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Since the 1970s, Marxist feminists have extensively discussed social reproduction to argue that women's unwaged domestic labour is a form of exploitation deriving from capitalism. This article focuses on the socialist socio-historical context to explore the social reproduction performed by lower working-class women in Shanghai during the COVID-19 outbreaks. To probe the pandemic interruptions to social reproduction, a COVID-19 Diary-Writing Workshop was conducted in 2020 to collect diaries written by destitute and disadvantaged women (pinkun funü) living in the Workers' New Villages. By delving into the women's affective lives, the article shows that women not only contributed to community through their volunteerism in social reproductive labour but also sacrificed for their families in a time of crisis. Moreover, women endured mental stress as the main performers of social reproductive work, and communal services provided by neighbourhood committees helped relieve the stress of household chores and resolved tensions related to food shortage. Our findings confirm scholars' longstanding argument that communal support policies can alleviate the gendered exploitative nature of social reproductive labour, and shed light on the roles of the remaining structures of socialist communal organization and infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the primary goals of Franco's education policy was to train the working class in the doctrinal principles of the regime. Labour Universities were one of the education institutions created for this purpose; there were three for women (Zaragoza, Cáceres and Huesca). This article focuses on analysing the purposes sought by these macro-institutions when training working-class women, using diverse primary sources: documentary, audiovisual, archive and legal. Findings indicate that Women's Labour Universities aimed to provide specialised vocational training and also to impose the doctrine of the ideological principles advocated by the regime in relation to the model of women. However, these goals were somewhat incompatible as providing women with vocational training promoted their emancipation, contrary to the female ideal mainly advocated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women laborers form an important part of the labor workforce in India; however, not all are recognized, not many are protected, and very few are treated equally to men. The Equal Remuneration Act of 1976 clearly states that persons doing "same work or work of a similar nature" are not to be discriminated against on the ground of gender. The Factories Act of 1948 has special provisions for women workers pertaining to washrooms, changing rooms, creches, and work hours. The Maternity Benefit Act of 1961 entitles a woman, inter alia, to twenty-six weeks of paid maternity relief. The protection given to women under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act of 2013 is also of vital importance for women workers in India. The laws prima-facie seem to be protecting the rights of women workers, but a deeper analysis of their effectiveness is required to take the concerns of women into account. It is to be noted that one of the areas of concern is the amount of unpaid labor put in by women in Indian households and home industries, which remains unrecognized. This paper offers a feminist analysis of labor legislation affecting women laborers in India from the perspective of women and their rights. Also analyzed are the various schemes of the Government of India pertaining to welfare and empowerment of women, various international instruments, and international labor standards. The research methodology used is a combination of analytical and critical research. Pay parity and equality in opportunity, recruitment, promotion, transfer, and facilities at the workplace are a few pertinent steps towards the amelioration of the conditions of women laborers in the country. The ultimate goal is to address the issues which need to be resolved for women workers to exercise their rights at par with the other labor categories. These issues are significant and have far-reaching implications. This research has found that the Indian legal framework with respect to protection of rights of women laborers is quite progressive and in tandem with the changing needs and requirements of the time. However, the implementation of these schemes in true letter and spirit is the real challenge that lies ahead. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper investigated Perception of working class women on utilization of wood cutting for creative home furnishings for economic development. Six research questions were raised and Four hypotheses were formulated and tested. The population for this study comprised working class women in Okuku, Osun state. 200 working class women were used as sample. Questionnaire and score card were used for data collection. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics. Results of the study revealed that majority of the respondents have high level of awareness on utilization of wood cuttings for creative home furnishing for homes, also durability, budget, comfort, aesthetic and styles, among others have influence on utilization of wood cuttings for creative home furnishing. Creative furnishings are perceived as having the potential to add value, economics benefits, durable and aesthetic appeal to living spaces. Hypothetically, there is significant relationship between the potential economic benefits, factors that influence utilization of wood cutting for creative home furnishing and perception of working)class women towards creative home furnishing made from wood cutting (p=0.000), also there is no statistically significant correlation between challenges faced and the perception of working-class women towards creative home furnishing made from wood cutting (P>0.089). The study concluded that there was acceptability of utilization of wood cuttings for creative furnishing for economic developments and promotion of creativity. It was recommended that the use of creative furnishing from wood cuttings by the entrepreneurs will help to create more employment opportunity among the youth and elderly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article, titled "'White Trash' in the Academy: Working-class Women Professors Discuss their Backgrounds and Education," explores the experiences of working-class women professors in higher education. The authors discuss the unique barriers they faced as girls from rural, low-income areas in K-12 schools that influenced their transition to higher education. They conducted qualitative research and identified six major themes, including the benefits of having a working-class mom, the challenges of conforming to middle-class norms, and the experience of transitioning from a working-class kid to a working-class academic. The article highlights the importance of recognizing and addressing the class disparities that exist within academia. [Extracted from the article]

This article seeks to introduce a new historical explanation as to why left-wing working-class women engaged in liberal, middle-class organisations during the first wave of feminism. The article specifically deals with middle-class associations and clubs that had educational purposes. Instead of focusing on the larger explanatory scheme of the power of patriarchal societal structures or bourgeois feminisms as a hegemonic force, the account revolves around the political educational functions of liberal feminist engagement for some politically active social democratic women in Sweden. The case of social democratic women who entered the liberal middle class educational organisation Tolfterna (the Dozen) is the point of departure for a micro-historical analysis of the political capital accumulation practices that class collaboration entailed. Finally, the article explores how working-class women's choices and actions can be considered a group-specific strategy to expand their political resources to attain what is called feminist liberal political capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This text aims to demonstrate the contribution of working-class mothers to supporting their children at school and the social factors that determine the effectiveness of the practices these mothers adopt in their efforts. The mothers' involvement in education is a complex and demanding work. It entails practices directly related to schooling, such as communication with teachers and daily homework management, as well as out-of-school time management for their children in relation to other organized activities (educational, sports, cultural) they may attend. These practices create a distinct educational context that runs in parallel with the educational context of the school. However, mothers do not share the same perceptions and practices. On the contrary, there are differences identified among them, which are directly associated with financial ability and, most importantly, the educational level of the mothers, who seem to be the family member responsible for making decisions in respect with children's education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women are under-represented in science fields; this poses a significant challenge considering the emerging digital revolution. The intersectionality theory suggests that women whose social identities intersect across gender and class have distinct experiences; affecting their science aspirations. This research examined gender and class intersections, measuring science experiences and aspirations of working-class girls versus those who are not. A total of 421 female students (ages 15–18) from Irish secondary schools answered questions about their science experiences and views. The findings revealed that working-class girls displayed lower levels of confidence and interest in pursuing science; additionally, they felt that their ability in science was lower than other students. These findings provide highlight the impact of gender and class on science aspirations, showing the value of considering intersectionality when addressing unequal participation in science. Science interventions should consider the intersectional layers of disadvantage which can affect young women's science aspirations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article details the experiences of Leonor Díaz de Cortez and Asención Paz de Morantes during their arrests and imprisonments with the backdrop of gender-based injustice at the United States-Mexico borderlands in the early twentieth century. The article explores each woman as a working-class mother and her claim of innocence in the revolutionary crimes in which she was charged. Topics also include the role of violence in the borderlands, Mexican cultural identity, and the Mexican Revolution.

By turns intimate, scholarly, and political, this reflection of a working-class historian (by birth as well as choice) and feminist scholar of women, gender, and migration highlights the life experiences, intellectual awakenings, and contemporary historical developments that have informed her evolving scholarship. While acknowledging individual achievement, the emphasis is on how collaboration with a life partner/historian, colleagues, students, and activists, as well as "collective solidarities," have significantly shaped and enriched her career. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a patriarchal society like Pakistan where people are marginalized based upon their gender and socio-economic class, women from working class and transgender communities are often the most relegated. The built environment is a factor that affects everyone living in the city, and so it does the marginalized genders. However, they never have a voice and most of the time not even has an understanding of what they want from their built environment. Moreover, to make the matter worse, the mainstream architectural and urban design practices and research in Pakistan is rarely focused on the problems faced by these genders and communities. This paper attempts to use co-design to give these genders a voice and explore their understanding and expectations of their city. This study is generated through a class group project where co-design was explored as an idea and activities were designed to engage with the targeted genders, with a focus on exploring their perception of the context of Lahore, Pakistan. Data generated from these activities in the form of a series of imaginative drawings is used to perceive how these marginalized genders experience the built environment of Lahore and what changes they would like to see in their city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Breastfeeding has been accepted as the most vital intervention for reducing infant mortality and ensuring optimal growth and development of children. However, studies on the factors affecting exclusive breastfeeding, especially, among working class women are sparse. This study determined the factors affecting exclusive breastfeeding among working class women in Osun state. Multi stage sampling was used to select a total of 316 respondents for this cross-sectional study and a pretested, interviewer administered questionnaire was used to elicit information. More than half (57.6%) of the respondents were between the ages of 26-35 years. Ninety eight percent (98.1%) of the respondents had good knowledge of exclusive breastfeeding (EBF). Sixty six percent (66.8%) had good exclusive breastfeeding practices. The study showed that there was significant relationship between knowledge and practices of exclusive breastfeeding among the respondents (P<0.05). Identified factors affecting exclusive breastfeeding among the respondents are: duration of maternity leave, availability of crèche near the place of work, breastfeeding break at work, husband and family support, health conditions that could hinder EBF and engaged in other activities with work. Breastfeeding break at work (AOR=4.717; P-value= .000), Husband and family support (AOR=2.944; P-value= .000), and 1 month maternal leave (P-value= .000), were factors significantly associated with EBF practices. We conclude that good knowledge and good practices of exclusive breastfeeding was found among the study group. Improved policy around maternity leave and provision of breastfeeding friendly work environment are needed to increase exclusive breastfeeding practices. Husbands and family members should be educated on the need to provide support to breastfeeding mothers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two econometric models with instrumental variable are used to estimate the causal effect of a marginal increase in the number of sons on female labor outcomes. According to model 2, the negative causal effect of fertility on the probability of working does not change significantly between 2001 (12%) and 2012 (13%), whose results are like that estimated by model 1 for 2016 (14%). Likewise, fertility causes the probability of working parttime to increase by 38% and the level of real income to decrease by Bs. 227 and Bs. 326 according to the 0.5 and 0.8 quantiles respectively for 2012. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The buying and selling of stolen goods by working-class women was a relatively widespread and accepted practice in some inner urban communities in the North West of England and in Belfast between 1918 and 1960. It relied on the training and engagement of children and the co-operation and compliance of neighbours, and was facilitated by the spatial dynamics within inner urban terraced homes. This article analyses local court records, memoirs and contemporary social surveys to demonstrate that, after 1918, the buying and selling of stolen goods by working-class women did not just play a part in people's economic lives. It argues that, even outside times of poverty, in certain neighbourhoods the practice reinforced strong community bonds and allowed some women to contest the inequalities they experienced by consolidating their position within strong supportive networks against a society that afforded them little formal power. Together, these sources present a quotidian culture of minor criminality that challenges received views of working-class cultures of domesticity, family life and 'respectability', suggesting that trading in stolen goods could afford women offenders status and respect within their neighbourhoods. The article highlights the enduring practice of home-based buying and selling of stolen goods across the period, particularly in areas untouched by housing clearance and redevelopment. Despite significant developments in the state provision of welfare and greater scrutiny of working-class families, the offence endured as a way to bolster close-knit community bonds in protest against the harsh living conditions and persistent inequities many still experienced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on the changing representations of sunbed consumers within everyday entertainment media and national newspapers from the late 1980s to early 1990s, this article will demonstrate how sunbed use was framed, at first, as an 'immoral' working-class activity, and later as a growing addictive threat to white adolescent women. Medical experts had finally confirmed that sunbeds increased the risk of developing skin cancer, and the media had taken this 'public health' matter into their own hands. As this occurred during a backlash against Thatcherism, their anti-sunbed coverage became entangled with moralised concerns about class, women and consumerism. These sunbed warnings stigmatised both 'yuppies' and young women who exercised their new economic freedoms. Unravelling these complex political, economic and social tensions will also show how historians can use fictional and 'low-brow' media sources (from television soaps, cartoons and the Daily Mail) to further develop the history of public health approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the role of music in forms of 'becoming' in the adaptation of Alan Warner's novel The Sopranos (1998) for the stage by Lee Hall as OurLadies of Perpetual Succour (2015). Telling the story of six choirgirls' visit to Edinburgh for a choir competition, a musical strain in Warner's novel ameliorates the 'reprofuturity' felt by the girls as a pressure leading with deathly inevitably to maternity and small-town conformity (Freeman 2007). In OLPS, the girls perform their own stories as a 'gig' incorporating both classical music and cover versions of the songs of popular UK band ELO, affording them opportunities to subvert oppressive gender roles, to deploy music's erotic and affective charges, and to become musical dramaturgs of their own stories. As a musical play, the author argues, OLPS was a sonorous and affective event that staged the girls' negotiations with normative pressures through flows of desire which were immanent, fluid and ongoing. Within theatre's neoliberal and patriarchal economies, its performers deployed musical practices in ways that realized a sense of their own creative potential. In addition to drawing from the materialist feminism of Rosi Braidotti (2002) for its working definition of 'becoming', the article uses approaches from feminist and queer musicologists (McClary 1991: Citron 1993; Cusick 2003; Peraino 2013) to explore music's embodying, relational and temporal processes. In so doing, it points to the usefulness of feminist and queer musicology to performance studies in regard to its interest in the staging of subjectivities and social relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a speech made by the citizens of La Halle de Nantes, France, to the Fédérés of the Department of Loire-Inferiore on August 5, 1790. It states that the speech exhibits the distinctive linguistic style of the poissard genre traditionally associated with the women of La Halle during the 18th century. It highlights that the speech reflects the perspective of working-class women.

The aim of this study is to analyse working-class mothers' narratives of social interactions among parents at their children's schools. A special focus is paid to the emotions that arise in such interactions and their role in the reproduction of class. A narrative analysis of six stories of white, working-class mothers of compulsory school aged children was carried out. The study is set in Iceland, which gives a unique opportunity for classed and gendered analysis of parental communities as the country is at the forefront of gender equality in the world. Additionally, the compulsory school system is still relatively unsegregated. Findings show that the parental communities reproduce the symbolic violence endured by the working-class mothers within the field of education. Accounts of resistance and anger are present in some of the accounts but affective responses such as inferiority and shame are all-encompassing and contribute to the reproduction of class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Rez Sisters by Tomson Highway which received much acclaim in Canadian theatres depicts the realistic life of reservation camps. The paper unfolds the drastic life of seven women who are called as sisters either by birth or marriage. Their wish for a better life is visible throughout the play. The paper focuses on the seven women's optimistic nature towards life despite their failures in life. Also, it heightens the Indian spirituality ant the pride of Indian culture and myth. The hard working class-women on reservation teach the audience the rich culture of Native Indians. The trickster is found from the very beginning of the play which shows the spiritual presence among them which is nowadays absent in the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a Marxist feminist textual analysis of Hallmark's "Countdown to Christmas" made-for-television film series of 2018. While Hallmark films are widely and rightly criticized for their lack of racial, sexual and socioeconomic diversity, I examine how representations of women at work provide both critical and contradictory narratives of late capitalism, owing in part to class politics of the Christmas film genre and the (post)feminist rhetoric of "working women" television programs. Many of the films in the series portray a dialectic of "love" and "work" that draws important attention to the deleterious effects of late capitalism—including how women become overworked, underpaid and disconnected from social relationships—that may resonate with wider feminist labor movements. As I argue, however, the dialectic is resolved in problematic ways; women in the series are rewarded with romantic (heteronormative) love only when they accept career promotions or reject corporate culture by embracing a "do-what-you-love" ideology, one that seems transformative but ultimately depoliticizes both work and the workplace in ways that minimize recent feminist labor struggles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the relevance of Marxist Feminism in the 21st century. It begins by talking about Marxism and Feminism as independent schools of thought and then goes on to discuss how their amalgamation is the need of the hour since disparities based on class structures is something even Intersectional Feminism doesn't delve into. This paper tries to critique both through the lens of the other and aims to prove how at the point of their intersection we can expect a change. It also discusses the struggles of the working class and their revolution within the feminist framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The death of a husband had adverse economic effects for the majority of Victorian women, but for working-class mothers the threat of destitution was an almost inevitable feature of widowhood. Widows, with some restrictions, were entitled to outdoor relief under the Poor Law Amendment Act (1834), and they comprised the largest group of adult paupers outside of the workhouse well into the early twentieth century, outnumbered only and always by their children. Able-bodied widows therefore presented crucial opportunities for poor-law officials in the quest to minimize outdoor relief and make significant reductions in welfare spending. Focusing particularly on the 1830s, 1840s, and 1870s (the first decade of the so-called 'crusade' against out-relief), this article examines the competing discourses of deservingness and deception that dominated the representations and treatment of able-bodied widows in poor law legislation, orders, reports, and parliamentary debates. An uneasy combination of sympathy and suspicion shaped officials' treatment of these women, rendering them ambiguous figures in the dominant dichotomy of the deserving and undeserving poor, potential drains on the economic prosperity of the state, threats to the nuclear family, and, by extension, a danger to the nation's moral core. These discourses, I suggest, reflect a wider ideological unease with, and attempts to mitigate and police, the widow's exceptional social status in Victorian Britain as a woman with sexual experience, potential economic independence, and yet no male guardian. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the Victorian period, Carolina Oliphant (Baroness Nairne) was instrumental in revising negative stereotypes of Scottish fisherwomen circulating in contemporary literary works, such as Walter Scott's The Antiquary (1816), Robert Tannahill's "Caller Herrin" (1808/1876), and Charles Reade's Christie Johnstone (1853). Her art-trade song "Caller Herrin'" (ca. 1821–24), which she wrote to accompany Nathaniel Gow's air (1798 or 1799), elevates empathy over parody and deflects ridicule of Newhaven's working fisherwomen. This article argues that Nairne's song influenced audiences far beyond the insular community it portrays, both empowering the voices of these Scottish working-class women and underscoring the rich plurality of female experience. Building upon recent scholarship about Nairne and the significance of the song tradition in imagining the Scottish nation, I contextualize a close reading of "Caller Herrin'" by exploring work by British reviewers, contemporary writers and musicians, and innovative photographers Robert Adamson and David Octavius Hill, whose sociological documentation of the Newhaven community informed fictional portrayals of fisherwomen. The abiding representation of these forthright Scottish women and their recognizable song counters more dominant narratives about Scotland and leaves an enduring musical legacy that expands understandings of Newhaven's vibrant fisherwomen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines Margaret Harkness's writings on women's work in the East End's home industries. The decades of the late nineteenth century saw an explosion in casual labour, with much of this work being performed by poor women in their own homes. At the same time, middle-class women found new opportunities for professional and social mobility through documentary journalism, which often looked to the East End with its many possible sites for investigative discussion. As a journalist focusing on the slums and—importantly—as a middle-class woman, Harkness enjoyed unprecedented access to female workers in home industries. Her first and third novels, A City Girl (1887) and In Darkest London (1889), borrow heavily from her journalism in both content and writing techniques—such as the "doorsill glimpse"—in order to convey the short-term and unstable nature of this casual labour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amid wider efforts to improve maternal and infant health in Britain around the First World War, public health officials debated making pregnancy a notifiable condition. Although the policy never entered national legislation, a number of local authorities introduced 'notification of pregnancy' schemes in various guises, with at least one surviving until the 1950s. Resistance from private practitioners to infectious diseases notification in the later nineteenth century has been well documented. We know less about opposition to the extension of this measure to maternal and infant welfare, especially from newly professionalising female health occupations. Conflict over notification of pregnancy drew midwives, in particular, into longstanding arguments over the powers of municipal authorities, family privacy and professional ethics. The controversy was the key battleground in negotiations over the organisation of 'antenatal care' as occupational groups of varying degrees of authority sought to define their roles and responsibilities within the emerging health services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under Mussolini's dictatorship, both the physical abuses of a misogynist state and the political power of female friendship were written in the sensory details of agricultural workers' everyday lives. This article uses archival and melodic evidence from the sensorial world of interwar Italy to explore four interlinked case studies, ultimately revealing what is at stake in women's work songs. First, written testimonials and transcriptions from oral interviews show that, for many mondine, as the women workers in the rice paddies were called, their first moment of class consciousness occurred in transit. In train cars and depots, rice weeders came to understand their bodies as under reform by their migrant agricultural work. Upon arrival in the rice paddies, they gathered straw for mattresses to sleep in horse stables. Next, anger and resistance bloomed through work songs that privileged communal, turn-taking formats. It was a way to practice for alternative styles of rule. Finally, with songs like "The Union" ("La Lega"), women articulated their vision of the future: through battle hymns like this, they would raise the flags of Socialism and Communism. By swelling the union ranks, women vowed to bring about an egalitarian future in direct defiance of Fascism's autocratic rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article features the works of documentarian Julia Reichert, who received lifetime achievement awards from the Full Frame and HotDocs festivals in 2019. Topics include the retrospective exhibition featuring Reichert's works at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, her documentary "American Factory," and her film on the history of working women's rights movement tentatively titled "9to5: The Story of a Movement."

Although the opportunity structure for African Americans has improved since the passage of civil rights legislation in the 1960s and 1970s, African American female workers still predominantly occupy jobs offering low wages with no job security. This paper begins to examine the reasons for this stagnation by offering a comprehensive review of scholarship on the employment histories of African American women in the postindustrial era. Using Census data and other historical evidence, I argue that mainstream research on the structure of employment opportunities open to African American women is inadequate. Social-cultural sociologists have spent too much time blaming workers for their employment outcomes, while ignoring the historical and institutional factors that shape these outcomes. At the same time, structural approaches in this literature only hint at the important roles firms play in creating inequality and reducing mobility, and they stop short of exploring how these trends develop over time. In an attempt to shift the emphasis away from individual level and ahistorical structural approaches to understanding African American women’s employment progress, I propose a workplace centered approach that incorporates a consideration of historical and political factors in explanations of blocked opportunity among these workers in the postindustrial era.

Features the Saturday Evening Girls library club in Boston, Massachusetts. Intellectual life of working class and immigrant girls; Establishment of the library club in 1899; Purpose and mission of the library club.