“Feminomics” is a term I coined to bring together the ideas of the feminine and economics in a way that is positive and powerful.  While feminomics brings into clear focus the importance of the economic empowerment of women to the future well being of the world, its primary focus is on bringing a gender balance to our economy and social structures.  Feminomics incorporates the substantial literature on the androcentric (male) focus of classical economics and documents the important role that women already play in national and global economies and highlights the potential women have to make an even larger contribution.  Economic data clearly document that women are already making enormous contributions to the world’s economy, a great deal of which is unrecognized. However, what is truly exciting and challenging is the enormous potential women have to make an even more significant contributions in the future.

            Typically the economic rights of women are presented as being one element of a human rights argument.  While no one would dispute this perspective since we can all agree that there is a huge gap in the global well being and treatment of women compared to men, I believe there is scope to reframe the women’s human rights language to place women into a more positive framework. By separating women’s economic rights from the others (social, cultural, civil, political) and highlighting women’s important real time contributions, as well as their even more significant potential future role to the economy, we can recast the way women are viewed and can develop reasoning that will appeal to economic policy makers. As unpleasant as it is to acknowledge, it is very difficult to get much buy in for the issues of women rights.

            I believe economic arguments are so strong that they will overcome the cultural and traditional schema’s and biases against women that have limited progress on women’s economic progress and empowerment as well as on human rights issues. Certainly my experience in North American leads me to conclude that the clarity of women’s voices and their impact in the policy and political realms is directly related to their economic clout.

            Although I am a feminist, I find I want to explain that the root of feminomics is feminine and not feminist.  The goal of feminomics is to bring a gender balance to the  masculine perspectives that have defined economic and social theory for several millennia.   

            My definition of feminomics is located at the intersection of gender, leadership, entrepreneurship and the economy. I am interested in examining leadership, entrepreneurship and economics through a gender lens. While gender work has been done in these areas, historically most scholarship and certainly general public understanding is built on concepts, ideas and beliefs rooted in masculine scholarship, interests, and biases.

In brief,

v Feminomics is about recognizing that women are an enormous global economic force.

v Feminomics is about understanding that women represent the single largest untapped economic resource on the planet.

v Feminomics recognizes that women are a key to our future economic prosperity.

v Feminomics is about unleashing the enormous untapped economic power of the world’s women.

v Feminomics is smart economics.

v Feminomics is about re-framing our perception of women and creating new gender schemas which reflect women’s true economic position.