The problem with neoliberal feminism

Feminists around the world have long been struggling with multiple forms of gender discrimination. They have good reason to do so, as we still live in a world which exhibits varied forms of discrimination against women and girls. However, it is also important to note that so-called ‘feminists’ around the world are not necessarily on the same page in terms of causes they espouse, and how they go about working on them.

Categorising feminists based on geography alone (those in the global south as opposed to the global north) does not adequately encapsulate major differences in how feminists see the world or try to change it. Consider, for instance, how many feminists and other advocates of gender rights around the world (in rich and poor countries alike) are suspicious of multinational corporations trying to champion the causes of empowering women and girls. On the other hand, other feminists (in both rich and poor countries) have been seduced by neoliberal ideals.

In the past, corporations and big businesses used to show their benevolence by contributing to social causes by making donations to varied causes. Now they are increasingly trying to integrate social responsibility into their core business operations, and to use a share of their corporate profits to directly support goals such as gender empowerment.

Seemingly motivated by the desire to fulfil their corporate social responsibility, there is a plethora of corporate marketing campaigns which now explicitly aim to improve the lives of women and girls. Brand-conscious consumer product companies such as Unilever and Kraft, or garment-industry giants like Gap, aim to promote gender empowerment. Many projects have been formulated to connect multinationals with NGOs in poorer countries to deliver social benefits alongside pursuing goals of profit maximisation.

In India, for example, Unilever’s Shakti Project is trying to help women generate income while also advancing public hygiene and helping the company conquer difficult-to-access markets. It has established a network of close to 100,000 “Shakti Amma”, women who sell Unilever products to rural consumers in India’s villages. This initiative is described as a win-win situation that provides rural women an income while they help the company enter a growing market, while promoting public health and hygiene in rural areas.

Critics, however, rightly point out how such a project is blind to the racist messages conveyed via problematic products and the impact it has on the livelihoods of other people. Besides poor women have been recruited to sell Unilever’s skin-whitening products, these recruits are also creating a larger market for Unilever’s product, which directly displaces traditional soap makers.

Despite seemingly altruistic goals, many corporate efforts to focus on women’s empowerment tend to myopically foster entrepreneurship development and approach women individually. Big business has no interest in promoting collective action whereby poor women could become organised and formulate their own demands about wages and working conditions. Conversely, voluntary codes of conduct to change the way big businesses operate so that they benefit rather than harm women remain unable to go beyond tokenistic measures, and they cannot assure decent working conditions and wages for all the exploited women ensnared within their convoluted supply chains.

The movement for gender equality becoming entangled with neoliberalism is thus seen to undermine oppositional politics and instead advance market penetration via seemingly ‘win-win’ solutions. Some women become beneficiaries of corporate beneficence. Others may even make it to the top of corporate hierarchies. Yet then these women must serve profit maximising policies which continue to exploit labour, the lowest rungs of which are occupied by over-worked and under-paid women struggling to ensure household survival.

Pakistan too has its share of women entrepreneurs, who rely on corporate benevolence, and speak the language of women’s socio-economic empowerment, yet the means they advocate to achieve gender empowerment provide little more than opportunities for self-advancement.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 25^th, 2020.

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