Mill and the Ladies, or a historical look at the "feminist critique"

One of the liveliest debates I've seen continues to rage on the HES list.  For the most part, the focus is "Feminist critique" -- it began as a result of a post about anniversaries in which Becker's Economics of the Family was mentioned.  The issue, initially, was whether and how Becker's innovations then generated the Feminist Critique. But it's since moved on to encompass just what, precisely, the critique entails, as well such as less apparently related questions as whether economics is by-and-large characterized by utilitarian presumptions. 

Here's a post by Sumitra Shah, who began the "thorny thread":

Having started this thorny thread, I would like to send one last post on the subject: Becker did not design his economics for men or women. The criticism is not that it is ideological banter. He rigorously developed it based on the concept of the neoclassical economic agent, who is devoid of any socio-cultural characteristics. Hence his work misses the important dimensions that must be examined to come up with a meaningful theory of an institution such as the family. And he is an important economist, so the consequences of his work do matter. For feminist economists, the economic status of women is always a pressing concern; I am simply awed by their commitment.

Here's part of a posting by Nicholas J. Theocarakis: 

What is perhaps the most important aspect of the Beckerian project is the claim that the most important part of the different treatment of females in our economy and society is the result of rational decisions and that social norms and discriminatory perceptions do not matter.  ...  If social norms do not matter it is the objective characteristics of sex (e.g., fertility) that bring about different outcomes. Considerations of gender, i.e., the social construction of sex, according to this view, are irrelevant.  But perceptions of traits as "feminine" or "masculine" *are* important and this affects the acquisition of productivity-related traits during socialization and the assessment of individual productivity in the workplace.

I don't wish to comment on feminist economics.  Nor have I read the entire set of posts carefully.  You can find them here. But I do want to add that there is a broader historical dimension that has yet to be considered.  The treatment of "masculinity" and "feminity" -- from which Becker and others abstracted in this century -- has a rather dark side.  In the nineteenth century, political economists of such stature as J. S. Mill were "diminished" intellectually, by the claim that they were overly sentimental and "feminine", and therefore less-than-fully rational.  Their ideas were consequently also diminished in stature.  And when Mill defended the right of women to vote, he was criticized.  Two examples from the press are pasted in below. 

The point that sometimes gets lost as we think about cultural determinants of this and that is that, historically, the idea of difference was about "nature".  And, as David Levy and I have argued in The "Vanity of the Philosopher", "natural difference", historically, has meant "inferiority" (of gender, race, religion), with the awful policy results that followed -- paternalistic looking-after and denial of suffrage, direction, eugenics, slavery.  The return to homogeneity in this century denied these possibilities.

 

I used the Logic cartoon, by the way, for last year's Summer Institute t-shirt!  Am taking suggestions for this year's...!

I should add, as well, that a Judy cartoon -- reproduced in Mill's CW -- has Mill as a lady.  I don't have a scan of that one but will post it when I do.

Comments

[Philippe]

Those pictures from "Punch" are very interesting. Do you know in which volume of the Collected Works is "Mill as a lady"?

[Sandra Peart]

It's from volume 29, parliamentary speeches. I'll try to post a scan before long. sp