Policy discourse as sanctioned ignorance: theorizing the erasure of feminist knowledge

Abstract

Framing ‘feminization’ as a policy puzzle, this paper examines the policy relevance of scripted practices of subordination involved in the feminization of labor, migration, and poverty in the contemporary era of globalization. I argue that feminization challenges the central logic and the purported benefits of globalization and raises important questions about the long term prospects of the majority of the world population, the nature of women's waged and unwaged work, the conditions of labor within the global economy, the scope of democratic practices within neoliberalism, and gendered power relations within families, communities, nations, global institutions and transnational arenas. Given the importance of such questions for policy-makers and policy analysts, I then explore several hypotheses to explain the absence of feminist knowledge about feminization from mainstream policy discourses. I suggest that fundamental epistemological assumptions that inform policy studies contribute to the erasure of feminist knowledge as a form of sanctioned ignorance.