Analysis of Neoliberalism and Its Implications on Gender - Essay Example

?Has neoliberalism impacted men and women differently? This paper has undertaken a rather complicated analysis of neoliberalism and its implications on gender by considering both the political and economic dimensions of the same. It has attempted to put light upon the political implications of neoliberalism especially from the perspectives of the newly emerged market hegemonies and the incorporation of feminist ideals in the neoliberal landscapes which has eventually led to something understood as post feminist sensibilities. While both these essentially consolidate a nuanced approach towards understanding neoliberalism and its impact upon gendered subjectivities the other side, the economical aspect, has also been crucial in exposing the global asymmetries and the local realities that determine the gendered implications of this neoliberal paradigms across the world. The economic, political and cultural realities in throughout the globe have been undergoing radical transformation for the last more than three decades. The shifts towards neoliberalism have converged the concepts of liberalism with the market ideologies and principles. It has indeed been crucial to the extent it exerted a crucial impact in altering the gender geographies in many parts of the world. However it has also brought in new issues, new modes of regulating the selves and subjectivities, new ideological apparatuses stressing upon certain representations and exemplars, lifestyles, culminating in hegemonic forms of masculinity and femininity, and eventually the hegemony of market itself. A significant platform through which this mode of “neoliberal governmentality has been understood and discussed is the very idea of instrumentality, as Butler, Joan Scott and others have done” (Gill and Schraff, 2011: 5). Under this schema of thought the feminist ideals, promises are pirated by the state and its agencies in order to pursue a completely different agenda which often slanders other cultures as violators of human rights (Butler, 2004; Scott, 2007). In other words the political and socio-economic promises of liberalism, empowerment and so on and the seeming democratization of knowledge disbursement as also knowledge production and cultural representation through a range of technological devices have not only not eradicated the traditional structures of inequality but also have exacerbated the complexities through which the former structures are reproduced and/or operationalised in albeit new fashions. The two broad epistemological and pragmatic fields where the structures of inequality, subjugation and subjectivisation are constantly articulated are one, political and cultural and two economic and the global circulation of capital (Butler, 2004; Gill 2009; Gill and Schraff 2011). For the last more than three decades scholars and activists around the world have pointed at the varying schemes of capital at the worldwide level and the surging motives of profit relying chiefly on the availability of labour and, sometimes, resources from the so called Third world nations. This global paradigm is further conditioned within the gender realities that persist within these geo-political terrains to the extent women and children, especially from lower classes, have continued to remain the primary victims of these neoliberal, neocolonial tactics (Nash and Safa 1976; Nash and Fernhdez-Kelly 1983; Leacock and Safa 1986). These gender realities were invariably products of a global economic circuits that was and still is western centric and a western centred discourse of human rights according to which these geo-political locales, on the one hand, were depicted as having highly degenerated human rights situation and, on the other hand, opened new areas for further socio-economic interventions (Nash and Safa 1976; Nash and Fernhdez-Kelly 1983; Leacock and Safa 1986). The relationship between the rich and poor in terms of an imbalance between the global west and the rest (Hall, 1994) is another major paradigm where the question of gender is hijacked and distorted to suit the statist initiatives. The neoliberal paradigm condenses and converges the realm of economy, politics and culture to offer nuanced ways of constructing gendered bodies and practices at the same time as keeping the promises of equality and freedom within the vicinity. This paper attempts to deal with the question of how these promises of neoliberalism have indeed legitimated its political forms and regulatory mechanisms with specific modalities of power and subjectivisation process. In the process it shall also deal with the issue of marketisation of culture and the emergence of hegemonic forms of masculine and feminine ideals and selves. Broadly speaking, “neoliberalism is understood as a mode of political and economic rationality characterized by privatization, deregulation and a rolling back and withdrawal of the state from many areas of social provision that rose to prominence in the 1980s under the Reagan administration in the US and Thatcher’s premiership in the UK” (Gill and Shraff, 2011: 5). It has managed further widen its reach through global organizations like the IMF, the World Trade Organization and the World Bank. The geographical expansion apart, this neoliberal regimes have resulted in new forms of governance and have made new economic and political hegemonies a part and parcel of lives. As David Harvey puts it “neoliberalism is, in the first instance, a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights, free markets and free trade” (Harvey, 2005 : 2). Fundamentally premised on the ethics of market this neoliberalism has been crucially exerting its influence in guiding all human action; accordingly the reach and accessibility of markets are further defined as representing social goodness. This market ethics has expanded as neoliberalism ‘is reconfiguring relationships between governing and governed, power and knowledge, sovereignty and territoriality’ (Ong, 2006). It has transformed the very process of governance as a technical enterprise rather than as being a political process. It has evolved a huge technological edifice in order to make governance a more smoother, effective and efficient process and, as the Foucauldian panopticon surveillance and self-discipline, to change the subjects into citizens who govern themselves and each other. Gill and Schraff provide the following instance from George W. Bush’s inaugural speech to mark his second term in office captured this vividly. His address was about “preparing people for the challenges of life in a free society ... by making every citizen an agent of his or her own destiny” (cited in Gill and Shraff, 2011: 6-7). These shifts and transformations have essential impacts upon the way gendered subjects are constructed through an active mode of regulation of their sexualities and subjectivities. Another major shift in the last three decades that has marked the era of neoliberalism has been the shift in the practice of planning and international development from state-led approaches to market driven approaches. Markets have emerged to become a dominant mechanism for not only achieving “economic growth and efficiency, but also political freedom and social justice” (Rankin, 2004). As The Economist put it recently, revitalizing a tenet of classical liberalism, ‘[t]he point of a liberal market economy is that it civilises the quest for profit, turning it, willy-nilly, into an engine of social progress’ (2001: 4). This has literally converted markets into conglomerations where buyers’ and sellers’ selfish motives and interests and their persuasion have become critical in engendering the larger outcomes that are of social significance. The re-routing of capital, particularly in the aftermath of cold war period, across national borders and its further reorganization have been a critical element in adding political flavour to the neoliberal currents. “The discipline of debt regimes has by now brought even the post-colonial Third World and former socialist states within neoliberalism’s ideological grip” (Rankin, 2004: 2-3). The re-articulation of markets in terms of their social embeddedness has furthered the possibilities of deepening the process of economic liberalization which is then constantly articulated in the local social structures and values. The emphasis on this market led development does not necessarily expand opportunities of social equality or justice or opportunity in itself – in the wider sense of the term. On the other hand it may deepen existing structures of hierarchy, of injustice and inequality. A major instance of this could be seen in relationships and ideologies of gender that shape opportunities for people unevenly in different social locations (McRobbie, 2009). The most significant factor in the reconfiguration of the older structures is the hegemonic depictions of masculine and feminine etiquettes that are nevertheless particularly oriented to satisfying the market ideology. Such depictions have always been enterprises to cater to the popular imaginations that combine the old and new – in other words, the traditional and the modern – tastes and perspectives in particular ways. For instance in the context of Kerala, a south Indian state, Osella and Osella observes that “the early modern forms of selfhood, perceptions of masculinity and femininity, despite having undergone substantial changes in their material forms of existence, have only become more homogenized and hegemonic in the recent periods as opposed to the older heterogeneous models” (Osella and Osella, 1999: 56-57). The authors have specifically examined the importance accredited to certain particular types of masculine and feminine figures in the popular media forms and other forms of cultural representation. These specific depictions have basically depended upon the fundamental monogamous, heterosexual structures at the same time as adding flavours like passivity and emotional dependence for feminine and virility and autonomy for masculine figures. Thus authors claim that the construction of feminine and masculine selves have but no other option than adhering to the larger structures beyond which it will become acts of transgression. Nevertheless such popular representations, the authors claim, have completely neglected the class realities and those who are unable to shape their selves accordingly are by default left outside the mainstream frameworks. As a matter of fact women are bound to become “the first hand victims of such cultural expulsions” (110-118). A similar transformation has been apparent in throughout the global scene of gender where the old models (of patriarchy), instead of undergoing basic and structural changes nonetheless have reappeared in different oppressive fashions during the neoliberal period. As David Harvey has argued that neoliberalism is an economic project based on class “that systematically deprives assets from the poor (including welfare provisions) and concentrates wealth within a tiny global elite (individuals and corporations). As a system of governance neoliberalism has fabricated new subjectivities capable of bearing the burdens of liberty” (Harvey, 2006: 145). The capacity of individuals to work and earn as also to spend and consume become the basic tools to measure the value of subjects in neoliberalism; further the subjects indeed cooperate with this larger subjectification by internalizing this market oriented value structures. In fact this internalization is precisely what gets reflected in the different forms of representation which further inculcates these value schemas as part and parcel of life. As McRobbie has argued, the terrain of popular culture is privileged for the production and circulation of neoliberal values (2009, 29). This site has entailed itself more open to reading through specific tropes which are further popularized and which in themselves become more rich for the meanings they accrue as they travel. ‘Post feminism’. This is not meant to be an exhaustive depiction of what post feminism is all about; on the other hand it is meant to exclusively put light upon how it enables an understanding of what neoliberal politics is with regard to the construction of gender and sexuality. The concept of post feminism is used, as it is already defined in social science academia, in order to understand how the political precepts of neoliberalism have successfully kept its realm beyond the reach of larger political projects such as feminism by invoking newer promises of gender equality. According to Tasker and Negra postfeminism is based around “a set of assumptions, widely disseminated within popular media forms, having to do with the “pastness” of feminism, whether that supposed pastness is merely noted, mourned or celebrated” (2007: 1). The term is sometimes used as synonymous of third wave feminism to demarcate a period not exactly after feminism but rather as absorbing the older feminist principles into the daily social lives (Hollows, 2000). This term is also used as a recoiling mechanism against feminism itself. Such backlash treatments assume many forms that are mutually contradictory. At the same time as imagining that all the feminist motives have already been fulfilled it simultaneously invokes the feeling that the main cause of unhappiness for women remains in feminism itself (Faludi, 1991).  Whelehan (2000) argues that discourses of post feminism in the contemporary are often conditioned by ‘retro sexism’, which is grounded on the real anxieties about the collapse of masculine hegemony. Whelehan stresses upon the desirous and wishful media which literally travels back in time to places inhabited by humerous and morally offensive women and argues that representations of women ‘from the banal to the downright offensive’ are being ‘defensively reinvented against cultural changes in women’s lives’ (Whelehan, 2000). In fact as mentioned earlier the old feminist promises of emancipation has been quite incorporated via tropes and figurative speeches by the neoliberal structures and the emancipated new femininity is a subject effect of a broader, global, neoliberal, postfeminist discourse.  This novelty in the construction of feminine (and masculine as well) subjects is quite reflected in the multiple forms of media representations across the globe. For instance discourses of liberalism, civil rights and economic empowerment have unleashed a common impression that the prevailing structures have been successfully tackling issues closely associated with questions of gender and sexual oppression. The pictures of women and men with higher levels of consciousness, commercials propagating health and other forms of awareness, stories of sexual harassments and prosecution of the offenders from different parts of the world and so on often convey the message that the contemporary is highly immune against forms of oppressions. The significance of feminism is bound to be lowered considerably as, in a common imagination, all that feminism has preached and claimed have already become of a daily commonsense. This is particularly true in the context of domestic violence in many Third world countries where, as an author observes in her study, that “men and women in the upper and middle classes are so overwhelmed by the neoliberal discourses of autonomy and self-empowerment for women that they are not bothered to listen to incidents of violence against women, both within and outside the domestic spaces. Such incidents are seen either as exceptions or as minor incidents instigated by the new wave of consciousness” (Dubey, 1997: 198). The conceptual frameworks of empowerment and gender equality have been crucial in constituting new subjectivities in the era of neoliberalism even though such conceptual frameworks have albeit shrunk to get rid of the political flavour of feminism. In other words, stemming from Western media and popular culture, the discourse of post feminism has involved the vulgarization and popularization of feminist ideas and ideals, presented under the disgjuise of a widely accepted set of tenets, even keeping distance from feminism and further labelling it as an event of the past (McRobbie, 2009; Lazar, 2011). Much mainstream discussions have surrounded some of the post feminist themes like personal empowerment, entrepreneurship, sexual agency, entitlement to pleasure and emancipation (Akass and Mccabe, 2004; Gill, 2009; Lazar, 2009). This remaining, what has resulted in the very notion of post feminism itself is based on this pragmatic parting exercise of daily politics from the basic feminist concerns at the same time as incorporating feminism’s ideals as superficial contents of its project leading to a hyper necessity for a feminist politics that will excavate relations and structures of patriarchal suppression from within the neoliberal promises. In her discussion of post feminist sensibility McRobbie also discusses this paradox where feminism is both accepted and assumed by the larger population at the same time as actively rebutted and rejected as a belief system or a political ideology (McRobbie, 2009: 1). Gill (2006) has already articulated how post feminist sensibility reflects an aesthesia that simultaneously incorporates feminist ideals and also its rejection. In fact such a double tactics has mainly emerged from the obsession with market oriented motives and an undue confidence in the market as able to resolve the acute social and cultural problems intricately related with the construction of selves. Hence once these (feminist) ideals are absorbed then its existence as an independent epistemological, philosophical and political practice becomes irrelevant since those ideals have already been part of the larger common sense. The problem actually remains here, that such absorption eradicates popular demands for gender equality as a separate political project rather successfully. The statist agenda giving way for market oriented moves and motives under newer promises of social justice and gender equality, empowerment and emancipation largely provides the backdrop for an analysis of construction of gender and sexual subjects in neoliberalism. With regard to the recent transformations in European labour market and in some of the most subtle concerns around gender and subjectivity, Kleemann and Plehwe asks this question that whether “…the concept of gender mainstreaming suited to respond appropriately and effectively to violations of the central interests of women, as they manifest themselves in the manifold mechanism of discrimination against women in labor market and workplace today? Or does the concept deflect attention to peripheral issues of equality politics that might bring advantages to a small number of women, but demand so much public attention that there might not be enough energy left to fight against the concrete deterioration of the situation of a large number of women?” (2006: 199). The issues of neoliberal – global markets and the construction of modern selves’ gender and sexuality operate hand in glove revisiting and reproducing older ideologies and oppressive structures and a sexually ridden politics under new forms of hegemony, albeit that of emancipation and equality. Most vivid here is the expectation of ‘equality’. Where there is no question of this being fulfilled in socio-economic terms, or even of it becoming a lively subject for discussion, nevertheless it is promulgated as a prevailing cultural norm. In other words the new paradigm of political correctness and discourses of equality has however helped only to constitute new hegemonies in order to divert the attention away from real life problems, rooted within the gender and sexual politics. This provides a new horizon of power against which all analyses are need to be undertaken and redirected in order to explore through its mechanisms. This new paradigm is easily disguised as an intensification of power through tropes of imaginary freedom, and as the gender logic of neoliberal governmentality. Certainly this equality norm has become an essential feature of social, political and corporate institutions in the recent time periods. Yet this has proved intractable, refusing to yield itself for analysis until recently. Maybe the reason for this was, as Gill and Scharff have stated, “ a ‘double entanglement’, a seemingly progressive push-forward factor which has seen gay and lesbian partnerships recognized and legitimated, and girls and young women being provided with new avenues and opportunities for achievement in education and employment and with sexual freedoms in leisure” (2011: 8). At the same time, indeed as part of this same package, modes of patriarchal retrenchment have been digging in, as these conditions of freedom are tied to conditions of social conservatism, consumerism and hostility to feminism in any of its old or newer forms. It is within these larger sets of questions that the spaces of gender and gender implications of neoliberal transformations need to be revisited. One also needs to regard the complex and contradicting relations that exist between political and economic enterprises in the era of neoliberalism. This is specifically reflected in the context of the familial spaces, unpaid labour and the question of nature which are more or less regarded as non-productive at the same time heralded as significant in political and moral discourses (Elen, 1991). The existence of these spaces simultaneously within and outside the neoliberal frameworks further adds to nuances within which the implications of neoliberal transformations upon women, men and children are felt. This section will attempt to review a set of literatures that has dealt with the question of such differential impacts that not only problemtise gendered nature of these effects but insert these problematic further within the, as I mentioned earlier in this paper, global imbalances of relationships between the west and the rest. While articulating the multiple factors that are still crucial in determining the nature and characteristics of market and labour market particularly with regard to workers in Third World nations, Dejardin observes that “workers are not similarly situated in the labour market; their sector and occupation, employment status, education and skill endowments, and, not least, their gender, make them more or less vulnerable to losing their jobs” (Dejardin, 2008: 3). A study about the situation of women workers in the Southeast Asian countries identifies serious problems deeply implicating their lives and social existence. That they are vulnerable to huge job cuts because of their placements within the export, manufacturing, garment and textiles, electronics, tourism and services industries. The precarious jobs they are engaged in are most likely to be sacked first or are forced to work under poor working conditions and since they are prima facie responsible for family welfare, so will be adversely affected by cuts in public spending on safety nets and reduction in remittance income (Nguanbanchong, 2009). These findings should be read against the fact that “women workers in developing countries are mainly concentrated in informal employment; and within informal employment, in the more precarious types, with the lowest incomes which signifies their unchanging positions within the local hierarchies despite the valorisations of neoliberalism in different parts of the globe” (Chen et al., 2005: 196). The retreat of governments from welfare programmes in fact goes completely against the socio economic realities amidst which most of the non western countries are located. This adversely affects the advances made in the area of female literacy especially in countries where female literacy is in a backward state and where there are high rates of drop outs of girls from schools. It has also major consequences for affecting the girls’ schooling is through directly implicating upon the household income: This is especially true in many low income countries where girls are more vulnerable to be pulled out of schools than boys although such drop outs are true for them also. The hegemonic assumptions of the market has also created serious amounts of social and economic crises during this periods by increasing the gap between the rich and poor; the decreasing levels of household income in many of these locales has resulted in new coping strategies and withdrawal of children, especially girls, from schools is one of the first steps in this direction (Gubert and Robilliard, 2007). Although such socio economic analyses again goes back to their dependency upon the deplorable conditions that are depicted as demarcating lives in these locales, such analyses nevertheless brings to the forefront the question of direct and gross violations inflicted upon segments of population. Although such attempts do not challenge the underlying assumptions of western standards as basically determining the criteria with which the other locales needs to measured, they inherently highlight some of the serious problems that persist with an overwhelming market technologies and in the circulation of global capital. The market oriented motives and strategies are clearly disinterested in taking up the causes of those who invariably fall outside the realm of its interests. This is further aggravated by the fact that the changed format of global economic relations has brought into effect huge restrictions upon the respective governments to intervene into such situations. Thus it is not only the traditional supporting systems that are already collapsed or are brought nearly to the verge of collapsing but also modern measurements in the form of state interventions and other related formal mechanisms. Deborah Barndt in her analysis of the gender implications of food system in Mexico observes that the dynamics of this system remains precisely within the “north/south asymmetries where the south (ever more dependent on agroexports for foreign exchange) increasingly produces for consumption in the north” (2004: 39). Rather than perpetuating a north/south divide and thus essentialising such divides and their individual existence such analyses recognize the internal dynamics of a global neoliberal paradigm that exerts its implications differently on different locales and also on different gender groups. Barndt claims that Mexico and similar (impoverished) regions in the world feed cheap labour to the richer industrial nations and are further disintegrated due to their location amidst collapsed traditional systems of life and a poorly built modern systems that have replaced the former ones (2004). Although there exist a huge gap between the assumptions reviewed in this paper, in terms of the epistemological spheres and disciplinary boundaries covered a well as, sometimes, in terms of the very bases of such analyses, what is more significant is the very fact that neoliberalism has varying significance not only in terms of its gender implications but also for the global asymmetries that are reproduced. Neoliberalism has generated newer and subtle ways of regulating the gendered selves through constructing economic and political paradigms that converge in each other for its emancipatory promises and for the implicit relations of subjugation.  Bibliography Akass, K. and J. 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