Abstract
Gender, Work, and Economy, an ambitious book by sociologist Heidi Gottfried, provides a comprehensive account of economic institutions, work and employment, and politics, showing how all are shaped by (and shape) gender in contemporary societies. Gottfried’s main punchline – that past and current political economy analysis cannot be conducted separately from analysis of gender, race, citizenship and culture – is persuasively argued and substantiated with a considerable amount of data as well as reference to volumes of research by feminist scholars.
The book is divided into three major sections: an introduction that summarizes how leading sociological and feminist theorists have explained the organization of work and economy (both structures and social relationships) and makes the case for an integrative approach to the study of gender and economy; a section that outlines the key dimensions of gendered economies (segregation of jobs, wage and class inequality, multiple ways in which visible and invisible care work is integral to an understanding of post-industrial and other economies and women’s work, the role of the state in shaping workplaces, labour legislation and gender inequality); and a final section that integrates all these issues, explicitly weaving discussion of discrete topics through the larger tapestry of globalization. These three sections provide a sweeping overview of a very large and complex field. The book concludes by reminding us that local politics, institutions and subjectivities are interlocked with global trends and transformations, and that we can ‘read’ gender into international institutions (such as migration, labour markets, global commodity chains), and the geographies and politics of global cities.
Several features of the book are noteworthy. First, Gottfried deploys a distinct and important analytical framework: a feminist political economy perspective. Noting that leading theories of economic institutions, work, politics, spatialization and globalization often neglect a critical understanding of their gendered and classed foundations, Gottfried brings in geography, space and scale to show their interconnectedness with women’s work (both paid and unpaid) at regional, national and global levels. She also attends to ways in which unique configurations of political economy are built on class asymmetries between women and men. Her goal is to show how theories of globalization cannot account for the full range of economic life or political terrain if they do not incorporate a deeper and fuller understanding of gender relations, gendered subjectivities and gendered institutions.
Her discussion of the gendered foundations of globalization provides an important corrective to globalization theory, and theories of industrial development and varieties of capitalism. It also provides greater clarity on understanding limitations to and possibilities for social change. For example, visions of economic justice and how to achieve it must incorporate gender-specific insights, critiques and policies, not assert overarching agendas that delete women’s lives and experiences from the picture.
Second, Gottfried introduces and fleshes out concepts that make her analysis very accessible to readers. For example, she develops, at length, the idea that all societies are characterized by distinct reproductive bargains, sometimes implicit yet institutionalized contracts that entail varied levels and types of market regulation, state policies and ideologies about families and gender roles, all of which condition reproductive and provisioning work. This meta-concept drives home the argument that economies – no matter their history, culture or stage of economic development – are deeply intertwined with unpaid work, invisible work, political struggles and negotiations between people in households, and political cultures. Similarly, her exploration of cities on the global economic grid nicely elucidates the interconnectedness – spatially, institutionally, culturally and politically – of cities as dissimilar as London and Dubai. Multi scalar feminism effectively captures her paradigm for and commitment to understanding the intersections of diverse social spaces connecting intimate and institutional lives.
Third, Gender, Work, and Economy is valuable because it dialogues with classical sociological theory (Marx, Weber, Polanyi), first-, second- and third-wave feminist theorists, geographers and political economists. The scope of her theoretical foray is impressive because it links the full array of economic activities (paid and unpaid work, the effect of globalization on women in societies around the world, industrial restructuring at different historical points, collective resistance to corporate hegemony) to different disciplinary viewpoints, noting the inadequacies in some theories and the strengths in others. By doing this, she builds an integrative feminist political economy theory and strikes an effective balance between empirical description and theoretical understanding. This makes the book exceptionally useful for seminars in sociological and feminist theory, not simply for more specialized courses such as gender and work, or economy and society.
Heidi Gottfried’s synthesis and original analysis is a welcome addition to research trying to grasp the complexities of globalization from a feminist perspective. As review, critique and analysis, Gender, Work, and Economy makes an important contribution to our understanding of gendered social process, structure and relations.