Gender and Political Responses to Economic Crisis in Spain

In this paper I examine how the current economic crisis in Spain and the ways in which the State manages it are shaped by gender. In order to achieve my goal, I adopt, first of all, as my main analytical axis, David Harvey’s concept of accumulation by dispossession and, following the work of several feminist social scientists, examine and revise it from a gendered perspective. I then apply the concept to Spain's current political and economic situation, paying particular attention to four phenomena: increasing social inequalities, the end of the social contract, the crisis in social reproduction and the growing presence of neoconservative discourses on the family. The analysis of Spanish labor market, economic, time-use, and political discourse data leads me to suggest that State responses to the current crisis contribute to the generalization of a new episode of accumulation by dispossession and, in turn, this process is profoundly marked by gender. Thus, the increase of women’s total work load, their growing presence in the labor market, as well as the intensification of their reproductive responsibilities, are not simply collateral effects of the current crisis but rather result from a political-economic strategy of privatization and re-housewification of reproduction in the aim of saving the so called real economy. We are thus before a new enclosure of the commons which adopts the form of an updated strengthening of the sexual division of labor within the household. Ironically, this does not result in women’s exit from the so called productive economy but rather in their increased presence in it.