Chris Jackson has written a thought-provoking column in The Atlantic about the strange invisibility of women writers to male readers and critics alike. It's well worth trying his own thought-experiment:
“When was the last time you read fiction by a woman?”
And he goes on:
“And I honestly couldn't come up with anything for a few minutes. It
was a pretty shameful moment.”
The column goes on to ponder the internal censorship that works against women authors. Extend the thought to economics and business books and it becomes even harder to think of books by women because the proportion of women economists is so low. Looking back through this blog, I've read books by Linda Polman and Dambisa Moyo. Carmen Reinhardt is a co-author of This Time is Different, and Kate Pickett of The Spirit Level.
Maybe I missed some but even so this is a low tally. So here's a question: let me know which economics and business books by women you've read recently. I'd like to make sure the imbalance on this blog is a supply problem and not – as Chris Jackson so honestly admits – a demand problem.
I'm reading Silent State by Heather Brooke at the moment, does that count?
We'll have to have an expansive definition, so yes it does! Do let us know what you think about the book when you've finished it.
Hi Diane,
Try Margaret Attwood's book “Payback”. It's a surprising and fascinating book looking at debt from a humanistic perspective. Debt is such a fundamental building block of economics and often is missing in any economics discussion. Nearly all of our money is debt yet this is never discussed.
Maybe our problem is we don't have enough female perspective on economics rather than enough female economists.
regards
Raf
I think you're spot on about debt. There's a link between trust and credit, and economists look at each separately without joining the dots.