1 Teaching Feminist Economics? We Have a Situation. Context and Origin of the Need to Find Solutions for Teaching Feminist Economics
When looking closely, we can identify feminist contributions throughout the history of economic thought, such as Harriet Taylor Mill’s contribution to an economic understanding of the subjugation of women in the middle of the 19th century (Mill et al.
1976), Charlotte Perkins-Gilman’s analysis of the marriage market (
1980 [1898]), or Rosa Luxemburg’s anti-imperialist political economy (
1990 [1913]). However, feminist economics as an institutionalized field gained momentum only recently. With the foundation of the International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE) in 1992 and the first volume of the journal
Feminist Economics published in 1995, feminist economics as an institutionalized economic sub-discipline is barely in her thirties. This community of scholars is built on historic progressive thinkers, but also on more recent discussions, like the wages for housework debate, the demand for the representation of social reproduction in national accounting, or debates about the understanding of the human being in economics (Ferber and Nelson
1993).
Consequentially, higher education on feminist economic topics has been scarce, if not non-existent. Only since 2016 a third professorship with a denomination in economics and gender has been appointed in Germany. However, its geographical and institutional location in the province at a university of applied sciences still reveals a lot about the institutional gatekeeping of the economics profession in Germany. Internationally, a number of professors are known for their work in feminist economics, but they are not institutionally marked with a denomination as professors of feminist economics, the chair of feminist economics at the University of Valencia being the exception.
Feminist economic research is produced by various people and institutions, but this is not equally reflected in higher education. IAFFE reacted to this issue by encouraging members to share course syllabi related to feminist economics on the IAFFE website in an effort to make teaching resources more accessible. The syllabi provided cover a wide range of topics, from ‘women in the economy’, ‘gender and globalization’ to ‘statistics for feminists’ and mostly date back to 2014/2015 (one course dating back to 1997). A textbook could help instructors, but there is no one standard feminist economics textbook. However, feminist economic scholarship has produced research that could possibly be used as a basis for higher education such as
Beyond Economic Man: Feminist Theory and Economics (Ferber and Nelson
1993) or
The Elgar Companion to Feminist Economics (Peterson and Lewis
1999) and the newly published
Advanced Introduction to Feminist Economics (Jacobsen
2020). For the German speaking context, the edited volume
Gender and Economics (Bauhardt and Çağlar
2010) provides a similar starting point. This shows that teaching feminist economics has been done, and can be done, but under barely institutionalized circumstances, and with a canon still under construction.
These historical and institutional circumstances require feminist economics courses to work towards building competences for entering a discourse. Moreover, they pose three major questions for educators who want to teach feminist economics: What can and should instructors in feminist economics teach without being able to rely on a canon? How can instructors teach feminist economics so that it is perceived as economically relevant despite not being anchored in mainstream economics departments? And how can it be taught given that students from diverse backgrounds and disciplines want to engage with feminist economics?
The teaching-learning-innovation required in the field of feminist economics is fundamental – teaching feminist economics is still an innovation in itself. To summarize the questions mentioned above, the innovation lies in: 1. providing guidance in the absence of a canon, 2. providing orientation and arguments why the field is necessary for a more inclusive economics, 3. making feminism, economics, and feminist economics accessible for an interdisciplinary group of students. A further challenge requiring teaching solutions is that teaching feminist economics has to reflect its variety of topics and methodologies, the various political positions of its authors, and the critique of the economic mainstream. All these aspects must to be reflected in an innovative teaching-learning-situation.
To approach these requirements and outline possible contents of a course on feminist economics, I want to briefly dive into the research in feminist economics to examine the following: (i) What is feminist economics and what did the people behind
Feminist Economics want to change within the economics profession by introducing a journal dedicated to feminist debates? Additionally, I will (ii) show the spectrum of feminist economics today, including research published in
Feminist Economics and beyond. Lastly, I will (iii) point out current trajectories and upcoming topics. By illustrating these aspects in this order, I will share with you how I provide guidance in the field (teaching requirement 1), and how I offer information showing the relevance of feminist economics for the future of economics (teaching requirement 2). Later, I will move to teaching related considerations and provide more information on my take of making feminist economics accessible (teaching requirement 3). In doing so I am relying on a teaching strategy similar to bell hooks‘ idea of creating a “democratic setting” (hooks
1994, p. 39).
3 Consequences and Effects of Teaching Feminist Economics in a Feminist Way and Conclusion
The required teaching innovation for feminist economics is twofold, encompassing both the contents of an introductory feminist economics course as well as the methodological aspects of teaching economics in a feminist way. For evaluating the design of the introductory course on feminist economics regarding these aspects, I am using two available official teaching evaluation sheets from two universities. These suggest that students experience the atmosphere in the course as above average encouraging. Also, the students’ evaluation scored exceptionally high in terms of students’ motivation to autonomously further engage with the topics. Students specified that more than usual the lecturer as well as the students themselves contributed to a respectful atmosphere. This points towards a successful attempt to create a democratic setting.
Besides other aspects scoring high and being significant for a successful plural economics course, like interdisciplinary problem-solving and drawing connections to the students’ previous knowledge, the evaluations also reveal challenges. While some students ask for a stronger lecture style, others wished for more discussions. This shows that a ‘sage-on-the-stage’ setting might for some still feel more familiar and appear as more effective. It also shows that lecturers have to offer various methodologies suitable for different learning styles. Reflecting on the course myself, I hope to allow even more in the future that students decide on the course topics. This flexibility however requires exceptional knowledge of the field and a number of teaching methodologies ready at hand in order to deliver the same standard of education as a highly structured course would.
To facilitate my own reflection process, I rely on a four-phase-model for making course content in economics more inclusive by Aerni et al. (
1999). My efforts aim at overcoming the still prevailing standard to teach economics “as if gender is not relevant for understanding economic activity” (Aerni et al.
1999, p. 32). In contrast to this standard I choose teaching feminist economics as a mode of questioning, which corresponds to Aerni et al.’s request to challenge core concepts and propose alternatives. An economics course should not be exclusively about teaching students how to ‘think like an economist.’ Instead, it should demonstrate what is possible if we adopt notions of the economy, capitalist relations, work and the earth system that transcend the neoclassical boundaries of the economics discipline. Accordingly, the objective is to teach as inclusive, radical and controversial as possible. However, it will take plenty of such efforts in higher education to build “an economics that is redefined and reconstructed to include us all” (Aerni et al.
1999, p. 33). Yet, I choose to believe that the “classroom with all its limitations, remains a location of possibility” (hooks
1994, p. 207).
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