Economics being an overwhelmingly male-dominated discipline, one would expect a feminist critique of it to be far-reaching. This book focuses on Amartya Sen바카라™s capability approach as a conceptual framework to analyse well-being, freedom and related matters. This approach is submitted to intensive scrutiny from a gender perspective and used to explore a wide range of gender-related issues, among them intra-household inequality, reproductive freedom, political participation and the foundations of social justice.
The first part has 12 articles initially published in Feminist Economics, followed by a wide-ranging "conversation" between the editors and Sen. The rest is a reprint of five of Sen바카라™s classic papers. Sadly, the first part is dominated by conceptual arguments. There바카라™s a dearth of empirical analysis, except for scattered material on missing women, reproductive freedom and slavery. In this respect, the book contrasts with Sen바카라™s persistent efforts to bring conceptual work (including the capability approach) to bear on practical issues. Nevertheless, this highly original collection of writings provides rich illustrations of the capability approach바카라™s relevance to gender issues.
However, as far as feminist critique goes, the book is a little disappointing. Sen is praised as a "feminist economist" but it is not very clear what "feminist" actually stands for (except for a general concern with gender issues) and why Sen qualifies. A notable exception is Martha Nussbaum바카라™s bold assessment. Taking issue with the notion that freedom is always a desirable social goal, she points out that "gender justice cannot be successfully pursued without limiting male freedom". Amartyada, what say?