Introduction
PART OF THE SERIES
The Struggle for Caregiving Equity
Patriarchy and capitalism are class-based systems that serve to compound inequalities of all sorts, including gender inequality. A feminist political economy not only addresses gender inequalities, but also seeks to rectify inequalities in the division of labor. Of course, there are different branches of feminism, but a strong case can be made that a socialist feminist perspective of political economy, such as that adopted by renowned feminist economist Nancy Folbre, is best equipped to combine theory and praxis for understanding and overcoming capitalist inequalities of class, gender and race. Indeed, Folbre’s work is defined by the construction of an intersectional socialist feminist perspective.
Nancy Folbre is professor emerita of economics and director of the Program on Gender and Care Work at the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is the author of scores of academic articles and numerous books, including For Love and Money: Care Provision in the U.S. and, most recently, The Rise and Decline of Patriarchal Systems: An Intersectional Political Economy.