Is ‘Neoliberal Feminist’ an Oxymoron?

More women are in positions of power than 50 years ago, but under a fairer system we would have made much more progress on gender equality.

By Max Lawson

March 25, 2024

Source: Inequality.org


Christine Lagarde, visiting Benin as IMF Managing Director, 2017. 

CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 DEED

Christine Lagarde is one of the strongest proponents of gender equality amongst the global elite. President of the European Central Bank, she is also a former International Monetary Fund Managing Director and French finance minister. The former lawyer was the first woman to chair global law firm Baker McKenzie, the first woman to serve as a finance minister from any G7 country and then the first to lead the IMF.

I have had the opportunity to attend meetings between Lagarde and the head of Oxfam a few times over the last 10 years or so. She is always very impressive. The first time was in her office in France’s ultra-modern Ministry of Economy and Finance in Paris, overlooking the Seine. The office was incredible; it had a red sofa and a zebra skin rug. It felt like we were in a Duran Duran video from 1985. We were here to talk about French support for a Financial Transaction Tax.

As we filed in and took our seats opposite her at a long table, she took one look at us, smiled, and said: “are there no women in Oxfam then?” We were indeed two Frenchmen, an Englishman (me), and an Australian — very pale and male indeed.

I think there is no doubt that Lagarde would describe herself as a feminist, and a very strong advocate of gender equality. She is also without a doubt a big fan of the current neoliberal economic system. She thinks it is far from perfect and could be a lot fairer, but nevertheless very much thinks that this is broadly the best way to organize capitalism.

An interview we did with feminist and decolonial political economist Bhumika Muchhala on our EQUALS podcast this week about feminist economics made me reflect on whether it is in fact possible to be both these things — a champion of feminism and a champion of the current economic system. Or is a “neoliberal feminist” an oxymoron? A contradiction in terms?

The gale force neoliberal headwind

Lagarde in her speeches draws attention to the progress women have seen over the last 50 years, something others too have highlighted. She points out that there is no doubt that in terms of cultural norms, legislation, and participation in the workforce, the life of women in most countries is much improved compared to 50 years ago. That there is still a very long way to go, yes, but that genuine progress has been made.

Muchhala’s argument, by contrast, is that what little progress there has been for women globally is overwhelmingly counteracted by the deeply sexist nature of the global economic system, particularly its neoliberal version. By squeezing workers’ wages and rights, by squeezing the ability of governments to build universal welfare states through seemingly permanent austerity, and by allowing corporations and the richest to increase their wealth at astounding rates, the current system is like a gale force wind blowing in the face of any attempts to take steps in the direction of gender equality.

Particularly, Muchhala felt that women’s participation in the workforce should not be taken as a proxy for women’s empowerment — something that is definitely often done by Lagarde and others.

Young women fighting for their rights in Myanmar

I remember a few years back meeting young women working in the garment industry in Myanmar. They were working 12-hour days in unsafe factories, dismissed for the smallest infringements, or sacked as soon as they got pregnant.

Yet many of these young women felt they were more economically empowered, far freer than their mothers and grandmothers, far more in charge of their own destinies. Their situation was both terrible and better than the past. The point, it seemed to me, was whether this was the best we could — or should — expect. Was the only way to get more women in the workforce globally to accept this appalling level of exploitation, too? Those young garment workers certainly didn’t think so, which was why they were organizing their first trade union, at huge risk.

It seems to me there is little doubt that the main beneficiaries of greater participation of women in the workforce are the owners of wealth. I just look around me here in the UK, where two salaries are needed now to support a household, when one was once enough. Where the huge subsidy of unpaid care is still exactly that: a subsidy to the formal economy (to the tune of at least $10.8 trillion a year). But now women are expected to work and care, too.

In a different system, a fairer system, the huge increase in women’s participation in the workforce should have led to everyone having to work less. The huge boost to productivity and growth, instead of building billionaire bank balances, if fairly distributed could have eliminated poverty and enabled the universal provision of public services, including care services like childcare, eldercare, and healthcare. It could have built a care infrastructure that would further increase both gender and economic equality, as well as well-being.

I think there is a parallel with the broader discussion of poverty and the neoliberal period. It is a fact that extreme poverty has fallen dramatically in the last 40 years, with over a billion less people living on less than $2 a day. Equally, it is true that there has been progress in terms of women’s empowerment and equality. But progress on both has, I think, been a tiny fraction of what it could have been if the global economy was organized on different lines. Instead, the neoliberal economic air we breathe, the neoliberal sea we swim in, constantly and structurally undermines much greater progress. I would go further, in fact: I think it makes a permanent end to poverty and to gender-based discrimination impossible.

Nowhere is that truer than in terms of inequality. As long as 66 cents in every dollar of new wealth goes directly to the top 1%, and as long as the global economy is organized in such a way to ensure that continues happening, women’s oppression will continue. Indeed, as Muchhala points out, women’s oppression is absolutely fundamental to this unequal system continuing, as so much wealth is extracted from their unpaid care work and underpaid work.

Economic equality is central to gender equality

Conversely, an end to gender-based discrimination, an end to gender inequality, will not happen unless we make our societies profoundly more equal economically, too. This means eliminating extreme wealth, ensuring all workers are paid and treated well, that the richest pay tax, and that welfare states are universal and care for all ― these fundamentals of a more economically equal countries are vital to achieving gender equality. Equally, a global economic system that increases equality between countries, rather than increasing it with extraction, exploitation and crippling debts, is indispensable in the fight for an end to our sexist world.

So, is it possible to be a neoliberal feminist? Or is it an oxymoron? I certainly think that our neoliberal economies, that have supercharged the gap between the rich and the rest of us, systematically undermine and sabotage attempts to secure equality between women and men. Conversely, identifying feminism with progressive economic policies to counteract this deeply unequal and extractive economic system, as Muchhala and many other feminist economists are doing, I think is a very valuable thing to do indeed.