Episode Ninety One

Introduction

0:00welcome to smith and mark's walk into a bar a history of economics podcast i'm jennifer jung one of your hosts for today and i'm joined by my colleagues francois alison hi francois did you get a beard cut oh yeah absolutely uh two days well noticed looks great for our listeners um yeah they will not see it but i'm happy to be with you jen how is uh how are things going in

0:35at duke are you at duke yes i am right now uh finals have just ended so here comes the summer vacation i'm also joined by jinla akderet hi jinla how are you hey hello i'm also very happy to see you all i'm in ankara as always i had my class in the morning and uh came uh to join you here now it's not uh summer it's not uh spring it's um seems to a little bit of winter day in may a little bit

1:08we have sun but it's still cold it was cold the classroom this morning i don't know uh hopefully soon we will also have spring and vacation period well i hope for warm weather for you soon i'm very

Guest Introduction

1:23excited to introduce today's guest i have professor gian domenica becchio who was a professor of in the department of economics social sciences mathematics and statistics at the university of torino she's the author of the doctrine of the separate spheres and political economy and economics gender equality and classical liberalism which was published by palgrave in 2024 which we'll be discussing today jinla you've actually got the first question so why don't i let you kick things off yes i would like to say first something else actually about torino and uh in 20 days i'll be in torino

2:01because uh they are organizing this uh fascinating eshet conference in torino you are in the uh local organization committee actually so we met first year before to meet in 20 days in torino i'm so excited actually to to be there hope i hope you are not very tired uh because of the organization it's a huge conference 300 person uh actually applied i guess uh i i am yes actually um it's nice it's a

2:35big conference a big conference and it has been mainly organized by the other department but we we help them somehow and you know it's the it's very important for us for all of us to stay connected in this network of historians of economic thought because you we are a niche basically uh but we need to fight for for our discipline so it's very important to get connected uh into these conferences and so so we have italian uh associations for history of economic thought the european the hcs of course

3:10and so many more in latin america in australia in spain so it's very very important to stay connected and to spread our research um everywhere there will be interesting uh academic debates in the conferences but everybody will be happy because they will be in italy it's in italy yes well let's finger crossed about the weather because as you mentioned it has been a weird spring with uh some days very

3:41hot and some other days very cold so it's basically going back and forth from winter to summer which can be inconvenient uh but let's hope for the best yes francois will be there too i will meet francois too so i'm really lucky actually this uh this month but let's go uh and see the questions and kick off this uh this conversation this uh meeting here uh i will of course start by talking about your book

4:12uh the idea was so interesting uh i really liked the book um and uh we will first have some questions

Doctrine of Separate Spheres

4:20on your recent book uh what are these separate spheres reference in the book book's title and what makes doctrine of the separate spheres uh a doctrine uh let us remember the title of the book first uh that our listeners would uh understand what i mean by my question and then uh we will keep talking a little bit about the book in the following uh minutes of course the title is uh the doctrine of the

4:52separate spheres in political economy and economics of gender equality and classical liberalism so the idea of the separate spheres refers to the traditional belief that society is divided into two distinct and separate realms the private sphere which is basically centered around the household and the public sphere which includes both the market and the political arena so traditionally women have been expected to excel in the private sphere by being good wives and mothers providing love and care to

5:28family members on the other side men have been expected to excel in the public sphere by being being productive workers and being engaged as good citizens and eventually leaders this division is rooted in the belief that women are naturally let's say records compassionate and thus best suited to caregiving roles while men are naturally again competitive and better equipped for the

6:02economic economic and political arenas it is called a doctrine because it has been widely accepted and taken for granted i must say for at least two millennia in fact it can be dated back to aristotle without a serious a sustained challenge to be honest a critical discussion of this doctrine began in the 19th century with the rise of early feminism this is the first wave of feminism which brought together thinkers

6:34from various disciplines including political economy we will see how however some precursors of this critique against the doctrine can be traced as far back as the 17th century for example in John Locke's opposition to filmer's defense of patriarchy which was based on the idea that the doctrine of the separate sphere directly came from adam and eve and the choice of god to to shape the the society as a whole by adopting this dichotomy

7:12during the enlightenment uh female thinkers such as olymp de gouges and mary worlstonecraft either in france or in great britain challenged uh rousseau's strong support for the doctrine as well as burke's strong support for the doctrine by advocating instead for women's emancipations from domestic subordination but my book will again start basically with a broad description of these precursors and then

7:48it will be much more focused when the doctrine of the separate sphere was adopted either was with was analyzed let's say either for adopting it or for rejecting it by economists and this happened at the in the second part at the end of the 19th century uh yes actually there seem to be two ways that the

Economists' Debates

8:13doctrine can figure in economist thinking either as an object of analysis or as a framework for economic analysis uh what did the debates in each of these categories look like especially uh in the head of economics yes it depends on whom we are considering and when to begin with the economy economists have analyzed the doctrine of the separate sphere in order to explain the traditional division of labor between genders in both the private and the public realms they were in a sense compelled to address the

8:50doctrine when middle and upper class married women began entering the labor market in the late 19th century as i mentioned earlier this development challenged existing norms and changed traditional family dynamics particularly in relation to men's roles as primary breadwinners economists of the time such as alfred marshall thomas carver richard ely irene fisher and many others all big names largely reinforced the

9:25doctrine they did so by adopting some concept like family wage and by applying the principles of comparative advantage to justify the traditional gender division of labor so during this period the doctrine primarily served as a framework for economic analysis economists evaluated women's demand for greater access to the public sphere whether through employment or political enfranchisement for example using cost-benefit analysis in the end most concluded that the traditional division of labor was

10:01economically and socially efficient so they basically reinforced the doctrine later in in in the 1960s the advent of human capital theory within economics which was developed by economists like gary becker jacob mincer theodore schultz reshaped the discussion these economists integrated the doctrine of the separate spheres into their analysis of gender roles and labor market

10:31discrimination becker in particular expanded his line of thought in what came to be known as new home economics we will talk about that later a research program he pursued from the 1970s through the 1990s this approach treated the household as a unit of economic analysis and was especially built on the assumptions of the separatist tier doctrine so he argued that gender-based based differences in

11:02human capital along with biological and psychological distinction between genders made the traditional division of labor between men and women economically optimal at this point the doctrine of the separate sphere had shifted from being a framework for economic analysis to being actually an object of economic analysis itself

Doctrine's Resurgence

11:26Thank you that's really fascinating let's move a bit further in time and i would like to ask you to tell us at what point in time did this doctrine of the separate sphere seem became less salient and what brought about its modern resurgence yes so between the two periods that i've just mentioned so late 19th century and 1970s

11:56that the doctrine became less salient as you as you just said although two research fields emerged in the american academia home economics and household economics home economics was the scientific management of the household which means the rational choice regarding consumptions of the family that was in charge of women and aimed to increase the well-being of a single family and consequently of the society as a whole household economics is

12:28emerged during interwar at the university of chicago thanks to the work of women economists of the time such such as marion talbot so even though both home economics and household economics were focused on the private sphere

12:58they adopted the they adopted the doctrine neither as an object of analysis nor not as a framework so the modern that's why it the doctrine became less salient but the doctrine resurgence occurred in late in the late 1960s early 70s and was the consequences of a massive cultural and institutional changes that was affecting women's lives of the time

13:29i'm of course talking about the sexual revolution the legalization of divorce and abortion the rise of women's studies within academia and outside academia that that were focused on the neglected history of women's contribution to human development in any field and of course i'm talking about the emergence of the so-called second wave of feminism

13:59so we just talked a bit about home economics and household economics here's a a a name a phrase that came up earlier when we first started this conversation feminist economics uh which is relevant now and we're still moving further in time could you tell us a bit about what

Feminist Economics

14:17is feminist economics and how does that treat the doctrine of the separate spheres and also could you tell us a bit about how feminist economics has evolved since the 1980s sure so feminist economics is an academic research field officially an academic research field that emerged in the 1980s primarily as a reaction to how mainstream economics particularly gary becker's new home economics was addressing gender issues and gender inequality as mentioned becker reinforced

14:53the doctrine of the separate spheres but by portraying it as efficient we can talk about this later many economists of the time especially women rejected his view describing it not only as mainstream but also as male stream that is based on a set of assumptions which were rooted in a masculine world view

15:20in 1992 just one year after becker was awarded the nobel prize a group of of economists labeled themselves as feminist and founded the international association for feminist economics yafi three years later in 1995 they launched the academic journal feminist economics and in 1906 feminist economics was officially recognized with

15:50with its own gel classification code which is b54 placing it among other heterodox approaches to economic thought all of which are are under the b code gel code so it is important let me just add this to note that the label feminist feminist before economics does not imply a unified monolithic approach rather feminist economics

16:21as well as feminism in general is a multifaceted field the ideological spectrum of feminism itself ranges from marxist perspective to radical individualist and these different visions shape the way economic analysis provided by feminist economics is provided by feminist economists is conducted within the field so as a result feminist economics encompasses a wide range of topics including social reproduction the

16:52economics of care intersectionality power relations and more overall feminist economics especially as represented in the feminist economics journal has functioned as a broad umbrella welcoming dive the diverse and different perspectives and methodologies all of them especially at the beginning in the first 20 years challenged traditional economic models and assumptions particularly those embedded in the doctrine of the separate sphere those which actually reinforced

17:28reinforced the the the traditional division of labor between sexes and genders and reinforced the status quo

17:37so there's this person that seems to be a really major character that's come up in our conversation a few times already we need to know a bit about nobel prize winner gary becker to to renovate this conversation i'd like to ask a little more about more about the following

Gary Becker's New Home Economics

17:55what is new home economics and how did becker defend that okay as briefly mentioned the new home economics is a research field that has been founded not just defended but founded by gary becker uh when he was when he moved from new york to the university of chicago in the late 1960s early 1970s new home economics new home economics is um aligned totally with neoclassical standards

18:28by emphasized emphasizing maximization and equilibrium and by applying these methodological tools to gender issues um and the economics of the family at least initially becker pursued optimization under the assumption that the household operate as a single decision-making unit later to justify this in terms of individual

19:00preferences he posed posed a paterfamilias a male breadwinner who was both powerful and altruistic enough to ensure that it was in everyone's interest to behave as if its utility function was their own it was a benevolent male breadwinner becker's new home economics explained the rationale behind the institution of marriage

19:34by forcing the traditional division of labor between spouses it models family behaviors as a rational responses to economic factors such as prices incomes technologies and of course preferences within an inter in an individualistic framework that excludes basically any social and cultural factors from the economic model becker first introduced the price theory of marriage in two papers devoted to the economics of marriage

20:09in the first he employed human capital theory to explain how house households sort breadwinners male from home makers female in the second he applied the theory of comparative advantage to explain the division of labor between couples uh he showed that the marriage market may actually reach a pareto optimum condition

20:42this means that no individual can change mates and improve their well-being without simultaneously worsening someone else condition in addition to this assumption becker specified that his model of marriage implies that men and women usually acquire different human capital due to labor market conditions responding to physical and biological differences as in many other as in any other market tending towards equilibrium the following conditions are satisfied they are the division of roles in the marriage

21:17market market market is determined by marginal productivity preferences are revealed and mates compete given their budget constraints so more generally becker considered marriage as a long-term commitment to ensure protection for women he regarded market-oriented investments for boys and household-oriented investments for girls as optimal strategies by arguing that the highest returns are achieved in a society when roles are specialized based on gender differences

21:56similarly according to becker the the choice to divorce can be explained by constructing a total utility function of a couple and considering bargaining costs that's why i in my book i labeled becker's new home economics the doctrine of the separate steers on steroids because it it's a it's a let's say scientific reinforcement of the status quo actually is the application of neoclassical or mainstream whatever economics to the division the traditional division of labor between men and women and the economics of the family

22:38the economics of the family today i just want to add the application of neoclassical economics to gender issues and to the economics of the family is commonly referred to as the economics of gender of gender so uh in in a previous book of mine i referred it to um gender neoclassical economics but officially the the the the gel codes uh the gel label uh for the application of neoclassical economics to

23:10gender issues is called economics of gender so basically today we don't have any more new home economics the development the present development of new home economics is is labeled economics of gender

23:28okay thank you let's now turn to a feminist economist on which you worked quite a lot

Barbara Bergman

23:35barbara bergman who was barbara bergman how would you situate her within the field of feminist economics and was distinguished her from other feminist economics uh thank you very much i'm really aficionated to barbara bergman i'm actually working on her intellectual biography for palgrave so i'm very glad to talk about her a little bit so bergman was a founder of the feminist economics

24:07uh a founder of yafi so the association and a founder of the journal she was trained in uh mathematics and economics um and she initially um she got her phd in the in the late 40s 1940s so initially she examined race and gender-based occupational segregation and and then she uh moved towards gender inequality in the labor market in order to investigate research distribution within families and also the division of labor

24:43between spouses she uh immediately in the 80s rejected becker's new home economics anyway before becoming a feminist economist bergman was each one separately she was a feminist and an economist uh her biography and her work testify that these two aspects of her identity her identity have always been intertwined in her life she was a child of a second generation of jewish immigrants from eastern

25:16europe who lived in new york and she often expressed feeling of double discrimination as a jew both as a jew and as a woman we are talking about late 40s 50s in the 50s in the 60s and so forth uh she analyzed economic matters by adopting an empirical approach and by applying this approach to sex and racial segregation in the marketplace as i mentioned earlier and uh finally she extended it to the economics of the family

25:52so basically the same topics that were analyzed and scrutinized by becker in the same period in addition to her academic work bergman was also involved in extra academic activities aimed at both spreading the meaning and the goals of feminist economics and reinforcing her call for affirmative action to support specific policies in order to improve the condition of women and children who are where and

26:24still are the weakest part group of the society her efforts included is participating in congressional hearings providing testimonies and contributing to newspapers columns such as the new york times and los angeles steins in contrast to many feminist uh economist who tend to advocate the adoption of a female state of behavior by emphasizing cooperation emotions and feelings against the male style of behavior which is rooted in

27:02competition rationality and efficiency barbara bergman believed that the only possible ticket to gender equality was a totally androgynous model that makes possible for women to inhabit the same world as men currently do and this may be possible through a significant government support program aimed at high commodification

27:38so her feminist agenda was centered around affirmative action aimed to balance work and family and family labor between men and women as the only possible path to gender equality so this requires a dual strategy ensuring equal equal opportunities in the job market for men and women in the same in the same terms but also fostering an equitable distribution of responsibility between spouses in managing household affairs and

28:13raising of children so i really liked her vision before liking her economic theory and model because i get i think that i believe that many feminist economists and many feminists in general they tend to consider the feminine the traditional feminine set of values superior to the the man's value and somehow doing so they

28:47they they reinforce the doctrine they just overcome the terms while barbara bergman's attitude was an attitude totally devoted to equality equality equality between the two genders and of course equality between human beings in general we can add other ethnicities sexual identities uh and so forth okay we really look forward to see this biography of uh barbara bergman in in in in in in the coming

29:26still on her um bergman as as you told us um and as you wrote was also active politically um how did her academic interest carry over her political interest and what kind of policy measures did she recommend uh yes bergman pointed out a strong program of affirmative action as well as anti-discrimination laws she insisted on the importance of hiring more women and black people in the in the in the police for example to change the common

30:01attitude according to which law and order was a white man's prerogative this is just an example she continued by inviting readers especially from the newspapers to consider that the alternative to affirmative action was often the continuation of habits ways of thought old boy networks that make only white men look suitable and competent for certain jobs and make everyone else appear to be unsuitable so she believed in the in nudging in the nudging role of affirmative action and suggested the possible

30:37solution for the gender wage gap for example she usually she was used to show data data provided by the u.s census or statistical institute everywhere and she explained that the gen for example the gender pay gap was not due to women's part-time or temporary interruptions such as maternity leave rather to a form of discrimination that must be ended by a set of national pay equity guidelines for example aimed to help women

31:11in traditional occupation bergman was active in in proposing many many plans many many many ideas uh all of them were mainly oriented towards a reinforcement of child support payments uh free child care for kids below five years old tax credit for families with children um in fact for for for bergman only high quality child care allows mothers to join the labor market so she proposed three possible solutions child

31:47care provided by the private sector and financed by federal or state money a higher educational requirement for child care workers and better information on child care provisioning she also presented the policies that would improve the lives of single mothers and their children such as health care and child care measures along with a program that would find stable jobs for single mothers and and would fund a return to school for girls or women who dropped out of school when they

32:20became pregnant out outside uh marriage she insisted in promoting government provision of aid for covering family expenses and she believed that all these uh um all these uh provisions all these uh um um um help from the state would have been much more effective than a basic income for example

32:51um so she emphasized the labor market equality rather than insisting on quotas for example or rather than than insisting on making care work paid that was quite uh popular and still is quite popular among other feminist economists economists or economists of the gender uh so um she for example she was against

33:27housewife salaries or paid parental leave unless it's not for both um why because this measure would have reinforced according to bergman the sex role case system which is the doctrine of the separate sphere by pushing women within their traditional role of wives and mothers and men within the traditional role of breadwinners if you pay an housewife you you will reinforce the doctrine you will push

33:57women to stay at home to stay in the private sphere rather she was in favor of again of affirmative action action oriented to policies able to guarantee equal opportunity in the labor market regardless of gender and marital status thank you very much uh so then the last question on barbara bergman in 1981

Bergman's Paper

34:20barbara bergman published a paper in the american economic review titled the economic risk of being a housewife can you set this paper in its historical context for our audience please sure and well 1981 was a crucial year because becker published a treat the first edition of is a a treatise of on the family and that book was a comprehensive systematization of new home economics

34:52barbara bergman's paper published in the american economic review was a reaction to becker's book so she criticized and i'm quoting becker's income to the advantages of the division of labor among spouses as biased by its perspective of a male member of a traditional family her barbara bergman's aim was to highlight the greater economic risks associated with being a

35:25housewife compared to working in various occupations in the public sphere there are physical hazards associated with incidents at home and domestic violence which occur more frequently than physical assaults in the workplace additionally housewives received non-cash and untaxed benefits instead of a regular salary income and pension according to bergman being a housewife is one of the

36:00riskiest occupation due to the to its high variability in payoff this is because of the possibility that a marriage may might end in divorce leading to poor financial consequences for women the financial and emotional trauma of divorcing is much higher than the trauma of getting fired this is another another point moreover while a former employer has basically no power over a former employee after firing them

36:37an ex-husband usually remains responsible for alimony and child support and maintains a great power on his former wife economic power but also psychological power bergman concluded the paper that by saying that being a housewife is not always a truly a choice this is another difference with becker for becker and his followers everything is is a matter of individual preferences which is not the case according to bergman

37:12not always the case according to bergman and to other feminist economists rather some very often being house an housewife it's um it's a self-imposition is a is is a choice determined by social pressure uh uh at the end of the paper bergman say that to be an housewife functions as a case which is perpetrated by

37:45the education provided to female children verse this education often includes the legend of priest charming and most important uh it includes the lack of preparation for labor market so that um that was a paper that was very important first because again it was the it was a a precise critique to becker's book and because also because of the because it was published in the american economic

38:20review so it was widely read by the entire um academia by the entire community of economists and that was pivotal also for you know developing what in 1980s was the the very beginning of a feminist economics so we just heard about bergman's reaction to to gary becker and and new home economics

38:53how did so zooming out a little bit how did feminist economics kind of more broadly react against new home

Feminist Economics Reaction

38:58economics and what were the kinds of methodological shortcomings of the orthodox school of thought that they that they identified yes uh as as i just said uh the use of neoclassical methodology and theory in order to provide an economic theory of marriage and family disappointed many women economists of the time prompting them to create feminist economics in response so the pioneers of feminist economics shared a critical attitude towards

39:30pecker's economics of marriage as well as a sense of urgency to challenge the dish the discipline as a whole

39:39i've already said that new home economics model uh justified the subordination of women by adopting assumptions biased by traditional gender stereotypes these assumptions simultaneously ignored the separate identities of family members and they underestimate non-economic factors so feminist economists criticized becker's approach for his omission of the economics of care the role of power and obligation in

40:09cultural and social norms and for having reduced the family dynamics just to a matter of preferences there were many economists to be honest there were many mainstream neoclassical economists who enlarged and developed the becker's approach after becker in terms of the doctrine of the separate sphere but they never rejected it actually uh they ref refined the model but they never reject the doctrine of the

40:40separate sphere in terms of the doctrine of the separate spheres um i just i just want to mention the model proposed by lundberg and pollack in 1993 in the same period when the the international association of feminist economics was founded uh they conceptualized household members as joint decision makers regarding some matters while maintaining separate spheres regarding other issues and they assumed exogenous

41:12separate spheres where each person specialized in a particular sphere the traditional division

41:22lundberg and pollack considered special specialization by gender a pervasive aspect of family life with men being responsible for earning income in in a two-parted families and women being responsible for supplying household service they suggested again a separate sphere equilibrium in the family that required a minimal coordination among spouses but again each spouse is considered a decision maker within

41:53their own sphere able to optimize their decision under the constraints of their individual resources so that was the

42:04the development of becker's model by some followers some followers economists of the time the time and of course feminist economics reacted reacted against these methodological and theoretical model provided by neoclassical economics

42:30i go back to your book some of the women mentioned in the book are well known and some are not how so how did you decide upon the scholars you would consider in the book yes uh so when this is a book of history of economic thought history of economic ideas so when working on the history of ideas economic or otherwise there are typically two approaches one can either focus on topics paradigms concepts by tracing their origin development

43:07adoption rejection the resurgence over time or one can examine how specific scholars or school of thought contributed to the evolution of those ideas within their historical and cultural context since the core of my book revolves around a well-defined and relatively straightforward idea which is the doctrine of the separate sphere spheres within the history of political economy and economics i chose to adopt the former approach

43:43that is i focus on scholars and economists who directly engaged with this concept for example while mary worsencraft is well known for her pamphlet and indication of the rights of women mary estelle earlier analysis on marriage and divorce though less recognized and known and basically neglected and forgotten had a significant influence at the time so

44:13i i wrote about her charlotte perkins gilman she was not an economist by profession but a journalist and a novelist who offered a powerful critique of the doctrine against the doctrines especially in its economic dimensions remarkably remarkably as early as 1898 she described the political economy of her time as androcentric a term that feminist economists would echo almost a century later in critic in criticizing mainstream

44:48economics as i mentioned before they say it's not just mainstream it's also mainstream so the first time this idea was used by perkins gilman in late 19th century so it depends whom and when in addition let me say that i tend to follow the so-called hair story approach which prioritizes the recovery and recognition of female female scholars who have been forgotten or overshadowed for instance harriet harvey who was john stuart mills wife

45:25wrote extensively about women's emancipation

45:30the enfranchisement of women marriage and divorce in a very modern terms yet it is mills pamphlet the subjection of women that remains celebrated while hardy's more progressive views and earlier which even challenged mills own endorsement of the separate spheres remained in in his shadow so in my book i i try to reverse this tendency and gave her and other neglected voice

46:06the attention they deserve thank you i i still have one question about barbara begoban and it is about what is her legacy today can you tell us a bit about that yes uh well let me summarize what i just uh mentioned earlier i believe that her legacy today can be summarized in several points let me just put on the table three major points i used first uh a methodological approach to real economic problems that begins with the importance

46:39of considering empirical data in order to understand discrimination inequality and inequality rather than relying on standard sets of assumptions about human rationality reinforced by regressions that tend to confirm theoretical scenarios without taking reality into account that was barbara behrman's methodological approach second behrman's vision of a feminist economics

47:10which should not be understood simply as economics for women but rather as a more accurate and inclusive economic theory overall third barbara behrman's commitment to a progressive agenda aimed at reducing gender inequality in both the public and the private spheres this includes engaging in the dissemination of gender inequality issues

47:43beyond academic circles participating in public debates speaking to young people writing for non-academic public audience doing this podcast and not just writing papers for a small group of peers i think these are the these are three of many uh points uh which definitely belong to bergman's legacy for us as scholars but us as citizens and us as both men and women

48:21thank you for that and now turning and i've got the last question now turning our eye towards the present in the future do you think that with the recent award of the nobel prize to claudia golden do you think this might in the future lead to a new turn in the economics of gender what would that turn look like

48:42actually i'm skeptical so claudia golding has had the great merit of combining economic analysis gender dynamics and a historical approach which is great and i'm glad and happy she got the nobel prize nobel prize she got the nobel prize for by herself so no other male colleagues share the price five fantastic but she remains a mainline mainstream neoclassical economist which might be fine for some

49:18i'm not arguing this but as a matter of fact she remains a mainstream economist so allow me to share an exchange i had a couple of years ago with an economist of gender uh so mainstream economist dealing with gender i'm not saying the her name but she was presenting a paper here in torino the festival of international festival economics which takes place in late may every year we have such a big

49:48names uh as guests anyway um she was presenting a paper which to me seemed quite close to a feminist economics approach so i asked her uh are you a feminist economist now and she replied to me something that was very important for me to understand the you know the mindset of our colleagues she replied i have always been a feminist but i will never be a feminist economist i didn't ask further details because i

50:23actually understood what she was meaning so that's one side of the story economists working on gender

50:34are unlikely to abandon mainstream methodology models and theory

50:42on the other side within feminist economics

50:49it seems to me that especially in the last 15 years there is a convergence towards the economics of gender

51:00why 40 years have passed since the emergence of feminist economics as a challenge to mainstream economics the pioneers and the founders are now either retired or they are no longer with us

51:17the ideological framework and the historical context have changed and the academic job market has its own strict tacit or explicit rules which influenced the younger generation of economists working on jobs gender issues so nonetheless nonetheless the struggle for gender equality within and outside academia again will continue regardless of which theoretical approach we adopt so we need to fight the right fight and we can

51:57use our own intellectual weapon either if we are closer to neoclassical economics or closer to heterodox approaches to gender issues such as feminist economics that those are all of our questions for today thank you for joining us thank you professor becky for sharing with us your work and and your time and for our audience yeah of course for our audience

52:29members her book is once again the doctrine of the separate spheres and political economy and economics gender equality and classical liberalism and be on the lookout in the future for her biography on barbara bergman yes yes definitely thank you so much uh i'll be at duke soon because at duke there is barbara bergman's archive which i've already uh checked it but there is also yaffi's archive which is now ready so i'm going to you know dig into it in order to see uh bergman's specific uh um role in yaffi's

53:09uh she had quite she she was i mean as mentioned she was quite a peculiar one a kind of a of her so uh she had some problems in in you know in sharing her her ideas uh proposals for progressive agenda and so forth so it's gonna be very interesting to to find something new hopefully well let me know when you're around well actually at the end of august i guess fantastic thank you so much everyone

53:47join us again next month for another episode of smigs and marks walk into a bar a history of economics economics podcast you