Economics and Gender Norms to Be Weiss Lecture Topic

“The Invisible Heart: Economics and Gender Norms” is the title of this spring’s William E. Weiss Lecture in Economics at Skidmore, to be delivered by Nancy Folbre, professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Free and open to the public, Folbre’s talk gets under way at 8 p.m. Monday, April 22, in Davis Auditorium of Palamountain Hall. Folbre will focus on the interface between feminist theory and political economy, with a particular interest in caring-giving and other forms of non-market work.

In addition to her UMass appointment, Folbre is a staff economist with the Center for Popular Economics (CPE) in Amherst, a non-profit collective of political economists that teaches economic literacy to activists for progressive social change. CPE creates and communicates economic theories that challenge systems of oppression based on class, race, gender, and nation.

Folbre’s Skidmore lecture will draw on the research contained in her newest book, The Invisible Heart: Economics and Family Values (New York: The New Press, 2001), in which she considers how the market values — or doesn’t value — care-giving, which women often provide for free. According to Folbre, every society must confront the challenge of balancing self-interested pursuits with care for others — including children, the elderly, and the infirm. Using the image of “the invisible heart” to evoke the forces of compassion that must temper the forces of self-interest, Folbre argues that if we don’t establish a new set of rules defining our mutual responsibilities for care-giving, the penalties suffered by the needy — and our families — will increase. Intensified economic competition may drive altruism and families out of business.

Folbre earned a Ph.D. degree at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and has taught there since 1984. She was a post-doctoral fellow at Yale University and a visiting scholar at the London School of Economics, and taught at the New School for Social Research. She has done economic research in Kenya and Zimbabwe and has consulted for the World Bank. She is the editor of two CPE publications, A New Field Guide to the U.S Economy (1995) and The War on the Poor: A Defense Manual (1996) along with Randy Albelda, and is the author of Who Pays for the Kids? Gender and the Structures of Constraint (London: Routledge, 1994). She is associate editor of the journal Feminist Economics.

In 1998, Folbre was awarded a five-year fellowship, otherwise known as a “genius grant,” from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in recognition of her work.

Skidmore Intercom
Skidmore College
815 North Broadway
Saratoga Springs, NY 12866
518.580.5000
intercom@skidmore.edu