WOMEN'S ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT: FEMINISM, NEOLIBERALISM, AND THE STATE

Book Details

• Author: Inna Michaeli

• Publisher: Rawat Publications

• Language: English

• Edition: 2025

• ISBN: 9783031778650

• Pages: 177 pages

• Cover: Hardback

• Sale Territory: India Only

About the Book

This thought-provoking book disrupts the dominant narrative that feminism has seamlessly merged with neoliberal ideals. Inna Michaeli critically explores the global trajectory of women’s economic empowerment, especially focusing on the lived experiences of low-income women from the Global South to the Global North—including migrant, indigenous, and racialised communities.

The author convincingly argues that organizations promoting women’s economic empowerment are increasingly enmeshed in the neoliberal restructuring of civil society, state, and market dynamics. Furthermore, the book delves into the ways these organizations reflect a redefined relationship between the personal and the political, shaped by the pressures of market-driven ideologies.

Topics such as the contractual framework of neoliberal institutions, the persistent divide between economy and society, and the ongoing marginalization of feminist economics are thoroughly examined. Through these discussions, the book challenges mainstream economic thinking and brings to light the contradictions and limitations of current empowerment discourses.

Accessible yet rigorously academic, this volume will be a significant resource for students and scholars in gender studies, sociology, economics, and the broader social sciences. It offers not only a critique of the existing frameworks but also a call to reimagine empowerment through a truly feminist lens.

Contents Overview

• Introduction: Economic Empowerment Between Feminism and Neoliberalism

• The Globalisation of Women’s Economic Empowerment

• The Neoliberal Contract: Civil Society, State and Market

• Radical Feminists, Mainstream Economics

• Construction of the Entrepreneurial Self

• Economic Empowerment, Ethno-National Citizenship

• Conclusion: A Feminist Always Pays Her Debts

About the Author

Inna Michaeli is a sociologist and a long-time feminist activist deeply engaged in social movements. Her research bridges feminism and neoliberalism, exploring issues of identity, belonging, economic globalization, and feminist knowledge. Currently affiliated with AWID—a global feminist organization—she brings a unique blend of scholarly rigor and grassroots insight to the field of gender and economics.