Patriarchy and the Political Economy of Women

Peter F. Bell, PhDVisiting Professor, Faculty of Economics, BE (English

program), Thammasat UniversityEmeritus Professor, State University of New York

peterfbell@gmail.com

Central Arguments

• Human right and women’s rights is central question of 21st century.

• Economics is genderlesss, must be engendered.• Economists have belatedly discovered value of

investment in women in development. • Gender inequality, lack of empowerment, and

persistent violence against women require a new approach (“paradigm”) that incorporates patriarchy.

“Women Hold up Half the Sky”

• Paradox : women produce much of the world’s wealth but own only 10 percent of the resources.

• Issue of social justice, but also opportunity cost: failure to include women leads to inefficient and wasteful of resources.

• Much of women’s work not counted as “work”, but seen as extension of their role as women, or housewives.

Investment in Women

• Gender a “soft subject” • Investment in women is essential for growth• In the early 1990s, the United Nations and the World Bank

began to proclaim the potential resource of women and girls:• “Unless development in engendered, it is endangered”

UNDP, Human Development Report1995• “Investment in girls’ education may well be the highest-

return investment available in the developing world.” Larry Summers, former chief economist of the World Bank.

• “Women are the key to ending hunger in Africa,” declared the Hunger Project.

• The Center for Global Development issued a major report explaining “why and how to put girls at the center of development.” CARE took women and girls as the centerpiece of its anti-poverty efforts.

• “Gender inequality hurts economic growth,” Goldman Sachs concluded in a 2008 research report that emphasized how much developing countries could improve their economic performance by educating girls.

• “Investment in girls’ education may well be the highest-return investment available in the developing world.” Larry Summers, former chief economist of the World Bank.

• Private aid groups and foundations shifted gears as well. “Women are the key to ending hunger in Africa,” declared the Hunger Project.

• The Center for Global Development issued a major report explaining “why and how to put girls at the center of development.” CARE took women and girls as the centerpiece of its anti-poverty programs.

• “Gender inequality hurts economic growth,” Goldman Sachs concluded in a 2008 research report that emphasized how much developing countries could improve their economic performance by educating girls.

The Problem

• Political economy of women is not only about gender inequality, but deeper issues of empowerment freedom from violence., self-determination

• One in four women subject to physical or sexual assault in their life time.

• Thailand 7th most dangerous country for women (after Afghanistan, Congo, Pakistan, India, Somalia;) includes maternal death, rape, physical attack.

http://www.who.int/gender/violence/who_multicountry_study/fact_sheets/Thailand2.pdf

Beyond Economics

• Genderless Economics

• Build around “Economic Man” (androcentric view)

• Models are incomplete, exclude critical variables. Poor science!!

Many issues not adequately explained in conventional theory: gender gap, persistent disadvantage of women in terms of: education, access to health care, legal rights, lack of political empowerment, jjob segregation.

Thailand’s Economy “Built on the Backs of Women”

• In Thailand the economic miracle heralded by the World Bank in the 1980’s and 1990s (that ended in the crash of 1997)was “Built on the backs of Women”(title of an earlier article).

• Women consisted of 80 percent of the labor force in the 10 largest export industries, performed unpaid agricultural work, housework, subsistence production, and provided the bait for the lucrative tourist industry.

Need for new ParadigmParadigms (=theoretical world view)

• Need for new paradigm arises in face of radical changes in social order, or of facts that cannot be explained through existing theoretical framework, (e.g. Great Depression and rise of Keynesian economics.)

• New paradigm always resisted by status quo. (could not get job at an American university in 1960’s if you were Keynesian)

Towards a new paradigm.(“Beyond Economic Man”)

• Patriarchy is core concept in political economy

• Provides theoretical basis for understanding gender inequality (and gendered violence)

• Patriarchy is a set of gendered power relations that derive from the sexual division of labor.

Capitalist Patriarchy

Four building blocks in the emergence of the modern (capitalist) patriarchal system (that arose in Europe from 15th-17th century: Maria Mies, Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale): (a) colonialism, (b) witch hunts, (c) development of modern scientific method, (d) “housewivization.”• Each represent a development and reinforcement of

the sexual divison of labor, or heriarchy of male control.

• Class and gender interwoven.

Globalization

• Globalization has causes major changes n socioeconomic order, many with negative effects on women.

• Increased migration, trafficking, export zones, scramble for valuable resources

• Jacqui True, The Political Economy of Violence Against Women.

• Thousands of young factory workers in Juarez have disappeared, found tortured, mutilated and sexually assaulted.

• One million women in DR of Congo officially raped each year (according to UN Data)

• Sexual assault and torture of women in India, including five year old.

• UN has coined term “gendercide” or femicide” to describe massive killing and brutalization of women.

• Patriarchy makes such pheonomena easier to understand sit arise from male entitlement, objectification of women, high rates of violence, including domestic violence.

Legislative Progress

• Thailand has been a member of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) since 1995.

• The implementation of the CEDAW and the Beijing Platform for Action (BPFA) have had a visible impact on the Thai's legislation in the aspects of women protection and the progress toward gender equality in the country.

• Protection of Domestic Violence Victims Act (2007), the amendment made to the Penal Code to prevent women from being raped by their own spouse, and the indications of gender inequality are also implemented in the recent constitutions

Beyond “Economic Man”

• Çhallenge existing sexual division of labor, and patriarchy.

• Replace economic man with new concept of work, of human and gender development, beyond equality, a society based on feminine principle.

• Men already involved in this struggle.