A holistic vision for a new economic paradigm, founded on feminine and feminist principles.

What It’s About:

In this little book, Armbrust wants us to consider how capitalism and our current ways of doing business rely on masculine traits that just aren’t working. Wrestling with the tensions between feminism and Capitalism, she proposes a broad roadmap for a way of doing business that calls in feminine traits. Thus, she argues that “business can be a site of feminist practice if we embody our values, create new economies, and experiment with redistributions of power & resources.”

Proposals for the Feminine Economy offers seven proposals to present “a new vision for a feminine economic paradigm.”

(Get it)

If you are feeling frustrated or even a little hopeless at the state of things, this little book is a chance to dream and explore what a better world could look at feel like. It is clear that our current economy isn’t working for most people, and Armbrust takes us into a basic outline of what it could like if we switched out all the masculine traits that define our current economy for more feminine qualities.

What this little book lacks in depth, it fully makes up for in inspiration. It is really just a proposal, so you really have to use it as a jumping off place to figure out what it might look like your sphere of influence. As an academic, I have to explore how the principles she suggests might be adapted for my classrooms, research, and work with others.

“If we view the patriarchy not as men dominating women, but as masculine dominance and feminine subjugation, we notice that not just women but all feminized subjects are dominated, devalued, discredited, or controlled. Consider that money, water, the moon, mysticism and witchcraft, and the earth also belong to the feminine archetype and we see that patriarchy is not just concerned with controlling female bodies, but feminine symbols as well.” p. 24

IF CAPITALISM IS AN ECONOMY THAT VALUES MASCULINE TRAITS, WHAT COULD ANOTHER ECONOMY LOOK LIKE? p. 36

Everything that you are needing, someone else is needing, too. Everything that you are healing for yourself, you are healing for someone else, too. Where are you most in need of healing right now? What is the medicine? How can you weave that into the fabric of your business so that as you heal yourself, you heal others, too? Make your business a medicine, a salve. p. 76

I give it:

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