Book Review by Claire T.

Delvo
THE AGE OF THE ECONOMIST
(WOMEN AND ECONOMY)
By Daniel R. Fusfeld
Men are free to work in the economic and political
Rating : 3.5 world because women stayed home to raise children
and provide the man with refuge from his struggles
outside home. In return, women received food,
clothing and shelter as their reward

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Summary:
Before the late nineteenth century the role of women in the development of economic thought was limited
by almost total domination of the field by men. Women were not trained in economics, did not hold
professorships in the universities, and did not publish in the scholarly journals that were beginning to
appear. Nevertheless, there were a number of women who had an impact on economic thought and policy, if
not the narrower area of economic theory, and whose contribution helped changed the world we live. We
have already seen the contributions of a few women in the development of economics: the influence of
Harriet Taylor on John Stuart Mill, the role of Rosa Luxemburg in the Marxist debates over revolutionary
strategy, the ideas of Beatrice Web and Fabian Society, and Joan Robinson’s contribution to the neoclassical
discussion of imperfect competition.
Social / Historical Context:

The role of women in the nineteenth century started to bloom by

the influence of inspirational women like Jane Marcet (1769-1858).
She was a popularizer of economist in the first half of the nineteenth
century. She wrote many books about the explanation of classical
economics for young people. She later then got married and became the
first professionally trained women economist in England and the first
women to obtain degree from University of Cambridge. One
biographer commented that she might became the economist of high
repute had it not been for the ‘suffocating influence’ of her famous
husband who wrote the Principles of Economics in 1890. Economics in her day was truly a man’s world.

Mary Wallstone Craft (1759-1797) is widely recognized as initiating the modern women’s rights movement
in the English speaking world. She grew up with and abusive and alcoholic father in the family. At nineteen
she left home to make her own way suffering years as a teacher translator and editor. She then later wrote a
novel, Mary; a Fiction (1788) was based on her own life. Two years later
she wrote a vindication of the rights of women made her both famous and
infamous. This seminal book argued that women were an oppressed
group both legally and economically. It set forth the chief doctrines of the
later women’s movement, complete equality of sexes, voting rights for
women and equal opportunities in education, jobs and professions. Her
analysis how the legal systems reduced women to the status of nonperson
became a theme of much feminist writing and agitation as the women movement grew. May then went to Paris
and got married. Mary died at the age of thirty eight, shortly after she gave birth to her daughter. Her daughter
Mary Godwin then married to Percy Bysshe Shelley, and as Mary Shelly, wrote the famous novel Frankenstein
on 1818.
Harriet Taylor, who had made such an important impact on John
Stuart Mill, was also a strong advocate of equal legal treatment of
women, as can be seen in her work, The Enfranchisement of
Women (1851). She was the first to point out the crowding of

women worker in low-wage job in Women and Work (1857).

Later in the century an American Helen Stuart Campbell (1839-
1918) wrote three widely read books dealing with poverty and the
place of women in the American Economy. They both revealed
the dark side of the great expansion of the American Economy
that followed Civil war.

Millicent Fawcett (1847- 1929), like Mary Paley, was the wife of an economist at England’s Cambridge
University. Her husband was a classical economist and a Member of Parliament; he advocated liberal
economic reforms that were often opposed to the conservative teachings of classical orthodoxy. His wife with
no formal education in economics became his secretary and collaborated
with him on his writings. Fawcett also authored two popular introductory
economics text book of her own and was corporated into Cambridge
University in 1874 as its first Women’s College. She also joined a
women’s suffrage group in 1867 and entered the movement full time after
her husband’s death in 1884. From 1897 to 1918 she was president to the
National Union of Women’s Societies and the recognized leader of the
drive for voting rights for women in England. As the president of the
National Union, she chaired a study group to investigate the employment
of women and women’s wages. She reported these findings in two
important papers, ‘The Position of Women in Economic Life’ and Equal
Pay for Equal Work’. Three propositions emerged from Fawcett’s papers: Women were crowded into a few
occupations, women were excluded from the higher paying jobs, and women were paid less than men. At first
her analysis was ignored but revived by an American economist. After Parliament voted women the right to
vote in 1918, Fawcett continued to campaign for women’s legal rights. These were ultimately granted in 1928
just a year before she died.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860- 1935) was not a trained economist. She married at twenty three after a
trouble childhood, and then fell to serious depression and some psychological problems. T he experience led
her to her first great success as a writer, the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” (1892). The story made her
famous and it remains today one of the best stories in modern era. Perkins
was greatly influenced by Edward Bellany’s utopian novel and took up
the cause of the National Party, which had been formed to advocate
Bellamy’s ideas about full equality of men and women. In Women and
Economics (1898), Perkins argued that ‘the relationship between men and
women was essentially an economic one’. Men are free to work in the
economic and political world because women stayed home to raise
children and provide the man with refuge from his struggles outside home. In return, women received food,
clothing and shelter as their reward. Perkins extended this argument to working women. Long hours and low
pay kept the women from developing fully. Perkins develops these arguments at greater length at four other
works: Concerning Women (1900), The Home: Its Work and Influence (1903), Human Work (1904) and The
Man Made World (1911). The publication s made Charlotte Perkins Gilman one of the best known leaders of
the women rights movement in the pre World War 1 America. She died together with her second husband by
committing suicide.

Mary Marcy (1877-1922) was another writer who did not have formal trainings in economics. She was
orphaned and as a young adult she supported her brother and sister by working as a telephone switchboard
operator. She was interested in social and political issues from an early age:
during the 1896 presidential campaign she was fired by her employer, a
manufacturer of American Flags, for wearing a William Jennings Bryan
campaign button. Hearing about this incident, Clarence Darrow the famous
lawyer, offer her a job in the office of the president of the University of
Chicago, where she was able to take tuition classes for free. She later then got
married and joined the Socialist party in1903; she then became the leading
leader in the party’s radical wing. After writing muckraking exposes entitled “Letters of the Pork Packer’s
Stenographer”, she was blacklisted and found work with the social welfare agency. Her work impressed the
publisher of ISR and then chose her paper as the paper’s editor, with instructions into “a fighting magazine of
socialism”. Her effort was a series of articles for workers explaining the Marxist concepts of value, price and
surplus value. The ISR took a strong stand against American participation in the First World War Marcy
wrote a series of strongly worded articles between 1914 and 1917. Urging the people to oppose the war,
arguing that the real enemy was not the armies of the countries, also made of working people, but the
capitalist class of their own country. Mary Marcy then committed suicide in 1922 at the age of forty five.

Jane Adams (1860-1935) was the great social reformer and pacifist, also lacked professional training. She
was raised in a comfortable household by her widowed father, a state senator and an abolitionist friend of
Abraham Lincoln. She wanted to study medicine, but a spinal
illness left her slightly deformed forced her to give up her
medical studies. After college she travelled with a friend and
visited the Toynbee Hall, a pioneering house settlement house in
London serving the needs of the poor. Returning to Chicago, she
and her friend founded the Hull House 1889, a settlement house
in the city’s worst slums. Financed by private donations, Hull
House provided a wide variety of services for the poor: medical clinics, classes for immigrants, assistance for
unmarried pregnant girls, and a wide variety of health, educational, cultural, and recreational activities. The
two best friends lobbied for child labor laws, factory legislation, and programs to alleviate poverty but they
were overturned by the courts. Addams was more politically active than her friend Starr. At the 1912
convention of the new Progressive Party she seconded the nomination of Theodore Roosevelt for president
and then campaigned in favor of the social welfare in the party platform. After the First World War, she
founded the women international league for peace and freedom and served its president until her death in
1935.
Writing Style:

The book was written first by Daniel Roland FusFeld in chapter nine entitled Women and Economy talks
about the women contributions to the world economy and how women fights their equal rights without
shedding any blood. As the saying goes, the pen is mightier than the sword. The story was been plotted
according to the years of the women came out from their shell. It is also narrative in the way that the writer
wrote about the personal stories of those women’s childhood, marriage and problems that somehow
threatened their journey to achieve their dreams.

Fusfeld's clear writing style and explanations make The Age of the Economist accessible to and appropriate
for both economists and non-economists alike. Intended for many introductory courses, this short text
chronicles the development of modern economics through discussions of the major schools of thought and
through biographical sketches of key figures. It demonstrates the relevance of basic economic ideas to the
great debates of our own times, and it emphasizes how events, ideologies, and changing economic institutions
influence the relationship between economic theory and policy
My Thoughts:

I was inspired by the story of the women that made history in the economics of the world. Back in the
days, the working world was dominated by man and women have no opportunity to seek education and
develop independently because the idea was; at the end of the day, women will get married and have to take
care of their children, do house chores and serve the family until death. In return the women will receive
shelter, food and clothing from their husband. The society in those days also perceives women were weaker
than men therefore women does not have equal rights in those days.

Not just that, the potential contributions of female half of the population was aborted because women,
confined to the home, excluded from the world affairs and no opportunity to develop their full potential to
contribute to social economic and advancement. The male dominated economic, political, and social order
was poorer because it was male dominated. This left the world of affairs to be dominated by the more affluent
men who can construct a social order that benefited their social order and their kind.

According to United Women Organizations, women’s economic empowerment boosts productivity,

increases economic diversification and income equality in addition to other positive development outcomes.
For example, increasing the female employment rates in OECD countries to match that of Sweden could boost
GDP by over USD 6 trillion, recognizing, however, that. growth does not automatically lead to a reduction in
gender-based inequality. Conversely, it is estimated that gender gaps cost the economy some 15 percent of
GDP.

As we can see, the country economy will suffer a great loss if we continue the way of society
perceives women in the past. It is fortunate for women to live the world we live right now because women
rights were protected by law. Nowadays, we have the right to seek education in order to develop ourselves to
be financially stable independently.