A Herstory of Economics. Edith Kuiper
do not all automatically have the same interests, and have widely different experiences, one cannot obviously speak on behalf of another. Moreover, some women face discrimination not only based on their gender, but also, and at the same time, because they are women of color, because they face physical limitations, and/or because they are young or older. Kimberlé Crenshaw (1993) referred to this overlapping of “systems of oppression” as “intersectionality.” A woman of color will experience both sexism and racism, and these forms of discrimination may well reinforce each other.
This book focuses on women’s writing on economic issues, and not, for instance, on economists’ writing on women’s issues, because it is here – on the basis of their gender – that women economic writers and economists have been excluded. For the former, it was a physical exclusion, for they, as women, were not allowed to take up any sort of position at universities. Later, it was the historical exclusion of the invisible work of these economic writers and of many economists as women that became part of the silencing of women in economic texts and theories. This exclusion has assisted in maintaining the division between, on the one hand, “pure economics” – that part of the science in which economists engaged in “value-free” reasoning – and, on the other, “women’s issues,” which were generally considered as normative economics, based on explicit or implicit value judgments. This book focuses on the work of people who, as women, developed a perspective on the economy that was and is very different from that developed by men as men. It brings together a variety of voices of women who were excluded and silenced because, as women, they had little or no access to the resources and liberties men had, and even when they did produce work, this did not make it into the literature on the history of economics. It is those hidden stories and those silenced voices that I want to go back to, learn from, and use to reassess the economic concepts, ideas, and theories that men have developed over the centuries.
To be explicit about our concepts, we need also to address the questions “What is economics?” and “What is the economy?” The economy – like notions of gender – has to be considered as a social construct; there is nothing we can point to and definitively say: “THAT is the economy.” What has become part of “the economy” has been constructed socially, culturally, politically, and economically over the past centuries. Therefore, what is considered part of “the economy” is neither “natural” nor a politically neutral given, as we will see in particular when we talk about women’s work.
Political economy, which acknowledged the role of power, morals, and the conflict of interest between classes, became redefined by the end of the nineteenth century. The theoretical approach of political economists such as Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and Thomas Malthus is often also referred to as “Classical Economics,” a term coined by Karl Marx. Economists started to refer to the new set of theories that was based on a quantitative methodology dominant in physics at the time, and that focused on individual behavior (of men), as “Economics.” Consequently, alongside “œconomia,” which concerns economic thinking that preceded political economy, this book will refer to either “political economy” or “economics,” depending on the time period under discussion. Finally, and just to be clear, the economy and economics are not one and the same thing. Economics is a field of study that includes concepts, theories, economic journals and books, and the economists doing the research. This field of study may be influential, but only indirectly influences what is happening in what we call “the economy” in the much broader sense.
This means that the questions “What is economics?” and “Who is to do economics?” are both relevant given that they are both concerned with whose questions deserve attention and further investigation, and who gets to decide whether the answers are satisfactory. Until recently the issues and questions of women and women of color, in particular, clearly did not count for much, and many of the answers that economists came up with left a lot of women economic writers and economists in the dark.
Themes and structure of the book
As already stated, this book is structured around a set of themes distilled from women’s economic writings over the period 1700–2020: one or more theme per chapter, eight chapters in total, plus a concluding chapter. While each chapter unfolds in a chronological manner, each theme is addressed in more detail for the period in which it became central in the economists’ debates. The theme of morality, for instance, was extensively discussed by early political economists like Bernard Mandeville and Adam Smith during the eighteenth century; one of the two themes addressed in Chapter 1 is women’s economic writing on a new morality during that time period. These themes are foundations to be built upon in subsequent chapters, as they continue to play roles in the herstory of economic thinking of later periods. In subsequent chapters, the reader will see returns to time periods addressed previously, as the themes of focus shift through time and through the chapters. The sequence of the chapters follows the sequence of these theme periods through the herstory of economic thought, as is outlined in the rest of this Introduction.
Chapter 1, “The Emergence of Political Economy,” goes back to the origins of political economy and the times during which the field was referred to as “œconomia,” or the study of the household. In later texts, a lot of women economic writers and Greek philosophers like Xenophon and Socrates address their experiences in running a household. In this chapter, we meet Grisell Baillie of Jarviswood (1665–1746), who kept household books over a period of more than thirty years over the first decades of the eighteenth century; the chapter brings into focus the tradition of books on household management, increasingly perceived, in England and elsewhere, as women’s exclusive realm. After political economy emerges and redefines the field to focus on the individual engaging in exchange relations, the tradition of household management continues, but outside academia. In the early twentieth century, this tradition gets replaced by the more scientific analysis of Home Economics, which includes, for instance, Economics of Household Production (1934) by Margaret G. Reid (1896–1991). This tradition resurfaced as New Home Economics in the 1960s and 1970s, applying mainstream, neoclassical economic theory to household behavior.
From the period during which scientific study became institutionalized, we will meet Émilie du Châtelet (1706–49) who lived in France, translated the poem The Fable of the Bees (1714) by Bernard Mandeville (1670–1733), and contributed to the new moral system that came with the emerging industrial society. She was a central figure in the French Enlightenment as she gathered free thinkers, both aristocrats and bourgeois, around her to discuss mathematics, natural science, and philosophy. We will also read about Elizabeth Montagu (1718–1800), leader of the Bluestocking Society and a very visible personality in British society. The ideas of both du Châtelet and Montagu on the new daily morality in France and England will be related to Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759). The remaining part of this first chapter will introduce Maria Edgeworth (1768–1849), who described the change in culture and morality from feudal relations to early capitalist in Castle Rackrent (1800), and Mary Hays (1759–1843), whose message and tone are more urgent, as she addresses the threats of poverty and moral downfall faced by women. Closing off this chapter is Sophie de Grouchy de Condorcet (1764–1822), who translated Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) into French and contributed her views on moral decision-making and the role of institutions. The relation between morality and economic science will remain a recurring theme throughout the history of economic thought.
Chapter 2, “Power, Agency, and Property Rights,” lays bare some other cornerstones of political economy. With the growth of bourgeois society, the legal and political position of women became redefined, acknowledging fathers, brothers, and husbands as women’s legal guardians in a legal system that dispossessed married women from control over their fortunes, their children, and their futures. Sarah Chapone (1699–1764) sounded the alarm bell about the loss of legal rights for women in 1735. Later in the eighteenth century, women economic and legal writers claimed and fought for women’s rights to