The world
is unequal

Feminist economics offers valuable tools and responses to the profound transformations shaping the global landscape – marked by the digital revolution and a crisis of democracy. Yet, barriers to the full recognition of feminist economists’ approaches and research methods often come from within the discipline itself, which remains heavily dominated by quantitative methods and patriarchal biases.

We discussed this with Sheba Tejani, feminist economist, Senior Lecturer in the Department of International Development at King's College London, and member of the Board of Directors of the International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE).

Tejani’s research focuses on the effects of international trade and economic transformation in developing countries, with particular attention to gender-based inequalities, technological change, and automation – among the key themes of the 2024 IAFFE conference, held at Sapienza University of Rome, where inGenere participated as media partner.

Why is it important to talk about feminist economics and which are, in your opinion, the main challenges that feminist economics is currently facing?

Feminist economics envisions a world where there is equality between people, where we have social justice, where everyone has the means to a decent life, where human rights are protected. And it is even more important for us to talk about feminist economics now, and to adopt some of its principles, because we are facing threats on different fronts. There is a rise of right-wing authoritarian governments all across the world. This is not just something that is limited to Europe but it is happening in many countries also in the Global South: India is an example, Turkey is an example. The hard-won gains of the women's movement historically are being undone – for instance, the repeal of Roe v. Wade, the abortion law in the US. And not only are the gains being undone, but there are new forms of inequalities, exclusions and marginalisation that are currently taking shape – as there is this de-democratisation that is happening in the world and as we are experiencing the fourth industrial revolution.

Digital revolution and crisis of democracy are putting economic and social systems under severe strain worldwide — why can a feminist perspective radically change the way we look at things?

Rather than thinking about technology as a panacea, which is what you see very often in mainstream economics, feminist economists are much more critical of digital technologies: we need to understand the way in which they are reshaping social relations, not only within the labour market but also broadly, politically. Because we know that there is all this surveillance that is possible now through digital technology, and that new forms of violence are emerging. At the same time, digital technology is being adopted in the workplace in ways that are quite transformative, and we are still trying to understand the impacts. So, we need a feminist economics lens because it focuses on relations of power and has an explicitly political aim, which is to generate more equality, to protect rights, to make the world a more just place.

What is left of science’s claim to "neutrality"?

As feminist economists we don't pretend to be objective, neutral researchers. We are, in fact, very engaged with the world, we have a political point of view. Feminism itself is a statement of your politics. This is the difference between gender economics and feminist economics: we are saying that the world is unequal, that women are subordinate to men. And of course, gender is not a binary: there is a whole continuum of genders, and there are people of other genders who are more oppressed by the current patriarchal system. As a consequence, this is kind of embedded in our self-understanding. Therefore, we bring that lens to society and to the economy at large in order to unpack it, and in order to transform it.

In your opinion, what have been the most severe consequences of the pervasive patriarchal biases in economics and dominant theories in terms of social justice and people's lives, also according to your data and research?

I think one of the really important issues right now is the fact that many countries around the world are adopting a policy agenda of austerity. And austerity is driven by very orthodox supply side economics, which believes that micro economic stabilisation can only be controlled by contracting the economy, cutting social expenditures and retracting the state and reducing public expenditure. And as we know, such types of policies hit the poor the hardest: they hit those people who are on welfare, who need help. Welfare measures, educational systems, health systems – that ensure that people in society have access to similar kinds of resources and have similar opportunities – are being attacked. Those kinds of institutions and policies are being retracted under austerity. And it has extremely negative consequences for people who are already marginalised due to their race, to their caste, to their gender and class, of course.

What could you tell us about traditional gender norms – the male breadwinner-female carer model?

As feminist economists, we have always been talking about the fact that gender norms dictate women should be homemakers: they should be primarily responsible for childcare duties and are doing most of the domestic work. Women do three times more the unpaid work in the household as men do. And this has an effect, of course, on their ability to participate in the labour market and to earn a living and to achieve economic independence. But this is not to say, of course, that having a job is a panacea, because we know that many women are also in jobs that are extremely exploitative. They are concentrated in labour-intensive sectors of the economy that are low-paying. They often don't get promoted. And they're kind of stuck in a certain number of occupations that are fewer in number than the kind of occupations that men are in. So these gender norms trap us in many ways.

Among the main themes of your research are the consequences of international trade and economic transformation in developing countries. Could you tell us about the impact of the financialisation of the global economy?

We see that financial institutions and financial transactions, across different geographies and even within countries, have become much larger in terms of their share of GDP. But also they exert more and more power over policymaking and this kind of financialisation has very profound effects down the line. Economists have written about this: that firms are focused on stock buybacks and on shareholder returns, rather than on actually attending to the issues raised by their stakeholders or trying to create a more fair workplace. The focus on shareholder returns is kind of creating a skewed environment. And at the same time, the financial institutions exert a great deal of power on nations that are in debt. And we know there are many cases – Argentina, Sri Lanka – of countries that are in debt and have had to take on these new policy conditionalities as part of the bailout from the International Monetary Fund. So again, this goes back to the first issue that I talked about, that the power of financial institutions is determining national policy and reducing room for policy sovereignty.

Can we say that financialisation is male-dominated?

I think it's more about the dominance of a particular economic ideology – which is also very masculinist in its conception. The idea of the rational economic man is embedded in most neoclassical theory. So that maybe is a patriarchal bias and, maybe patriarchy is not just a singular system: it is very multidimensional and there are also other types of exclusions that get magnified. Whether it's race, whether it's caste, whether it's ethnicity, these kinds of intersectional exclusions and identities make certain populations subject to very severe exclusion. For instance, black people in the US have much worse health outcomes. They are doing the worst kinds of jobs. They face persistent discrimination in the workplace. And even while looking for a job, in the same way in India, the Muslim population faces extreme discrimination. They are mostly clustered in the informal sector. They find it difficult to get jobs and women very often then are at the receiving end of this.

Which barriers have feminist economists and feminist economics been facing so far, in your opinion and/or according to your research activities?

We had some interesting discussions at the conference about the barriers to feminist economics ideas and also to feminist economists, and I think that they are at different levels. So let me start with the academic or the institutional first: you know, all of us – not all of us, but many of us – are trained in orthodox economics methods. Most of the universities around the world that are research universities or are granting PhDs – especially in the Global North, but also to a large extent in the Global South – are very neoclassical, and they are very often hostile to any kind of feminist analysis. Because they feel like market works very well and that there is no need for special attention paid to particular groups. Now that is changing even in neoclassical economics, where people are talking about race and gender. But there is still an assumption that the market works very well, except in some cases where there are some market imperfections. Most of the time, the policy restrictions are to let the market do its own thing and just make a few tweaks and adjustments for these other small little problems. So, we are trained in these orthodox methods and there is a resistance to actually bringing in more critical views on power relations, and also to looking at the role of identities within economics. So that's in terms of feminist economics ideas and feminist economists have been really very effective in pointing to the masculinist bias in economic theory, but also there is a masculinist bias in economic methodology and in the tools that we use.

How can this situation be overcome?

Economics has a real problem in terms of the fact that the only valid method that economists can use to do research are empirical and quantitative methods and mathematical modelling. These are the primary tools, to the extent that it has become part of economics self-definition that we are a “quantitative social science”. And I feel like this is really a problem, and that we need to have a plurality of methods in order to really understand the world around us. In particular, we need a focus on qualitative methods, which can help economists to test their ideas, to reflect on many of the assumptions that they have and to understand the real state of the economy and social relations within the economy much better. I feel like that prevents us really from seeing a lot of what is going on in the economy. 

In what other ways does this affect the role of feminist economists within academia?

There is another element in terms of institutions, which is that a lot of your advancement in your career is decided by other economists who are using traditional methods, and who believe that quantitative methods are the best. And so, very often, young scholars are advised not to use the word “feminist” when talking about their research, to delete that word. Otherwise they might get resistance or won't be taken seriously as economists, they might not get promoted or a permanent job. So there are these pressures, because there is still pervasive kind of gender norms that are constantly signalling to us and queuing us not to talk about inequality and feminism. You have to constantly be balancing that, and they are kind of trying to discipline us from not talking about this.

Do you foresee any changes in the future?

I feel like if we adopt a more critical feminist economics, it will also threaten the whole institution, the whole discipline of economics. Because if we are going to do qualitative work, if we are going to be feminist, if we are going to actually open it up and actually have conversations across the orthodox, heterodox divides in economics, I think the whole kind of edifice of economics will come crumbling down and will be transformed. And I think thatis also why there is so much resistance to feminist economics.