Feminist Economics and Globalization
by - 26.01.2004 17:58
Introduction to the issues and concepts in Feminist Economics by the International Gender and Trade Network
By Stacey Cordeiro 20/01/2004 At 16:35
report back from a workshop at the WSF
Introduction to the issues and concepts in Feminist Economics by the International Gender and Trade Network
On the first day of the World Social Forum I attended a workshop by the International Gender and Trade Network called "Understanding Feminist Economics and its Links to Women's Critiques of Economic Liberalization". The presenters were members of this network and, had I been a proper journalist, I would have taken care to write down their last names. What I know is that the two speakers were Marina from Thailand and Norma from Argentina.
The workshop took place next to a much larger one which was using a very loud PA system, which made it very hard to hear the speakers. Marina spoke in English and Norma spoke in Spanish, supported by a translator.
The first part of the workshop introduced the fundamentals of Feminist Economics in this way: the basic idea is that feminist economists approach their analysis of the economy from a perspective of provision for human needs, as opposed to the standard approach, which is the pursuit of profit. Human provision means providing the things people need, while the pursuit of profit often means convincing people to buy something they don't need. The standard approach means that any provisioning of human needs that happens to get done (in addition to all the human don't-needs) is just a means to the end. The feminist orientation is that human provision is the goal in itself.
Marina then went on to describe three key terms:
1. Social reproduction: this refers to 'caring' work, generally done by women, which is needed, literally, to keep society going. It includes birthing children, and seeing to the education, feeding, health & hygiene, and social relationships of the family. The bulk of these functions are not biologically based, but socially assigned. Social reproduction allows capitalist production to happen. The simplest example of this is a wife who provides a working home for her husband to live in, where he doesn't have to do too many things for himself and the children. He couldn't, because he has to spend his time working outside the home for income. The unpaid work she does supports his ability to bring wages into the family.
2. The Market: Basically the market is conceived of as simply a location for exchanging things. But the market is embedded in social and institutional structures that we create, and therefore contains all the biases of those institutions. Markets can't exist without these institutions, which include regulatory institutions and laws. As long as the market is held in place by patriarchal institutions, it will be inherently patriarchal.
3. Agency: This is the one I had a little more trouble with. I think Marina was saying that agency means the power to make changes. Providing agency means empowering people to make changes on their own behalf. Some international development (anti-poverty) programs are targeting women with assistance because they know women will use the resources for health, education, and nutrition. This strategy improves the statistics so the development agency looks good, but doesn't change her role or social assignment - actually, it reinforces it and gives these agencies a motive to keep it in place. If she were not the only person looking after the provisioning of her family, this would not be an effective strategy. Instead of instruments to be used to get at children and families, women should be acknowledged as agents for their own interests.
Then Marina suggested two points for policymakers: The first is to do a Social Impact Assessment before implementing any policies, to see whether it affects any of the limiting factors underlying women's choices. The second is the gender mainstreaming of economics so that its theoretical foundations are gender blind. This implies a complete reorientation in what economics is and who it covers.
Norma was the second speaker and it was difficult to follow her part of the talk. The points I got were these: The way to make linkages between economists and activists is through popular education. She is working on a project giving training in economic literacy for activists in Latin America. The idea is to generate a critical mass of women able to incorporate feminist economics views in their work. The second is to re-politicize the economy and the home with a gender perspective.
Some issues that came out of the question and answer period:
One participant asked, how do we address the problem of women's dependency on men? The speakers answered that maybe we should be looking at how men are also dependent on women to do the unpaid work that needs to happen so that he can earn an income. Actually, it takes the work of two people to earn one income, so men and women are actually dependent on each other.
A question I had was, is it their goal to move women's work into the market? People seemed to object mostly that women's work was unpaid, so is the solution to start paying them for it? And if so, who should pay? The husband? The husband's employer (since her work allows him to work there)? The state? The answer given was that they are not so much interested in making unpaid social reproduction work into paid work, but that the value of this work be recognized in other ways, like counting it in the Gross National Product.
This workshop was well organized and informative, but I had some differences in perspective from the presenters, and things that I would add to their analysis.
For one thing, their point that the patriarchy in the market is the result of the market being embedded in a patriarchal society is a little suspect to me. I doubt that you can say the causation is this one-sided. I think the market itself, the basic principles of which are competition and personal gain, could be seen as a patriarchal institution. And rather than being embedded in our society, the market is on its way to replacing society as the primary institution people relate to each other through. So maybe it's the implicitly patriarchal system of the market that's helping to sustain patriarchy in society? Implicit in their argument is that, if the society in which we live was no longer a patriarchal institution, that the market embedded in it would not be objectionable. I kind of think if we lived in a non-patriarchal society, there might not be any markets at all.
The last thing I wanted to add is that this perspective of seeing women as an instrument for poverty relief for the whole family is not only depriving women of agency, it's also deeply insulting to men. Marina half-joked while describing this that development agencies think that men will spend any money they're given on alcohol and gambling. If poor men have used aid money this way instead of providing for their families, this indicates a serious social problem that is just being swerved around by giving the money to the women instead.
http://india.indymedia.org/en/2004/01/208907.shtml
report back from a workshop at the WSF
Introduction to the issues and concepts in Feminist Economics by the International Gender and Trade Network
On the first day of the World Social Forum I attended a workshop by the International Gender and Trade Network called "Understanding Feminist Economics and its Links to Women's Critiques of Economic Liberalization". The presenters were members of this network and, had I been a proper journalist, I would have taken care to write down their last names. What I know is that the two speakers were Marina from Thailand and Norma from Argentina.
The workshop took place next to a much larger one which was using a very loud PA system, which made it very hard to hear the speakers. Marina spoke in English and Norma spoke in Spanish, supported by a translator.
The first part of the workshop introduced the fundamentals of Feminist Economics in this way: the basic idea is that feminist economists approach their analysis of the economy from a perspective of provision for human needs, as opposed to the standard approach, which is the pursuit of profit. Human provision means providing the things people need, while the pursuit of profit often means convincing people to buy something they don't need. The standard approach means that any provisioning of human needs that happens to get done (in addition to all the human don't-needs) is just a means to the end. The feminist orientation is that human provision is the goal in itself.
Marina then went on to describe three key terms:
1. Social reproduction: this refers to 'caring' work, generally done by women, which is needed, literally, to keep society going. It includes birthing children, and seeing to the education, feeding, health & hygiene, and social relationships of the family. The bulk of these functions are not biologically based, but socially assigned. Social reproduction allows capitalist production to happen. The simplest example of this is a wife who provides a working home for her husband to live in, where he doesn't have to do too many things for himself and the children. He couldn't, because he has to spend his time working outside the home for income. The unpaid work she does supports his ability to bring wages into the family.
2. The Market: Basically the market is conceived of as simply a location for exchanging things. But the market is embedded in social and institutional structures that we create, and therefore contains all the biases of those institutions. Markets can't exist without these institutions, which include regulatory institutions and laws. As long as the market is held in place by patriarchal institutions, it will be inherently patriarchal.
3. Agency: This is the one I had a little more trouble with. I think Marina was saying that agency means the power to make changes. Providing agency means empowering people to make changes on their own behalf. Some international development (anti-poverty) programs are targeting women with assistance because they know women will use the resources for health, education, and nutrition. This strategy improves the statistics so the development agency looks good, but doesn't change her role or social assignment - actually, it reinforces it and gives these agencies a motive to keep it in place. If she were not the only person looking after the provisioning of her family, this would not be an effective strategy. Instead of instruments to be used to get at children and families, women should be acknowledged as agents for their own interests.
Then Marina suggested two points for policymakers: The first is to do a Social Impact Assessment before implementing any policies, to see whether it affects any of the limiting factors underlying women's choices. The second is the gender mainstreaming of economics so that its theoretical foundations are gender blind. This implies a complete reorientation in what economics is and who it covers.
Norma was the second speaker and it was difficult to follow her part of the talk. The points I got were these: The way to make linkages between economists and activists is through popular education. She is working on a project giving training in economic literacy for activists in Latin America. The idea is to generate a critical mass of women able to incorporate feminist economics views in their work. The second is to re-politicize the economy and the home with a gender perspective.
Some issues that came out of the question and answer period:
One participant asked, how do we address the problem of women's dependency on men? The speakers answered that maybe we should be looking at how men are also dependent on women to do the unpaid work that needs to happen so that he can earn an income. Actually, it takes the work of two people to earn one income, so men and women are actually dependent on each other.
A question I had was, is it their goal to move women's work into the market? People seemed to object mostly that women's work was unpaid, so is the solution to start paying them for it? And if so, who should pay? The husband? The husband's employer (since her work allows him to work there)? The state? The answer given was that they are not so much interested in making unpaid social reproduction work into paid work, but that the value of this work be recognized in other ways, like counting it in the Gross National Product.
This workshop was well organized and informative, but I had some differences in perspective from the presenters, and things that I would add to their analysis.
For one thing, their point that the patriarchy in the market is the result of the market being embedded in a patriarchal society is a little suspect to me. I doubt that you can say the causation is this one-sided. I think the market itself, the basic principles of which are competition and personal gain, could be seen as a patriarchal institution. And rather than being embedded in our society, the market is on its way to replacing society as the primary institution people relate to each other through. So maybe it's the implicitly patriarchal system of the market that's helping to sustain patriarchy in society? Implicit in their argument is that, if the society in which we live was no longer a patriarchal institution, that the market embedded in it would not be objectionable. I kind of think if we lived in a non-patriarchal society, there might not be any markets at all.
The last thing I wanted to add is that this perspective of seeing women as an instrument for poverty relief for the whole family is not only depriving women of agency, it's also deeply insulting to men. Marina half-joked while describing this that development agencies think that men will spend any money they're given on alcohol and gambling. If poor men have used aid money this way instead of providing for their families, this indicates a serious social problem that is just being swerved around by giving the money to the women instead.
http://india.indymedia.org/en/2004/01/208907.shtml