Published in 1999 (first published 1986)
272 pages
Maria Mies is a German professor of sociology and author of several feminist books, including Indian Women and Patriarchy (1980), Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale (1986), and (with Bennholdt-Thomsen and von Werlhof) Women: The Last Colony (1988). She is Professor of Sociology at the Cologne University of Applied Sciences, which is a Fachhochschule in Cologne, Germany. She worked for many years in India. In 1979 she established the Women and Development programme at the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague, Netherlands. She has been active in the women’s movement and in women’s studies since the late 1960s. She has published several books and many articles on feminist, ecological and developing-world issues.
What is this book about?
This now classic book traces the social origins of the sexual division of labor. It gives a history of the related processes of colonization and “housewifization” and extends this analysis to the contemporary new international division of labor and the role that women have to play as the cheapest producers and consumers. First published in 1986, it was hailed as a major paradigm shift for feminist theory. Eleven years on, Maria Mies’ theory of capitalist patriarchy has become even more relevant; this new edition includes a substantial new introduction in which she both applies her theory to the new globalized world and answers her critics.
