Counting for Nothing: What Men Value and What Women Are Worth by Marilyn Waring - Book Report/Review Example

Number] Counting For Nothing Counting for Nothing: What Men Value and What Women are Worth is a book written by Marilyn Waring. The book is focused on a feminist perspective of the author according to which she makes arguments and revives the position of women in the economy. The book starts with the statement that environment and women ‘count for nothing’. This leads to a villainy role of women in the national accounts of the developed countries as well as the third world countries. Waring writes a feminist view arguing about the environmental policies and the contributions of women as labourers in the overall production. As Waring uses the statement that environment and women ‘count for nothing’, she is referring to the current position of women in the environmental policies of the United Nations. She states a fact according to which it is evident that women’s contributions and hard work isn’t recognized or included in the national accounts. The role of women is often ignored and ‘counted for nothing’. The main arguments of this book are about the contribution of women in the national accounts and to isolate the gender bias which is present in the current policies and systems used for calculating a country’s national wealth. Waring further explains and argues that women are considered to be ‘non-producers’ in the national accounting system. They have no importance and their contributions, which are many, do not count at all. Women also don’t get their reward from the distribution of benefits followed by the production flow. This gender inequality exists in the traditional economics theory since a long time and Waring has been one of those feminists who raised her voice against this biasness. In the traditional economic theory which has been prepared by the United Nations, there are certain issues like nuclear warfare, poverty, and environmental conservation which are not included in the calculation of the national economic value (Waring 245). Waring then explains the result of the fact that women and environment ‘count for nothing’. Not only does this affect the women who don’t get the benefit, but it also affects the overall public policies. The public policy of every country is determined by the accounting and economic theories that are used and set by the United Nations. The national accounts contribute in the making of the public policies and with a gender biased national accounts, these public policies end up overlooking the importance of the environment and the contributions of women; which make about half of the total world population. Thus, in this book, Waring writes as a feminist analyst and outlines the position of women in the economy of the world. The book consists of several arguments supporting the place of women in economics and their contributions. She uses several examples and gives a detailed commentary in a humorous manner. She fulfils all the aspects of the issue as she discusses the current economic system as well as the way it should actually be. She outlines the ways to analyse the significance of the labour contributions of women and how essential it is to give them the recognition and attention that they truly deserve. Waring has focused mainly on the incompetence of the United Nations policies and the position of women in their documents. The UN has given several policies that have been discriminatory in regard to the feminist economics. Waring has given examples of many of the UN policies that have spoken against women and most of them haven’t considered women labour as a contributing factor to the national economy at all (Waring 245). The economists in the UN see women as villainy and incompetent in many areas of production. This seems to be unacceptable for the author, contrary to which she argues that women have a major role in the modern economics and as labourers. Others forms of incompetence shown by the qualified UN officials were in the aid schemes that highly ignored women including the aid schemes that changed climatic conditions, caused malnutrition, or the ones which left women without fuel. The statements made by the UN officials were insensitive and shocking. Moreover, the UN concluded that the agricultural industries have to face major problems and constraints because of women when they have to look for new programmes involving the women of the rural areas. They claim that they have to reorient their policies and plans in order to initiate programmes suitable for the involvement of rural women and their production (Waring 245). Moreover, Waring highlights that these officials make their statements on the basis of lack of evidence and information about women. Information about women must be collected through an unbiased way which includes reliable collection methods that can reflect the critical work done by women on agricultural fields and collect information based on genders (Waring 243). Attention should also be given to the work of women outside the agricultural duties such as domestic chores. The environmental accounting of a country is measured using their natural resources, labour, and production which then includes in the national accounts. The environmental accounting is incorporated in the national income and environmental change is recorded in the non-monetary terms. Waring implements that environmental change and measurement is also due to the contribution of women. Women do not contribute in the environment as degradation, but as enhancing the environment with their contribution. The indicators which measure the environmental accounting must also take into account the unpaid work of women, voluntary work, household work, and the value of exploitation. Waring argues that there is an increasing number of women who are working as labourers and contributing to the GDP and national accounts of their countries. These women and their efforts are going unnoticed and no benefit is given to them by the male dominant society. She also suggests that fair indicators must be used and surveys must be conducted at an unbiased level to find out the activities of each respondent (Waring 34). Feminists have also been seeing women reproduction as the maintenance of the human resources and a basic principle of national economics. However, Waring is a feminist with rather broader views about women. She believes that woman is not just a reproduction machine or an unpaid worker of domestic chores. She is in fact larger in population than men but still given fewer seats in the national legislature. The men sitting in the legislations to promote environmental sustainability as well as economic growth see women as reproduction machines and their regulations and policies tend to sustain the ideology of women enslavement (Waring 36). The sole agenda of a national system should be to incorporate and recognize all the economic activity in the system. If women’s contribution and work is ignored from the system, it would fail to legitimize the system. Patriarchs believe that an economic system is only the one which is operative under a group of limited, educated, and capable men (Waring 36). However, Waring uses her principles and knowledge of feminist economics to argue against the UN policies and environmental accounting. The book is a complete feminist analysis which focuses on gender equality and how important it is for the successful economic growth and environmental sustainability of a country. Women contribute greatly in the modern economics and their position in the national accounts should be reconsidered by the officials of the United Nations. As Waring keeps it, men value their dominance and highly ignore what women deserve. Work Cited Waring Marilyn. Counting for Nothing. What Men Value and What Women are Worth. Canada: University of Toronto Press, 1999. Print. Read More