What is Work? (eBook)

Raffaella Sarti is Associate Professor of Early Modern History and Gender History at the University of Urbino, Italy, and is a member of the editorial collective of Gender & History. Her studies address family and material culture, women’s work, domestic service, Mediterranean slavery, masculinity, and graffiti, among other topics. She is the author of numerous publications in nine languages.

Manuela Martini is Professor of Modern History at the Université Lumière Lyon 2. She has directed international research projects on labor history, family and gender history, and labor migration. A member of Gender & History’s editorial collective, she has published extensively in multiple languages and has authored or edited sixteen books and special journal issues.

Anna Bellavitis is Professor of Early Modern History, Director of the Groupe de Recherche d’Histoire at Université de Rouen-Normandie, and senior member of the Institut Universitaire de France. She has led numerous international research projects on family history, gender history, and labor history in Early Modern Europe in collaboration with European universities and institutions.

List of Figures and Tables

Introduction: What is Work? Gendered Perspectives between Home, Family and Business from the Early Mordern Era to the Present
Raffaella Sarti, Anna Bellavitis, and Manuela Martini

PART I: SETTING THE SCENE: THE FEMINIST CHALLENGES TO THE "DELABORIZATION" OF HOUSEHOLD WORK

Chapter 1. Family Work: A Policy-Relevant Intellectual History
Nancy Folbre

Chapter 2. Productive and Reproductive Work: Uses and Abuses of an Old Dichotomy
Alessandra Pescarolo

Chapter 3. The Home as a Factory: Rethinking the Debate on Housewives’ Wages in Italy, 1929-1980
Alessandra Gissi

PART II: THE CUNNING HISTORIAN: UNVEILING AND OVERCOMING THE GENDER BIAS OF SOURCES

Chapter 4. The Statistical Construction of Women’s Work and the Male Breadwinner Economy in Spain (1856-1930)
Cristina Borderías

Chapter 5. Toiling Women, Non-Working Housewives and Rightful Citizens: Statistical and Legal Constructions of Female Work and Citizenship in Italy
Raffaella Sarti

Chapter 6. The Complexities of Work: Analyzing Men’s and Women’s Work in the Early Modern World with the Verb-Oriented Method
Maria Ågren

Chapter 7. The Visibility of Women’s Work: Logics and Contexts of Documents’ Production
Margareth Lanzinger

PART III: THE VALUE OF CARE AND UNPAID HOME-BASED WORK: THE ROLE OF THE LAW

Chapter 8. Regulating Home Labours: The ILO and the Feminization of Work
Eileen Boris

Chapter 9. Family-Relations Law between "Stratification" and "Resistance". Housework and Family Law Exceptionalism
Maria Rosaria Marella

Chapter 10. Could Family (Care) Work Be Paid? From French Agricultural Inheritance Law (1939) to Legal Recognition of Excessive Filial Duty (1994)
Florence Weber

PART IV: CONCLUSION

Conclusion: Can We Construct a Holistic Approach to Women’s Labor History over the Longue Durée?
Laura Lee Downs

Index