EMANCIPATION OF WOMEN 89 discussions within different groupings among the Marxists, as well as, subsequently, between Marxists and Socialist-Feminists contributed to a focus on the structural basis of women's subordination under capitalism. The 1970s saw a rich body of literature attempting a deeper analysis of the connections between women's oppression and the wider domain of political economy. The lasting impact of these debates and their contribution in intellectual terms can be seen today in women's studies and, more specifically in discussions under the rubric of 'feminist economies'. The debate on housework, focusing on domestic drudgery as well as the household as a non-idyllic family unit, with the oppression of women within it forming the structural grounding of unequal social relationships was perhaps the singularly most remarkable highlights of 19th century socialist thought. This provided the context for later feminist debates on the Sexual Division of Labour on the one hand, as well as on time measurement studies which have sought to redefine notions of productive work with a view to gaining recognition for women's unpaid labour. The debate in the 1970s, sections of which are reproduced in this book, was important in its conjecture that the subordination of women in the household was not autonomous of capitalism; rather that it was central to the strategy of capital. More recently, feminist economists have tried to develop the argument further by pointing to the need to develop the household as a unit of economic analysis. Some of this has today gained acceptance in the UN fora in discussions on asset holding, resource management and capacity — building along with the more well-known aspect of women's contribution in terms of unpaid labour. Whereas in the current phase there is a tendency on the part of most social commentators to label all pro-women activism as 'feminist', within the women's movement the lines have always been drawn somewhat more clearly, between those working towards a deeper social transformation and those working for more rights for women within the given social order. True, the critique of patriarchy advanced by the American women's movement in the 1960s imbued a fresh ideological edge to women's search for equality. Nevertheless, as can be seen from subsequent developments, it was women's active engagement with the struggle for advancing their rights in the context of their specific location which resulted in an interrogation of 'feminism' itself, particularly by Third World women activists. Along with their politically radical sisters in the first world, women grappled with the interface of gender and class-based oppressions even as they