Women's Oppression Today

Women’s Oppression Today is now a classic text in the debate about Marxism and feminism and has been reprinted many times since its first publication in 1980. Acknowledging the book as a product of the specific political climate of the time it was written, Michèle Barrett in this revised edition surveys the political and intellectual changes that have subsequently taken place, changes which would make the writing of such a text now impossible.

In a major new essay she discusses the symptomatic absence from the book of any consideration of ethnicity, race and racism, and also reviews the significant developments that have occurred since its first publication. While defending the central arguments of the book in their own terms, she points to fundamental changes in the context in which such a debate might be conducted today. The philosophical challenge of various forms of poststructuralism to the certainties of the book’s materialist premises are discussed, as is the challenge of postmodernism to grand political projects such as socialism and feminism.
 
“Michèle Barrett’s excellent and lucid discussion of the issues and debates within contemporary feminist theory makes a major contribution to our understanding of the nature of that oppression.”—Mary Evans, New Society

“This book is a school of thought.”—Frigga Haug, Das Argument