1. Gendered Economics
Dr. Conor McCabe, Equality Studies Centre, UCD
8 March 2013

2. 1. Societies are relational.

3. 1. Societies are relational.
2. The endless accumulation of capital is
inherently destructive in terms of humanity
and the environment.

4. 1. Societies are relational.
2. The endless accumulation of capital is
inherently destructive in terms of humanity
and the environment.
3. The capitalist mode of production is a
patriarchal mode of production – ‘economic
man’ saturates its conceptual framework.

7. It’s one thing to say people interact with to each other…

8. Another to say people interact with each other solely through profit-seeking markets

16. Closing down of Dissent - Attacks on Equality in Ireland
Equality Bodies – closed down or with reduced Budgets
 Combat Poverty Agency –closed 2008 incorporated into the Department of Social Protection
 Equality Authority – 2009 43% cut and now being merged with the Human Rights Commission
 Women’s Health Council – closed 2009
 Crisis Pregnancy Agency – closed and merged with the Health Service Executive
 Irish Human Rights Commission -Budget cuts since 2009 and merged with Equality Authority
 Equality for Women Measure - co-funded by EU Operational Programme ---budget partly transferred out of this area and now under Dept. For
Enterprise, Trade and Employment
 National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism (NCCRI) _Closed 2009
 Gender Equality desk at the Department (Ministry) of Justice, Equality and Law Reform – Desk Closed 2009
 Gender Equality Unit – Department of Education – Closed early 2000s
 Higher Education Equality Unit – UCC -Closed and merged into Higher Education Authority (early 2000s)
 National Women’s Council of Ireland -158 member organisations- budget cuts of 15% in 2008-11 and 38% in 2012
 Traveller Education cutbacks 2011 and 2012 – all 42 Visiting teaches for Travellers removed*
 Rape Crisis Network Ireland – core Health Authority Funding removed 2011
 SAFE Ireland network of Women’s’ Refuges - core Health Authority Funding removed 2011
 People With Disabilities in Ireland's (PWDI) - funding removed 2012
 National Carers’ Strategy – abandoned 2009
Kathleen Lynch, Equality Studies UCD School of Social
Justice 16

24. Gender and Caring
Notes on Lynch and Lyons, ‘The Gendered Order of Caring’ in
Ursula Barry (ed) Where Are We Now? New Feminist Perspectives on
Women in Contemporary Ireland (Dublin: Tasc, 2008)

25. There are deep gender inequalities in the doing of care and love work that operate to
the advantage of men.
It is women’s unwaged labour and related domestic labour that frees men up to
exercise control in the public sphere of politics, the economy and culture.
… there is a moral imperative on women to do care work that does not apply equally
to men ; a highly gendered moral code impels women to do the greater part of
primary caring, with most believing they have no choice in the matter.

26. The reason love and care matter is because we are relational beings, emotional as
well as intellectual, social as well as individual. P.165
Feminist-inspired scholars have drawn attention to the salience of care and love as
public goods, and have identified the importance of caring as a human capability
meeting a basic human need. (1)
They have also exposed the limitations of conceptualisations of citizenship devoid of
a concept of care, and highlighted the importance of caring as work, work that needs
to be distributed equally between women and men in particular.
1. Nassbaum, Glover (eds) Women, Culture and Development: A Study of Human Capabilities (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995)

27. The Irish government collects data on unpaid
caring within households in
1.the Census
2.the Quarterly Household Survey (QNHS).
Within the Census, care is defined as being
given by ‘persons aged 15yrs and over who
provide regular unpaid help for a friend or
family member with a long-term illness,
health problem or disability (including
problems due to age). P.167-8

28. The way care is defined in the Census excludes what constitutes a major category of
care work, that of the ordinary, everyday care of children (unless the child has a
recognised disability). Data on the care of children is compiled in the QNHS,
however, and is also available through the European Community Household Panel
(ECPH) survey. The focus in all three is on the hours of work involved in caring so
we do not know the nature and scope of the caring involved. P.168

29. According to the [2006] Census
there are less than 150,000 people, 5
per cent of the adult population in
unpaid care work (mostly with
adults) of whom 61 per cent are
women and 39 per cent are men.
However, when we measure all
types of caring activity, as has been
done in the European Community
household Panel (ECPH) we see
that there are 1 million people who
do caring who are not named in the
census.

30. Even though it is no doubt
unintentional, the failure to collect
data on hours spent on child care
work in the Census, means that
child care, which is the major form
of care work in Irish society, is no
counted in terms of work hours.
… women are almost five times as
likely to work long care hours than
is the case for men.
Women spend much more time at
care work than men, even when
they are employed.

34. Over the past thirty years, despite their being
essential to human life, neoliberal restructuring
across the world has privatised, eroded and
demolished our shared resources, and ushered in
a ‘crisis of social reproduction.’
‘Cuts are a Feminist Issue’, Soundings (Dec 2011),
p.73.

35. The term social reproduction encompasses all the means
by which society reproduces its families, citizens and
workers. It includes all the labour that is necessary for a
society to reproduce itself: the biological production of
people and workers, and all the social practices that
sustain the population – bearing children, raising children,
performing emotional work, providing clothing and food,
and cooking and cleaning.

36. The term social reproduction encompasses all the means
by which society reproduces its families, citizens and
workers. It includes all the labour that is necessary for a
society to reproduce itself: the biological production of
people and workers, and all the social practices that
sustain the population – bearing children, raising children,
performing emotional work, providing clothing and food,
and cooking and cleaning.
As a concept social reproduction has been key to feminist
social theory, because it challenges the usual distinctions
that are made between productive and reproductive
labour, or between the labour market and the home.

37. The term social reproduction encompasses all the means
Labour in this sphere is often devalued and
by which society reproduces its families, citizens and
privatised, and is typically performed by women in
workers. It includes all the labour that is necessary for a
their ‘double day’ or ‘second shift’, alongside paid
society to reproduce itself: the biological production of
wage labour. But reproductive labour of this kind is
people and workers, and all the social practices that
just as central to capitalist accumulation as are other
sustain the population – bearing children, raising children,
forms of labour, which means that struggles over its
performing emotional work, providing clothing and food,
structure and distribution are fundamental to any
and cooking and cleaning.
understanding of issues of power and the
relationships between labour and capital, as well as
As a concept social reproduction has been key to feminist
the potential for their transformation.
social theory, because it challenges the usual distinctions
that are made between productive and reproductive
labour, or between the labour market and the home.

38. Social Reproduction
Renewing life is a form of work, a kind of production, as fundamental to the perpetuation
of society as the production of things.
Moreover, the social organization of that work, the set of social relationships through
which people act to get it done, has varied widely and that variation has been central to
the organization of gender relations and gender inequality.
From this point of view, societal reproduction includes not only the organization of
production but the organization of social reproduction, and the perpetuation of gender as
well as class relations.
Barbara Laslett and Johanna Brenner, ’ Gender and Social Reproduction: Historical Perspectives,’ Annual Review of
Sociology, Vol. 15 (1989): 383

41. Households
are spaces
of social
reproduction

46. 11 May 2010
Dear Chief Secretary,
I'm afraid to tell you there's no money left.
Sincerely,
Liam Byrne.
chief secretary to the Treasury.

47. “The British Government has run out of
money because all the money was spent in
the good years.”
George Osborne, 25 February 2012

48. “So we cannot just carry on as we are. Unless we reform our economy - rebalance demand,
restructure banking, and restore the sustainability of our public finances - we shall not only
jeopardise recovery, but also fail the next generation.”
Mervyn King, TUC Conference, 15 September 2010.

49. 5 March 2009. QE : £75 billion
10 October 2011. QE : £75 billion
2009 – 2011. corporate bond purchase
via asset purchase facility : £375 billion
2012: Monetary Policy Committee
approve a further £50 billion.
“So we cannot just carry on as we are. Unless we reform our economy - rebalance demand,
restructure banking, and restore the sustainability of our public finances - we shall not only
jeopardise recovery, but also fail the next generation.”
Mervyn King, TUC Conference, 15 September 2010.

50. Long Term Refinancing Operations (LTRO)
21 December 2011: €489.2 billion to 523 banks –
3yrs @ 1 per cent
29 February 2012: €529.5 billion to 800 banks –
3yrs @ 1 per cent

51. Long Term Refinancing Operations (LTRO)
21 December 2011: €489.2 billion to 523 banks –
3yrs @ 1 per cent
29 February 2012: €529.5 billion to 800 banks –
3yrs @ 1 per cent
“Some banks, particularly in Spain and Italy, used portions of those
funds to buy higher-yielding bonds issued by their governments at a
time when most investors remained skittish, and it helped reduce
government borrowing costs.
But many banks primarily used the funds to pay down maturing
debts or simply deposited the money at other banks or with the ECB
itself, even though they yield less. The infusion fell short of some
politicians' hope that it would stimulate bank lending to customers
in struggling European economies.”
Wall Street Journal, 1 March 2012