Author | Marilyn Waring |
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Language | English |
Genre | Political economy, feminism, feminist economics |
Publisher | Harper & Row, Macmillan‚ Allen & Unwin |
Publication date | 1988 |
Media type | Print (Hardcover & Paperback) |
Pages | 386 pp (Harper & Row edition) |
ISBN | 0-06-250933-0 |
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]