Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale: Women in the International Division of Labour

277 Pages·2014·14.6 MB·english

by  Mies

critique confronts the world. Without dogma,
without new principles, it refuses to conform and
instead demands insurrection of thought. It must
be ruthless, unafraid of both its results and the
powers it may come into conflict with. Critique takes
the world, our world, as its object, so that we may
develop new ways of making it.
influence is a step from critique towards the
future, when effects begin to be felt, when the
ground becomes unstable, when a movement
ignites. These critiques of the state of our world
have influenced a generation. They are crucial
guides to change.
change is when the structures shift. The books
in this series take critique as their starting point
and as such have influenced both their respective
disciplines and thought the world over. This series
is born out of our conviction that change lies not
in the novelty of the future but in the realization of
the thoughts of the past.
These texts are not mere interpretations or reflections,
but scientific, critical and impassioned analyses of
our world. After all, the point is to change it.
TiTles in The criTique influence change series
Reclaiming Development
An Alternative Policy Manual
by Ha-Joon Chang and Ilene Grabel
Realizing Hope
Life Beyond Capitalism
by Michael Albert
Global Governance and the New Wars
The Merging of Development and Security
by Mark Duffield
Capitalism in the Age of Globalization
The Management of Contemporary Society
by Samir Amin
Ecofeminism
by Maria Mies and Vandana Shiva
Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale
Women in the International Division of Labour
by Maria Mies
Grassroots Post-modernism
Remaking the Soil of Cultures
by Gustavo Esteva and Madhu Suri Prakash
Debating Cultural Hybridity
Multicultural Identities and the Politics of Anti-Racism
edited by Pnina Werbner and Tariq Modood
Male Daughters, Female Husbands
Gender and Sex in an African Society
by Ifi Amadiume
More criTical Praise for Patriarchy and accumulation
on a World Scale
‘Maria Mies’ vision is huge, the scale of her project
breathtakingly bold.’
New Internationalist
‘Compelling. One of the most ambitious projects
undertaken by a feminist scholar in recent years.’
Deniz Kandiyoti, SOAS, University of London
‘Feminist theory at its very best.’
off our Backs
‘A major contribution to authentic development theory
and practice. Women cannot hope for justice from
a mode of production built on subordination either
as housewife in the West or cheap labour in the
third world. Mies produces an alternative feminist
concept of labour and some strategic elements of
its implementation. The critique is compelling’.
World Development
abouT The auThor
Maria Mies is a Marxist feminist scholar who is
renowned for her theory of capitalist patriarchy, one
which recognizes third world women and difference.
She is a professor of sociology at Cologne University
of Applied Sciences, but retired from teaching in
1993. Since the late 1960s she has been involved
with feminist activism. In 1979, at the Institute
of Social Studies in The Hague, she founded the
Women and Development programme. Mies has
written books and articles that deal with topics
relating to feminism, third world issues and the
environment. Her other titles published by Zed Books
include The Lace Makers of Narsapur (1982),
Women: The Last Colony (1988), The Subsistence
Perspective (1999) and Ecofeminism (2014).
PaTriarchy and
accuMulaTion
on a
World scale
WoMen in The
inTernaTional
division of labour
Maria Mies
WiTh a foreWord by
silvia federici
Zed Books
London
Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale:
Women in the International Division of Labour
was first published in 1986 by Zed Books Ltd,
7 Cynthia Street, London N1 9JF, UK
This edition was published in 2014
www.zedbooks.co.uk
Copyright © Maria Mies 1986, 1998, 2014
Foreword © Silvia Federici 2014
The right of Maria Mies to be identified as the author of
this work has been asserted by her in accordance with
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988
Cover designed by www.alice-marwick.co.uk
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by
any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Zed Books Ltd.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data available
ISBN 978-1-78360-169-1 paperback
ISBN 978-1-78360-258-2 PDF
ISBN 978-1-78360-259-9 EPUB
ISBN 978-1-78360-260-5 Kindle
Contents
Foreword Silvia Federici ix
Preface to the critique influence change edition xiii
Introduction 1
1 What is Feminism? 6
2 Social Origins of the Sexual Division of Labour 44
3 Colonization and Housewifization 74
4 Housewifization International: Women and the
New International Division of Labour 112
5 Violence Against Women and the Ongoing Primitive
Accumulation of Capital 145
6 National Liberation and Women’s Liberation 175
7 Towards a Feminist Perspective of a New Society 205
Bibliography 236
Index 247
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Foreword
Silvia Federici
There are many reasons why this new edition of Patriarchy and
Accumulation on a World Scale is a welcome event. Already in the 1990s
considered a classic of feminist literature and required reading for ac-
tivists and scholars of the burgeoning anti-globalization movement, the
book is not only as relevant today as when it was first published, but
now addresses an audience even more ready to appreciate its content
and methodology. Proposing a vision of world history centred on the
‘production of life’ and the struggle against its exploitation, this book
speaks directly to the crisis that many are currently experiencing faced
with the constant destruction of human lives and the environment, espe-
cially when the seeming inability of even powerful mass movements to
bring about positive social change generates a quest for new paradigms.
Patriarchy and Accumulation recuperates, for a younger generation radi-
calized by the Occupy movement and the movements of the squares, the
radical core of feminism, buried under years of institutional co-optation
and postmodern denial of any ground of commonality among women. It
recuperates the sense, so strong in the early phase of the feminist move-
ment, that to speak of women is to touch something very fundamental
in history and our everyday lives. For, as Mies puts it, women are not
one particular group of human beings among others; they are those who,
in every time and in every society, have produced life on this planet and
on whose work, therefore, all other activities depend. Thus, tracing the
origins of women’s exploitation is to ask why and where history ‘took a
wrong turn’, what are the real forces by which world history has been
driven, and what is the truth of the capitalist system in which we live.
This is the task Patriarchy and Accumulation takes on, and the outcome
is a historical and theoretical reconstruction whose scope has often
been described as ‘breathtaking’. Following the trail of centuries of
male violence against women, and crossing space, time and disciplinary
boundaries, it relates hunter/gatherer societies with the development of
capitalism and colonialism, demonstrates the pitfalls of national liberation
movements, shows the essential continuity between capitalism and social-
ism, all the while unearthing the material foundations of the hierarchies
that have characterized the sexual division of labour and highlighting
the principles by which a non-exploitative society should be governed.
ix