The Contested Domain

Selected Writings on Marxism and Feminism

Lise Vogel, Kirstin Munro

• Publisher: Pluto Press
• Year: 2025
• Print ISBN: 9780745351391
• eBook ISBN: 9780745351407
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Women Authors Literary Collections
• Index: Politics & International Relations

“Drawing on Marxist theory and integrating a feminist perspective, Vogel offers a compelling critique of bourgeois society and women’s oppression—a critique that not only advances theory, but also engages deeply with the historical and political conditions of social transformation” Melda Yaman, İstanbul University

“Already a key reference for understanding one of the major activists and thinkers of Marxist feminism ... A legacy from the twentieth century to the twenty-first!” Aurore Koechlin, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne

Lise Vogel is a unique voice in feminist theory. This book collects her best essays, opening a window into the last half-century of US socialist feminism.

A trailblazer in the 1970s, Vogel planted the seeds for contemporary Social Reproduction Theory with her ‘unitary theory’ of capitalist exploitation and the oppression of women. Along with others, she challenged established views within the academy and movement by insisting that Marxist theory can accommodate not only class, but also race and gender. Today her work is more popular than ever, inspiring socialist feminists to develop inclusive liberatory ideas for the next generation.

Selected from five decades of Vogel’s work, including long out-of-print material, this volume is a crucial resource for readers interested in the intellectual history of Marxist feminism and twentieth-century activism.

Lise Vogel is a feminist sociologist from the United States. She is the author of many books, including Marxism and the Oppression of Women: Toward a Unitary Theory.

Kirstin Munro is an Assistant Professor of Economics at The New School for Social Research in New York, and author of The Production of Everyday Life in Eco-Conscious Households.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Editor’s Preface
• Foreword by Paula Varela
• 1 Introduction to Woman Questions
• 2 The Earthly Family
• 3 Fine Arts and Feminism: The Awakening Consciousness
• 4 Class and Other Roots
• 5 The Contested Domain: A Note on The Family in the Transition to Capitalism
• 6 Questions on the Woman Question
• 7 Marxism and Feminism: Unhappy Marriage, Trial Separation or Something Else?
• 8 From the Woman Question to Women’s Liberation
• 9 Engels’s Origin: Legacy, Burden and Vision
• 10 Socialist Feminism
• 11 Telling Tales: Historians of Our Own Lives
• 12 Questioning Equality
• 13 Beyond Equality versus Difference
• 14 Beyond Intersectionality
• 15 “She Was My Kind of Scientist”: Margaret Benston and the Political Economy of Women’s Liberation
• Sources
• Index