1)       ". . . models of free individual choice are not adequate to analyze behavior fraught with issues of dependence, interdependence, tradition, and power. Tradition, in particular, may be a far more powerful force in determining allocation of household tasks than rational optimization." page 6

2)       "Myra Strober (1987) has challenged a number of widely accepted fundamental assumptions of neoclassical economics: "that human beings are rational and maximizing; that efficiency is 'good' because it produces greater welfare; that consumers and workers are hedonistic; that welfare if equivalent to, or at least approximated by, income; and that consumers and workers are atomistic and exhibit constant tastes." "page 7

3)       "Let us now briefly explain some of the key concepts of what we call "feminist constructionism."

      1. "Gender," as the word used by many feminists, means something quite different from biological sex. Gender is the social meaning given to biological differences between the sexes; it refers to cultural constructs rather than to biological givens.

      2. It is a basic tenet of feminist that many of the characteristics traditionally attributed to either women or men on the basis of biology are more general human characteristics whose identification as "feminine" or "masculine" is a matter of social belief. Patters of gender attribution are, in fact, subject to considerable historical and cross-cultural variation. Therefore, facile conflation of biological men with constructions of masculinity, or of women with femininity, is condemned as essentialism - the mistaken belief that a certain trait is "of the essence" of man or woman instead of socially constructed.

      3. Another problem with the word "gender" is that it is often read as "pertaining to women." This confusion arises because it is often assumed that attributes traditionally associated with men are "human," neutral, and universal while only those traits associated with women contain the "contamination" of gender. Such a view is labeled masculinist or androcentric (i.e. centered about a masculine ideal, with feminine aspects considered marginal and inferior). Feminist discussions of the ideals of science focus, in fact, not so much on the problems created by the absence of women as on the problems created by the power of myths and masculinity.

      4. The predominance or privileging of masculine ideals is seen as based on an unjust and damaging disparagement of qualities perceived as feminine. In order to remedy the situation, women's experiences and ideals (and at least certain aspects of traditional femininity) must be elevated or valorized; in some cases where gender system used to be different, they must be revalorized.

      5. Modern Western culture associates masculinity with the ideals of separation or separativeness, femininity with the ideals of connection or relation. In the masculine model, people are perceived primarily as individuals who are separated both from nature and from other human beings. In the feminine model, people are regarded as more integrally connected to human and ecological communities. . . .

      The valorization of feminine-identified qualities discussed here does not imply either the introduction of gender or the creation of a "female science." Gender is already deeply embedded in scientific practice - it just happens to be gender of the masculine kind and hence less noticeable to those who have come to accept masculine values as the only admissible ones. We do not seek to excise all of the values traditionally associated with science but to investigate and remedy the biases that may arise from an unexamined emphasis on masculinity. Objectivity, the search for knowledge that does not reflect particularistic biases, is still a goal. However, it is no longer assumed that objectively can be reached by the individual researcher, even when he or she follows certain correct methods of investigation. Scholarly work on the social construction of science (e.g. Kuhn 1962, 1970; Feyerabend 1976; works reviewed in Gergen 1985) suggests that objectivity is more of a social than an individual phenomenon.

      6. The objectivity of individuals . . .consists in their participation in the collective give-and-take of critical discussion and not in some special relation (of detachment, hardheadedness) they may bear to their observations. Thus understood, objectivity is dependent upon the depth and scope of the transformative interrogation that occurs in any given scientific community." pages 9 - 11

4)       "Eliminating androcentrism would involve not merely localized modifications but altering a self-image and a worldview with deep emotional as well as intellectual roots." page 13

5)       "In this book we focus on how economics could be improved by being freed from the straightjacket of masculine mythology." page 13

The Study of Choice or the Study of Provisioning? Gender and the Definition of Economics by Julie A. Nelson

1)       "At the cognitive level, then, sexism can also be seen as the selective blocking from view of the strengths of femininity and the dangers of unmitigated masculinity." page 29

2)       " . . . rationality includes reasoning by analogy, by metaphor, by pattern recognition, by imagination, and by, as Einstein once put it, "intuition, resting on sympathetic understanding of experience" (quoted in Georgescu - Roegen 1966, 14)." pages 29 - 30

The Separative Self: Androcentric Bias in Neoclassical Assumptions by Paula England

1)       "There are androcentric biases in the deep theoretical structure of neoclassical economics. Three of the most basic assumptions underlying economic theory are that interpersonal utility comparisons are impossible, that tastes are exogenous to economic models and unchanging, and that actors are selfish (have independent utilities) in markets. I argue that each of these assumptions flows from a separative model of human nature that has become a focus of criticism by feminists across a number of disciplines. I call the model "separative" because it presumes that humans are autonomous, impervious to social influences, and lack sufficient emotional connection to each other to make empathy possible. This is how they are presumed to behave in "the economy" or the "market."

      A fourth, often more implicit, assumption in many neoclassical models is that individuals do not behave according to the separative model vis-à-vis their families. In the family, individuals (particularly men) are presumed to be altruistic. Thus, empathic emotional connections between individuals are emphasized in the family whereas they are denied in analyzing markets.

      . . . These assumptions are also androcentric in the sense of being biased in favor of men's interests." page 37

2)       "Two major, though not mutually exclusive, emphases within feminist thinking can be discerned: One body of thought emphasizes the exclusion of women from traditionally male activities and institutions. . . .

      A second body of feminist thought emphasized the devaluation of and low material rewards accorded to activities and traits that traditionally have been deemed appropriate for women. The sexism here is in failing to see how much traditionally female activities or dispositions contribute to the economy, society, or polity. . . .

      Sometimes these two feminist positions are read as being in conflict: the first is seen as advocating that women enter traditionally male activities while the second is seen to advocate women's continued attention to traditionally female activities. In fact, however, the second position is not inconsistent with a commitment to opening all valued activities to both men and women on an equal basis. It is possible to believe that we should acknowledge the value of traditionally female activities and reward them accordingly without believing that women should continue to do a disproportionate share of these activities." pages 38 -39

3)       "The feminist critique of the separative self model has been applied in a number of disciplines other than economics." page 40

4)       "Carol Gilligan points out that Freud, Jung, Erikson, Piaget, and Kohlberg, despite their differences, all viewed individuation as synonymous with maturation but viewed connection to others as developmentally regressive." page 40

5)       "Neoclassical economists assume that interpersonal utility comparisons are impossible. Since the 1930s, utility has been conceived as the satisfaction of an individual's subjective desires; the concept lacks any dimension of objective, measurable welfare that might form the basis for interpersonal comparison (Cooter and Rappaport 1984). As a result, neoclassical theory tells us that we cannot know which of two persons gained more from a given exchange because the relevant "currency" in which gain or advantage is measured is utility, and utility is conceived as being radically subjective." pages 41 - 42

6)       "In a now famous article, George Stigler and Gary Becker (1977) argued that there is little variation in tastes between individuals, so most behavior can be explained by prices or endowments. Other economists disagree and see a role for disciplines such as sociology and psychology in explaining variations it tastes (Hirshleifer 1984). But whether or not they believe that tastes vary across individuals, economists typically see tastes as exogenous to their models. Further, tastes are not expected to change as individuals interact with others in markets or as they experience the consequences of market interaction." page 43

7)       "Becker's well-known "rotten kid" theorem posits an altruistic family head who takes the utility functions of family members as arguments of "his" own utility function. Becker argues that even a selfish "rotten" spouse or child will be induced to "behave" because of the reinforcement mechanism set up by the altruist. This "rotten kid" theorem doesn't hold without the assumption that the family member who is an altruist also controls the resources to be distributed (Ben-Porath 1982; Pollak 1985_." page 47

8)       "When individuals were surveyed, asked to identify areas of disagreement with their spouses, and asked whose wishes prevailed, the general findings showed that men's wishes prevail more often than women's wishes, but that this disparity is less pronounced when women are employed and least pronounced when women's earnings are high relative to their husbands' earnings. . . . This research makes it clear that men do not use the power they derive from earnings entirely altruistically . . ." page 48

Some Consequences of a Conjective Economics by Donald N. McCloskey

1)       "The notion that one can prove or disprove a great social truth by standing at a blackboard is a peculiarly masculine delusion." page 86

2)       Quoting Roslyn Wilett (1972): "Men tend to impose abstract structures on reality, and then to perceive reality in terms of their abstractions. . . ." page 87

Socialism, Feminist and Scientific by Nancy Folbre

1)       "Like Owen, [William] Thompson (1824) advocated social solidarity rather than individual competition. He criticized competition based on individual pursuit of self-interest specifically on the grounds that it was disadvantageous to women. Men would always prevail in individual competition due to their greater physical strength and "exertion uninterrupted by gestation." " page 99

2)       Noted following books from pages 107 - 110

Engels, Friedrich, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State

Owen, Robert, 1836, The Book of the New Moral World, Containing the Rational System of Society

Thompson, William, 1825, Appeal of One-Half the Human Race, Women, Against the Pretensions of the Other Half, Men, to Retain Them in Political, and Thence in Civil and Domestic Slavery

What Should Mainstream Economists Learn from Feminist Theory? by Rebecca M. Blank

1)       ". . . the treatment of gender in standard economic analysis is used as a metaphor in this volume for a broader set of problems in economic theory. The authors argue that a new "feminist economics" could provide a better explanation of human behavior over a broader range of economic situations. . . .

      Rather, the assumption that I find most problematic in the standard economic model is that in all cases choice is taken as the most useful characterization of how individuals respond to there social and economic environment. Our prototypical story about economic behavior describes an empowered individual. This person (male or female) who has a sense of choice in his or her life, who consciously seeks information on a broad range of subjects, and who engages in conscious and rational planning with the expectation that it will produce better results. In short, this is a person with a sense of control over his or her life, who perceives choices and acts on them. There is not a glimmer in this basic model that any individual might ever feel dominated, oppressed, passive, stuck, ill, unsure about his or her abilities, or unaware of alternatives. There is no recognition that many people in many situations will not perceive that any choices are available to them.

      . . . At no point . . .have I made any explicit reference to feminist theory. Although these arguments could be developed out of a feminist perspective, they could be developed out of other psychological, sociological, or institutional perspectives as well. The inadequacy of economics in dealing with gender-related issues is only one aspect of the overall "partial truth" nature of the economic model of behavior. Just as this model has not always adequately described the full range of forces that motivate the behavior of many women, so it has inadequately described the full range of experiences of many low-income men, many nonwhite men and women, and many non-assimilated immigrants." pages 140 -141

2)       "In introductory undergraduate microeconomics courses I have the sense that the following scenario is frequent: out of a class of one hundred students, ninety-nine will listen to the lectures and think to themselves, "Although interesting, this is sort of crazy; nobody really thinks this way." Those students do what they must to pass the course and forget it soon afterwards. But the one remaining person in that class lights up. This is almost always a male. He realizes this model describes the way that he thinks and acts. To that person, the economic model is intuitively obvious. It is that one person who is most likely to become an economist. Small wonder then that fifteen years later, sitting around the lunch table with a group of other similar selectively chosen economists, everyone believes that the standard economic model indeed describes how most people think about the world. It's certainty the way most people who choose to study economics think about the world." pages 142 -3

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