The Socialist Feminist Project: A Contemporary Reader in Theory and Politics

Socialist feminist theorizing is flourishing today. This collection is intended to show its strengths and resources and convey a sense of it as an ongoing project with a vital role to play in struggles for emancipation from all forms of oppression and exploitation today. Not every contribution to that project bears the same theoretical label, but the writings collected here share a broad aim of understanding women's subordination in a way which integrates class and sex—as well as aspects of women's identity such as race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation—with the aim of liberating women. Socialist Feminism brings together the most important recent socialist feminist writings on a wide range of topics: sex and reproduction, the family, wage labor, social welfare and public policy, the place of sex and gender in politics, and the philosophical foundations of socialist feminism. Although focusing on recent writings, the collection shows how these build on a struggle for women's liberation with earlier beginnings. These writings demonstrate the range, depth, and vitality of contemporary social feminist debates. They also testify to the distinctive capacity of this project to address issues in a way that embraces collective experience and action while at the same time enabling each person to speak in their own personal voice.