Close to Home

Close to Home: A Materialist Analysis of Women's Oppression (1984) is a collection of essays by Christine Delphy, translated into English from the French by Diana Leonard, who also contributes a preface.

Most of the texts in this collection can be found in their original French version in Delphy's L’ennemi principal: 1. Économie politique du patriarcat (1998). The exceptions are chapter 8, "Patriarchy, feminism and their intellectuals" and chapter 9, "A materialist feminism is possible", not reprinted there. L’ennemi principal also contains two texts not found in Close to Home: "La transmission héréditaire" and "Capitalisme, patriarcat et lutte de femmes", as well as a longer version of the introduction.

Contents

Preface 7

1. Introduction to the collection 15
2. Women in stratification studies 28
3. Sharing the same table: consumption and the family 40
4. The main enemy 57
5. Housework or domestic work 78
6. Continuities and discontinuities in marriage and divorce 93
7. Our friends and ourselves: the hidden foundations of various pseudo-feminist accounts 106
8. Patriarchy, feminism and their intellectuals 138
9. A materialist feminism is possible 154
10. Protofeminism and antifeminism 182
11. For a materialist feminism 211

Bibliography 220

Index 225

Bibliographical Information

• ISBN 0-87023-453-6 (cloth); ISBN 0-87023-454-4 (paper)