ABSTRACT
All of the articles selected from earlier years in this text are written by men, while some of them, particularly those from the 1970s, reflect the gendered, sometimes stereotyped, language and thought of their time. In contrast, this 1997 article by Betsan Martin focuses on the work of Luce Irigaray, and a feminist account of women’s role in the economy. Martin gives particular attention in the work to the question of gender essentialism, reading Irigaray as seeing gendered bodies in society and in economic productions as both material and symbolic, as language corresponds to value norms and representations of gender difference which segment boys and men from girls and women, and isolate the latter to the home. This essay explores varied facets of Irigaray’s work, from the way bodies are understood in sensual and other relations, to notions of feminist divinity in connection to Christian views. The economic and material are two significant aspects of patriarchy and gender relations in society in Martin’s account in this essay. The writing thus reflects the emergence of intersectional accounts of gender and social class observed in the field in this era.
