![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Feminist Economics
May. 13th, 2011 08:00 pmIt is extremely annoying that the words "economics" and "economist" have their accents on different syllables. Just saying.
I'm currently taking a course called "Political economics and history of economic theory" - a brief overview of important economic theories, from mercantilism to globalization. The topic is interesting, the class itself is boring. But! We have to do presentations and essays, each group is presenting one major theory. And in a moment of insight I chose "feminist economics".
This is the most interesting topic I've so far encountered during my studies. It's fascinating. To understand where feminist economics comes from one has to start with feminism in general, feminist theory of/in science and so on. Of course, almost every other group got a nice, succinct overview of their topic from our professor as a starting point (you can't expect undergraduate students to think for themselves, after all!), except the ecological economics group and us. So we actually had to inform ourselves, look for information, read source material and the like.
It's difficult, not the usual easy textbook reading. But that's great! I finally get the sense that I can evaluate for myself what they are saying, because I don't only see it through the lenses of someone else. I can read different opinions. I'm educating myself, instead of just repeating everything our professors tell us. It feels great.
And so much of what they're saying makes so much sense! The first economics classes we had was only neoclassical theory, and it was presented as "this is economics, period." With axioms that just - didn't apply to the real world, but apparently nobody saw it. To be honest, that was one of the main reasons why I decided not to study economics.
Feminist economics criticizes neoclassical theories - finally! Sure, there are others who did/do the same, but I didn't know about them. Or they got mentioned in passing, but obviously everyone still believes in neoclassical theory, so it must be right, or at least they don't have anything better. It's wonderful to read the vague doubts I had articulated and argued and elaborated on. And the material I'm reading is not "this is the way we have to do it", but "some do it this way, some choose this approach, (but I do so-and-so)" etc., which, again, makes me feel much less indoctrinated. (There are so many different approaches! And even more different feminist schools of thought! Wow.)
Anecdote: To start with I looked, again, at some Feminism 101 articles I had bookmarked. Much of what I found I was already familiar with, and I'd only occasionally and unsystematically deliberately read about feminism before. Most of what I knew I knew through fandom. I <3 fandom.
I'm still not finished with the book I'm currently reading. I now know approximately what post-structuralism is and I can't wait to find out what she does with it in the later chapters - I can't remember when I last found a book I had to read for university this interesting. And when I finish this book I want to find another book in which the first one is commented on and criticized, and then one that compares the two, and then I'll miss the deadline for submitting the paper.
The weird flipside is that I'm - kind of annoyed, and a tiny little bit ashamed, that I didn't know much of this already. Because it's important. But I think that's another fandom effect: there are so many extremely smart people in fandom, and I want to be that smart, too. Heh. Maybe in many, many years.
We have to write an essay about our topic, 10 pages. Sooo easy (once I manage to sit down and start to write, and find the time, because there are only ten different things I also have to do.) I'm almost sure I want to do something with this topic for my undergraduate thesis, I only need to find a professor (not this one.)
Now dinner, and then some more feminist standpoint theory.
I'm currently taking a course called "Political economics and history of economic theory" - a brief overview of important economic theories, from mercantilism to globalization. The topic is interesting, the class itself is boring. But! We have to do presentations and essays, each group is presenting one major theory. And in a moment of insight I chose "feminist economics".
This is the most interesting topic I've so far encountered during my studies. It's fascinating. To understand where feminist economics comes from one has to start with feminism in general, feminist theory of/in science and so on. Of course, almost every other group got a nice, succinct overview of their topic from our professor as a starting point (you can't expect undergraduate students to think for themselves, after all!), except the ecological economics group and us. So we actually had to inform ourselves, look for information, read source material and the like.
It's difficult, not the usual easy textbook reading. But that's great! I finally get the sense that I can evaluate for myself what they are saying, because I don't only see it through the lenses of someone else. I can read different opinions. I'm educating myself, instead of just repeating everything our professors tell us. It feels great.
And so much of what they're saying makes so much sense! The first economics classes we had was only neoclassical theory, and it was presented as "this is economics, period." With axioms that just - didn't apply to the real world, but apparently nobody saw it. To be honest, that was one of the main reasons why I decided not to study economics.
Feminist economics criticizes neoclassical theories - finally! Sure, there are others who did/do the same, but I didn't know about them. Or they got mentioned in passing, but obviously everyone still believes in neoclassical theory, so it must be right, or at least they don't have anything better. It's wonderful to read the vague doubts I had articulated and argued and elaborated on. And the material I'm reading is not "this is the way we have to do it", but "some do it this way, some choose this approach, (but I do so-and-so)" etc., which, again, makes me feel much less indoctrinated. (There are so many different approaches! And even more different feminist schools of thought! Wow.)
Anecdote: To start with I looked, again, at some Feminism 101 articles I had bookmarked. Much of what I found I was already familiar with, and I'd only occasionally and unsystematically deliberately read about feminism before. Most of what I knew I knew through fandom. I <3 fandom.
I'm still not finished with the book I'm currently reading. I now know approximately what post-structuralism is and I can't wait to find out what she does with it in the later chapters - I can't remember when I last found a book I had to read for university this interesting. And when I finish this book I want to find another book in which the first one is commented on and criticized, and then one that compares the two, and then I'll miss the deadline for submitting the paper.
The weird flipside is that I'm - kind of annoyed, and a tiny little bit ashamed, that I didn't know much of this already. Because it's important. But I think that's another fandom effect: there are so many extremely smart people in fandom, and I want to be that smart, too. Heh. Maybe in many, many years.
We have to write an essay about our topic, 10 pages. Sooo easy (once I manage to sit down and start to write, and find the time, because there are only ten different things I also have to do.) I'm almost sure I want to do something with this topic for my undergraduate thesis, I only need to find a professor (not this one.)
Now dinner, and then some more feminist standpoint theory.
