Drill Baby Drill: Labor, Accumulation, and the Sexualization of Resource Extraction

The North American oil industry produces social and environmental harms. Ariel Salleh argues patriarchy is foundational to capitalism, and capitalism produces these conditions for women and the environment in the oilfields. This manifests in two ways: (1) in gender parity attempts offered by the oil industry, despite increased violence towards women in the temporary labor towns. (2) in the sexualized ad campaigns launched by energy companies. Women’s surplus labor in the Bakken is underrepresented, but is central to capitalist accumulation in the oilfields. This project reveals a sexual logic of domination in the industry’s relationship to labor and land.