Economics and Gender

As someone who is not well versed in the language of economics, I found that Gates’ and Greenhalgh’s articles were very easy to understand. They didn’t overcomplicate anything by using a lot of barely understandable economic jargon. This made reading the articles much easier and a lot more interesting.

As unimpressed I am with the older generation of sinological anthropologists who studied the Chinese family firms in Taiwan, I am glad Greenhalgh decided to take another look at this type work. The Orientalist perspective creates a lot of problems and holes in its view of the Chinese family firm. It does not recognize gender or generation disparities within the firm, especially in terms of reward distribution. Greenhalgh notes that not only are there huge disparities between genders, but one gender can actually subsidize the other (1994, p. 750). I think that it is really important to return and think critically about how the Chinese family firms were portrayed through the Orientalist perspective. It is necessary in order to better understand them today. It is extremely important to understand how the gender and generation disparities come about and that they do in fact exist. In order to get a real sense of this type of firm, the pros and the cons of this type of work need to be studied. If only the pros are being studied, then the family firm is not being properly assessed. A good anthropologist will take note of the good, the bad and the ugly. Or at the very least, return to their works later and realize that they should have told the story from all points of view, not just through the point of view of the family/firm head.

In Gates’ article, I do really like how she focuses on class and ethnicity in regards to income equality in Taiwan. These are two very important factors when discussing income, since they are two of the major factors that will influence your income in most capitalist societies. She really focuses on the five social classes of Taiwan and how each social class has a certain relationship to a particular means of production. In other words, the grand bourgeoisie is comprised of mostly government officials, whereas the proletariat has skills that do not necessarily require education (1979, p. 389-391). However Gates never mentions how gender and/or age affect income. These too are important factors that influence how much money somebody makes. I think they should also be considered when discussing income (in)equality in capitalist societies.

References

Gates, Hill. 1979. “Dependency and the Part-time Proletariat in Taiwan.” Modern China 5 (3): 381-408.

Greenhalgh, Susan. 1994. “De-Orientalizing the Chinese Family Firm.” American Ethnologist 21 (4): 746-775.