Bringing Anti-Capitalism Back In. Feminist framings and strategies in Italy and Spain
This article argues that contemporary feminist movements in Italy and Spain have integrated anti-capitalism as a central interpretive framework by linking gender oppression to capitalist restructuring through the lens of social reproduction, thereby challenging the conventional separation between material and cultural claims in social movement studies.
Original paper licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This is an AI-generated explanation of the paper below. It is not written or endorsed by the authors. For technical accuracy, refer to the original paper. Read full disclaimer
For decades, the study of social movements has often treated protests about identity, culture, and rights as separate from protests about money, jobs, and economic systems. This division suggested that while older movements fought for wages and fair treatment at work, newer movements focused on who people are, how they feel, and how they are recognized in society. However, a growing body of research suggests this separation is artificial. In the real world, the way people live, the care they give to one another, and the money they earn are deeply tangled together. When a society cuts funding for schools or hospitals, or when a worker cannot afford to take time off to care for a sick child, these are not just economic problems; they are also questions of dignity, safety, and human value. Understanding how these different threads connect is essential for seeing how modern groups organize to change the world.
A new study by researchers from Italy and Spain investigates how contemporary feminist movements are bringing these economic and cultural struggles back together. The researchers focused on two countries, Italy and Spain, which share similar economic histories but have different political traditions. They wanted to understand how these groups are using a specific lens to view their problems: a view that sees capitalism, the system of private ownership and profit, as a central cause of the violence and inequality women face. By analyzing thousands of words from movement documents and conducting forty in-depth interviews with activists, the researchers discovered that these groups are no longer just asking for equal rights or better laws. Instead, they are arguing that the very structure of the economy relies on the unpaid and underpaid work of women, and that stopping this exploitation requires a fundamental rethinking of what "work" means.
The researchers found that in both countries, activists have developed a powerful way of explaining their situation. They argue that violence against women is not just a matter of bad individuals or broken families, but a result of a system that makes women economically dependent. If a woman cannot support herself because her job is unstable or her wages are too low, she is trapped in dangerous relationships. This diagnosis connects the personal fear of abuse directly to the impersonal forces of the labor market. In Italy, where the feminist movement has a long history of staying independent from political parties, activists emphasize how poverty and the lack of a stable income keep women vulnerable. In Spain, where the movement has worked more closely with government institutions, the explanation is broader, linking violence to racism, migration status, and the way the state fails to protect its citizens. Despite these different paths, the core message is the same: you cannot fix violence without fixing the economy.
This economic critique extends to the invisible work that keeps society running. The study highlights how activists are redefining "care." For a long time, raising children, cooking, cleaning, and comforting others were seen as natural duties of women, something that happened in the private home and did not count as real work. The researchers observed that activists in both nations are now insisting that this care work is the hidden foundation of the entire economy. Without it, the paid workforce could not function. When governments cut funding for public services like childcare or elder care, the burden falls entirely on women, who must do this work for free. The activists argue that this is not a private family issue but a political one, where the system extracts value from women's lives without giving anything back. They are making the invisible visible, showing that the stability of the economy depends on the unpaid labor of women.
To turn these ideas into action, the movements have adopted a powerful tool known as the feminist strike. Unlike a traditional strike, where workers stop going to their jobs to demand better pay, the feminist strike asks people to stop doing everything that keeps life going. This includes paid work, but also unpaid work like cooking, cleaning, and caring for children. The researchers noted that this is a radical shift in how people think about conflict. It is not just about stopping production; it is about stopping reproduction, the daily process of maintaining life. In practice, this looks like women refusing to go to work, but also men taking over the household chores for the day, or communities organizing to share the burden of care. In Italy, activists use visual tools like "time disks" to show how much time women spend on unpaid work compared to men. In Spain, the strike has been a massive event, drawing millions of people who argue that the current economic model is incompatible with life itself.
The study reveals that while the strike is a shared tactic, the way it is used reflects the different political landscapes of the two countries. In Spain, the movement has been able to push for significant legal changes and has worked with trade unions and political parties to advance its goals. In Italy, the movement remains more independent and focused on building power from the ground up, often in opposition to the state. Yet, in both places, the strike serves as a way to prove that the economy relies on women's labor. By stopping that labor, even for a day, the movements force society to see the value of work that is usually ignored. The researchers suggest that this approach challenges the old idea that economic demands and cultural demands are separate. Instead, they show that for these movements, the fight for dignity, the fight against violence, and the fight for economic justice are all part of the same struggle.
Ultimately, the research suggests that contemporary feminist movements are reshaping how we understand political action. They are proving that you cannot separate the material conditions of life from the cultural values that shape them. By connecting the dots between a paycheck, a safe home, and the care of a child, these movements are offering a new way to see the world. They argue that the system of capitalism is not just an economic machine but a social order that depends on the exploitation of women's labor and the devaluation of care. The findings indicate that this perspective is not just a theory but a practical guide for action, driving a wave of protests that are changing the conversation about what matters in society. The study concludes that to understand modern social change, we must look at how these movements are weaving together the threads of economics, identity, and daily life into a single, powerful demand for a different kind of world.
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