What Place for Capitalism within the Feminist Movement Discourse?

The feminist critique of “family wage” central to the state-organized capitalism legitimates the contemporary supple capitalism relying on low-waged work of less-privileged women. The shift from redistribution to identity politics rendered invisible the structuring role of class. The feminist critique of welfare-state paternalism shifts the focus from the macro-level, from states responsibility for redistribution and fighting poverty, towards micro-level and individual responsibility. While this holds for Western welfare democracies, in CEE countries women entered the labour market much early. While the first decade following the collapse of the communist regimes was characterized by the emergence of an ngoized feminism embracing a women’s empowerment discourse permeated by individualism and neoliberal free-market assumptions, the second decade was sequenced by the rise of a street feminism – intersectional in stance, addressing an anti-capitalist critique and the collective the role of political economy. The aim is to analyze how capitalism is addressed within the feminist movement discourse, through a case study – Romania, by comparing ngoized and street feminism.