Gender Economics

Dr. Vibhuti Patel, DIRECTOR, PGSR

Professor & Head, Department of Economics,
SNDT Women’s University, Churchgate, Mumbai-400020.
E-mail- [email protected]
Phone-91-022-22052970 (O), 26770227 ®, mobile-9321040048

(Presented at Refresher Course on Women’s Studies organized by

Academic Staff College of University of Gauhati, Guwahati, Assam on 30-6-06)

Introduction
Gender Economics is an academic discipline is a science concerned about women’s equality with
man and the development of women. It provides an analytical tool, a worldview to understand
the status of women and an alternative viewpoint to existing knowledge construction. It is inter-
disciplinary in perspective. It is a partisan discipline, i.e. it is pro-women; at the same time, not
anti-men. It emphasizes the need for providing a material basis for women’s independence and
autonomy. Important objectives of women’s studies are as follows:
• To facilitate the process of understanding, recognizing and giving due importance to the
contributions made by women and men.
• To examine the reasons for subordination of women and for male domination.
• To empower women to attain gender justice and an effective role in all decision- making
processes.
• To evolve development alternatives with women.
• To ensure visibility of women as change agents for the enhancement of the status of
women.
• To identify and understand roots of inequality that result in invisibility, marginalisation
and exclusion of women from the intellectual world.
• To support social action aimed at equality, development, peace, education, health and
employment of women.

Concepts in Gender Economics

‘Sex’ Versus ‘Gender’

Sex is a biological term and gender refers to the sex of the individual after socialization. Sex
refers to biological difference between men and women. Gender is a social construct that defines
social relationship between men and women. Women belong to the feminine gender because
during the process of growing up , certain culturally constructed feminine traits are inculcated
into them, right from the birth.

Oppression and Exploitation

Any form of dehumnisation and degradation, violence and injustice, terrorization and
humiliation, intimidation and threat, subordination and discrimination is considered as

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‘OPPRESSION’, while ‘Exploitation’ has an economic connotation. In a Marxian sense, it is an
extraction of ‘surplus labour’ (that generates profit) over and above ‘necessary labour’ that an
individual does for his/her subsistence.

Socialisation

Socialisation is defined as the process through which the self acquires the rules, social recipes,
conceptions of appropriate conduct and knowledge that allows them to act in their socio-cultural-
political world. It is a mechanism of cultural transmission. Gender socialization means the
process by which the individual is taught to internalize socially determined values of appropriate
masculine traits and feminine traits.

Social Construction

It is the process by which men and women are moulded into the culture of the group and thereby
become accepted members of the group/community/society and measure up to their expectations.

Deconstruction and Reconstruction

They are the analytical tools to examine individuals unfolding capacity to complex forms of
behaviour and direct those capacities to now ethos/values to create new personalities. In gender
economics, these analytical tools are used to bring a change from ‘gender biased’ or ‘gender
neutral’ attitude to ‘gender aware’ and ‘gender sensitive’ attitude.

Patriarchy
Patriarchy is an institution that perpetuates male domination and female subordination. It
sustains power relations that discriminate against girls and women in the households and in the
economy. It attributes ‘private’ realm to women and ‘public’ domain to men. Pillars of patriarchy
are family, kinship network, state, religion and media- PANCH MAHABHOOTA. In a
patriarchal society, the line of inheritance passes from father to son known as Patrilineage. The
patriarchal order is Patrilocal i.e after marriage, the bride is expected to go to the groom’s
residence.

Matriarchy
Matriarchal institutions are mother centered. In this system, the line of inheritance is from
mother to daughter, known as Matrilineage. After marriage, groom goes to brides house termed
as Matrilocal.

Trends in Feminism
a. Liberal Feminists- Those who focus on the constitutional guarantees of equal treatment
of men and women are known as liberal feminists.
b. Marxist Feminsts- Those who locate women’s subordination in a class contradictions
are known to be Marxist feminists.
c. Radical Feminists consider ‘patriarchy’ as main culprit for women’s woes.
d. Socialist Feminists believe that women’s predicaments are determined by the complex
interplay of class, caste, race, religion, ethnicity with patriarchy. Hence the need for

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 deconstructing patriarchy in a different socio-cultural, geo-political and historical
contexts.
e. Psycho Analytical Feminists focus on individual journeys of women to arrive at mental
make up and internalization of values by the people concerned. They critique Freud for
its misogyny but also acknowledge Freud’s analysis of childhood experiences playing
important role in the rest of the life.
f. Post Modern Feminists contest hegemony of meta theories and dominant discourses and
bring to the fore the voice of the subjugated, oppressed and marginalized. They
emphasise ‘decentreing’ from the mainstream.
g. Eco-feminists believe that women’s role in the subsistence economy is crucial for the
survival of the humankind. Women have symbiotic relationship with mother-nature. Male
dominated development models are violent towards mother earth and women.
h. Black Feminists- Race is the central reality for the black feminists though they also
challenge the patriarchal/male domination.
i. Womanist- Womanism is a contribution of Afro American feminists who believe that in
spite of barbaric experiences of slavery, subjugation and horror the black
culture/celebrations have survived due to women’s resilience. There is a need to promote
this celebrations/cultural legacies thro’ heritage of oral histories, legend, grandmothers’
stories. They believe that the non-while and coloured women must be proud of
HERSTORY instead of aping the white, consumerist, oppressive male culture.

Gender Based Division of labour has existed in all societies for thousands of years. In India, it is
based on the ideology of male dominance, caste and social norms of ‘purity and pollution’. It is
also based upon the notion that women are physically weaker than men and are not suited for
physically arduous tasks. Women’s biological tasks of monthly menstruation and pregnancy,
confined them to subsistence economy such as lowly paid agricultural work, handicrafts and also
household work.

Gender and the Process of Economic Development.

The incorporation of subsistence economies into ‘modern’ market economies has brought into
question the traditional gender-based division of labour as an organizing principle in the rural
and urban sector because of the basic injustice it perpetuates. Women end up doing the least
skilled work and are underpaid or are expected to contribute to survival needs of the family
without any corresponding benefits. Esther Boserup in her pioneering work brought to fore
African women’s crucial contribution towards food security and explained the political economy
of polygamy in Africa that allowed men to concentrate and centralize economic resources thro’
unpaid and backbreaking labour of women and children in the subsistence economy that did not
have much animal resources for cultivation of land.
Economic Basis and Functioning of Patriarchy and Matrilineal societies, structures and systems
Patriachy thrives on control of women’s sexuality, fertility and labour for male hegemony over
economic resources. Analytical tools provided by Gender Economics (GE) are extremely useful
to deal with the socio-economic and legal issues concerning marriage, divorce, custody of
children, guardianship rights, alimony, maintenance, property rights of mother, sister, daughter,
legally wedded wives and her child/ children, co-wives and their children, keeps and their
children and the issues concerning adoption. GE has a special significance in the subsistence
economy, which uses the kinship networks, institutions of polygamy and polyandry for

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concentration and centralisation of wealth and capital by either the patriarchs or the matriarchs.
Domestic animals, women and children are the main assets in the subsistence sector where
collection of fuel, fodder, water are important components of daily life over and above agrarian
chores, live-stock rearing and kitchen gardening.
GE has drawn heavily from all mainstream disciplines and innumerable social movements of the
last three decades. GE provides insights to examine budgets of Government Organisations (GOs)
and Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) from the point of view of gender justice. Priority
areas being women's education, health and nutrition, skill development, accounts, financial and
commercial viability, legal standing, asset and corpus building. GE contextualises day to day
survival struggles of women in the family, in the households, in the community and in the micro,
meso and macro economy with the perspective of power relations which control women and girl
children's sexuality, fertility and labour.
To explain this concept, I would like to give some examples from popular culture:
Control of women's sexuality
A) Dress code which, restricts mobility of women and girls, does not allow her to do those
chores which require flexible body movements, reduces her efficiency and employability
in non-conventional occupations.
B) "Tool" as a phallic symbol, not being allowed to be used by menstruating women as it is
supposed to have contaminating influence. Hostility towards women who ride bicycles,
drive cars and scooters, operate machines and use ploughs for farming, wheels for
pottery, saw for carpentry.
C) Women being treated as repository of custom and tradition and cultural practices, dedicated
as devdasis, jogtis and forced to undergo series of masochistic fasting, scarification and
self infliction of pain which make them unemployable and perpetually dependant on the
patriarchs. They enjoy only subversive power of a comfort woman that too, is mediated
by men, as they don't have any legal rights. In the commercial context, the same happens
to women beneficiary of Maitri-Karar (friendship contract) and Seva-karar (Service
contract).
D) Need for male escorts, bodyguards for dainty, sickly and weak women who see their
identity as anorexic women. Billion-dollar beauty business thrives by controlling young
women so that they are incapable of using their body for manual chores. Here, women's
insecurity about their looks is used by the cosmetic industry.
E) Women eating last, the least and the left over. Nourishing and balanced diet as a male
prerogative. Daughters and brides kept on starvation diet. Food secures middle-aged
women as honorary men.
Inference of A, B, C, D and E - Declining sex ratio – As per 2001 census (933 women per 1000
men), high mortality and morbidity rates.
Control of women's fertility:
A) Women being treated as male-child producing machine. Customary practices of female
infanticide and neglect and abandonment of girl child, scientific techniques of sex
determination tests used for female foeticide, pre-conception elimination of female
embryo with the help of sex-preselection techniques.

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B) Population policies targeting women for unsafe contraceptives and harmful hormone based
contraceptive researches, which violate bodily integrity and dignity of married and
unmarried girls and women.
C) Laws on prostitution penalising and persecuting women victims of sexploitation running a
parallel economy of as much as 200 billion rupees.
D) Social boycott of unwed mothers. Illegitimate children being stigmatised by society and
deprived of economic, social and educational opportunities. They are further
marginalised in the economy, which is undergoing massive structural adjustments and
instability. Facilities like identity card, ration card and other legal documents which are a
must for citizenship rights are not provided to them.
Inference of A, B, C and D, can be named as brothel model of economic development which
thrives on unpaid and invisiblised labour of women. It perpetuates the vicious circle of Child
marriage, child prostitution and child labour (CP, CM and CL). Super-exploitation of female
headed household and domestic workers get sanctity in this model. Women have to shoulder this
added burden along with the burden of the vicious circle of poverty, over-population and
unemployment.
3 Control of women's labour:
A) Use of women in the economy for the occupations which, are extensions of housework, i.e.
3 Cs (cooking, cleaning and caring). Only 6 % of women are in the organised sector
which guarantees protection of labour legislation and ERA (Equal Remuneration Act).
94% of women are in the informal sector which does not guarantee job-security, regular
income and personal safety.
B) Demonisation of highly qualified, efficiency plus and career women. Witch hunting of
intellectually independent and verbally articulate women workers, employees, technicians
and decision-makers.
C) Sexual harassment as an occupational hazard to crush the confidence of women and to keep
them in the state of perpetual terrorisation, humiliation and intimidation.
Inference of A, B and C, can be limited opportunities for women and ghettoisation of women in
non-challenging, routinised and low-status jobs known as "women prone industries" in the
official discourse. Most of the economic activities done by majority of women are non-marketed
and non-monetised and reward for labour does not reflect the value of their labour. In such a
situation to gauge economic worth of their work Time Use studies are the most effective tools to
identify their opportunity costs.
Market, Mobility and Women
Globalisation induced mobility of women has posed new problems for women in the labour
market. Hence, efforts at empowerment of women by 550 feminist economists who are
functioning in 31 countries under the banner of International Association of Feminist Economics
to provide DAWN (Development Alternatives with Women) gain tremendous importance in the
contemporary context. According to them, the most pressing issues are as follows:
a. Economic Profile of special needs population- Female headed households (Divorced,
deserted, widowed, separated women), home based workers, women workers in the
family enterprise, self-employed women, and women entrepreneurs.

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b. Analysis of nature of occupational diversification among women, industrial classification-
Implications of office automation, computerisation, flexi-time, job-sharing, tele working,
and part time work.
c. Effects of structural adjustment on Market segmentation- segmented factor market
affects self-employed women directly when they want to buy raw material and other
services. Segmented labour-market has direct bearing on the daily grind of women
workers in the informal sector. Segmented product market makes unorganised women
workers and women's collectives without networking insecure and vulnerable as sellers.
d. Economic basis of customary laws and the family laws: When the customary laws get
codified, we must be vigilant about the fact that women's interests are not sacrificed.
Women’s land rights and property rights need special mention at the time of codification
of personal laws. Except for Andhra Pradesh and the North Eastern states, women have
lost their customary land rights due to Land Reform Act.
e. In mega development projects, which displace the native population, care must be taken to
see to it that women get equal share in monetary compensation, land-rights and right to
shelter. The same applies to the social and natural disaster management programmes.
f. Political Economy of GET RICH QUICK formula in the name of dowry, sati (widow
burning), Bhootali (witch hunting) for land grab, house-grab or to deprive women of their
legitimate property rights should be examined with a consideration for avoiding violence
against women.
g. Women's Empowerment by Men Decision Makers-In a situation where women's agency
is virtually non-existent, the benevolent patriarch wedded to the cause of Women's
empowerment become project coordinators. Guidelines for Utilisation of Constituency
Development Funds of Members of Parliament and Members of Legislative Assembly and
Area Development Fund of corporators for women's education, employment, training,
capacity building are drawn by Gender economists.
1.6 Gender Bias in Theories of Value, Distribution and Population has been a major bone
of contention. Neoclassical analysis based on law of marginal utility in consumer analysis,
marginal cost in the product pricing and marginal productivity have come under severe scrutiny.
In the area of home economics, Nobel Laureate Gary Backer’s model of ‘competing interests’ in
distribution of resources in the households and higher ‘opprtunity cost’ of men as ‘bread-earner’
and women as ‘home-maker’ is criticized by women’s studies scholars as sexist and statusquo-
ist. Amartya Kumar Sen and Martha Nassbaum have put forward a concept of ‘cooperative
conflict’ in the theory of distribution. Feminist Reading of Economic Laws: Marginal
Productivity Theory and Laws of Maximisation form basic tenets of Gender Economics. The
feminists economists also believe in engendering micro and macro economics.
Feminist Criticism of Development Indices and WID- WAD- GAD:
Conventional indicators of development such as modernization, technological development,
mechanization, automation, urbanization, industrialization are critiqued by women’s studies as
they have bypassed and marginalized women. They have provided three approaches to
understand women’s role in the micro-meso and macro economy.
There has been a coexistence of three approaches for women's development. WID- Women in
Development model explains the reasons for women being treated as beneficiaries of the crumbs

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thrown at them, in the margin of the economy, consumer and an auxiliary labour force to be
utilised in the crisis period and eased out the moment men are ready for take over. The discourse
revolved around the economic growth paradigm. WAD- Women and Development model
integrates women in the development work as active change agents. Affirmative action by the
state and pro-active approach by the civil society through NGOs and women's groups are
advocated by these models for empowerment of women against the forces of patriarchal class
society. NGOs-voluntary organisations implementing this approach have become powerful force
during 1990s. GAD - Gender and Development model is based on an understanding of gender
relations and empowers the weak (he or she). Gender is socially constructed and gender relations
are power relations. Here power is an important analytical category. Explicit measures of gender
inequalities are sex-ratio, literacy rates, health and nutrition indicators, wage differentials,
ownership of land and property. "The implicit relations are those embedded in relations of power
and in hierarchies and are more difficult to measure. Located in the household, in custom,
religion, and culture, these intra-household inequalities result in unequal distribution of power,
control over resources and decision-making, dependence rather than self-reliance and unfair,
unequal distribution of work, drudgery and even food."(Asha Kapur Mehta) Super women who
are able to look after the interests of each and every stake group are survivors in this model. In
the Indian context, gender relations are determined by the complex interplay of power relations
based on class, caste, ethnicity and religion.
Visibility of women in statistics and data system-

For effective execution of macro policies such as National Perspective Plan for Women,
Maharashtra State Women's Policy, we need an accurate data-base, area studies and time
allocation studies, studies on energy expenditure and food consumption patterns among women
of different communities, public utility services such as safe transport, public urinals, women's
room in the office. Gender economists have done pioneering work to understand demographic
profile of women and sex-ratio. Formulation of gender aware data system on literacy, education
level, employment and earnings, health and well-being helps proper planning and policy making
for empowerment of women. Inter -district, Inter-state and Cross country comparisions of
women's empowerment are obtained from Gender related Development Index(GDI). GDI owes
its origin to its precursor, the HDI (Human Development Index), three main components of
which are per capita income, educational attainment and life-expectancy which is a proxy for
health attainment. .Gender disparities are measured keeping these three indicators into
consideration. "An additional measure, gender empowerment measure(GEM) has been
formulated to take into account aspects relating to economic participation and decision-making
by women. The indicators used in GEM are share in income, share in parliamentary seats and an
index that includes share in administrative and managerial jobs and share in professional and
technical posts." (K.Seeta Prabhu, P.C. Sarkar and A. Radha. This exercise is done with a
philosophical understanding that without engendering, human development is endangered.
(UNDP, 1995).

Neoclassical versus Institutional Approach

Neoclassical approach of consumer’s rationality (Maximisation of utility) and producers’
rationality (Maximisation of profit) has come under massive attack from the women’s studies
scholars as they find it ahistorical, simplistic and gender –neutral. Its philosophy of Laissez Faire
does not acknowledge the unequal power relations determined by colonialism, neo-colonialism

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and segmentation in the labour, factor and product markets based on caste, class, ethnicity, race,
religion, age and gender. As against this; institutional approach is found more realistic and hence
appropriate as takes into consideration historical, socio-cultural, geographical and political
dynamics in economic analysis

Development Debate-Human Development Approach

Current development debate has resulted into generation of Meaningful Indicators of Women
and Development Comparative data of 130 countries regarding gender-related development
index (GDI) reveals that gender-equality does not depend entirely on the income level of society.
The human development approach which focuses on demographic, health, educational and
human rights profiles have revealed that there is an urgent need to reexamine this approach by
conducting participatory action research and rapid rural appraisal not by social scientists alone,
but in collaboration with other professionals such as scientists, doctors- occupational health and
safety experts, engineers and lawyers who believe that like them, citizens from subsistence sector
also have right to enjoy fruits of modern science and technology in terms of food security, safe
transport, clean environment, secure housing and healthy life. India ranks 103rd in GDI and 104th
in the HDI as, the Indian women enjoy nearly 1/5th of the total earned income, life expectancy of
60.4 years and 35.2 % adult literacy rate and combined primary, secondary and tertiary Gross
enrollment ratio (GER) of 45.8. While their male counterparts enjoy 4/5th of the earned income,
life expectancy of 60.3 years, 63.7 % adult literacy rate and combined primary, secondary and
tertiary GER of 63.8. HDI for India is 0. 398 and GDI for India is 0.401. There is a gender gap of
0.003. (Human Development Report, UNDP, OUP, Bombay, 1995, p.33.) As compared to their
male counterparts women in India have higher life expectancy because women from the middle
and upper classes live in a secure environment, produce one or two children and control food
(kitchen) of the household.