• Any Words
    All Words

Cooperation and Conflict in the Patriarchal Labyrinth

Cooperation and Conflict under Patriarchy

This essay in Daedalus by PERI economist Nancy Folbre offers a new way of visualizing structures of collective power based on gender, emphasizing the role of social institutions in shaping women’s ability to bargain over the distribution of the gains from cooperation with men. Folbre argues for an interdisciplinary concept of bargaining power that emphasizes parallels between structures of collective power based on gender, age, and sexuality, and those based on other dimensions of socially assigned group membership such as race, ethnicity, citizenship, and class. Recognition of the importance of reproductive work helps advance the project of developing intersectional political economy.

>> Read article in Daedalus

Abstract

This essay offers a new way of visualizing structures of collective power based on gender, emphasizing the role of social institutions in shaping women’s ability to bargain over the distribution of the gains from cooperation with men. It makes the case for an interdisciplinary conceptualization of bargaining power that emphasizes the role of imperfect information and inefficient outcomes, and explains important parallels between structures of collective power based on gender, age, and sexuality, and those based on other dimensions of socially assigned group membership such as race, ethnicity, citizenship, and class. Recognition of the importance of reproductive work helps advance the project of developing intersectional political economy.

umass seal

This is an official web page
of the University of Massachusetts.

Political Economy Research Institute

Gordon Hall, 418 N. Pleasant St., Suite A

Amherst, MA 01002
Tel: 413-545-6355 Fax: 413-577-0261
Contact: