Re: gender mix

[Anne Mayhew <mayhew@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Doug Henwood and Bill Mitchell have commented on the lack of female
participation on PKT.  As a sometime lurker (but one who has frequently
gotten off the list because of an excess of stuff), I have three
observations that may be relevant:

(1)  In cooperation with participants on FEMECON (the feminist economics
network), Marianne Ferber has done an analysis of the sex of contributors
to various handbooks on economics.  Among the fields, macrotheory had one
of the lowest rates of participation by females.  (I do not remember the
numbers; if you want more info on this contact me privately.)

(2)  This did not surprise me.  In more than a quarter century of
teaching lots of different economics courses to undergrads I have
observed that money & banking and macro and related fields (monetary
theory, etc.) is probably the most intimidating area for women.  Although
I do not use much math, on the basis of talking to lots of
students--grads and undergrads--I am inclined to think that it is the
"maleness" of money, of finance, and of macro that is more intimidating
than math.
This is not because of difficulty.  I have had lots of female students
who were quite capable of and willing to pursue intricate arguments and
analysis about a lot of things but when they came to money and macro they
shied away.  (I know absolutely that this is not true for all women; my
observation is that it is for many.)  The problem I think is that boys
grow up thinking that they know about money and banks and related
topics.  They may not, probably don't, but think they do.  And it is a
bit like kicking and changing tires--even if they don't know it would be
disgraceful to be known not to know.  Girls grow up not "knowing" such
stuff (even though they may know more than boys).  Remember all the jokes
that are not so old and may even still be around about women not being
able to balance a checkbook.

Add to this the fact that financial trading and related occupations tend
to be very male dominated (see an article by John Harvey on "Institution
of Foreign Exchange Trading" in the September 1993 Journal of Economic
Issues) and the evidence that Ulla Grapard (at Colgage) has amassed about
the fairly extraordinary gender bias of a standard money and banking text
and you get a picture of a subfield of economics that is likely to be
inhospitable to women.

3)  Also, most women economists (again, not all) who are inclined to
question the absolutely truth and beauty of the orthodox core of economics
are likely to be involved on FEMECON or one of the other networks where
the dialogue is more focussed on the impact of feminist thought and other
aspects of post-modern developments on ways of thinking about
economies.  This implies a fairly critical stance toward economics.  PKT,
as a network, involves a critical stance toward part of the spectrum of
economics, but--if I may exaggerate a bit--accepts that if some pieces of
economics (treatment of money or of uncertaity, for example) were
corrected, the project of economics could proceed on sound footing.
Feminist economics suggests that a more thorough rethinking of the
categories and focus of analysis is required.  (Julie Nelson's recent
article in the Journal of Economic Perspectives is a good statement of
this perspective.)  Thus, I suspect that a lack of female participation
on PKT is to be in part explained by the fact that PKT is very much about
economics as it has been.

Please understand that I say all of this with good cheer and as a
reasonably devoted post Keynesian of long standing.

Anne Mayhew
1101 McClung Tower
University of Tennessee
Knoxville, TN 37996-0411
PH: 615-974-1689; FAX: 615-974-3915; E-MAIL: MAYHEW@xxxxxxxxxxxxx