The concept of the reserve army of labour has been used in Marxist-feminist writings to suggest that in a capitalist crisis married women are discharged from employment into the home and function as a reserve pool of labour to be drawn on in boom periods. A critical examination of this view reveals that its applicability to working women is at best limited, at worst misleading. The theory of the reserve army is therefore refined by an analysis of how capital accumulation creates three types of reserve army positions: floating, latent, and stagnant. Feminist writings on the sexual division of labour in the family are then used to suggest why women are ideal agents to fill these positions. The actual process through which the different contributions of Marxist and feminist theory were brought together involved in­ depth interviews with twenty-two female clothing workers. The experiences of these women suggest that far from being discharged from the workforce altogether during a crisis, women function largely as floating workers to facilitate adjustments of employment to uneven capitalist development. Their preparedness to float in and out of jobs, as well as to put up with almost any working conditions also makes it easier for capital to raise the rate of exploitation, through increasing both relative and absolute surplus value. The reasons the women gave for why they put up with the reserve army roles accorded closely with what feminist writers have pointed out in their analyses of the family. The conclusion of the thesis is therefore that Marxism and feminism each contribute critically to our understanding of the lives of working women: the former through its emphasis on how capital accumulation creates reserve army positions, the latter through its focus on what makes women sufficiently compliant to fill these positions.