Feminine value of caring must matter in our economies

Walking through the park in the morning, I saw a female lapwing sitting on her nest in the ground behind the bushes. She had produced some eggs in her body, laid them in the nest and was patiently warming them with her body for new lives to emerge. The next morning, she was still there. Where was the male lapwing, I wondered? There was no sign of him. Perhaps, he was foraging for food for himself and her.

Why is it that in all species, the females must labour to produce and nurture new life? Feminists say this is unfair to the female sex. Do these feminists want to free females of all species from their labour of producing life and to make them free (like men) to compete with others for enough food for their families?

I also wonder why industrialised countries want to protect the beauty of endangered species, who live and reproduce naturally like all species do, in reservations unspoiled by humans? What are they missing in their own 'civilised' lives?

For homo economicus — modern, economic man — all Nature and all humans are merely 'resources' to be exploited efficiently. He does not value 'feminine' work of nurturing and caring because it does not add monetary value to the economic enterprise.

Women, who feel their natural work is not valued, and are treated as lesser human beings, are motivated for equal opportunities to compete with men in their enterprises. This is the demand of the modern feminist movement. At every level of a hierarchical enterprise, there must be equal numbers of men and women.

"For the first time in history, a woman has a general sense of herself as an individual apart from men," says philosopher John Ralston Saul in 'Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West'.

"This self-confidence gives her drive and makes her want to succeed. As a result, she is eager to join the system. Her enthusiasm makes her work harder and usually do a better job than the equivalent male. As a result, the talented female tends to become an effective defender of the system (in which natural feminine work has little value)."

Hazel Henderson was an active feminist, who wrote 'Creating Alternative Futures: The End of Economics' in 1978. She pointed out: "The values and attitudes that are favoured and vested with political power are the typical masculine values —competition, domination, expansion, etc. — while those most neglected and often despised — cooperation, nurturing, humility, peacefulness — are designated as female."

Henderson explains, "The masculine values are essential for the male-dominated industrial system to work but feminine values are most difficult to operationalize."

She ascribes values of humility and cooperation to women and values of domination and competition to men. This is not an industrial-era idea. It is as old as recorded history and is embedded in the religions of the West and East, where the supreme God is invariably in the image of a man.

Henderson points out that throughout history, men have designed forms of large organisations to embody masculine values of domination and competition to produce large-scale results and expand their powers.

On the other hand, women nurture families and communities with values of humility and cooperation. The feminine concept of an organisation is a family; the masculine concept of an organisation is a factory.

Henry Ford introduced mass production to the automobile industry. Humans, each doing a small task repetitively, were fitted into a large economic machine. Ford complained, "Why is it when I want only a pair of hands, I get a whole human being?" He wanted to use only human labour without bothering about human needs for dignity and respect.

Factory forms of organisation have spread from manufacturing into service industries. 'White collar' workers are pigeonholed to perform small tasks within large, financial services, retail and software companies, where they work for long hours to earn wages.

The productivity of enterprises is improved with this form of organisation, while the family lives of the workers pulled out of their homes are destroyed.

Computers, robots and artificial intelligence are enabling employers to replace emotional humans. Thereby, investors’ 'ease of doing business' is improved; while the 'ease of living' of common citizens, who must work and earn enough to live well reduces.

When Mahatma Gandhi was asked what he thought of western civilisation, he replied, tongue-in-cheek, "It would be a good idea." The devaluing of 'feminine' attitudes and work, of caring for humans and for Nature, has destroyed civilisation.

Societies have been converted into economies, with the presumption that when the size of an economy — its GDP — increases, the well-being of citizens and, hopefully, harmony within societies will improve.

This thesis has been at the core of the science of economics that emerged in the twentieth century. History has proven thesis wrong.

The pursuit of more GDP, regardless of its impacts on the environment and human well-being, has brought the world to an environmental crisis — with depleting water resources, mounting dumps of garbage on land, rivers and oceans and the atmosphere over-loaded with pollutants.

Demographics have changed along with rapid growth. Women in the 'Asian miracle' economies — Japan, Korea, Singapore, China — are not having enough children despite their governments' efforts to motivate them.

Meanwhile, their populations are ageing. Who will provide care for older persons if there are not enough younger persons to support them, and to provide tax revenues for governments' pension schemes?

At the same time, in 'yet-to-develop' economies, like India's, younger persons are having a very hard time getting jobs with decent wages.

"Bharat Mata ki Jai" is a jingoist rally for citizens to work and fight for the honour of their country. Those who cry it should pause to think what it means. Societies that do not nurture 'feminine' values of caring for others and economies in which the 'natural' work of women has no value, are doomed.

India has the largest population, with the largest number of youth, and with increasing numbers of older people, too. Economic models that give a premium to the 'masculine' work that feeds the economy and war machine and do not value the 'feminine' work of caring for others, are taking humanity to its extinction.

Arun Maira is former Member of Planning Commission.