This study attempts to understand the systemic exclusion of women thinkers from economics syllabi in India, particularly within the history of economic thought (HET). Their absence in syllabi not only reflects a failure to acknowledge their contributions but also represents the neglect of the very issues they addressed. The historical construction of economics as a male-dominated discipline is deeply intertwined with societal norms and the way gender is treated within the economic literature. By examining the portrayal of women in economic literature from Xenophon to neoclassical economics and analysing the social institutions of marriage, property rights and divorce during industrialization, this study challenges the construction of the ‘economic man’ as an autonomous individual and the concomitant marginalisation of women within the male-breadwinner household. Moreover, it advocates for the integration of an externalist approach methodology and the inclusion of the works of women economists into the HET syllabi.
AspromourgosT. (2009). The science of wealth: Adam Smith and the framing of political economy (1st ed.). Routledge.
2.
BattersbyC. (1981). An enquiry concerning the humean woman. Philosophy, 56(217), 303–312. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3750274
3.
BharatS. (2019). Two sides of the colonial coin: British and Indian women’s engagements with colonialism and patriarchy. In SinhaA. & ThomasA. M. (Eds.), Pluralistic economics and its history (pp. 269–282). Routledge.
4.
Brennan Sr.C. T. (2013). Woman in the theological anthropology of St. Thomas Aquinas [Doctoral thesis]. Ave Maria University. https://openlightmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Woman-in-the-Theological-Anthropology-of-St.-Thomas-.pdf
5.
ChaponeS. K. (1735). The hardship of the English laws in relation to wives. With an explanation of the original curse of subjection passed upon woman. In an humble address to the legislature. In KuiperE. (Ed.), Women’s economic thought in the eighteenth century (Vol. 3, pp. 177)–243). Routledge.
6.
CookT. E. (1983). ‘Misbegotten Males’? Innate differences and stratified choice in the subjection of women. Western Political Quarterly, 36(2), 194–220. https://doi.org/10.1177/106591298303600204
7.
Cornell Law School. (2023, March). Legal Capacity of Married Persons Act. Legal Information Institute. https://www.law.cornell.edu/gender-justice/resource/legal_capacity_of_married_persons_act
8.
DavidF. (2024, May). Sarada Raju: India’s first professional woman economist. Paper presentation. 27th Annual Conference of European Society for the History of Economic Thought (ESHET), University of Graz, Austria.
9.
FedericiS. (2012). Wages against housework (1975). In Revolution at point zero: Housework, reproduction, and feminist struggle (pp. 15–22). PM Press. https://www.churchland.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Federici-Silvia-Revolution-Point-Zero-Housework-Reproduction-and-Feminist-Struggle.pdf
10.
ForgetE. L. (2011). American women and the economics profession in the twentieth century. OEconomia, 1(1), 19–31. https://doi.org/10.4000/oeconomia.1807
11.
FraserN. (2016). Contradictions of capital and care. New Left Review, 100(Jul–Aug). https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii100/articles/nancy-fraser-contradictions-of-capital-and-care
12.
GranovetterM. (1982). Economic decisions and social structure: The problem of embeddedness (Unpublished early draft of Granovetter, 1985).
13.
GranovetterM. (1985). Economic action and social structure: The problem of embeddedness. American Journal of Sociology, 91, 481–510.
14.
GreenT. H., & GroseT. H. (Eds.) (1874–1875), The philosophical works of David Hume (Vol. IV). Longmans, Greens and Co. https://davidhume.org/texts/empl1/rp
15.
HarkinM. (2013). Adam Smith on women. In BerryC. J., PaganelliM. P., & SmithC. (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of Adam Smith (pp. 501–520). https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199605064.001.0001
16.
HolcombeL. (1983). Wives and property. Reform of the married women’s property law in nineteenth-century England. University of Toronto Press.
17.
hooksb. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. Routledge.
18.
HorowitzM. C. (1976). Aristotle and woman. Journal of the History of Biology, 9(2), 183–213. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4330651
19.
HumeD. (1985). Essays—Moral, political and literary (Ed. by MillerE. F.). Liberty Fund. https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/hume-essays-moral-political-literary-lf-ed
20.
KuiperE. (2003). The construction of masculine identity in Adam Smith’s Theory of moral sentiments (1759). In BarkerD. K. & KuiperE. (Eds.), Towards a feminist philosophy of economics (pp. 45–60). Routledge.
21.
KuiperE. (2022). A herstory of economics. Polity Press.
22.
Mandica-HartO. (2024, February11). Women at Harvard University: Research guide. Harvard University Archives, Harvard Library. https://guides.library.harvard.edu/hua/women_harv
23.
MeekR. L., RaphaelD. D., & SteinP. G. (Eds.). (1978). Adam Smith: Lectures on jurisprudence (Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith, vol. 5). Clarendon Press.
24.
OostS. I. (1977). Xenophon’s attitude toward women. The Classical World, 71(4), 225–236. https://doi.org/10.2307/4348857
25.
PomeroyS. B. (1994). Xenophon, Oeconomicus: A social and historical commentary (with a new English translation). Clarendon Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/712370
26.
RendallJ. (1987). Virtue and commerce: Women in the making of Adam Smith’s political economy. In KennedyE. & MendusS. (Eds.), Women in Western political philosophy, Kant to Nietzsche (pp. 44–77). Wheatsheaf Books.
27.
SmallS. F. (2023). Infusing diversity in a history of economic thought course: An archival study of syllabi and resources for redesign. Eastern Economic Journal, 49(3), 276–311. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41302-023-00238-1
28.
StageS. (1997). Introduction home economics: What’s in a name? In VincentiS. S. (Ed.), Rethinking home economics. Cornell University Press.
29.
TollecA. L. (2020). Finding a new home (economics) towards a science of the rational family 1924–1981 [Doctoral thesis]. ENS Paris-Saclay.
30.
TullbergR. M. (1975). Women at Cambridge. Cambridge University Press.
