Friday, March 21, 2008

TREATMENT OF GENDER IN ECONOMIC THEORY


The concept of gender as distinct from the biological fact of sex includes a complex of sociological, cultural and psychological association with it norms are different for man and woman in a different, societies, but generally women is having inferior status in all. Sis natural but gender refers socialization of individuals in a particular society.
Economic theory has two main streams, neo-classical and Marxist. The neo-classical paradigm takes certain philosophical position, viz: the impersonal working of the market in a capitalist system brings efficient allocation of resources. The individual as a consumer or producer behaves rationally to maximize utility or profits. The different individuals places differently in the society, so there behavior do not confirm rationality assumption. Individuals in subsistence level of income find that their work and consumption do not maximize personal utility but increase the survival chances of whole family. Similarly in a society, which is in a transitory period, money is lent not to earn interest but to help a member of the society. The institutional identities of economic man do not consider gender.
Also it is noted by Illich, Ivan (1982) in their book Gender, that the loss of gender in an integral part of the history of scarcity and of the institutions that structure it. Drawing more and more positivism and neo-positivism, neo-classical economic acquired greater sophistication in methodology. Gender become a non-data and was completely out of the formalist’s tradition of non-Marxist. In the Marxist’s analysis, position of women is always bee seen as the out come of capitalism and sub-summed under analysis of class relations is not given and autonomous analytical position. Capitalist commodity relations assumes primary among social relations. The Marxist feminists tried to develop an integrated analysis, in which class and gender formation are looked at simultaneously. Gender relations form an important part of total social relations.

No comments: