Capitalism Systematically Devalues Women's Work Through Social Reproduction
Source: Evelina Johansson Wilén. "Women’s Work Is Devalued Under Capitalism." April 15, 2026. jacobin.com
The Gist
The author argues that women's work - both paid and unpaid - is systematically undervalued because capitalism depends on but refuses to properly recognize the care work that keeps society functioning. Since this economic system creates and maintains gender inequality, feminism must challenge capitalism itself to succeed.
Conclusion
Feminism cannot succeed without confronting capitalism because the capitalist economic system structurally devalues women's work and creates gendered inequalities
Premises
- Women are concentrated in unpaid reproductive labor (domestic work, care, emotional support) that is essential for capitalism's survival but goes unrecognized
- Capitalism depends on social reproduction processes it doesn't control - workers must be born, raised, fed, educated, and cared for before any commodity can be produced
- Women are overrepresented in low-paid care work, education, and service sectors that are systematically undervalued because they maintain rather than directly produce profit
- Neoliberalism has intensified these pressures by privatizing public services and cutting welfare, forcing the burden back onto families and women
- A global care chain exists where middle-class women's liberation depends on exploiting poorer, often migrant women to perform their reproductive labor
- Social reproduction theory explains how capitalism organizes multiple forms of oppression (gender, race, class) within a unified system rather than treating them as separate issues
Assumptions
- Capitalism is the primary organizing force shaping contemporary gender relations
- Women's oppression is primarily structural rather than cultural or individual
- Economic systems determine social relations more than other factors
- Solidarity among women requires shared material conditions rather than shared identity
- Marx's analysis of capitalism can be extended to explain gender oppression