Ruth D. Ewing '37 Social Science Lecture Series presents Nancy Fraser
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OPEN TO THE PUBLIC | Three Faces of Labor: Uncovering the Hidden Ties among Gender, Race, and Class
Reeling from Trumpism and determined to scale up opposition to it, many activists and thinkers are now seeking larger paradigms that can unify disparate struggles. Aiming to advance that project, I propose that labor forms the hidden link between gender, race, and class. My inspiration is W.E.B. Du Bois’s claim, in Black Reconstruction, that nineteenth century America had two labor movements, anti-slavery and trade unionism, which tragically failed to unite. Extending this idea to the present, I expand it by adding a third. Construing feminism, too, as a labor movement, focused on the work of care, I argue that that capitalist society relies on three distinct types of labor: exploited, expropriated, and domesticated. Their structural entwinement, I maintain, constitutes the inner, systemic ties between gender, race, and class.
Nancy Fraser is the Henry and Louise A. Loeb Professor of Philosophy and Politics at the New School for Social Research and a member of the Editorial Committee of New Left Review. Trained as a philosopher, she specializes in critical social theory and political philosophy. Widely known for her work on the relation between redistribution and recognition in the theory of justice, she works now on the relation of capitalism to racial oppression, social reproduction, ecological crisis, feminist movements, and the rise of rightwing populism.
Fraser’s newest book is Cannibal Capitalism: How Our System Is Devouring Democracy, Care, and the Planet—and What We Can Do About It (Verso, 2022). Other recent books include Feminism for the 99%: A Manifesto, co-authored with Cinzia Arruzza and Tithi Bhattacharya (Verso, 2019); The Old is Dying (Verso, 2019); and Capitalism: A Conversation in Critical Theory, co-authored with Rahel Jaeggi (Polity Press, 2018).
About the Ruth D. Ewing Social Science Lecture Series
Alumna Ruth Ewing '37 (1915–2014), whose studies concentrated on social sciences while at Bennington, was also a parent of an alumnus, as well as a distinguished trustee from 1979 to 1982. In 1997, the College's trustees named the Social Science Lecture Series for Mrs. Ewing in recognition of her unstinting generosity and esteemed service to Bennington. We are deeply grateful that Mrs. Ewing and her husband James Ewing went on to support the endowed Ruth D. Ewing '37 Social Science Lecture Series throughout the rest of their lives, bringing special guest lecturers in the social sciences to Bennington College today and in perpetuity.