ABSTRACT
Most social scientists draw a sharp distinction between class and gender. A major problem with the marxist feminist approach to gender analysis is the fact that different analysts define the "relations of human reproduction" differently. Mode of production theory focuses on the material, that is, economic, basis of oppression and exploitation and on the class nature of social struggle and change. The social relations of production of a particular mode of production describe the social distribution of control over the means of production and the associated transfers of surplus labor between classes. The social relations of household based production are commonly analyzed with an implicit or explicit model of a communal or a primitive communist mode of production. In parts of East Africa, a woman who migrated to town on her own volition had to endure social ostracism as a "prostitute" for the rest of her days.
