We all play by economic rules set by men. What could a feminist economics look like?
In 1975, Marilyn Waring became New Zealand’s youngest ever member of
parliament, at the age of 23. There, she eventually chaired the Public
Expenditure Committee and learned the peculiar set of values that seemed to
govern not only New Zealand’s economy, but the economic structure of the entire
world. From New Zealand to New York City to rural parts of Africa, this
economic system had resulted from standards laid down by the United Nations
System of National Accounts, which stated that ‘subsistence production and the
consumption of their own produce by non-primary of producers is of little or no
importance’. What this technocratic language stated, in effect, was that
anything without a price tag – including the environment, peace and unpaid
domestic work – was considered to be of little value to a nation’s economy.
Directed by the Academy Award-winning Canadian
filmmaker Terre Nash, this extended excerpt from the feature-length
documentary Who’s Counting? Marilyn Waring on Sex, Lies and Global
Economics (1995) follows Waring as she travels to the United Nations,
where the rules of the global economy have been set, and discusses her time
visiting more than 35 countries, during which she followed a local woman in
each place through an average day. Through this framing, Waring argues that
modern economic measurement marginalises the contributions of women to society,
even as, by many measures, they work harder than men and contribute more to
their communities. Further, she sets out a series of prescriptions for how,
through electoral politics, policy, budgets and even language, society can
begin to re-value the unpaid work disproportionately taken on by
women.
Director: Terre Nash
Producer: Kent Martin
Website: National
Film Board of Canada
21 July 2022
We all play by economic rules set by men. What could a feminist economics look like? | Aeon Videos
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