Economic Rationality and Globalization: A Feminist Perspective
Author(s)
Beneria, Lourdes
Abstract
This selection focuses on Karl Polanyi’s analysis of the social and political construction of markets and of “market society” during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Europe. The author discusses the extent to which this type of analysis can be applied to the formation of global markets in the late twentieth century. The author argues that this transformation had and continues to have gender dimensions and points out the tension between the assumptions of economic rationality associated with market behavior and the real-life experiences of women and men. The author extends this analysis to the effects on women of globalization and the feminization of the labor force. Finally, the author argues that economists need to change the predominant approaches in orthodox neoclassical models to one that puts humans first, an agenda in which feminist economics can play an important role.
