December 15, 2014 - 14:46
I found the unit on international feminism particularly interesting. Though Marilyn Waring’s writing was dense I feel like I finally got some answers about feminism and economics. Last semester @Sunshine and I took a class titled “Fixing Inequality” taught by Professor Robert Fairbanks. Towards the end of the course we did some readings by Ananya Roy about Microfinance and it’s effect on the global markets. Roy specializes in international development and global urbanism. We watched a really cool Youtube video titled “Can We Shop To End Poverty?” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpuf-N66CGI (Also check out “Who Profits From Poverty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0deJfPUj1f8) I was intrigued by the question of how the poor could benefit from integration into the market economy. My final paper was an analysis of the rise of the neoliberal economy and how microfinance was a direct result of this global capitalist takeover. I wrote:
“Microfinance, as an extension of neoliberal practices, ensures commodity market participation by individuals, the growth of new markets and increased levels of consumption as individuals create the need and demand within their own communities. (Roy, 2010) “Women are seen as particularly important conduits of microfinance loans with an altruistic propensity to utilize income for social development, such as the schooling of children, improved household nutrition , or investment in the home” (Roy, 2010, pg. 15) This emphasis on market models to replace public welfare policy leaves a gaping hole of services to the poor. Neoliberals in America justified these changes by pointing to the popularity of private benefits but the situation is not the same in developing countries. Instead of talking about microfinance as solely a sector of development we must start to look at it as an industry. Microfinance is now structured so that the product being produced and traded is not the embroidered shirts made by Guatemalan women but rather her debt and which NGO will have access to her potential poverty capital (Roy, 2010).
Though I was interested I avoided doing too much research and writing specifically on women participating in these programs. My avoidance was directly related to my discomfort and confusing feelings about the effectiveness of helping women develop small businesses to advance social change. On one hand I love the idea of women gaining transformative assets and increasing their independence but I am also still very uncomfortable with the idea of spreading capitalism. I was also uncomfortable with placing blame on women in the 2/3s world or advocating to end practices that empower women, despite the problematic nature. Through reading Marilyn Waring and Obioma Nnaemeka I feel that I am not alone in these complicated feelings. I would like to study microfinance again through the lense of nego-feminism. Many of the pieces of the microfinance system empower women in places where the economy is light-years away from gender parity. Nego-feminism has given me the language to analyze and criticize the oppressive system of capitalist markets while still validating the important work being done by the women who participate in microfinance. If we were writing a paper on international feminism I would have definitely gone back to my readings from “Fixing Inequality” and done a close reading of Roy’s writings.