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Social Reproduction in and of Feminist Legal Theory
Dinner, Deborah
Dinner, Deborah
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Abstract
My reflections on the subject of “origins” begin with social reproduction in feminist activism and thought. This topic is more
commonplace in feminist scholarship outside of the legal academy. Feminist sociologists, political philosophers, and historians define social reproduction as the “various kinds of work—mental, manual, and emotional—aimed at providing the historically and socially, as well as biologically, defined care necessary to maintain existing life and to reproduce the next generation.” Social reproductive labor includes unpaid care work within families, kin networks, and communities as well as various forms of paid work. Such labor divides along racial as well as gender lines. The law’s role in distributing, rewarding, and regulating social reproductive labor is pivotal to the construction of gender, race, and class identities and inequalities.