This article is part of the 'Advancing gender just economies' series, presented by ourEconomy, ActionAid, FEMNET, Womankind Worldwide and Fight Inequality Alliance.
I usually start macroeconomics courses with a phrase from the great economist Joan Robinson, who wrote "you have to know the economy very well, so as not to be fooled by economists". One of the great contributions of feminism is to help us remove the conceptual veil that covers up important economic work: reproductive work, domestic and care work, without which the operation of the economy would be impossible.
That's why we claim that economic theory has not been gender neutral. Reproductive work has been undertaken by women without their contribution to the generation of wealth being recognized in the various economic theories. In neoclassical theory, women’s contribution to domestic care and work is systematically unseen. One of the great contributions of economists like Silvia Federici has been to show the way in which reproductive work is the pillar that accumulates wealth in the capitalist system.
