Editing Feminist economics (section)

==Origins and history==
Early on, [[feminist]] [[ethicist]]s, [[economists]], [[political scientists]], and [[systems scientists]] argued that [[women's work|women's traditional work]] (e.g. child-raising, caring for sick elders) and occupations (e.g. nursing, teaching) are systematically undervalued with respect to that of men. For example, [[Jane Jacobs]]' thesis of the "[[Guardian Ethic]]" and its contrast to the "[[Trader Ethic]]" sought to explain the undervaluing of guardianship activity, including the child-protecting, nurturing, and healing tasks that were traditionally assigned to women.

Written in 1969 and later published in the ''Houseworker's Handbook'', Betsy Warrior's ''Housework: Slavery or a Labor of Love and The Source of Leisure Time''<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www2.cambridgema.gov/Historic/CWHP/bios_w.html|title=Cambridge Women's Heritage Project Database, W|website=www2.cambridgema.gov|access-date=2021-04-09|archive-date=2017-08-27|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170827210414/http://www2.cambridgema.gov/Historic/CWHP/bios_w.html|url-status=dead}}</ref> presents a cogent argument that the production and reproduction of domestic labor performed by women constitutes the foundation of all economic transactions and survival; although, unremunerated and not included in the GDP.<ref>Radical Feminism: A Documentary Reader,  By Barbara A. Crow, Housework: Slavery or a Labor of Love, p 530, NYU Press 2000</ref> According to Warrior: "Economics, as it's presented today, lacks any basis in reality as it leaves out the very foundation of economic life. That foundation is built on women's labor; first her reproductive labor which produces every new laborer (and the first commodity, which is mother's milk and which sustains every new consumer/laborer); secondly, women's labor entails environmentally necessary cleaning, cooking to make raw materials consumable, negotiating to maintain social stability and nurturing, which prepares for market and maintains each laborer. This constitutes women's continuing industry enabling laborers to occupy every position in the work force. Without this fundamental labor and commodity there would be no economic activity nor we would have survived to continue to evolve."<ref>http://www.ncdsv.org/images/BH_Modest-Herstory-of-Besty-Warrior_8-2013.pdf {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151120132516/http://www.ncdsv.org/images/BH_Modest-Herstory-of-Besty-Warrior_8-2013.pdf |date=2015-11-20 }} {{Bare URL PDF|date=March 2022}}</ref> Warrior also notes that the unacknowledged income of men from illegal activities like arms, drugs and human trafficking, political graft, religious emoluments and various other undisclosed activities provide a rich revenue stream to men, which further invalidates GDP figures.<ref>Houseworker's Handbook, Slavery or a Labor of love and The Source of Leisure Time, 1972</ref>  Even in underground economies where women predominate numerically, like trafficking in humans, prostitution and domestic servitude, only a tiny fraction of the pimp's revenue filters down to the women and children he deploys. Usually the amount spent on them is merely for the maintenance of their lives and, in the case of those prostituted, some money may be spent on clothing and such accouterments as will make them more salable to the pimp's clients. For instance, focusing on just the US, according to a government sponsored report by the Urban Institute in 2014, "A street prostitute in Dallas may make as little as $5 per sex act. But pimps can take in $33,000 a week in Atlanta, where the sex business brings in an estimated $290 million per year."<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/12/us/in-depth-report-details-economics-of-sex-trade.html|title=In-Depth Report Details Economics of Sex Trade|first=Annie|last=Lowrey|date=12 March 2014|newspaper=The New York Times}}</ref>  Warrior believes that only an inclusive, facts-based economic analysis will provide a reliable bases for future planning for environmental and reproductive/population needs.

In 1970, [[Ester Boserup]] published ''Woman's Role in Economic Development'' and provided the first systematic examination of the gendered effects of agricultural transformation, [[industrialization]] and other structural changes.<ref>{{cite book|last=Boserup|first=Ester|title=Woman's Role in Economic Development|year=1970|publisher=St. Martin's Press|location=New York|isbn=978-1-84407-392-4|author-link=Ester Boserup |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=EzXxQOf77K0C&pg=PP1}}</ref> This evidence illuminated the negative outcomes that these changes had for women. This work, among others, laid the basis for the broad claim that "women and men weather the storm of macroeconomic shocks, neoliberal policies, and the forces of globalization in different ways."<ref name="berik">{{Citation|last1=Berik|first1=Günseli|title=Feminist economics|pages=Vol III, Part 1, B.12|year=2011|editor-last1=Benería|editor-first1=Lourdes|contribution=Engendering development strategies and macroeconomic policies: what's sound and sensible?|location=Cheltenham, UK Northampton, Massachusetts|publisher=Edward Elgar|isbn=9781843765684|last2=Rodgers|first2=Yana van der Meulen|editor-last2=May|editor-first2=Ann Mari|editor-last3=Strassmann|editor-first3=Diana L|editor-link1=Lourdes Benería}} [http://www.unrisd.org/80256B3C005BCCF9/(httpAuxPages)/91E1E3A0620D9D72C12578D5005447DA/$file/1BerikRodgers.pdf (Pdf version).]</ref> Moreover, measures such as [[employment equity]] were implemented in [[developed nation]]s in the 1970s to 1990s, but these were not entirely successful in removing wage gaps even in nations with strong equity traditions.

[[File:MarilynWaring2012.jpg|thumb|[[Marilyn Waring]], author of ''[[If Women Counted]]'' (1988)]]
In 1988, [[Marilyn Waring]] published ''[[If Women Counted|If Women Counted: A New Feminist Economics]]'', a groundbreaking and systematic critique of the system of [[national accounts]], the international standard of measuring economic growth, and the ways in which women's unpaid work as well as the value of [[Nature]] have been excluded from what counts as productive in the economy. In the foreword to the 2014 anthology ''[[If Women Counted#Counting on Marilyn Waring: New Advances in Feminist Economics|Counting on Marilyn Waring]]'', [[Julie A. Nelson]] wrote: 
:"Marilyn Waring's work woke people up.  She showed exactly how the unpaid work traditionally done by women has been made invisible within national accounting systems, and the damage this causes. Her book ... encouraged and influenced a wide range of work on ways, both numerical and otherwise, of valuing, preserving, and rewarding the work of care that sustains our lives. By pointing to a similar neglect of the natural environment, she also issued a wake-up call to issues of ecological sustainability that have only grown more pressing over time. In recent decades, the field of feminist economics has broadened and widened to encompass these topics and more."<ref name="Nelson2014">{{cite book|last=Nelson|first=Julie A.|author-link=Julie A. Nelson|editor1-last=Bjørnholt|editor1-first =Margunn|editor1-link=Margunn Bjørnholt|editor2-last=McKay|editor2-first =Ailsa|editor2-link=Ailsa McKay|title=Counting on Marilyn Waring: New Advances in Feminist Economics|year=2014|location=Bradford|publisher=[[Demeter Press]]|pages=ix–x|chapter=Foreword|isbn=9781927335277|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Sbh8AwAAQBAJ&pg=PR9}}</ref>

Supported by formation of the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession (CSWEP) in 1972, gender-based critiques of traditional economics appeared in the 1970s and 80s. The subsequent emergence of [[Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era]] (DAWN) and the 1992 founding of the [[#Heading International Association for Feminist Economics|International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE)]] along with its journal ''[[Feminist Economics (journal)|Feminist Economics]]'' in 1994<ref name="intro"/><ref name="beyond" /> encouraged the rapid growth of feminist economics.

As in other disciplines, the initial emphasis of feminist economists was to critique the established theory, methodology, and policy approaches. The critique began in [[microeconomics]] of the household and [[labor markets]] and spread to [[macroeconomics]] and [[international trade]], ultimately extending to all areas of traditional economic analysis.<ref name="peterson">{{cite book | last1 = Peterson | first1 = Janice | last2 = Lewis | first2 = Margaret | title = The Elgar companion to feminist economics | publisher = Edward Elgar | location = Cheltenham, UK Northampton, MA | year = 1999 | isbn = 9781858984537 }}</ref> Feminist economists pushed for and produced gender aware theory and analysis, broadened the focus on economics and sought pluralism of methodology and research methods.

Feminist economics shares many of its perspectives with [[ecological economics]] and the more applied field of [[green economy]], including the focus on [[sustainability]], [[nature]], justice and care values.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Aslaksen|first1=Iulie|author-link1=Iulie Aslaksen|last2=Bragstad|first2=Torunn|last3=Ås|first3=Berit|author-link3=Berit Ås|editor1-last=Bjørnholt|editor1-first =Margunn|editor1-link=Margunn Bjørnholt|editor2-last=McKay|editor2-first =Ailsa|editor2-link=Ailsa McKay|title=Counting on Marilyn Waring: New Advances in Feminist Economics|year=2014|location=Bradford|publisher=[[Demeter Press]]|chapter=Feminist Economics as Vision for a Sustainable Future|pages=21–36|isbn=9781927335277|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Sbh8AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA21}}</ref>