitalist social formation. This is not to assume that they constitute an essential ingredient, necessary for the survival of that system, but rather to recognize that they figure as one of its central organizing principles. In the capitalist economy, patriarchal relations have a specific material base in, for example, the separation of the family from the production process, in the economic dependence of women on men. In this chapter, therefore, I shall attempt to develop an analysis of women’s education which relates the form and content of schooling to women’s position in such societies. The emphasis will be upon the way in which schooling produces both classed and sexed subjects, who are to take their place in a social division of labour structured by the dual, yet often contradictory, forces of class and gender relations.
