Only by recognizing that class is not gender neutral can the processes of class formation and reproduction be understood. Class is defined as a process in which human beings take an active part, rather than a structure of categories into which individuals may be inserted. Gender organizes or structures class in many different ways. For example, capitalist class structures have always been divided by gender through the sexual division of labor in both paid and unpaid labor. Wages are also gendered. In every wage-based society women earn less than men, and women's jobs have lower wages than men's jobs. Images of work and labor are intertwined with images of gender and sexuality in ideologies that support the class structure. These ideas become incorporated, in the process of experience, in core images of the self that then inform further action, becoming part of the complex process of maintaining class structures. In the same process, gender inequalities are also reproduced. A gendered conception of class provides a better understanding of women's economic situation than does a theoretical approach that separates the problems of class oppression and sex oppression. (RM)