Women: Scapegoats and Safety Valves in the Great Depression

Abstract

This paper employs a historical case study of the struggle between capital and labor in a context of high unemployment and falling production to illustrate the genesis of social pressures which affect the nature of women's oppression. The argument is that women's oppression does not exist in isolation, but is the product of complex interaction between changing economic circumstances and existing ideologies and institutions. My particular purpose is to show that the pressures emanating from a capitalist economic system in crisis exacerbate sex-linked relations of dominance and sub ordination, strengthen traditional ideas, and weaken women's drive for liberation.