Serina

“The hierarchical division of labour between men and women and its dynamics form an integral part of the dominant production relations, that is, the class relations of a particular epoch and society, and of the broader national and international divisions of labour.”
― Maria Mies, Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale: Women in the International Division of Labour

“That is the worst of it,” he said. “There isn’t any.” I sat up. I stood up. I walked up and down. “No prostitution! I— I can’t believe it. Why, prostitution is a social necessity, as old as Nineveh!”. Owen laughed outright. “Too late, old man; too late ! I know we used to think so. We did use to call it a ‘social necessity,’ didn’t we ? Come, now, tell me what necessity it was to the women?” I stopped my march and looked at him. “To the women,” he repeated. “What did they want of prostitution? What good did it do them?” “Why — why — they made a living at it,” I replied, rather lamely. “Yes, a nice, honorable, pleasant, healthy living, didn’t they? With all women perfectly well able to earn an excellent living decently; with all women fully educated about these matters and knowing what a horrible death was before them in this business; with all women brought up like human beings and not like over-sexed female animals, and with all women quite free to marry if they wished to — how many, do you think, would choose that kind of business ? “We never waited for them to choose it, remember ! We fooled them and lied to them and dragged them in — and drove them in — forced them in — and kept them as slaves and prisoners. They didn’t really enjoy the life; you know that. Why should they go into it if they do not have to — to accommodate us?”
― Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Moving the Mountain

“How did former socialist states become bastions of right-wing religious conservatism? It may be partly because nations need their populations to grow. They have always leaned on families to have as many children as possible, and enforcing strict gender norms and promoting heterosexual marriage have been useful in achieving that end. It’s as true today as it was in ancient Athens, creating a constant tension for those in power.”
― Angela Saini, The Patriarchs: The Origins of Inequality

“Capital is able to hide behind the figure of the husband, called ‘breadwinner’, with whom the woman, called ‘housewife’, has to deal directly and for whom she is supposed to work out of ‘love’, not for a wage. The wage commands more work than what collective bargaining in the factories shows us. Women’s work appears as personal service outside of capital’ (Dalla Costa, 1973: 34; transl. M.M.).”
― Maria Mies, Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale: Women in the International Division of Labour