Suchergebnisse

AbstractThis article stems from a project aiming to investigate women's unemployment in the phase of deindustrialization that affected Western European countries from the aftermath of the 1973 oil crisis. Countries such as Italy and France, with both a strong working-class movement and a vibrant feminist movement, have had to face economic crises since the mid-seventies and from the eighties have witnessed how neoliberal capitalism started to heavily reshape the global labor market. The old stereotype of female salary as 'pin money' within the household budget was again publicly put forth. How did women experience unemployment? What did it mean in terms of their social status, economic independence, sense of self, relationship to the home? To answer these questions and to understand the reconfiguration of class and gender identities, I focus on two milestone cases of labour struggles that are recognized as turning points in the history of the affirmation of neoliberal dynamics: the crisis of FIAT in Italy and of LIP in France. Despite their being at the center of many academic investigations as fundamental sites of resistance, their outcomes in terms of unemployment and particularly the gender dimension of this phenomenon have been largely overlooked so far. I will delineate a comparison between the two cases by drawing on my past research about trade union feminism in the two countries, on archival sources, published accounts and oral histories of two key activists in these struggles. Key factors that will be analysed are: women's participation in the collective mobilisations in the face of unemployment, their relation to the domestic sphere and to care work, their ability to build female networks within their wounded communities.

Defence date: 31 March 2017 ; Examining Board: Professor Laura Lee Downs (Supervisor EUI); Professor Lucy Riall, EUI; Professor Michelle Zancarini-Fournel, Université Lyon 1; Dr. Maud Bracke, University of Glasgow ; Dare una definizione o trovare una collocazione precisa al cosiddetto 'femminismo sindacale' è tutto fuorché un'impresa semplice. Come le due citazioni mostrano efficacemente, il suo stesso nome costituisce di per sé un elemento problematico. Il femminismo sindacale, infatti, si sviluppò tra gli anni Settanta ed Ottanta come esito - complesso e nient'affatto 'risolto' - all'incrocio tra la critica neofemminista al patriarcato e le lotte operaie che a partire dal decennio precedente avevano tentato di imprimere una svolta in senso progressista ed egualitario ai rapport di produzione tra capitale e lavoro. Le donne che negli anni Settanta si muovevano nello spazio sindacale, come delegate e militanti o semplicemente come lavoratrici, furono profondamente attraversate e coinvolte dalle riflessioni che il neofemminismo internazionale andava allora producendo e scelsero di utilizzarle per risignificare l'esperienza del lavoro dal punto di vista femminile. Il femminismo sindacale costituisce un oggetto di studio affascinante, collocato appunto all'incrocio tra due fenomeni internazionali di indiscussa rilevanza come il movimento delle donne ed il movimento dei lavoratori.

For over half a century, the countless organizations and initiatives that comprise the Women's Liberation movement have helped to reshape many aspects of Western societies, from public institutions and cultural production to body politics and subsequent activist movements. This collection represents the first systematic investigation of WLM's cumulative impacts and achievements within the West. Here, specialists on movements in Europe systematically investigate outcomes in different countries in the light of a reflective social movement theory, comparing them both implicitly and explicitly to developments in other parts of the world