Feminism and political economy in Victorian England

About this book

Feminism and Political Economy in Victorian England examines the attitudes of leading nineteenth-century economic writers to the 'Woman Question'. Focusing on the work of J.S. Mill, Henry Fawcett, W.S. Jevons, Henry Sidgwick, Alfred Marshall, the Webbs and Clara Collet, this volume reveals that women's issues were more widely discussed during the Victorian era than is sometimes supposed. The introduction briefly and selectively reviews the treatment of feminism and women in political economy. This is followed by essays on the political economy of J.S. Mill, Henry Fawcett and Henry Sidgwick, three supporters of the women's movement whose economics continued to adopt an essentially male perspective. The place of women in Jevons's political economy is discussed with special reference to his involvement in a debate over working wives and infant mortality. Alfred Marshall's views on the sexual division of labour are assessed from the perspective of efficiency, development, family and race. Later papers focus on the changing position of the Webbs on women's rights and the political economy of women in the work of Clara Collet. Revising many of the assumptions about economic writing on women in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this book will be welcomed by economists and historians as a major contribution both to the history of economic thought and to women's history.