When Our Lips Speak ‘Genderlabour’ Together

What the paper says

This chapter looks at women’s labouring activities in third world contexts. To look at women’s labouring activities in third world contexts this chapter would have to work at the interface of ‘woman’ and ‘labour’ in third world contexts, or more precisely, at the interface of ‘gender-labour’ in third world contexts. The interface of ‘genderlabour’ is the starting point of this chapter. The chapter arrives at the conclusion that the two face(t)s of ‘genderlabour’ are enmeshed in an inalienable constitutivity. Standing (1999, 2000) hints at the necessity of making this shift from woman to gender. Taking a clue from Standing we propose a further shift from ‘gender’ to ‘sex-gender processes’ that could be oppressive for woman and the girl child (or for the boy child or even for man in some particular instances). We also propose a shift from (woman’s) work/job/employment to woman’s labour, from woman’s wagelabour to woman’s non-wage labour, from labour as such to the ‘performance and appropriation of surplus labour’.