L'inclusione (giuridica?) del lavoro delle donne. Esclusione, protezione, confinamento ed espropriazione [The (Legal?) Invisibility of Women’s Labour. Exclusion, Protection, Confinement and Expropriation]

Alessandra Pescarolo’s book, Il lavoro delle donne nell’Italia contemporanea, makes an important contribution to the problematization of the invisibility of women’s work as a central – and not ancillary – issue in the construction of their legal and political subjectivity. Starting with Pescarolo’s book, this essay offers some brief reflections on the persistence of the techniques of exclusion, protection, confinement and expropriation directed against women. Over time, these techniques have consolidated the link between the invisibility of the subject and the invisibility of labour. Finally, special attention is given to some of the ambiguities that characterize the contemporary debates about the limits (desirable or not) in defining what, for women, can be considered as «work».