From the women's suffrage movement in the late 18th century to the present day, women have gained more rights outside of the family. Walby notes that even though women were gaining legal rights, they were still held back and oppressed in their own families. Walby refers to the domestic structure as a “patriarchal mode of production,” which in her terms means that the structure “undervalues ​​the work of housewives” and “undervalues ​​women in this role.” To make this concept easier to understand, Walby uses Marxist terms, to help illustrate what he means. Walby calls the women in these families “the producing class” and the husbands in this structure the “ruling class.” This means that wives in these families produce (perform household tasks) while husbands do nothing (Walby