The aim of this course is to explore the relationship between women and work and analyze how they are co-constituted along with notions of race, gender, and disability. How historically do women enter in the job market? How do they become entrepreneurs and what are the features of female entrepreneurship? More in general, what is work from a feminist perspective? Is it a source of liberation or a perpetuation of gender and race inequalities? Is it based on competition or collaboration? In the first part of this course, we will discuss theoretical orientations and movies that consider female work as a source of individual freedom and liberation, praising female entrepreneurship.

Some questions that will arise at this point are: what is behind the current system of work? What is the value of the work we do? What counts as work and what as nonwork? But also, how class and race relationships at the national and international levels might change the value of our work? In the second part of the course, we will turn our attention to Marxist-Feminist critiques of work and international gender division of labor theories, examining how notions of class, race, and disability contribute to define our current system of work and its value. In the third part of the course, through the analysis of some specific forms of work – such as waged and unwaged domestic work; care and emotional labor; sex work and surrogate labor; digital and informal labor – we will examine several concrete modes of work. Finally, in the fourth part of the course, we will discuss what would a post-work society look like, through literary or filmic imaginaries that have praised the “right to be lazy”, have proposed a liberation from work through automation or have envisioned through “degrowth” ecological and regenerative approaches beyond work.

Due to its strong interdisciplinary approach, this class is addressed (but not limited) to undergraduate students interested in gender, sexuality, and feminist studies, sociology, film studies, technology studies, economics, & public policy. 

Calendar (always from 11:45 am to 1:00 pm Eastern Time)

February 19, Kate Reed, “Rights to Her Labor: Women Workers on Mexico’s Southeastern Railroads”

March 19, Tift Merritt, “Caring Archives: Working in Music Industry in the Times of Spotify”

March 26, Allison Rowland, “Care as a Process of Transformation: How Sex Workers Redefine Care”

April 16, Amy Chin, “The Garment Industry Day Care Center, Then and Now”

To join the seminar online, please, write an email to revaluingcarelab@duke.edu