Political Dimensions
By Astrid Agenjo-Calderón* and Lina Gálvez-Muñoz†
Introduction
goals make invisible the processes and resources that are essential for
the social reproduction of life and are not mediated by monetary valu-
ations. Thus, the general objective of FE is to transcend a reductionist,
biased, and hierarchical vision and to create new economic concepts
that place people’s daily life in the center. On the other hand, FE is
an ethical-political framework for social transformation and for the
construction of an economy that functions on the basis of justice and
equality. For this purpose, we suggest specific and immediate actions
(in politics, firms, and households) as well as alternative long-term
goals.
The following sections explore these two dimensions: theoretical
and practical. In order to establish the context, the second section
briefly reviews the origins and evolution of feminist economics as a
school of thought and action. The third section addresses the theoret-
ical dimension and includes FE’s critique of neoclassical assumptions
and of neoclassical analyses concerned with the “gender issue,” as
well as some of the contributions FE has made to this field. The fourth
section examines the political dimension, paying particular attention
to the implications of the neoliberal model for economic policies and
its impact on gender (in)equality and introducing various feminist
proposals for action. Finally, the last section presents the conclusions
and outlines of some future challenges for feminisms in general and
FE in particular.
laws. Some of the key authors of that period were Jane Marcet, Harriet
Taylor, and Millicent Fawcett of the classical British school; Charlotte
Perkins Gilman on labor economics; Mary Paley Marshall and Clara
E. Collet of the neoclassical school; Beatrice Webb on the ethics of
economic models; Margaret G. Reid on family economy; and Anna
Wheeler and Rosa Luxemburg on socialist thought.
For orthodox Marxism, the issue of women was an important topic
from the beginning, although a subordinated one. Neoclassical eco-
nomics dealt with women’s participation in the labor market, human
capital, and the division of domestic work since the 1950s (Benería
2018). Some decades later, during the second wave of feminism (1960s
and 1970s), some crucial progress was made on feminist theorization
under the slogan “the personal is political.” This had a major impact
on all social sciences. Also during those decades, a fundamental crisis
took place within modern science as a consequence of acknowledging
the epistemological relevance of the historical and social perspective
(Hodgson 2007). This had a particular influence on economic sociol-
ogy and other heterodox economic schools (Nelson 2010; Dequech
2008; Bögenhold 2010). These two theoretical trends (both in fem-
inism and economics) had a clear effect on the takeoff of FE as a
separate school of thought, which subsequently developed an import-
ant methodological, conceptual, and empirical body of work. In this
“awakening,” the need to increase criticism of neoclassical economics
was also a driving force. Neoclassical economics had taken a growing
interest in family analysis after the development of human capital
theory and new family economics. Those two developments legit-
imated gender inequalities inherent in the sexual division of labor.
Intense critique of labor economics was also undertaken in cru-
cial debates on, for example, “comparable worth” and “pay equity”
and in challenges to androcentric prejudices found in the main
neoclassical hypotheses (Mangum 1988; Ferber and Nelson 1993;
Nelson 1996).
Gradually, FE began to gain prominence. Some important mile-
stones were the creation in 1992 of the International Association for
Feminist Economics (IAFEE) and the publication of seminal contri-
butions like Conceptualizing the Labor Force: The Underestimation
of Women’s Economic Activities (Benería 1981), If Women Counted
Feminist Economics 141
(Waring 1990), Beyond Economic Man (Ferber and Nelson 1993), and
the first volume of the journal Feminist Economics in 1995. However,
all this had little influence on the teaching and research activities in
economics departments. Instead, FE developed in parallel with the
main school within the discipline. Cronin (2010: 1475) describes the
enforced insularity of all forms of heterodox economics:
In the case of FE, this exclusion may be even more evident, as proved
by the poor dissemination of feminist economic ideas beyond its
immediate confines. This, however, has not hindered FE from devel-
oping significant methodological and epistemological critiques and
from becoming one of the schools most clearly opposing the prop-
ositions, approaches, and results of neoclassical economics. These
critiques have also defined an increasing number of new topics and
methods, opened FE to non-Anglo-Saxon sources and references, and
broadened the geographical and historical scope of the field. This
expansion of FE has given shape to a broad variety of approaches
from a heterogeneous mix of different economic schools (Marxist,
radical, post-Keynesian, institutionalist, and ecological) and feminist
perspectives (liberal, radical, Marxist, ecofeminist, and decolonizing).
It has thus become a wide and inclusive frame of reference that is not
only acceptable but highly desirable because it bestows richness and
versatility on the debates.
Within this diversity, it is possible to identify several starting points
common to all the approaches, according to what Power (2004, 2013)
and Benería, Berik, and Floro (2016) have called “methodological con-
vergence.” These key points are:
1995; Nelson 1996; Picchio 2003; Backker and Gill 2003; Gálvez 2016).
Economics can be understood in part as the science of “social pro-
visioning” (Jo 2011). But it is also a discipline focused on the decon-
struction of the androcentric bias of many neoclassical approaches
with a systemic commitment to gender analysis and its hierarchical
implications (Peterson 2005). Following the classical distinction made
by Harding (1986), these proposals differ from feminist empiricism
and come closer to feminist, postmodern, and postcolonial theories.
This shift is in consonance with the central premise, formulated by
Braidotti and Butler (1997: 44), that “just slotting women in, without
changing the rules of the game, would indeed be mere reification of
existing social conditions of inequality.” Thus, when feminists rede-
fine the concept of work to include unpaid domestic and care work,
this is an essential strategic move because the characteristics of this
kind of work explain, to a large extent, the vulnerability of those car-
rying it out (Gálvez 2016).
The economy is thus understood as a circuit that integrates multi-
ple forms of work and economic agents, as well as multiple spheres
of activity (markets, the state, households, and social and community
networks). The ultimate goal is for economic thought to include the
interrelation of processes that enable life to continue—in human, so-
cial, and ecological terms—and, through it, to create decent living
standards for the population (Carrasco 2014). Well-being is identified
as the yardstick to measure success in economic functioning (Benería,
Berik, and Floro 2016). If, according to this perspective, the economic
system is considered as a whole, it is easy to perceive the gender
tensions across it. On the one hand, there is a separation and unequal
valuation of the public-production and private-domestic-reproduction
spaces, linked to the sexual division of labor, which masculinizes the
former and feminizes the latter. On the other hand, the nuclear family
and the breadwinner/housewife model are microconstructions that
reflect the macrostructural division. Feminist historiography shows us
that these normative and discursive models, even if previously present
in Europe, were exacerbated and institutionalized during the era of
industrialization, gaining legal and scientific recognition. This was part
of a far-reaching political operation that implied transferring care work
to the families (and, within them, to women), with the consequent
Feminist Economics 149
• The deflationary bias. When market activity is kept below its po-
tential, the first ones to be expelled from it are women, who are
then consigned to unpaid work.
• The privatizing bias. When the private sector is promoted over
the public sector, the amount of unpaid or ill-paid care work
increases.
• The breadwinner bias. Neoliberal policies reinforce the tradi-
tional distribution of roles of male breadwinner and female
caregiver.
• The risk bias.The individualization of risk affects women in a
particularly negative way by reducing social support in case of
accidents or misfortune.
• The credit bias. Financialization, by exacerbating the asymmetry
between debtors and creditors, has a markedly negative impact
on women.
• The knowledge bias. When economic interests determine the
forms of knowledge taught in universities, neoliberal policies are
legitimized.
(Elson 2002; Young, Bakker, and Elson 2011; Gálvez and Torres
2009)
These processes, particularly the last one, are related to the care defi-
cit that has been caused by the expansion in education, the outsourc-
ing of the economy, and important changes in attitude, in parallel
with women’s participation in employment in Western countries.
Berik, and Floro 2016). Many of the current debates are connected
with the historical discussion on the relationship between patriarchy,
capitalism, feminism, and workers’ struggle.
With regard to non-salary incomes, FE demands the dismantling
of the myth of the democratization of finance that has led to finan-
cialization and to the attempt to infuse women with an entrepre-
neurial identity through neoliberal discourse, such as “display your
own creativity” or “be your own boss.” The promotion of microcredits
has been the spearhead of this attack, which was violently directed
against women, and presented as both a magical recipe to overcome
poverty for those on the periphery and an escape route for those
at the center. But people who were thus activated could not find a
job afterwards (Pérez Orozco 2014). Microcredits have been harshly
criticized for becoming a mechanism to channel into the formal fi-
nancial structure monetary sums that had previously been outside
(Feiner and Barker 2006). They have increased women’s work over-
load, considering that they are carrying out both paid and unpaid
work. They have vitiated women’s support and solidarity networks
by making everyone responsible for everyone within the group. They
have neutralized criticism of strong gender discrimination within the
labor market. Jain and Elson (2011) identified a fundamental credit
bias linked to women’s growing but unfavorable participation in the
financial markets: women are almost always debtors, instead of cred-
itors, and they are at a clear disadvantage. The overrepresentation of
African-American and older women among the victims of subprime
mortgages has been denounced by, among others, Gálvez and Torres
(2009).
A social and solidarity economy is also presented as an alternative
to women’s economic autonomy. It develops markets that are not
profit-driven, but are based instead on the principles of solidarity,
common good, reproduction, self-management, the priority of col-
lective well-being, and reorganizing work according to its social con-
tent. However, a specific effort is required reduce the sexual division
of labor and to socialize and revalue care. A social and solidarity
economy is also associated with the creation of community exchange
spaces, such as barter and time banks, and it is actually a response to
neoliberal commodification strategies (Del Moral 2012).
Feminist Economics 161
Final Reflections
Acknowledgments
This article has been funded by the project “Children and Wellbeing:
Indicators and Bases for the Development of Public Policies from a
Capabilities Approach” (IBC) (2012 SEJ2727, financed by the Regional
Government Junta de Andalucía, Spain) and the project “Crisis in
Employment and Transformations in Gender Inequalities: Time Use
Analysis” (CSO2014-58378-R funded by the Ministry of Economy and
Competitiveness, Spain).
Notes
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