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to the main page(published in The Chronicle of Higher Education 42(42), June 28, 1996,
p. B3)
To many people outside the profession, and certainly to many economists,
the discipline of economics would seem to be above the political and social
battles associated with the feminist movement. Economics, after all, seeks
to be an objective science, and its models and
methods are designed to insure that economic analysis is truly rigorous.
Some economists may admit that the profession might have harbored some sexist
biases in the past in hiring or curriculum, but may argue that these have
been largely overcome. The prominence of such economists as Alice Rivlin
(director of the Office of Management and Budget and nominee to the Board
of Governors of the Federal Reserve System) and June O'Neill (director of
the Congressional Budget Office) roles in the recent debates about the federal
budget indicates the advances that women have made in the profession. New
courses such as "Women in the Economy," and an increasingly widespread
use of gender-neutral language in textbooks signal the openness of many
departments to some modifications of the curriculum.
While progress on these fronts should not be belittled, a growing number
of feminist economists argue that their insights extend beyond the issues
of hiring and curriculum, to the core assumptions, models, and methods that
define the discipline. We argue that, far from guaranteeing
objectivity, the current definition of economics reflects deep-seated, gender-related
biases. The definition of economics as the study--using techniques based
in mathematics--of rational choices made by autonomous individuals assumes
views of human identity and of the nature of knowledge that are closely
linked to our culture+s notions of masculinity.
How much this definition shapes what economists do may not be apparent to
someone unfamiliar with the nature of current academic economic research.
An outsider, for example, would probably expect economic research on "Worker
Behavior in the Transition from Socialism
to Capitalism" to include some data on the actual behavior of workers
during the recent changes in Eastern Europe. An insider, however, would
not be surprised to find an absence of data and a reliance instead on models
using mathematical game theory. An outsider might expect economists to spend
much of their time gathering and studying data, as physical scientists and
other social scientists do. Insiders know that economists tend to use and
re-use the same secondary sources--when we examine data at all. In short,
although outsiders may assume that economists study how people produce,
distribute, and consume goods, insiders understand that the name of the
game is to explain everything in terms of rational choice theory.
Many economists, of course, do succeed in doing useful empirical and policy-oriented
work, but these results are achieved in spite of, rather than because of,
the graduate education they received, and the values commonly held within
professional economics.
One might defend this emphasis on abstract theorizing and disembodied statistical
technique on the ground that such work constitutes "basic science."
We don't expect theoretical physicists
studying electricity to repair toasters, so why should we expect academic
economists to repair policies? The problem with this analogy is that models
of electricity tend to be grounded in empirical observations (which underlie
even the workings of toasters), whereas contemporary
economic theorizing is based on a set of a priori postulates that focus
on only selected aspects of human behavior.
The central model of economics views people as individuals, and each individual
as self-interested, autonomous, rational, and free to choose among different
actions. Logically, the converse of this would be a view of people as linked
to others and concerned about their welfare--
people who are dependent, emotional, and subject to decisions made by others
or influences from the social or natural environment. Not just coincidentally,
all the characteristics in the first list have been, in modern Western and
English-speaking cultures, associated with stereotypical masculinity, while
all those in the latter list are associated with stereotypical femininity.
Similarly, analytical methods associated with detachment, mathematical reasoning,
formality, and abstraction have cultural associations that are positive
and masculine, in contrast with methods
associated with connectedness, verbal reasoning, informality, and concrete
detail, which are culturally considered feminine--and inferior.
Feminist economists argue that the process of making certain models, topics,
and methods central to the discipline did not grow out of a rational weighing
of the relative importance of various topics or the relative effectiveness
of different assumptions, but rather resulted from a process strongly influenced
by economists' perceptions of the relative value of traits and activities
that are seen as masculine or feminine. Thus traditional economists like
to focus on the "tough" areas of public life (by which they mean
markets and government) and on the efficient use of economic resources,
pushing aside the "soft" areas of family finances and economic
and social equity. The current restricted range of economic topics, models
and methods is seen by feminist economists not as a sign of rigor, but rather
as a sign of narrow, biased thinking.
For the most part, feminist challenges within economics do not suggest that
all previous work be thrown out, perhaps to be replaced by a stereotypically
"feminine" economics--for example, one that emphasizes verbal
analysis over mathematics. Nor do most feminists advocate the creation of
a distinct "female" economics that would be practiced by women
only. What we do urge is that economists recognize how masculine biases
have shaped the notion of what counts as valuable economic knowledge. We
want to investigate how a less biased discipline, that uses a broader picture
of human behavior and a larger methodological toolbox, could yield a more
reliable understanding of economic phenomena.
Unfortunately, feminist revelations of the distortions implicit in current
economic practice have not yet had much impact on the discipline. Perhaps
more than other academic fields, economics is protected by its core paradigm
from any critique of how it operates. The very idea that economics as a
discipline even has a particular sociology or philosophy, much less a sexist
one, seems a peculiar argument to the many economists who treat the central
paradigm as revealed truth. In spite of the fact that the International
Association for Feminist Economics, formed in 1991, has a substantial membership
of women and men who hold Ph.D.'s from mainstream, often major, universities,
our critique is often perceived as coming from the "outside."
This feminist critique is needed, however, to help save economics from implosion
upon its current narrow assumptions, about what is interesting about human
behavior and how it might be studied. Schools and departments of public
policy, industrial relations, business, and the like are now more apt to
produce students capable of analyzing economic realities than are economics
departments, many of whose students are capable only of manipulating a limited
set of mathematical models. Many people outside the economics profession,
in academe as among the
general public, already suspect that the only people who think the results
of economic studies are useful are economists themselves.
One of the key tenets of contemporary economic theory, however, is that
people respond to incentives. Therefore we believe that important "outsiders"
can play a part in helping feminist economists to transform the discipline.
Deans, administrators, and officials of government agencies and foundations
can influence the profession by supporting a broader range of research and
urging the hiring of economists more oriented to empirical analysis of people+s
actual economic behavior and the workings of real-world economies.
One change that feminists would like to see, of course, is more research
and courses that examine the role of gender in, for example, labor markets,
families, and government policies. But if we are to improve economic scholarship,
then deans and other administrators also need to pay attention to the nature
of the assumptions, models, and methods being used by economists in all
areas of study. The trend within many economics departments is towards more
research and courses in high-tech but narrow fields, and ever "tougher"
and more esoteric work in all areas. Current trends towards more courses
and more hiring of faculty members specializing in advanced game theory,
"New Classical" macroeconomics, and advanced econometrics, for
example, should be greeted with some suspicion by the larger college or
university, because of the emphasis on a priori theorizing and disembodied
technique in these areas. But even particular research projects or courses
whose titles
suggest applied topics, such as labor market discrimination or economic
development in the third world, may, on examination, consist largely of
a priori rational choice theorizing as well. Thus we need to encourage courses
and research projects that emphasize the analysis of real economic problems
using empirical data and a broader range of (perhaps interdisciplinary)
models and techniques.
Feminist analysis suggests that the increasing detachment of economics from
the pressing concerns of the real world, and the narrow range of models
used by economists, stem at least partly from the discipline+s overreliance
on theories, approaches, and topics that emphasize such "masculine"
values as abstraction and detached self- interest. If economics is to become
a useful and rigorous discipline, it should heed the feminist critique.
Julie A. Nelson is associate professor of economics at Brandeis
University and the author of Feminism, Objectivity and Economics
(Routledge, 1996).
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