This article is 100% true. I wish it weren't.
Me, creating a drain on the economy.
I’ve just finished reading Emma Holten’s book Deficit: How Feminist Economics Can Change Our World. In it she describes the history of Economics and a his-story it is.
Emma introduces the views and studies of female economists and politicians throughout the book (rare in itself) but the very shaping of the economic theories that inform our politics has been done through the male lens of structure and determining the link between numbers and value, and which numbers create which value.
Emma’s book explores the prevalent idea that ‘Women are a deficit to society’ as reported by the Danish Broadcasting Corporation in 2013, which was followed up by the article ‘Women continue to be a net expense for the state’ published in the magazine Mandag Morgen in 2020.
In her book, Emma explains: “The Danish Ministry of Finance had calculated the value of women’s contribution to the state by looking at their tax payments versus the costs of the services they receive during a lifetime and compared that to men’s. Women got more than they gave, the article said: They took more parental leave, mothers frequently worked part time and typically worked lower paying jobs in the public sector. They also ‘drained’ the public sector by tending to do expensive things like give birth. Denmark would be richer if women’s lives looked more like men’s, the experts concluded.”
And this not just a Danish affair.
Emma also cites the case of a candidate for Reform UK who had written on a message board two years earlier that he was sick of hearing from the ‘spongeing gender’. His argument was simple economics: ‘Men pay 80% of the tax – women spend 80% of the tax revenue. On aggregate, as a group, you only take from society.’ According to him, women were ‘subsidised by men to merely breath’ [sic].
I have little time for the views of Reform UK, however, as I continued to read Emma’s book, the facts made for stark reading.
The economic theory of mariginalism (developed by a man) that was embraced in the late 19th Century brought with it a determination of the value of anything as the price paid at the time of purchase (as opposed to the hours taken to produce it, the resources consumed, or the benefit it would bring to society). This single decision has huge implications for society.
This meant the time taken to raise a child: Value = nothing.
Caring for an elderly relative: Value = nothing.
Art created for the simple joy of creation: Value = nothing.
Removal of forests to build factories: Cost = nothing.
Cost- Benefit analysis, another economic theory (developed by a man) that began to influence policy after WW2 led to efforts to create items as cheaply as possible, with the greatest yield.
This also extends to humans, we became ‘capital’to be exploited for what we could produce – who can we hire to do this job that will do it for as little as possible?
Oh look, there are women, given that the value of what they do in the home = nothing, they are practically free. Let’s pay them next to nothing.
And encourage the notion that now they are not in the kitchen, they are empowered, contributing, valuable members of society.
Then in 1946, the introduction of GDP (developed by a man) arrived as a way to compare economies with each other. GDP is the total monetary value of all goods and services produced within a country’s borders over a specific period (usually a year or a quarter). The aim of the game is now to increase GDP until….well….there is no endgame. Just increase it forever.
A person who earns £400,000 by being the director of a large company therefore is ‘worth more’ then than a nurse.
And guess who are the directors and who are the nurses.
Emma’s argument through the book is that two things then fall through the gap:
1. Care. Those who provide care, and those that require care; both these roles are calculated at the best as valueless and at their worst, as a drain on the economy. And yet it is essential to society. Women are the ones that fill the majority of caring roles the world over.
2. The planet. A tree has ‘no value’ when calculating GDP. Nor an ocean. Creating pollution has ‘no cost’. Clearing up pollution creates value. What a fucked up world.
And these are the theories that inform and shape our politics and so the decisions about what is invested in and what isn’t and so our lives.
This is not a ‘down with the patriarchy’ article (well, maybe just a little bit).
Instead, as I read, I began to see how forces of which I am completely unaware shape my every thought and perception; like a fish in water, I live my life believing I am making my own well-thought out choices and taking action based on these.
I see that I have grown up in a world where:
1. The roles that hold little value in GDP terms are paid less. And because they are paid less, they hold little value in GDP terms.
We might say our nurses and teachers are valuable, and yet a secondary school teacher earns on £45,000 (an average taken mid-career) and an Investment Banking Director earns £310,000 on average. Around 7 times more.
The latter comes with more status and more spending power and therefore ability to influence which products are produced and where they are made available.
The latter is ‘worth more’.
The latter are positions primary held by men. The former are positions primarily held my women.
Therefore men are worth more than women.
It’s invisible but it’s an unconscious (and sometimes consciously) held belief.
I can declare my belief in holding all people as holding value, regardless of gender, but my conditioning and society makes it impossible for me live and make choices as if this is true.
This unconscious doubt in my own worth keeps me small. It makes me second-guess, pull back and ask ‘who am I to dare take on this challenge?’ I start out on the back foot, without even realising it.
And that is without any disadvantages experienced by women who experience the intersectionality with race, poverty, sexual preference or environment.
2. The places that money does not change hands hold less (or no) value.
After university, I worked as a support worker for people with learning disabilities, before, as I called it, “selling my soul for a suit” and going to work for one of the big five accounting firms because I wanted things only money could buy. I thought I WANTED to make this choice. But perhaps that choice was never really mine to make.
I thought I WANTED to return to work when my daughter was 9 months old. The feeling of contribution and value so much more apparent at my desk than at the changing-table. But perhaps that choice was never really mine to make.
Then as an entrepreneur I decided to grow my business, to reach more people, to work harder, to increase my income. I thought I WANTED to make this choice. But perhaps that choice was never really mine to make.
I feel hoodwinked.
Cheated of time spent with my children, brainwashed into wanting to produce something, to achieve something with numbers attached to it to feel of value.
Persuaded to buy things I didn’t need, because increasing GDP is what it’s all about.
I thought I was so clever but I realised I’ve been played.
3. Time spent not working is not valued because no money is spent.
Time spent resting has an ‘opportunity cost’; I could be working and contributing to GDP after all.
Time spent exercising is probably OK because I will be cheaper to look after in the long run (slightly less of a deficit).
Painting, gardening, praying, campaigning for causes I care about, all a waste of time and resources and should be squeezed in after a good day’s work is done.
Dinner with friends is allowed because we will spend on food and wine.
Being disabled and unable to work = a deficit.
Being an asylum seeker waiting for your claim to be processed = a deficit.
Staying at home to care for your disabled adult child = a deficit.
The way economics and the resulting policies work lends itself to these logical (and inhumane) conclusions.
And then we cannot help but soak these messages into our bones because we are dipped into them every day.
I am worthless when I am not working. And they are too.
This explains the pressure I feel to keep moving. This insidious restlessness that had me bored pushing my children on the swings when they were small; that keeps me pushing through when I am tired; that fears the slow-down that menopause invites; that makes me equate rest with Netfllix (that I’m paying for) rather than simply closing my eyes (which is free).
I must be consuming, consuming, consuming, or producing, producing, producing.
The more of both I do, the more value I have.
I have fallen for it all. Hook. Line. Sinker.
4. And on a more sinister note, as Emma points out: ‘GDP… doesn’t notice if we lose something without a price.’
When the rainforests disappear, when arts are elbowed out of the curriculum, when caring or being someone that requires care is a ‘waste of resources’, when women have no value but for their fecundity….see The Handmaid’s Tale.
Suddenly I see anew why education is so fundamental and important. And why it is forbidden to many women and girls.
Awareness matters.
Because I can read and research and evaluate and think critically; because Emma Holten can speak and write with impact and eloquence and freedom, the invisible becomes more visible.
It takes me from victim to agency.
It’s why I include a ‘recommended reading list’ inside the One Thousand Women portal; those women who are joining me to open their eyes wider and create change.
Awareness is everything.
We cannot escape the conditioning, it is ingrained in our shaping of the science of economics itself, which then informs our politics and policies and therefore every element of our lives. It happens in every conversation, every news story, every product that is advertised to me, the places I go, the people I see.
But my eyes can be more open. That way more light gets in.
‘That’s just the way it is’ no longer my excuse to fall back onto the sofa and hit the remote.
One Thousand Women starts on 21st September and is a container for women who want to come together, create a life of meaning, and leave the world a better place than they found it.
We are the change-makers.