This book introduces Economic Woman, making her visible in duality with ‘economic man’ and calling for her empowerment. Global data shows that despite an international ethos of gender equality and significant gains in education and political representation, there is a grave deficit in women’s economic power. Revealing a near male monopoly in macro-economic decision-making, the author shows that global neoliberalism, with its rampant inequality in wealth and incomes, is gendered in both formulation and impact. Economic women in developed and developing economies are at a crossroads. On one hand, women are breaking corporate glass ceilings and increasingly working as breadwinners. But, on the other, they are facing gender wage and promotion gaps, precarious and informal work, unresolved care burdens, limited access to resources, gender based violence, exacerbated impacts of poverty and, along an ascending scale between modernist secular and traditionalist religious regimes, patriarchy in the family.

Frances Raday is a former member of the CEDAW Committee and UN Special Rapporteur on discrimination against women. She is a law professor at the Hebrew University and the College of Management (COLMAN) and holds honorary academic appointments at University College London and Copenhagen University.

The digital version will be available by the end of April and the hard copy in May 2019.