Position: YES Student: Luiz M.

Michelon Zardo

Can a feminist agenda be pursued through neoliberal institutions?

The compatibility between feminism and neoliberalism has been widely explored in the

literature, with the view that they are inherently contradictory ideologies or movements being

close to consensual.1 Indeed, this is not surprising given the primary goal of feminism to

combat gender-related inequalities, which undeniably bears some resemblances with other

agendas fighting different sources of inequality, notably with anti-capitalism in the case of

the economic disparities engendered by the class divisions inherent to this system. In this

regard, it is true that most studies on the relationship between feminism and neoliberalism

(here identified as the radicalization of capitalism and its original principles) fall within the

scope of socialist/Marxist feminism and, more extensively, of perspectives that engage with

the political left.2 Being aware of the state-of-the-art of this complex debate, we intend in this

article to take the side of the minority position in this discussion, namely the claim that

neoliberalism and feminism are actually compatible, doing so by presenting recent data and

bringing relevant arguments.

First of all, it is imperative to assess the empirical evidence on the relationship between

market institutions and women’s rights. In particular, a useful exercise can be crossing data

from the World Bank, through its “Doing Business” index, which indicates the conformity of

nations to free enterprise institutions, with those from the United Nations Development

Program (UNDP), namely its “Gender Inequality Index”, which measures how countries have

already evolved towards gender equality. 3 4

And our findings are clear-cut: considering the
1 Oksala, Feminism and Neoliberal, 41.

2 Ibid, 32.

3 World Bank, Doing Business, 5.

4 United Nations Development Program, Gender Inequality Index, 1-4.

reports released in 2019, 25 out of the 30 nations that fare best in the first indicator are also in

the top 50 countries of the “doing business” ranking, while all of them are listed in the top 75.

Similarly, all but four countries in the bottom 40 nations in the gender index are equally in

the bottom 25% of the World Bank’s indicator. 5 Therefore, there is strong evidence that

liberal institutions do foster gender equality, and we will now try to explain this

interconnection through three main arguments, of different natures.

The first one corresponds to the economic logic of capitalism, potentialized by neoliberalism.

More specifically, its most remarkable tenet is the optimization of all factors of production as

well as the efficient allocation of scarce resources. 6 In that light, women are for sure a source

of human capital (a factor of production), and incorporating them into the market, both as

workers and as consumers, is then of paramount importance to maximize the performance of

the system; in effect, the opportunity cost of keeping valuable resources idle is very high.

However, this dynamics is not limited to constituting a female workforce. What is most

important here is that for neoliberalism economic actors need to be free if the system is to

succeed - in other words, suppliers and consumers need to behave as the homo economicus,

an abstract entity that, by definition, makes its economic choices freely, according to its own

preferences.7 And every human choice is ultimately economic. After all, time is our most

valuable quantifiable asset, and freely determining how to allocate it (where and how much to

work - including housework -, what to buy, etc.) is therefore a natural consequence of a pure

capitalist system. Hence, neoliberalism is not only compatible with women’s struggles, it also

5 In the case of the bottom countries, it makes more sense to resort to a percentage
comparison as we did, since the number of countries assessed varies between both rankings
(190 and 163).

6 Dasgupta, Economics, 82.

7 Paiva and Cunha, Noções de Economia, 15.

needs women to be free, clear of oppression and all other social constraints, if it is to be

effective.

That being said, it makes no sense to argue, as authors like Elias do, that feminist platforms

are embodied by the market only to legitimize its inequalities and the exploitative practices of

multinational companies (MNC).8 The truth, as mentioned in the previous paragraph, is that

women’s empowerment is a necessity of the system rather than a mere palliative to its

weaknesses or contradictions. And, even more important, market systems have their own

mechanism to enhance this: the supply-demand chain. It is certain that economic agents are

free to consume or to produce, but production is only financially feasible if it is demanded by

a reasonable quantity of consumers, which is well translated by Mises when he contends that

“it is not because we have distilleries that people drink whiskey; it is because people like to

drink whiskey that we have distilleries”.9 Consequently, this sovereignty of consumers makes

capitalism a truly democratic system; if a company’s goods are not sufficiently demanded, it

will probably not survive in a competitive market - unless it receives help and subsidies from

the state, which, of course, does not fit into a neoliberal model. Fearful of boycotts and being

driven out of the markets, this is a key reason why MNCs tend to adopt corporate social

responsibility (CSR) schemes, being increasingly committed to gender equality in their

supply chain as well as in their administrative structure.10

In the same vein, a second relevant argument is the massive technological evolution enabled

by capitalism. The expectations of profitability induce economic actors to carry out high-

level research and entrepreneurship, leading as a natural result to major innovations. 11 As

8 Elias, Davos Women, 153-155, 159.

9 Ritenour, Mises Reader, 137.

10 Barrientos and Ever, Gendered Production Networks, 43, 49, 55.

11 Cudd and Holmstrom, Capitalism: A Feminist Debate, 15.
stressed by Cudd, this not only improves the lives of all groups in the population but also

provides women with specific benefits in the context of their social position and insertion. 12

The evolution of medicine and the pharmaceutical industry have given women control over

their bodies, as advancements in contraception methods and maternal health allow for easier

planning of their professional careers and more independence regarding important decisions

such as being a mother or not. There is no reason to believe that the evolution in science and

innovations, both strongly stimulated by the capitalist system, will cease to make the life of

women increasingly better. After all, as highlighted by Schumpeter, the necessity of

innovation is at the very core of the capitalist system and one of the traits that make it

unique13, whilst, as noted by Cudd, it is also “the only system in which we see such rapid and

revolutionary technical innovation”,14 so that, in its absence, women would certainly lose

countless opportunities to have their lives improved.

Rebutting these two arguments, some feminists could argue that they only focus on an

economic and technological perspective and thus ignore the underlying social structures of

power. Prügl, for example, maintains that “empowerment defined as providing material

resources does not automatically translate into changed power relations [...] or enhance

women’s agency to generate change”15, which would as a consequence depoliticize feminist

struggles.16 This stance, nevertheless, neglects the revolutionary social character of neoliberal

capitalism. While enshrining the supremacy of the market and determining one’s social

position by the marginal utility generated, which is in turn a function of personal effort,

12 Cudd, Is Capitalism Good for Women?, 766.

13 Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy.

14 Cudd, Is Capitalism Good for Women?, 766.

15 Prügl, Neoliberalising Feminism, 623.

16 Prügl, Neoliberalising Feminism, 620.

neoliberal capitalism strays away from traditional social structures that, by resorting to

religion and other dogmas, divide the society by criteria determined at birth and prevent

women from achieving a high position or status in society. 17 The spirit of neoliberalism,

therefore, is that women, provided they are efficient economic actors, will naturally attain

leadership positions, just like any man would do with the same performance. That is to say

that if there is still inequality within firms and in the market or society in general, the reason

is not neoliberalism per se but rather the persistence of traditional structures, despite their

progressive dismantling to the extent that market systems consolidate and make them

increasingly anachronistic vis-à-vis the social transformations in place.

There are, indeed, myriad examples to corroborate this third argument. Maybe the most

remarkable is the Bolsa Família program in Brazil, which consists of monthly allowances to

extremely poor families paid to women whenever possible, enabling them to become

integrated into the market for the first time. Although this transformation operates at the

economic level, bringing families - and in particular women, the beneficiaries of the stipend -

from a subsistence economy to modern capitalism, there are multiple research contributions

showing that these changes paved the way to deeper social transformations as well, since the

introduction of a capitalist lifestyle undermined the traditional structures that once

perpetuated patriarchal institutions.18 19 20

If women have now their own source of revenue,

why should they conform to an abusive marriage or just accept norms that prevent them from

pursuing goals like building a career, returning to school or even having a more autonomous

social life? Indeed, according to a poll carried out by Ibase, the vast majority of women in the

17 Cudd, Is Capitalism Good for Women?, 765.

18 Moreira et al. , Empoderamento das Mulheres.

19 Barros and Melo, Empoderamento ou Mudança.

20 Carloto and Mariano, Empoderamento, Trabalho e Cuidados.

program claim to be more empowered at the household level after they started receiving the

benefit, proving that denying the relationship between economic equality and social parity is,

therefore, erroneous.21 In a capitalist society having enough money means having the

conditions to survive and the possibility not to abide by traditional social rules. In other

words, in capitalism money means power.

Finally, it could also be rebutted that, even though feminism is compatible with the principles

of neoliberal capitalism, the latter, for being reluctant to state intervention, does not offer the

necessary means to combat problems that go beyond the nature of the socio-economic

system. Following this reasoning, female economic empowerment would not avoid the

existence of something like a “rape culture” that sustains sexual violence, whereas

reminiscences of traditional value sets in the short run (such as the belief in an alleged

ineptitude of women for hard sciences) would keep harming women’s employability and

professional ascension. However, this counterargument, once more, is based on a

misunderstanding of neoliberalism. Neoliberalism views state interventions with distrust for

its capacity to harm its price-adjustment mechanisms and consequently its very mechanics;

yet acting on behalf of human rights (including women’s claims) and culture transformation

(against a rape culture, for instance) or to avoid prejudice in the workplace has never been

opposed by its principles and institutions.22 On the contrary, there are solid examples of

neoliberal active engagement in these matters. Just to mention a few, the World Economic

Forum (WEF) has been consistently promoting a campaign to increase the participation of

women in corporate leadership positions through the Women Leaders Community, while the

21 Ibase, Repercussões do Programa, 16.

22 Freeman, Neoliberal Policies, 163.

OECD has recently sponsored a high-level Conference on how to end violence against

women.23 24

Summing up, in this article it was shown that, in contrast with the mainstream literature,

feminism and neoliberalism are actually compatible. And this is because of three main

reasons: the economic logic of neoliberal capitalism, its stimulus to technological innovation,

and the dismantling of old and oppressive traditional structures it generates. It was also

posited that, whereas in many cases neoliberalism itself takes charge of addressing the

challenges related to gender inequality, in others, especially when those are rooted in societal

values that still promote inequality, they are not sufficient. Even in these cases, however, it is

not appropriate to talk about an incompatibility between both movements, as neoliberalism

does not oppose appropriate government intervention on behalf of the women’s cause,

despite the opposite impression being of common sense. Hence, there is no doubt that a

feminist society can coexist with neoliberal capitalism, and the latter does not impede the

progress of the former.

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