Working for Nothing

In the mid-1970s, a Marxist-feminist movement with revolutionary aims shook up resurgent feminism. This was the International Feminist Collective, better known as the Wages for Housework movement, a network of groups based in Europe and North America. With essays by Silvia Federici, Mariarosa Dalla Costa, Selma James, Leopoldina Fortunati, Wilmette Brown, Gisela Bock, Barbara Duden, Maria Pia Turri, and more, this is the first comprehensive anthology of the key texts of the international Wages for Housework movement. The theories of these leading feminist thinkers bear witness to the originality and political strength of the social reproduction movement, which, ahead of its time, offered a revolutionary analysis of the intersections of gender, sex, race, and class.

Louise Toupin lives in Montreal, Quebec. She has taught political science at Université du Québec à Montréal. She was a member of the Québec Women’s Liberation Front (1969-71) and co-authored numerous anthologies of activist and feminist writings. She is the author of Wages for Housework: A History of an International Feminist Movement, 1972-77.