Maria Mies: Difference between revisions

Mies's earliest works such as ''Indian Women in Patriarchy'' (1980) and ''The Lace Makers of Narsapur'' (1982), which evaluated her years in India, and in later works like "Sexist and Racist Implications of New Reproductive Technology" (''Alternatives'', 1987) critiqued policies aimed at maintaining an asymmetrical, hierarchic societal structure which fostered domination and exploitation.<ref name="Léveillé" >{{cite journal |last1=Léveillé |first1=Danielle |title=Comptes Rendus: Maria Mies, Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale Women in the International Division of Labour. Zed Books Ltd, Third World Books, New Jersey, 1986, 251 pages. |journal=Recherches Féministes |date=1988 |volume=1 |issue=2 |pages=149–152 |doi=10.7202/057523ar |url=https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/rf/1988-v1-n2-rf1638/057523ar/ |access-date=20 May 2023 |trans-title=Proceedings: Maria Mies, Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale Women in the International Division of Labour. Zed Books Ltd, Third World Books, New Jersey, 1986, 251 pages. |publisher=[[Université Laval]] |location=Quebec City, Quebec |language=French |issn=0838-4479|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220806021405/https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/rf/1988-v1-n2-rf1638/057523ar/ |archive-date=6 August 2022 }}</ref>{{rp|149}} She sought to evaluate how women's labour became hidden and how the perception that women were reliant upon a husband's income emerged. She theorised that by eliminating pay for the work women performed, making them available at all times for labour, alienating them from society by keeping them in the home, giving them no job security, and eliminating their ability to contract or [[Trade union|unionise]], women lost [[Agency (sociology)|agency]]. Their "housewifisation" prevented women from being seen as producers or self-employed individuals, resulting in their exploitation.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Teixeira |first1=Mylene N. |last2=Strazzeri |first2=Victor |title=Tradução do Verbete: Hausfrauisierung (H). Frigga Haug. Historisch-Kritisches Wörterbuch des Marxismus, HKWM Band 5. Berlin 2001, 1209–1215. |journal=Revista Estudos Feministas |date=2001 |volume=26 |issue=2 |pages=1–6 |doi=10.1590/1806-9584-2018v26n256412 |url=http://www.scielo.br/pdf/ref/v26n2/1806-9584-ref-26-02-e56412.pdf |access-date=20 May 2023 |trans-title=Translation Entry: Housewifisation (H). Frigga Haug. Historical-Critical Dictionary of Marxism, HKWM Volume 5. Berlin 2001, 1209–1215. |publisher=Instituto de Estudos de Genero, [[Federal University of Santa Catarina|Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina]] |location=Florianópolis, Brazil |s2cid=150292239 |language=Portuguese |issn=0104-026X}}</ref>{{Rp|2}} The anthropologist Danielle Léveillé characterised Mies' works as both "masterful" and "astonishing" in that she was able to link variables from the [[Decolonization|anti-colonial]], [[Anti-racism|anti-racist]], ecology, feminist, and [[Nonviolence|non-violence]] movements to critique policies that established power relationships in society.<ref name="Léveillé" />{{rp|149}} Political scientist {{ill|Elisabeth Prügl|wikidata|Q58195777}} pointed to Mies's connection of the threads in society that united women, colonized people, and nature as being free for exploitation. The unpaid labour of the former was easily equated to the free availability of air and water.<ref name=Prügl>{{cite journal |last1=Prügl |first1=Elisabeth |title=Home-Based Workers: A Comparative Exploration of Mies's Theory of Housewifization |journal=[[Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies]] |date=January 1996 |volume=17 |issue=1 |pages=114–135 |doi=10.2307/3346904 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3346904 |access-date=21 May 2023 |publisher=[[University of Nebraska Press]] |location=Lincoln, Nebraska |jstor=3346904 |issn=0160-9009 |oclc=5546263196}}</ref>{{rp|115}} Prügl tested Mies's theory that housewives were superexploited and confirmed that they were with data from the [[International Labour Organization]], as they universally earned less than the legal minimum wage.<ref name=Prügl />{{rp|116}} However, in looking at homemakers in Brazil, Britain, Pakistan, Thailand, and Turkey, while Prügl confirmed that housewives were typically viewed as non-workers,<ref name=Prügl />{{rp|129}} she found that there was not a universal acceptance by women, or their various societies of the cultural and political meaning of housewifery and its value.<ref name=Prügl />{{rp|129-130}} She concluded that because of the "multiple contextual meanings" of housewife, exploitation more likely resulted from the political, rather than economic, spread of capitalism,<ref name=Prügl />{{rp|130}} and questioned whether housewifisation as an underpinning of capitalism failed to evaluate whether exploitation was instead related to global patriarchy.<ref name=Prügl />{{rp|116}}