GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE AT THE INTERSECTION OF GENDER AND CLASS: HISTORICAL AND CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES

Abstract

The paper analyzes the key arguments in the left-feminist approaches to gender-based violence as one of the main mechanisms underpinning the capitalist system. Already present in the works of classical Marxist thinkers, it was only during the socalled Second Wave period that this theme became articulated as a distinct issue within a more specifically feminist perspective. In the contemporary approach provided by the social reproduction theory (SRT), gender-based violence becomes a research subject intertwined with other aspects of structural violence – global, ecological, class-based, racial, heteronormative.

In this paper, a brief history of the left-feminist approaches to the phenomenon of gender-based violence is followed by the treatment of some of the burning questions and challenges of the SRT approach, particularly in the context of the crisis caused by the global COVID-19 pandemic. This crisis has made plainly visible that the contemporary capitalist society is based on the labour of essential workers – male and female, exposed to multiple forms of systemic violence. Additionally, the paper analyzes the ways in which SRT can help overcome the stage of mere description of the problem of structural violence and provide a theoretical foundation for its proper analysis; this would include both general criticism of the system, and the treatment of specific instances of violence. Finally, the papers discusses the tools provided by social reproduction theory that can help overcome gender-based violence.