Feminist critiques of orthodox economics: A survey

Abstract

This survey outlines the arguments of feminist critics of economic orthodoxy, focusing on the frameworks, methodologies, and definitions of economic activity. Such critics argue that the scarcity/choice framework of economically rational agents maximising satisfaction is inadequate in its treatment of interdependence and conflict, in treating tastes as exogeneous and all equally valid, and hence reinforcing the public/private split. They consider the claims to value free positive methodology to be spurious, and a means of avoiding distributional and ethical issues. It is argued by feminist economists that these aspects of orthodoxy, together with the focus on market exchange almost exclusively in measures of economic activity, involve gender bias. The article goes on to examine why such criticisms have been largely neglected by orthodoxy, discussing the numbers and position of women in the profession, and the ways in which incentive structures, gatekeeping, graduate training, texts and the construction of knowledge combine to marginalise feminist critiques. It ends with a brief discussion of possibilities for improvement to orthodox analysis.

Notes

Victoria University of Wellington.