This article argues that the history of feminisms and work is still to be written and should be reconstructed through six possible beginnings that open distinct yet interconnected genealogies: abolitionism and slave labour from Olympe de Gouges to Sojourner Truth; wage struggles and the emancipatory function of work early twentieth-century mobilizations; women’s labour legislation and rights; dialogues between feminism and Marxism on class and gender; domestic labour and social reproduction: trade-union feminism, within and beyond the workplace. The article concludes by proposing an "histoire croisée" that weaves these beginnings into an analytical toolkit for reading continuities and ruptures and for guiding contemporary struggles over equality, care regimes, migration, and the fight against gender-based violence, within and beyond the realm of work.