Readings: Irigaray, "Women on the Market"
Constable, Maid to Order

1. How are the maids described by Constable being made, by whom, and with what implications? What notions of subjectivity emerge from her discussion of accommodation and resistance?

2. What does the prevalence of Filipina domestic workers in Hong Kong suggest about the relationship between gender, ethnicity, and processes of economic development?

3. How does the pun between maid and made reflect Constable's use of theorists such as Foucault and his concept of discipline? What do you think of her interpretation?

4. What does Irigaray mean when she claims that "Marx's analysis of commodities as the elementary form of capitalist wealth can thus be understood as an interpretation of the status of women in so-called patriarchal societies" (172)? What are the implications of her interpretation, and do you agree?

 

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