Neoliberalising Feminism

There recently has been an avalanche of critiques of the way in which feminism has gone to bed with neoliberal capitalism and become an instrument of governmentality. In this paper, I look at these phenomena as processes of a ‘neoliberalisation of feminism'. I illustrate such neoliberalisation by introducing women's empowerment projects run by transnational consumer products companies, typically in partnership with public development actors. Under the label of ‘corporate social responsibility', these companies invest in women in their supply and marketing chains, seeking to empower them within a neoliberal rationality of government. The paper is an effort to go beyond the critiques of feminism as co-opted. Rather than inventing new feminisms or taking a break from feminism – as some have suggested, I propose that it is more fruitful and necessary to examine, in concrete contexts, the way in which select feminist movement ideas are being integrated into neoliberal rationales and logics, what is lost in the process and what is perhaps gained.     

Competition/Cooperation: Revisiting the May 1994 Femecon Debates

This response to several comments on our prior article concerning the May 1994 Femecon debate takes issue with views that equate patriarchy with the market and feminism with community, for each partakes and participates in the other. Opposing the use of simple dualities, we suggest that feminist economics might theorize how both communal and market orientations are interwoven in the building of material life. We also show that contributors to Femecon were responded to on the basis of status, with higher-ranking female participants receiving more frequent responses relative to their rate of participation than did lower-status females and males.     

J. S. Mill on Wages and Women: A Feminist Critique

"J. S. Mill on Wages and Women" questions the common belief that Mill, despite his feminism, never suggested an end to the sexual division of labor because of his devotion to the concept of efficiency and other tenets of classical economics. A review of Mill's analysis of a competitive labor market indicates that he believed it to be fully consistent with women's equality in the workforce. In fact, in his works on women, it becomes clear that Mill was concerned that the logical extension of classical economic principles might lead to the commodification of domestic duties, including child rearing, a notion he evidently feared. Therefore, it was Mill's fear of, rather than dedication to, extreme allegiance to efficiency and unimpeded capitalism that limited his feminism.     

The Victims of Patriarchal Society —The Analysis of James Joyce's Eveline from the Perspective of Feminism

Eveline is of one of the stories ofDubliners by James Joyce. This paper attempts to analyze the cause of the miserable life of the heroine and her mother, and concludes that they are the victims of patriarchal society whom are depicted by Joyce to raise women's feminism consciousness.     

The discreet charm of the bourgeoisie

Harding argues in an old leftist way modernized with feminism that an androcentric ideology is immanent in economics. Conventional economists disagree, but Harding and I know that they are wrong. They can be brought to our conclusion by detailed studies of the sociology and rhetoric of economic science. And, contrary to what Harding thinks, such studies need not have a left lean. The despised bourgeoisie is in fact the main instrument of androgyny in the modern world.     

Why feminist,Marxist, and anti-racist economists should be feminist–Marxist–anti-racist economists

This paper argues for a feminist–Marxist–anti-racist economics. First, it puts forward a set of central defining features of Marxian economics. Then it argues that feminist and anti-racist economists need to work within the Marxist theoretical framework in order to realize their feminist and anti-racist goals. Next it argues that feminist economists should also be anti-racist. Finally, it argues that Marxist economists need to incorporate feminism and anti-racism into their theory and politics if they are to understand the dynamics of capitalism and adequately envision and advocate for a liberatory socialist alternative.     

当代女大学生就业公平问题探讨：后现代女性主义的视角

目前我国仍面临着严峻的女大学生就业不公平问题。基于后现代女性主义公平理论的分析，重新审视当代女大学生就业公平问题，并试图通过加强校园文化建设、突出性别化教育、注重人文关怀、转变就业思维等方式，为解决女大学生就业不公平问题提供新的路径。     

Social movements

The new social movements—environmentalism, feminism, pacifism, etc.—are not really new, but recurrent for at least two hundred years. They play an important role in the process of ongoing modernization, even if they intend to be antimodernistic. They push for the periodical readaptation of the industrial system to its natural and cultural context.     

Decapitating the U.S. Census Bureau's "head of household": feminist mobilization in the 1970s

"In 1970, as in previous decades, the U.S. Bureau of the Census's household enumeration began with a lead question as to who was the ?head of household'. With the resurgence of feminism, this concept was challenged as an ambiguous concept which implied an authority structure imputed by the Bureau but not measured, and offensive to many people. This paper tells the story of successful feminist mobilization in the 1970s that led to the removal of this concept from the U.S. decennial censuses beginning with 1980."     

The valuation of unpaid work at statistics Canada

In 1970, as in previous decades, the U.S. Bureau of the Census's household enumeration began with a lead question as to who was the 'head of household'. With the resurgence of feminism, this concept was challenged as an ambiguous concept which implied an authority structure imputed by the Bureau not measured, and offensive to many people. This paper tells the story of successful feminist mobilization in the 1970s that led to the removal of this concept from the U.S. decennial censuses beginning with 1980.     

恰似这般姹紫嫣红——从莘瑶琴,杜十娘看古代妓女意识的觉醒

从唐传奇中的《李娃传》到元杂剧中的《救风尘》再到《三言》中的《卖油郎独占花魁》和《杜十娘怒沉百宝箱》,妓女这一特殊群体以不同的形象呈现在我们面前。而莘瑶琴和杜十娘在爱情婚姻上发出的要求独立平等自由的心声,已折射出女性意识的复苏和觉醒。     

Education as Warfare?: Mapping Securitised Education Interventions as War on Terror Strategy

Across history, the US has strategically used education to buttress its war efforts. The current US global ‘war on terror’ is no different. The US's amplified emphasis on in/security and defence following the September 11 attacks folds education into the assemblage of technologies used to explain and advance military intervention. Through a critical geopolitics framework, this analysis unravels the ‘imaginative geographies’ that facilitate this absorption of education and feminism into imperial strategy of war by looking at three distinct education interventions. It considers how disparate sites of and engagements with education – materially and discursively – ineluctably work to humanise, justify, and advance US warfare.     

Herbert J. Davenport on Conspicuous Consumption and the Economics of Feminism

This article analyzes Herbert J. Davenport’s discussions of conspicuous consumption and feminism. Even though these (typically) Veblenian topics represent two “episodes” in many respects disconnected with the central body of Davenport’s theoretical interests, the assessment of Davenport’s views on these matters enlarges our knowledge of the development of his thought. Our analysis shows how Davenport can be enrolled among the forerunners of the modern theory of positional goods. Moreover, our article offers some new findings on the impact of Veblen’s ideas on one of his closest students at the Chicago University.     

Competition and forecasts for Nobel prize awards

The evolution of Nobel prize awards is studied as a learning/growing process. A simple logistic function describes the data well and accounts for the competition, be it between individuals or between nations. The American niche appears to be 64% exhausted by 1987, implying a diminishing expected rate of laureates in the future. Europeans have been losing ground continuously from the beginning while the remaining world has recently received more awards. Projections to the year 2000 and beyond are given. Correlations with age support the Darwinian nature of the competition for Nobel prizes. Awards to women show peaks coincidental with outbursts of feminism.     

What's really behind the attack on silicone breast implants

Millions of dollars are being awarded by injuries and a major company has been forced into bankruptcy because of litigation over silicone breast implants. Yet scientific research hasn't established a link between the implants and disease, notes Marcia Angell, executive editor of the New England Journal of Medicine. When she began studying the issue, this self-described feminist and liberal Democrat expected to uncover iniquities of big business and the implant manufacturers. Instead, she's written an indictment of the tort system, junk science, and the gullibility of the news media. Attorneys have twisted facts and played on the emotions of juries, with the consent of judges and often to the cheers of the press. Angell worries that it's now become politically correct to bash the scientific method in the name of diversity, multiculturalism, and feminism.     

A critical 'post' to critical realism

The aim of this paper is to initiate a dialogue between criticalrealism (CR) and what is termed a ‘post'ist perspective’.This amalgamated perspective is composed of relatively recenttransdisciplinary theoretical approaches such as poststructuralism,deconstruction, feminism and postcolonial theory. Such a conversationbetween CR and post'isms within economics has not been attemptedbefore. I shall argue that this uncommon methodological exchangeis worth pursuing, since it allows us to raise important newquestions. After the initial stage-setting, the dialogue proceedsin two parts. In the first part, aspects of CR are evaluatedusing post'ist insights. In the second part, certain underconsideredtheoretical domains in CR are highlighted. I conclude by sketchingthe outline of a possible non-universalist and strategicallyessentialist way of considering knowledge—as a ContextualSocial Political Economy praxis.     

Schrödinger's notebook: Shifting real

The science fiction prototype featured in this article is the second chapter of a novel in progress that contains an omnibus of interventions into physics, queer science, feminism, and intellectual history. The title of the article references the notebooks of Erwin Schrödinger, a Nobel-Prize winning physicist who discovered wave theory that superseded Heisenberg's more complex form of mathematical formalism, therefore changing the way in which interpretation is done. Despite being part of a series, the prototype is written so it could be read as a standalone. The story, combined with a critical explication of its background and intent, produces the contestations illustrating the relationships between physics, the cultures in science and technology, as well as politics extending over the internal and external values of the scientific enterprise. Specifically, the differences between these values are rendered impossible through the epistemic continuity stemming from a shared ontology. At the same time, the prototype also forecasts the possibility of future technologies based on current and possible developments in physics while contesting the notion of a ‘good life’ these technologies supposedly offer. As a politically inclined epistemic move, the prototype will demonstrate points of amplification in the interactions taking place at the microscopic level for manifestation in our macroscopic space. Therefore, the amplified microscopic interactions are in competition with the observables in our ‘meatspace’ dominated by the conventions of classical physics. The prototype also acts as a speculative device for modeling probable outcomes stemming from different constraint sets, thereby acting as an ‘algorithmic’ blueprint for the narration of scenarios produced as an outcome of macro- and micro-entanglement.     

Constitutional protection of economic rights: The Swiss and U.S. experience in comparison

This paper analyzes the contribution of the Swiss and the U.S. Constitution to protect economic liberties, and compares the different strategies that both constitutions rely on to achieve this goal. Pertinent provisions in the Swiss Constitution are rather precise but relatively easy to change, whereas the U.S. Constitution is characterized by vaguely formulated constraints that are difficult to amend formally and that are interpreted by the Supreme Court. Nevertheless, the substantial constitutional changes that did occur in both countries seem to have followed strikingly similar patterns: Initially, regional integration through reciprocal market opening within both countries facilitated the constitutional protection of economic liberties. Subsequently, the constitutional protection of economic liberties eroded in both countries, especially against federal legislation, due to changes in the interpretation of the constitution through the courts, or by formal amendment. Lastly, both constitutions were not immune against sudden demands by special interest groups that were being raised during times of crisis or war. I wish to thank Beat Blankart, Ludger Schuknecht and Barry Weingast for helpful comments.     

Social comparisons in wage delegation: experimental evidence

We make two main contributions in this article. We examine whether social comparisons affects workers’ performance when a firm can choose workers’ wages or let them choose their own. Firms can delegate the wage decision to neither, one or both workers in the firm. We vary the information workers receive, finding that social comparisons concerning both wages and decision rights affect workers’ performance. Our second contribution is methodological. We find that our treatment effects are present with both stated effort and a real-effort task, which suggests that both approaches may yield similar results in labor experiments.