Reading discussed: Elisabeth Prügl and Jacqui True (2014): ‘Equality means business? Governing gender through transnational public-private partnerships’, Review of International Political Economy. Available at http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09692290.2013.849277

Authors: Susannah East and Sara Eden, Candidates to the MSc in Gender and International Relations, SPAIS

Editor: Audrey Reeves, PhD Candidate in Politics, SPAIS

The Gender Reading Group met on 22 May 2014 to discuss a recent piece by Elisabeth Prügl (Graduate Institute – Geneva, Switzerland) and Jacqui True (Monash University, Australia) on corporate and public-private initiatives in support of gender equality objectives. Prügl and True assess the legitimacy and effectiveness of these efforts and their implications for feminist agendas. They conclude that feminism and gender mainstreaming influence the business environment with mixed results. Whilst some initiatives are exclusionary, favouring certain types of women over others, others show ‘surprising effectiveness’ in furthering feminist objectives.

Our group felt less optimistic regarding the emancipatory potential of these ‘women friendly’ transnational business initiatives. Our concerns fell into three categories: the instrumental motives underpinning strategies to achieve “equality” within business partnership initiatives; the problematic constructions of masculinity still present in these initiatives; and the neoliberal foundations that uphold these economic and business practices which we find fit uncomfortably with the objectives of a feminism concerned with intersecting patterns of inequality.

First, we feel concerned that initiatives launched by the likes of Goldman Sachs and the World Economic Forum promote women’s place in the global economy in a self-serving way. Supporting women and girls’ access to education and leadership roles is certainly laudable, but is also a way to transform a formerly neglected half of the population into potential consumers and workers for the benefit of economic elites. We feel uncomfortable with initiatives that treat feminism like an add-on project that generates revenue, a good reputation, and a larger pooled of disciplined worker, rather than as a principle for all women to lead fulfilling lives, including in ways that may not be compatible with neoliberal logics.

Our second concern relates to the masculinized culture of businesses and public institutions, which gender policies reviewed in the article fail to challenge directly. As Prügl and True note, many initiatives give little attention to how they themselves exercise gendered power. For instance, the WEF’s Women Leaders and Gender Parity Program ‘hand-selects inpiduals it deems fit for participating in the conversations’ (2014: 13), inviting elite women with backgrounds in fields like business, management, and economics. We agree with Prügl and True that this is problematic in that less educated, poorer women are excluded. In addition, we are concerned that privileging women trained in fields of practice that remain primarily run by men and adhere to masculinized principles of competition, hierarchy, and self-interest limits the transformative power of these initiatives. Whilst including inpidual women, they consolidate gendered hierarchies between feminised and masculinised knowledges and values.

Additionally, many initiatives rely on stereotypes of masculinity and femininity, sometimes in self-serving ways. On one hand, by positioning themselves as “helping out” women from developing countries, a corporate actor like Goldman Sachs can soften its image of rogue masculinity (with greedy and excessive male financiers perceived as the cause of the 2008 financial crisis) into a more responsible, gently paternalistic masculinity. Participant women, in turn, are positioned as helpless and in need of a guiding hand to teach them the ropes of neoliberal governmentality. On the other hand, some policies rely on highly stereotypical conceptions of masculinity and femininity, which essentialise men and women’s roles in the corporate culture. Men are seen as competitive risk-takers and women as safe, mothering figures, acting morally and cleaning up after the boys’ mess.

Finally, our group wondered if ‘pro-women’ initiatives stemming from a neoliberal framework can be feminist at all? Or are they too deeply entrenched in masculinized principles of competition and self-interest? Prügl and True suggest that neoliberalism is not inherently harmful, but an open, malleable phenomenon (2014: 7). However, we remain skeptical. Neoliberal ideology promotes social inequality, which sits awkwardly with a feminism concerned with how gender inequality is co-constituted by oppressions relating to class, race, sexuality, and ability, inter alia. If these initiatives fail to approach gender as intersecting with inequalities, we are uncomfortable seeing them as promoting women’s emancipation.

The kind of feminism one adheres to will determine the criteria for measuring the effectiveness and legitimacy of these initiatives. For the liberal feminist who wants women to join masculinized spheres of power, these initiatives are effective at least in some degree. However, if we consider a more ambitious feminism that aims to transform the values that govern global economies, then these initiatives tackle only the symptoms, not the cause, of social inequality. As one participant suggested, women’s empowerment in this context is equivalent to “emancipation in the terms of the oppressor” and therefore does not truly realize emancipatory transformation.