Women
The subordination of women manifests in distinct patterns of physical, psychological, political, and economic oppression. Women's work is undervalued, whether that work is classified as domestic labor or as labor in the patriarchal universe. The readings from Chapter 8 reveal the ways domestic servitude continues to define women's work. Domestic servitude constrains women's participation in the patriarchal market economy, too, perpetuating cycles of subordination. Readings in Chapter 10 address another dimension of misogyny: physical abuse and violence. Sexual slavery and domestic abuse are manifestations of patriarchy with disturbing political and social dimensions.
In "Maid to Order," Barbara Ehrenreich (2000) uses the maid as the primary motif to discuss women's labor rights issues. Ehrenreich (2000) states that the "politics of housework" is rarely discussed in public arenas. Housework constitutes an "uncounted and invisible" aspect of the larger economy. Ehrenreich's (2000) astute analysis takes into account poor immigrant domestic laborers as well as traditional domestic servitude within a patriarchal marriage. Therefore, the author links race, class, gender, and social power in meaningful ways. Women's political and economic disenfranchisement is systematically ensured by social norms related to domestic labor. In extreme cases, domestic labor is linked to abuse -- psychological,...
Thus, the Ehrenreich reading ties in with the Chapter 10 content on violence against women and how to prevent and eliminate it.
In "The Lost Girls" by Mimi Swartz, customers of modern-day brothels "rarely seemed to grasp that the women were captives." Men profit on a model of sex slavery within a global grey and black market economy, and men are the primary consumers of sex slave labor. Swartz corrects the assumption that sex slavery always happens far away, when the United States remains a major marketplace. Because prostitution is illegal, the government cannot effectively keep track of sex slaves in the United States. Criminalizing prostitution has the paradoxical result of further disenfranchising the women. Women working as sex slaves have no political or legal resources, and no access to social services networks. Their economic dependency is multiplied by their political and social subordination. Likewise, many of the sex laborers Swartz describes are immigrants sold into slavery without rights.
Women in slave labor markets are not the only ones suffering abuse. In "Betrayed by the Angel," Davis describes the systematic concession for male violence and aggression. An "angel" at school pokes the first person narrator and she feels powerless. "There is nothing I can do about it," the narrator laments. When boys are valued, their mishaps are viewed with…
