“In capitalism, sex can exist but only as a productive force at the service of procreation and the regeneration of the waged/male working and as a mean of social appeasement and compensation for the misery of everyday existence.”
“Typical of the new bourgeois sexual morality was Martin Luther’s injunction to the nuns to leave the convents and get married, as marriage and the production of an abundant prole was in his view women’s fulfillment of God’s will and their ‘highest vocation.’ “Let them bear children to death,” he apparently declared. “They are created for that.”
No sixteenth-century political or religious authority expressed this sentiment as crudely as Luther, but the restriction of women’s sexuality to marriage and procreation, together with wifely unconditional obedience, was instituted.”
- Silvia Federici
I appreciate the comments you’ve already made. When discussing women’s liberation, I also include “domestic” labour in addition to reproductive labour.
Not all women will conventionally reproduce, but all of us are expected by patriarchy to maintain homes and live in servitude to men.
I've always understood domestic labor as one and the same with reproductive labor as its the labor necessary to reproduce the workforce so that includes things like child rearing and meal preparation. But that could be an outdated definition
It’s correct when discussing with others who understand feminism, but I’ve seen it lead to assumptions when I do not differentiate around those unfamiliar with the concepts. It’s likely more of a distinction I make personally.
Fair enough and good point. I should start making that distinction as well