Mariarosa Dalla Costa

Mariarosa Dalla Costa
Born	1943 (age 81–82) Treviso, Italy
Known for	Being the co-founder of the International Feminist Collective and publication of feminist literature
Notable work	The Power of Women and the Subversion of the Community

Mariarosa Dalla Costa (born 1943 in Treviso) is an Italian autonomist feminist and co-author of the classic The Power of Women and the Subversion of the Community, with Selma James. This text launched the "domestic labour debate" by re-defining housework as reproductive labor necessary to the functioning of capital, rendered invisible by its removal from the wage-relation.

A member of Lotta Femminista, Dalla Costa, developed this analysis as an immanent critique of Italian Workerism.[1]

She was a co-founder of the International Feminist Collective, an organisation formed in Padua in 1972 to promote political debate and action around the issue of housework that gave rise to the International Wages for Housework Campaign.[2][3]

Works

• The Power of Women & the Subversion of the Community (with Selma James); Bristol: Falling Wall Press, 1972
• Women, Development, and Labor of Reproduction: Struggles and Movements (edited with Giovanna F. Dalla Costa); Africa World Press, 1999
• Gynocide: Hysterectomy, Capitalist Patriarchy and the Medical Abuse of Women (edited); Brooklyn: Autonomedia, 2007
• Family, Welfare, and the State: Between Progressivism and the New Deal (edited); Common Notions, 2015

See also

• Wages for housework
• Leopoldina Fortunati
• Maria Mies
• Silvia Federici

References

1. Wright, Steve (2002). Storming Heaven: Class composition and struggle in Italian Autonomist Marxism. London: University of Michigan Press. p. 134. ISBN 0-7453-1607-7. OCLC 654106755.
2. Dalla Costa, Mariarosa; EE; AB. "The door to the garden". www.generation-online.org. Retrieved 6 December 2016.
3. "More Smiles? More Money". n+1. 25 July 2013. Retrieved 6 December 2016.

External links

• "Introduction to the Archive of Feminist Struggle for wages for housework. Donation by Mariarosa Dalla Costa", Viewpoint Magazine 5 (October 2015).
• Mariarosa Dalla Costa - Works at Libcom.org
• Tribute to Mariarosa Dalla Costa in The Commoner