Rebecca Pearse and I have just published a
paper in the journal Feminist Economics called “Gender norms and the economy:
insights from social research”. It’s a
critique of conventional views of norms and an attempt to show how feminist
economists can use a wider variety of social-science research and help explore
different normative strategies for social change.
Here’s the abstract:
Feminist economics has taken up the concept of gender norms, most commonly conceived as a constraint on women's voice and gender equality. This contribution examines the concept of gender norms and summarizes key insights from sociology and other social sciences. Norms do not float free: they are materialized in specific domains of social life and are often embedded in institutions. An automatic process of “socialization” cannot explain the persistence of discriminatory norms. Norms change in multiple ways, both in response to broad socioeconomic change and from the dynamics of gender relations themselves. Restructuring of gender orders, and diversity and contradictions in gender norms, give scope for activism. The rich literature on normativity supports some but not all approaches in feminist economics and indicates new possibility for the field.
Here’s the abstract:
Feminist economics has taken up the concept of gender norms, most commonly conceived as a constraint on women's voice and gender equality. This contribution examines the concept of gender norms and summarizes key insights from sociology and other social sciences. Norms do not float free: they are materialized in specific domains of social life and are often embedded in institutions. An automatic process of “socialization” cannot explain the persistence of discriminatory norms. Norms change in multiple ways, both in response to broad socioeconomic change and from the dynamics of gender relations themselves. Restructuring of gender orders, and diversity and contradictions in gender norms, give scope for activism. The rich literature on normativity supports some but not all approaches in feminist economics and indicates new possibility for the field.
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| Changing norms: 2 Labour Cabinets in Norway |
To cite this article: Rebecca Pearse & Raewyn Connell (2015): Gender Norms and the Economy: Insights from Social Research, Feminist Economics, DOI: 10.1080/13545701.2015.1078485
A link is here.
