Abstract

This paper discusses what feminist economics is today, starting from the recent publication of The Routledge Handbook of Feminist Economics, edited by Günseli Berik and Ebru Kongar, respectively co-editor and associate editor of the journal Feminist Economics. The editors offer a collection of review essays on contemporary feminist economics, starting with contributions published in the journal in the decade 2008- 2017. The editors’ choice is not to discuss what feminist economics is today, but to present the 50 chapters that make up the volume around the so-called “Social Provisioning Approachµ (SPA). After a critical discussion of the SPA, the various contributions are presented highlighting the elements of continuity and/or innovation with respect to the pre existing feminist economics literature, and/or discontinuity with respect to the orthodox literature (in particular, gender economics and macroeconomics). This is followed by a critical discussion of the ambitious goal of Feminist Economics, raised in 2010, to be an increasingly inclusive journal both in terms of its capacity for dialogue with other disciplinary fields, and in terms of welcoming contributions from all over the world. The last part of the article focuses on the controversial relationship between gender inequality and economic efficiency (i.e. growth), concluding that the ultimate goal of feminist economics is the elimination of gender inequality, not the pursuit of efficiency.