Introducing Feminist Economics

1
Introducing Feminist Economics

• What has Gender got to do with it?

2
Sex and Gender

• Sex - biological difference
• Gender - roles, activities and responsibilities
• Gender relations - value of responsibilities and
  distribution of power
• Gender analysis - who does, who has, who decides

3
Understanding Gender

• The processes that confer privilege on one group
  and not another are often invisible to those
  upon whom that privilege is conferred. Thus, not
  having to think about race is one of the luxuries
  of being of a dominant race, just as not having
  to think about gender is one of the patriarchal
  dividends that men gain from their position in
  the gender order. Men tend not to think of
  themselves as 'gendered' beings, and this is one
  reason why policy makers and development
  practitioners, both men and women, often
  misunderstand or dismiss gender as a womens
  issue.
•  
• Greig, A., Kimmel, M. and Lang, J. (2000) MEN,
  MASCULINITIES AND DEVELOPMENT Broadening our
  work towards gender equality. UNDP/GIDP MONOGRAPH
  10

4
Why Economics?

• The purpose of studying economics is not to
  acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic
  questions, but to learn how to avoid being
  deceived by economists.
• Joan Robinson (1903-1983)
• Economics - perceived wisdom?
• How did it evolve ?Who are the economists?What
  is considered worthy of study?What is the most
  appropriate method of study?

5
Economics - The Dismal Science?

• Boring?
• Difficult?
• Of little relevance?
• One-armed economists?
• An economist is someone who is good with
  numbers but does not have the personality to be
  an accountant

6
The Economists World

• Value
• - has a narrow definition in economics
• - assumes some tangible measure
• - market is where values are expressed
• Work
• - work is always distinct from leisure
• - work may be enjoyable but important
  distinction between productive and reproductive
  work
• - gender division of labour within the household
  and the different values ascribed to men and
  womens tasks

7
Methodology

• Defined by approach rather than subject matter
• .. a method rather than a doctrine, an apparatus
  of the mind, a technique of thinking which helps
  its possessor to draw correct conclusions
• John Maynard Keynes General Theory of Employment
  Interest and Money (1936)
• viewing a problem in terms of choices,
  especially the individual welfare or profit
  maximising choices of autonomous rational
  economic agents
• Julie Nelson The Study of Choice or the Study of
  Provisioning
• 1993. P25

8
Economic Theory ? Choice Theory

• Central concept in mainstream economics - The
  Market
• Textbook model of the market is where rational,
  autonomous agents interact for the purposes of
  exchange
• Stable preferences and choices made within
  constrained maximisation assumption
• Outcome of interactions is the efficient
  allocation of goods and services as well as set
  of equilibrium prices
• ?
• Prototype
• Methods are - precise, objective, rigorous,
  scientific
• The subject of the economists model world is an
  individual who is self interested, autonomous,
  rational and whose active choices are the focus
  of interest, as opposed to one who would be
  social, other-interested, dependent, emotional
  and directed by an intrinsic nature
• Julie Nelson (1996). Feminism, Objectivity and
  Economics. pg 22

9
Choice and Opportunity Costs!

• Just between you and me, shouldn't the World Bank
  be encouraging more migration of the dirty
  industries to the LDCs (lesser developed
  countries)? The measurement of the costs of
  health-impairing pollution depends upon the
  forgone earnings from increased morbidity and
  mortality. From this point of view a given amount
  of health-impairing pollution should be done in
  the country with the lowest cost, which will be
  the country with the lowest wages.I think the
  economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic
  waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable
  and we should face up to that. ... I've always
  thought that under populated countries in Africa
  are vastly under polluted
• Lawrence Summers, Chief Economist World Bank, 1992

10
Economics as an Academic Discipline in Crisis?

• among the decent people of the world there is a
  growing revulsion against the global financial
  regime whose policies, distilled from
  neoclassical dogma and forced on the worlds
  poor, result annually in an invisible slaughter,
  millions condemned for orthodoxys sake to
  needless death and suffering through the
  withdrawal of life-supporting services in the
  false name of good economics
• Edward Fulbrook (ed) The Crisis in Economics,
  2003 pg9

11
The Economics Approach Identifying Bias

• Analysis of the choices of autonomous rational
  economic actors aiming to maximise their own
  welfare with reference to scarce resources
• Economics has been and continues to be a
  discipline dominated by men
• Male economists define the discipline in terms of
  what they understand
• Economics is a social science but in hierarchical
  academic community the practice , at least in the
  orthodox approach, has been to favour tools of
  rigorous scientific analysis

12
Making the Link - gender bias and economics

• Uncovering an androcentric bias - socially
  constructed gender categories and the value
  system associated with mainstream economic
  theorising.
• Why the PAE movement needs feminism (2002)
• Identify characteristics associated with the
  dominant analytical framework of mathematised
  rational choice modeling
• Identify the flip side of these terms
• Consider the gender connotations of each
• The polarisation of gender associations and the
  subsequent privileging of masculine over
  feminine

13
From Gender Blind to Gender Bias

• Uncovering an androcentric bias - socially
  constructed gender categories and the value
  system associated with mainstream economic
  theorising.
• Core Margin
• Science Humanities
• Rigorous Intuitive
• Precise Vague
• Objective Subjective
• Rational Emotional
• Autonomous Dependent
• Formal Informal

14
Gender Relevance?The Policy World

• Eliminating gender discrimination and empowering
  women are among the paramount challenges facing
  the world today. When women are healthy,
  educated, and free to take the opportunities life
  affords them, children thrive and countries
  flourish, reaping a double dividend for women and
  children.
• Kofi A. Annan Former Secretary General of the UN
  
• All Member States of the United Nations,
  regardless of their political, religious or
  ethnic composition, spoke with one voice when the
  UN pledged to make the world fit for children at
  the General Assembly Special Session on Children
  in May 2002. But rallying around the cause of
  children without championing gender equality is
  like stocking a sports team with players but
  failing to teach them how to play the game.
• (State of the Worlds Children 2007, UNICEF
  2006)

15
Including the Excluded

• The caring economy - the work/leisure dichotomy
  is exclusive
• The reproduction of the labour force
• Unpaid work - motivations, commodification
  process, whose values?

16
Making Gender Relevant

• Micro
• Structures of constraint - identifying the
  assets, rules, norms and preferences that
  influence peoples choices
• Macro
• Identify gender bias inherent within economic
  institutions
• The invisible nature of unpaid care work
• The role of gender relations in the division of
  labour and distribution of employment, income and
  wealth

17
Moving Beyond Bias

• Gender Blind Policies - informed by gender bias
  assumptions thus sustain existing gender
  relations
• Gender Aware Policies - informed by gender
  analysis at all stages of the policy cycle (can
  be gender neutral or gender specific)

18
The Economics of Gender

• economic knowledge vs economic theory
• recognition of situation vs analysis of cause
• questioning the foundations of the discipline