the relationship between global finance and gender subordination
University of Sussex
2005
Ph.D.
University of Sussex
2005
The purpose of this research project is to explore the extent to which theglobalisation of finance has depended upon and/or contributed to the promotion,maintenance and reproduction of gender subordination in new and distanciatedforms. Despite tantalising, but rare glimpses of women's involvement within thefinancial sector in past centuries, it is postulated that the globalisation ofeconomic processes, particularly through financial institutions, has a genderedhistory. The history has been made invisible through assumptions andconstructions of the 'nature' of women - and men - and their supposed properplace in the social, economic and political order. Global financial markets haveplayed a critical role in shaping the structure and dynamics of the global politicaland economic order.This thesis argues that these foundations, which constitute systems of financeand credit, are based on specific private property forms which historicallyinvolved limiting the access of women to financial security. This thesis showsthat global finance indeed has a gendered and gender-subordinating structureand sets out how the gendered character in the transition from feudalism tocapitalism, is reflected in women's access to financial resources in diverseterritorial and cultural locations, as a result of the development and expansion offinance and credit markets within the global political economy.If indeed global finance and gender subordination is centrally embedded withinthe development of global inequalities and social stratification, the consequencesof this for analysing the nature and development of the global political economyare shown in the thesis to be important, both methodologically and politically.