Post by willie with tan lines on Oct 13, 2017 16:35:41 GMT -8
Does capitalism help or hurt women? A fascinating book from Cambridge University Press, Capitalism, For and Against: a Feminist Debate, seeks to answer that question.
Philosophy professors Ann Cudd of Boston University and Nancy Holmstrom of Rutgers University both want more freedom and higher material living standards for women. But they disagree on how to achieve that goal.
One thinks capitalism is the answer; the other socialism. Their differences boil down to two points: how capitalism has affected women to date, and the viability of alternative systems to improve a woman’s lot.
The professors may disagree – yet the data sides overwhelmingly with capitalism.
When it comes to material living standards, Cudd presents page after page of evidence to demonstrate “that capitalism has brought about a massive improvement in life for human beings” by reducing poverty and spurring technological innovations in, for example, healthcare. Death in infancy or childbirth is much rarer that it once was. Family sizes are smaller, since children generally survive into adulthood. And women’s options have multiplied as a result.
Holmstrom, however, claims that capitalism has lessened women’s material well-being; it has, she says, exacerbated inequality, which she conflates with poverty. Cudd counters that those who care about women’s welfare should focus on poverty, which is at a historic low.
But giving women the freedom to flee rural penury in order to work in factories, counters Holmstrum, has made them worse off. “The lives of subsistence peasants may be limited, but materially adequate and stable,” she writes. She thinks factory jobs “seldom provide a way out of poverty”.
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Capitalism, says Cudd, has not just liberated women from the fields but helped society to see them as individuals. It promotes not only material progress, but also social innovation, which has helped break down those old prejudices such as sexism. “Capitalism derives its primary justification from the maximisation of individual liberty,” she says, “and capitalist societies promulgate the ideology of individualism, which helps to break down … sexist norms and practices.”
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humanprogress.org/blog/does-capitalism-help-or-hurt-women?utm_content=buffere87d2&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
humanprogress.org/blog/does-capitalism-help-or-hurt-women?utm_content=buffere87d2&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Philosophy professors Ann Cudd of Boston University and Nancy Holmstrom of Rutgers University both want more freedom and higher material living standards for women. But they disagree on how to achieve that goal.
One thinks capitalism is the answer; the other socialism. Their differences boil down to two points: how capitalism has affected women to date, and the viability of alternative systems to improve a woman’s lot.
The professors may disagree – yet the data sides overwhelmingly with capitalism.
When it comes to material living standards, Cudd presents page after page of evidence to demonstrate “that capitalism has brought about a massive improvement in life for human beings” by reducing poverty and spurring technological innovations in, for example, healthcare. Death in infancy or childbirth is much rarer that it once was. Family sizes are smaller, since children generally survive into adulthood. And women’s options have multiplied as a result.
Holmstrom, however, claims that capitalism has lessened women’s material well-being; it has, she says, exacerbated inequality, which she conflates with poverty. Cudd counters that those who care about women’s welfare should focus on poverty, which is at a historic low.
But giving women the freedom to flee rural penury in order to work in factories, counters Holmstrum, has made them worse off. “The lives of subsistence peasants may be limited, but materially adequate and stable,” she writes. She thinks factory jobs “seldom provide a way out of poverty”.
...
Capitalism, says Cudd, has not just liberated women from the fields but helped society to see them as individuals. It promotes not only material progress, but also social innovation, which has helped break down those old prejudices such as sexism. “Capitalism derives its primary justification from the maximisation of individual liberty,” she says, “and capitalist societies promulgate the ideology of individualism, which helps to break down … sexist norms and practices.”
...
humanprogress.org/blog/does-capitalism-help-or-hurt-women?utm_content=buffere87d2&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
humanprogress.org/blog/does-capitalism-help-or-hurt-women?utm_content=buffere87d2&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer