The Rise and Decline of Patriarchal Systems

An Intersectional Political Economy

Nancy Folbre

• Publisher: Verso
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9781786632951
• eBook ISBN:
  9781786632920
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Political Economy
• Index: Social Sciences

Why do patriarchal systems survive? In this groundbreaking work of feminist theory, Nancy Folbre examines the contradictory effects of capitalist development. She explains why the work of caring for others is under-valued and under-rewarded in today's global economy, calling attention to the organisation of childrearing, the care of other dependants, and the inheritance of assets. Upending conventional definitions of the economy based only on the market, Folbre emphasizes the production of human capabilities in families and communities and the social reproduction of group solidarities. Highlighting the complexity of hierarchical systems and their implications for political coalitions, The Rise and Decline of Patriarchal Systems sets a new feminist agenda for the twenty-first century.

Notes

Chapter 1. Intersectional Political Economy

1 Heidi Hartmann, “The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism: Toward a More Progressive Union,” Capital and Class 3: 2, 1979, 1–33.

2 Nancy Folbre, “Gender Bargaining in the Labor Market,” Working Paper. Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute, forthcoming.

3 Anne Marie Goetz, “The Politics of Preserving Gender Inequality: De-institutionalisation and Re-privatisation,” Oxford Development Studies 48: 1, 2019, 2–17.

4 Sarah Ashwin and Jennifer Utrata, “Revenge of the Lost Men: From Putin’s Russia to Trump’s America,” Contexts, 2019, in press.

5 Oxfam Briefing Paper, “An Economy for the 99%,” January 2017, oxfam.org; Gerry Mullany, “World’s 8 Richest Have as Much Wealth as Bottom Half, Oxfam Says,” New York Times, January 16, 2017, nytimes. com.

6 Liam Stackmarch, “‘Fearless Girl’ Statue to Stay in Financial District (for Now),” New York Times, March 27, 2017, nytimes.com.

7 See the Online Etymological Dictionary at etymonline.com.

8 Roxane Gay, Bad Feminist, New York: Harper Perennial, 2014, 17.

9 Audre Lorde, “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House,” in Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches, 110–14, Berkeley, CA: Crossing Press, 1984, collectiveliberation.org.

10 Kate Pickett and Richard G. Wilkinson, The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger, London: Bloomsbury, 2009.

11 Nancy Folbre, “Children as Public Goods,” American Economic Review 84: 2, 1994, 86–90.

12 Ellen Gabler, Zach Montague, and Grace Ashford, “During a Pandemic, an Unanticipated Problem: Out-of-Work Health Workers,” New York Times, April 3, 2020, nytimes.com.

Chapter 2. Defining the Patriarchal

1 Bina Agarwal, “‘Bargaining’ and Gender Relations: Within and Beyond the Household,” Feminist Economics 3: 1, 1997, 1.

2 Deniz Kandiyoti, “Bargaining with Patriarchy,” Gender and Society 2: 3, 1988, 274.

3 Nancy Folbre, Greed, Lust and Gender: A History of Economic Ideas, New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.

4 For instance, Gerda Lerner (whose research on the origins of patriarchal systems is described in Chapter 6) defines “patriarchy” as the “manifestation and institutionalization of male dominance over women and children in the family and the extension of male dominance over women in society in general.” Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Patriarchy, New York: Oxford University Press, 1986, 239.

5 Douglass North, “Institutions,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 5: 1, 1991, 92.

6 Nancy Folbre, Who Pays for the Kids? Gender and the Structures of Constraint, New York: Routledge, 1994.

7 Larry Neal and Jeffrey G. Williamson, eds., The Cambridge History of Capitalism, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014.

8 Sylvia Walby, Theorizing Patriarchy, New York: Blackwell, 1990, 20; Göran Therborn, Between Sex and Power, New York: Routledge, 2007.

9 Nancy Folbre, “The Political Economy of Human Capital,” Review of Radical Political Economics 44: 3, 2012, 281–92.

10 Therborn, Between Sex and Power.

11 Mala Htun and S. Laurel Weldon, “The Civic Origins of Progressive Policy Change: Combating Violence Against Women in Global Perspective, 1975–2005,” American Political Science Review 106: 3, 2012, 548–69.

12 Timothy Besley and Maitreesh Ghatak, “Property Rights and Economic Development,” in The Handbook of Development Economics, Vol. 5, Dani Rodrik and Mark Rosenzweig, eds., Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2009, 4525–96.

13 Steven N.S. Cheung, “The Enforcement of Property Rights in Children and the Marriage Contract,” Economic Journal 82: 326, 1972, 641–57.

14 David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1966, 35.

15 Orlando Patterson, Slavery and Social Death, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982.

16 August Bebel, Woman Under Socialism, translated from the original German of the 33rd edition by Daniel De Leon, New York: Schocken Books, 1971, 216.

17 See, for instance, Thomas A. McGinn, The Economy of Prostitution in the Roman World, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004.

18 Therborn, Between Sex and Power, 25.

19 A. Sachs and J. H. Wilson, Sexism and the Law, Oxford: Martin Robinson, 1978, 149.

20 Siwan Anderson, “The Economics of Dowry and Brideprice,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 21: 4, 2007, 151–74.

21 Sheetal Sekhri and Adam Storeygard, “Dowry Deaths: Response to Weather Variability in India,” Journal of Development Economics 111, 2014, 212–23.

22 Francesca Bettio and Tushar K. Nandi, “Evidence on Women Trafficked for Sexual Exploitation: A Rights Based Analysis,” European Journal of Law and Economics 29: 1, 2010, 15–42.

23 World Health Organization, “Global and Regional Estimates of Domestic Violence Against Women: Prevalence and Health Effects of Intimate Partner Violence and Non-partner Sexual Violence,” Geneva: Author, Department of Reproductive Health and Research, 2013, who.int.

24 Elaine McCrate, “Trade, Merger and Employment: Economic Theory on Marriage,” Review of Radical Political Economics 19: 1, 1987, 73–89.

25 Elissa Braunstein, and Nancy Folbre, “To Honor or Obey: The Patriarch as Residual Claimant,” Feminist Economics 7: 1, 2001, 25–54.

26 Katherine Silbaugh, “Turning Labor into Love: Housework and the Law,” Northwestern University Law Review 91: 1, 1996–97, 3–86.

27 Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Jocelyn Gage, History of Woman Suffrage, Vols. 1–3, New York: Fowler & Wells, 1882; Reva B. Siegel, “Home as Work: The First Woman’s Rights Claims Concerning Wives’ Household Labor, 1850–1880,” Yale Law Journal 103: 5, 1994, 1073–217.

28 Therborn, Between Sex and Power, 66.

29 Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, “Bargaining in the Shadow of the Law: Divorce Laws and Family Distress,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 121: 1, 2006, 267–88.

30 Jeffrey Gettleman, Kai Schultz, and Suhasini Raj, “India Gay Sex Ban Is Struck Down. ‘Indefensible,’ Court Says,” New York Times, September 6, 2018, nytimes.com.

31 “Women Caned in Malaysia for Attempti...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• I. Theoretical Tools
• II. Reconstructed Narratives
• Notes
• Index