Karin Schonpflug
Are there feminist, economic utopian visions amongst feminist economists? What are these visions? Is there a common vision for feminist economics or should there be? Can feminist economics be effective without a utopian vision? Comprehensive and original, this book surveys the entire field of utopian literature; from Plato to the present. Answering a range of questions and written by a rising star in feminist economics, it provides explanations of: the different kinds of feminism the evolution of feminist thought; the development of feminist economics; and, the history and sources of utopias as a theoretical and/or literary tool.
Notes:
Critique of ecofeminism
- Ecofeminist thinkers like Mary Mellor, Mary Daly, Vandana Shiva, and Maria Mies have been widely criticized for operating with essentialist assumptions and for their beliefs that women are somewhat closer to nature than men, and can therefore be expected to be more predestined for saving the planet (22).
- Third World feminist utopian writer, Rokeya Sakhwat Hussain (1860-1932)
- Hussain was a pioneer of women’s emancipation in Bengal (72).
- She wrote Padmarag (1925), a novel in which she created “Tarini Bhavan,” her vision of a utopian household and a place where “bhagini” (so-called sisters) have united to escape the oppression of patriarchy (72).
- See Gupta, J. 1997. “Human Reproductive in Utopian Writings and Women’s Emancipation.” in Lenning, Bekker, and Vanwesenbeek (eds.) Feminist Utopias in a Postmodern Era. Tilburg, Netherlands: Tilburg University Press.
- Feminist critique of Robert Owen
- Robert Owen’s most famous project was the “New Lanark Mills” in Scotland, cooperative factory communities (88). Minimum working age raised to ten, hours of actual work reduced, community stores sold inexpensive and good quality food. Each week, a contribution from wages went towards sick pay and retirement.
- But, Owen’s 1817 plan for the transitional society made women responsible for all domestic labor; their first responsibility was “the care of their infants, and keeping their dwelling in best order” (88). Women were also responsible for all communal domestic work and, in addition, had to spend no more than 4-5 hours in manufacturing.
- Owen’s utopia was put into practice in four trial communities between 1825 and 1845; women’s positions were bad in all four (89). In the first community, Orbiston, only communal labor of women was counted, none of the caring labor in the home was rewarded (89). Women were also compensated at a lower rate than men.
- Jill Harsin (1984) wrote, “the link between women and housework has maintained itself under capitalism, under communism, and, frequently, in utopia as well, as illustrated by the experience of the Owenite utopian communities in the early nineteenth century (89).
- Nancy Folbre (1993) wrote that in Owen’s view “Socialism would be ‘as if one family had multiplied as to fill the earth,’” which is why his utopia failed (cited in Schonpflug 2008: 90). Owen’s gender blindness was rooted in his class privilege, in a naive belief that “the Rich” would give up privilege if asked politely.
- Charles Fourier
- Fourier wanted to better conditions for workers and break with the tradition of workers’ degradation: he did not accept the bourgeois work ethic or the notion that work is unavoidable and has to be toilsome (Schonpflug 2008: 90). For Fourier, all “manual labor was arduous and irksome--whether in the factory, workshop or field, the plight of the laboring population was intolerably dehumanizing” (cited in Schonpflug 2008: 91). He believed all work should be playful, pleasurable, desirable, and satisfying physically as well as mentally. Fourier wanted to make work attractive and liberate people from the Protestant work ethic. The more difficult, uncomfortable, or unrewarding the work was, the higher the worker should be paid.
- Fourier was opposed to laissez-faire liberalism and factory production. He envisioned a community tied together by emotion rather than competition and profit (Schonpflug 2008: 91). In his “theory of passional attraction,” his ideal community was the Phalanx, where people lived together in a village and worked at a wide variety of changing jobs. Each person would only do a minimum amount of work and receive a basic wage. Fourier replaced families with a system of free love, with equality between the sexes, and the Phalanx as a whole taking on the responsibilities for welfare and children (Schonpflug 2008: 91). He envisioned that marriage and conventional sexual customs were abolished, then forgotten.
- Fourier’s idea of the Phalanx was put into practice in the U.S. by North American Phalanx, a utopian enclave established in New Jersey from 1841 to 1856 (Schonpflug 2008: 92). The commune split in 1853 over issues of women’s rights, among others.
- Welfare
- Childcare, housework, and caring labor
- Family planning
- Development
- Education
- Discrimination and affirmative action
- Pay equity and the (paid) labor market
- Poverty
- History of economic thought, neoclassical and heterodox economic theory
- Queer economics
- Theory of the family
- Race and class
- Empirical - data collection and interpretation
- Modeling - creating a mathematical model to explain and predict
- Empiricist - add women and stir, critique of New Home Economics
- Feminist practice (qualitative)
- Critical - i.e. general critique of welfare reform
- Reflective - reflection on feminist economic theory
- Practical - offer practical solutions to problems
- Questioning Knowledge Production - hermeneutic, discourse analysis, which include the following:
- Constructive
- Deconstructive
- Rhetoric of economics approach
- Poststructuralist, postcolonial, and postmodern
- Utopian - creatively envisioning radical change
She also found that the critical approach was the most commonly applied, followed by the empirical, and reflective feminist approach (2008: 141). The utopian approach was used less than any other, followed by the practical. However, the utopian approach was used most in discussing economic theory (issue 9) and unpaid work in the home (issue 2). See Figure 6.2.
Alternative feminist theorists according to Schonpflug include:
Drucilla Barker
Michele Pujol
Nancy Folbre
Genevieve Vaughan