El trabajo es mucho más que mercancía

An interpretation of the meaning of women’s work that goes beyond Marxism without going against it. It is an interpretation that gives room to what each woman feels on speaking about work, about economy, law: it does so understanding feeling as a form of knowledge that we as women particularly have. The experience of happiness that is, or can be brought about by both work and speaking of one’s own work is therefore significant, talking about it in order to find shared words that might speak of the place that women’s work occupies in each life and in the signifying of work in its totality. This happens, for example, when there is an awareness that women’s work is work, not that of a minority, not the famous reserve army of women, but rather that of a majority, if we consider work to be both of the production and reproduction of human existence. This way of interpreting the meaning of work leads us to a new idea of the relationship between need and freedom, which in women’s experience are not necessarily antagonistic, and a new idea of maternity. Work stops being only merchandise to become essentially the human activity of men and women.