Introduction: Feminism and the Politics of Austerity

Abstract

In the call for papers for this issue on the 'Politics of Austerity', we invited contributions that would draw on feminist analyses to interrogate the origins, modalities and differential effects of the economic crisis to which austerity has been a political response, as well as the political economy, material effects and discursive legitimations of 'austerity' itself. We were interested in exploring the ways in which the global ascendance of neo-liberal policies and discourses is enmeshed with the crisis in global capitalism, and how divides of class, gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality and disability are being exacerbated at local, regional and global levels in the neo-liberal response to the crisis. We asked what a feminist response to the crisis and its purported solutions might look like, and what feminist alternatives to the austere, neo-liberal state and economic policy are emerging in contemporary scholarship and activism. We were interested as well in feminist interrogations of the language and discourse of austerity and crisis, and in work that would unpick the normative assumptions that underpin the framing of the present moment as one of extraordinary crisis and of austerity as a measured, necessary response to this extraordinary moment. In this normative account of austerity, 'we' are all equally called upon to tighten our belts, to be prudent with 'our' limited resources, to be careful and 'austere' in the sense of being self-disciplined, or of forgoing unnecessary luxuries. Austerity in the language of neo-liberalism covers over its other associations with harshness and severity, associations that feminist scholarship and activism are playing a central role in bringing to light. As such, we hoped this issue would offer a range of feminist challenges to the consolidating commonplaces of austerity now circulating in political culture.The call for papers generated a great number of responses, confirming our sense that this is an issue that preoccupies feminists across geographical areas, disciplinary spaces and theoretical approaches. Our contributors have addressed the complex problems of austerity in three main ways: first, by challenging the economic and political orthodoxies about the nature of the crisis and the political responses to it for their gendered underpinnings; second, by revealing the gendered, racialised and sexualised exclusions and violence-both material and discursive-that neo-liberal policies of austerity feminist review 109 2015(1-7) © 2015 Feminist Review. 0141-7789/15 www.feminist-review.com

Resistance to violence against women on Spanish walls

“…The global economic crisis and ensuing austerity measures have had a severe impact on women all around the world (Brah et al, 2015;Evans, 2016). Nor has the Spanish economic crisis that has lasted over 10 years been favourable to Spanish women.…”

The right to be weary? Endurance and exhaustion in austere times

“…However, this collective national fantasy masks the uneven ways in which austerity is felt and experienced. Austerity measures have tended to have the most detrimental impact on those whose lives were already a struggle, and have thus deepened class, raced and gendered inequalities (Bassel & Emejulu, ; Brah et al., ; Durbin et al., ; Gillespie et al., ; Greer Murphy, ; Sandhu & Stephenson, ). In particular, existing inequalities have been exacerbated by severe cuts to state welfare.…”

The resonance of moderate feminism and the gendered relations of austerity

“…This research is concerned with the features of that wider set of conditions particularly as these impacted upon the social reproduction of gender relations. Extensive feminist research has shown that the adoption of austerity as the ‘necessary’ approach to the financial crisis had significant gendered implications due to the fundamentally gendered nature of the spheres of finance, production and reproduction (Annesley & Scheele, ; Bargawi, Cozzi, & Himmelweit, ; Brah, Szeman, & Gedalof, ; Hozic & True, ; Karamessini & Rubery, ; Pearson & Elson, ). Austerity created a discursive field in which political and socioeconomic structures interacted with cultural constructions of gender (Allen, Mendick, Harvey, & Ahmad, ; Bramhall, ) and it is this gendered aspect of austerity that is of interest in this study.…”