Family Work: a Forgotten Category of Analysis

Abstract

The influence of Marxism on Labor Sociology and Feminism was and still is very strong. This has led to an emphasis on working class studies. Questions concerning the peasantry became difficult to work with within Marxism and Feminism. There used to be a general belief the liberation of women would necessarily require their financial independence, which would be the result of individual insertion in the labor market . This has raised the question of where to consider the role of women’s work within the family. This issue was not adequately considered by theory that was frequently dominated by urban perspectives and that overlooked issues of the role of women in rural activities. The rise of various rural women’s movements in Brazil has questioned the “victim” status normally attached to such women, to the degree that they have proved to be true social “actors”. At this time, however, feminist movements are more concerned with issues of recognition and identity, then with income redistribution, property, and that which most interests us, land. The purpose of this paper is to unveil the prejudices permeating the analysis of peasantry and bring back the issue of the economic inequality of women involved in family agriculture, whose access to land is achieved almost exclusively through marriage. The right to take decisions about one’s own life may not depend on an individual salary, but it certainly depends on access to one’s own source of income.