Roots of the Exhaustion of Brazilian Working Women: Contributions from Dialectical Historical Materialism

Abstract

Objective: in this essay, we analyze the roots of the exhaustion of Brazilian working women from the point of view of the dialectical historical materialism method. We investigate the exhaustion in terms of physical, emotional, and mental fatigue of Brazilian working women by using the concepts of social reproduction and dependent capitalism to reveal that women’s overtiredness is not a novelty inaugurated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Thesis: even before this global health crisis, the overload of work, inside and outside the domestic space, was already a reality for Brazilian women. We suggest that super-exploitation, essential to dependent capitalism, implies a growing intensification of the working time of Brazilian women workers, at the same time that dependence relegates them to the task of internal and external social reproduction in globalized capitalism. Conclusions: the rupture with these processes demands the radical transformation of the current social order and economic system, for which the political organization to demand payment from the state for reproductive work is an important step in the social battle against the depletion of women.