Mariarosa Dalla Costa was born in Treviso, Italy, in 1943. She studied at the University of Padua, received her doctorate in law in 1967, and was a professor at the Istituto di Scienze Politiche e Sociali. She is the author of the founding document of the Wages for Housework perspective, “Donne e sovversione sociale,” published in 1972 with an essay by Selma James, “Il posto della donna,” as Potere femminile e sovversione sociale. The book was
translated into several languages, including into English as The Power of Women and the Subversion of the Community, and into French, as Le pouvoir des femmes et la subversion sociale. She lives in Padua, Italy.