by From Julie A. Nelson Since the 1990s, I and some other feminist economists have been pointing out that the mainstream discipline of economics has a profoundly masculinist bias. That is, aspects of human nature, experience, and behavior that fit a culturally “macho” mold have been emphasized and elevated, while those that are culturally associated with a lesser-valued femininity have been ignored. The neoclassical orthodoxy focuses on markets and perhaps the public sphere, but categorizes families and unpaid work as “non-economic”. The discipline adheres to exaggerated notions of (strictly logical) reason, while neglecting emotion and embodiment. It sees the economy in terms of autonomous agents, while glossing over all connection, dependency, and interdependency. It elevates
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from Julie A. Nelson
Since the 1990s, I and some other feminist economists have been pointing out that the mainstream discipline of economics has a profoundly masculinist bias. That is, aspects of human nature, experience, and behavior that fit a culturally “macho” mold have been emphasized and elevated, while those that are culturally associated with a lesser-valued femininity have been ignored.
The neoclassical orthodoxy focuses on markets and perhaps the public sphere, but categorizes families and unpaid work as “non-economic”. The discipline adheres to exaggerated notions of (strictly logical) reason, while neglecting emotion and embodiment. It sees the economy in terms of autonomous agents, while glossing over all connection, dependency, and interdependency. It elevates self-interest, considering an interest in the well-being of others to be an anomalous and largely unnecessary trait. It defines objective “rigor” in terms of detachment and abstraction, treating normative or moral concerns as overly subjective, and assuming they can be safely denied or excluded. It elevates mathematical proof and fine-tuned econometric methods while downplaying detailed, concrete observation and good, verbal narratives.
These are all legacies of particular, and peculiar, Enlightenment notions of human nature and of science. Susan Bordo wrote,
“The Cartesian ‘masculinization of thought’, is one intellectual ‘moment’ of an acute historical flight from the feminine, from the memory of union with the maternal world, and a rejection of all values associated with it” (Bordo, 1987, p. 9).
James Hillman has written,
“The specific consciousness we call scientific, Western and modern is the long sharpened tool of the masculine mind that has discarded parts of its own substance, calling it ‘Eve,’ ‘female’ and ‘inferior’” (quoted in Bordo, 1986, p. 441).
The counterpoint to “rational man”, Elizabeth Fee has pointed out, is
“woman [who] provides his connection with nature; she is the mediating force between man and nature, a reminder of his childhood, a reminder of the body, and a reminder of sexuality, passion, and human connectedness” (Fee, 1983, p. 12).
While other schools of economics that share the pluralist umbrella have pointed out the limitations of various orthodox assumptions, I believe that feminist economics has made a unique contribution in pointing out the systematic – and unremittingly gender-biased – nature of the assumptions and exclusions made by the orthodoxy.
Of course, recognition of the gender biases in the profession is only a first step. Some would try to reassert that “masculine is good”. Others, doing what I call “feminine” economics, try to simply turn the tables: disavowing competition and self-interest, for example, they call for a discipline – and society – founded exclusively on cooperation and altruism. To me, that is still playing with half a deck. The variant of feminist economics that I have propounded seeks to go further. I have wanted to think past the dualism, to think about characteristics we all – men and women both – share, and to explore how one-sided views of any kind tend to create traps. http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue79/Nelson79.pdf