The feminist economics and the critique of the prodominant economic paradigm

Abstract

This article deals with the emergence and development of feminist economics as an approach that opposes the predominant economy, identifying the theoretical and epistemological limitations of this current to respond to the main challenges of society. By challenging the models advocated by the neoclassics, these economists propose a new approach that integrates the dynamics of the economy and the work of reproduction as parts of a single system. In this approach, we highlight the one that places the sustainability of human life at the center. Based on specialized bibliography, the article goes through a vast literature produced in the last years in the field of feminist economics. This approach has gained relevance in Brazil only in the last two decades and at the initiative of the organized feminist movement which, in elaborating a critique of neoliberal theses and pointing out the insufficiencies of the traditional economy to indicate solutions to the dilemmas of a society split by secular inequalities, sought in this literature new theoretical and methodological contributions to rethink a new economy. In this sense, the feminist economy, focusing on the sustainability of human life, constitutes a valuable tool of analysis that allows a global critique of the capitalist system and the market economy and, therefore, was more quickly incorporated by the feminist movements that questioned the economic liberalism and globalization