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Feminism, Objectivity and Economics
This classic study extends feminist analysis to economics, but rejects setting up an economics solely for women. It is the first full length, single authored book to focus on gender bias in contemporary economics.
- GenresFeminism
190 pages, Paperback
First published December 7, 1995
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 26, 2020
This was a very interesting book, a feminist critique of the economics profession and an early work of feminist economics. Nelson makes a strong case for economics as overly "masculinized," to its detriment. Nelson argues that economists focus on mathematical rigor at the expense of accurately and/or usefully reflecting the real world of human society.
Early in the book Nelson discusses how masculine-coded concepts in economics are rendered normatively positive and the opposite feminine-coded concepts have a negative connotation. But, she argues, this dualism can obscure other dimensions. As a simple example, take hard and soft. Hard can mean "strong" (masculine) and the opposite is soft as in weak. Strong is good and weak is bad, clearly. But hard can also mean *rigid* (masculine, bad) as opposed to *flexible* (feminine, good).
She applies this to the field of economics in various ways. An example is precise (or rigorous, mathematical). The opposite is vague. But Nelson points out another way of thinking about mathematical precision is to point out how mathematics itself is *thin*. It's content-free and the art comes in applying mathematics to the real world. Another opposite of precision, then, is *richness* of detail.
Later chapters apply this thinking to bigger problems with economics from a feminist perspective, such as the way to model the family. Male economists have thought of the family from an "altruistic head of household" perspective, which allows for some tractability at the expense of richness, specifically involving power differentials within families, need, neglect, multiple loci of agency within the family, etc.
Much of this book felt like some "inside baseball" to this non-economist reviewer. At least some of it was written more for economists than lay readers. But I liked what I understood quite a bit and hope to read Nelson's Economics for Humans at some later date.
Early in the book Nelson discusses how masculine-coded concepts in economics are rendered normatively positive and the opposite feminine-coded concepts have a negative connotation. But, she argues, this dualism can obscure other dimensions. As a simple example, take hard and soft. Hard can mean "strong" (masculine) and the opposite is soft as in weak. Strong is good and weak is bad, clearly. But hard can also mean *rigid* (masculine, bad) as opposed to *flexible* (feminine, good).
She applies this to the field of economics in various ways. An example is precise (or rigorous, mathematical). The opposite is vague. But Nelson points out another way of thinking about mathematical precision is to point out how mathematics itself is *thin*. It's content-free and the art comes in applying mathematics to the real world. Another opposite of precision, then, is *richness* of detail.
Later chapters apply this thinking to bigger problems with economics from a feminist perspective, such as the way to model the family. Male economists have thought of the family from an "altruistic head of household" perspective, which allows for some tractability at the expense of richness, specifically involving power differentials within families, need, neglect, multiple loci of agency within the family, etc.
Much of this book felt like some "inside baseball" to this non-economist reviewer. At least some of it was written more for economists than lay readers. But I liked what I understood quite a bit and hope to read Nelson's Economics for Humans at some later date.
August 7, 2020
Interesting criticism of how economics has been influenced by a hierarchical gender dualism, in which masculinity has been confused for high value and feminine as inferior, and argues for a change in the value system of economics
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews