Visibility and Invisibility: the Work of Women

Abstract

The crisis of employment, combined with theories about the end of work, place labor at the center of the agenda. Given this situation, it is found that debates around labor in general (its productive and reproductive spheres), its relation with employment and the visible and invisible forms of conducting work have been approached by one of the most neglected traditions of social thinking: feminism. Feminist thinkers have questioned the meaning of work and non-work in relation to the constant increase of the participation of women in the labor market. Although feminist proposals have different levels of analysis and emphasis, it is necessary to return to their unique production, in order to unveil the situation of greater exploitation and oppression, of workers in general and in particular of women. This situation is facilitated by the apparent “invisibilization” or by the loss of the centrality of labor.