If Women Counted

If Women Counted: A New Feminist Economics
AuthorMarilyn Waring
LanguageEnglish
GenrePolitical economy, feminism, feminist economics
PublisherHarper & Row, MacmillanAllen & Unwin
Publication date
1988
Media typePrint (Hardcover & Paperback)
Pages386 pp (Harper & Row edition)
ISBN0-06-250933-0

If Women Counted (1988) is a book by New Zealand academic and former politician Marilyn Waring, that is regarded as the "founding document" of the discipline of feminist economics.[1] The book is a groundbreaking and systematic critique of the system of national accounts, the international standard of measuring economic growth, and the ways in which women's unpaid work as well as the value of Nature have been excluded from what counts as productive in the economy.

The book "persuaded the United Nations to redefine gross domestic product, inspired new accounting methods in dozens of countries, and became the founding document of the discipline of feminist economics."[1] A widely cited book, it made the analysis of this topic known to a large audience.[2]

The book's core argument can be summarized as follows: "UNSNA's rules to determine what should be defined as economic activity needed to be understood as an expression of patriarchal power that valued militarism, environmental destruction, and tools of colonisation while deeming peace, environmental resources, and social reproduction worthless."[3]

  1. ^ a b Langeland, Terje (18 June 2013). "Women Unaccounted for in Global Economy Proves Waring Influence". Bloomberg. Archived from the original on 22 June 2013. Retrieved 18 June 2013.
  2. ^ Beneria, Lourdes (2003). Gender, development, and globalization : economics as if all people mattered. New York: Routledge. p. 132. ISBN 0-415-92706-4.
  3. ^ Gregoratti, C. and Raphael, R. 2019. The Historical Roots of a Feminist 'Degrowth': Maria Mies's and Marilyn Waring's Critiques of Growth. in Chertkovskaya, E.; Paulsson, A., and Barca, S. edds. 2019. Towards a Political Economy of Degrowth, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers / Rowman & Littlefield International.