In our first episode, we begin with one of the thinkers who helped shape the field itself: Heidi Hartmann.
Best known for her groundbreaking article The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism, Hartmannâs work has consistently returned to questions mainstream economics has often treated as secondary, or ignored altogether: questions about care, power, and how economies actually sustain peopleâs lives.
In this conversation, Hartmann reflects on how those questions first emerged in her own work, from studying womenâs labour in economic history to challenging the sidelining of gender in both Marxist and mainstream economic thought. She revisits the origins of The Unhappy Marriage, not as abstract theory but as a response to exclusion, to intellectual spaces in which gender was treated as secondary to class.
But this episode is not only about theory. Hartmann also traces how those ideas moved beyond academia, into policy, advocacy, and institution-building through the Institute for Womenâs Policy Research. She speaks candidly about what it takes to make research matter: working with advocacy groups, translating findings into usable evidence, and understanding that impact often depends on timing, clarity, and how ideas travel.
Across the conversation, one thread remains constant: feminist economics is not just about adding women into existing models, but about changing the questions those models are built around in the first place.
Disclaimer: IAFFE brings together a global community of scholars, activists, and practitioners, and this podcast reflects that diversity of thought. The views shared by our guests and hosts are their own, and do not necessarily represent the views of IAFFE.
Quick Resources:
IAFFE website: https://www.iaffe.org/
IWPR: https://iwpr.org/
Heidi Hartmannâs Profile: https://www.american.edu/cas/faculty/hartm.cfm
Accessible Version of the Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism: https://web.ics.purdue.edu/~hoganr/SOC%20602/Hartmann_1979
Dr. Hartmann on â25 Years after FMLA: Research Finds that Paid Leave is a Great Investmentâ: https://iwpr.org/25-years-after-fmla-research-finds-that-paid-leave-is-a-great-investment/
Marilyn Powerâs Social Provisioning as a Starting Point for Feminist Economics: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1354570042000267608
You can read more about one of our interviewers, Dr. Ozge Ozay, here: https://www.fitchburgstate.edu/about/directory/ozge-ozay
Music: Bossy Boots by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
Additional Resources mentioned in todayâs episode:
âDo you Qualify for Social Security Benefits through your Spouse or Ex?â (with Ann HernĂĄndez Kent). Open Vault Blog, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. April 24, 2024
Still a Manâs Labor Market: The Slowly Narrowing Gender Pay Gap (with Stephen J. Rose) Washington, DC: Institute for Womenâs Policy Research, 2018.
Toward Our Childrenâs Keeper: A Data-Driven Analysis of the Interim Report of the My Brotherâs Keeper Initiative Shows the Shared Fate of Boys and Girls of Color (with Chandra Childers and Elyse Shaw). Produced with KimberlĂŠ Crenshaw, African American Policy Forum. Washington, DC: Institute for Womenâs Policy Research, 2015.
âFeminist Political Economyâ (with Jennifer Cohen). Pp. 96-109 in the Handbook of Alternative Theories of Political Economy ed. by Frank Stillwell, David Primrose, and Tim Thorton. Edward Elgar Publishing. 2022.
âEstimating Benefits: Proposed National Paid Family and Medical Leave Programsâ (with Jeffrey A. Hayes). Contemporary Economic Policy 39:3, pp. 537-556. 2021.
Unnecessary Losses: Costs to Americans of the Lack of Family and Medical Leave (with Roberta Spalter-Roth). Washington, DC: Institute for Womenâs Policy Research, May 1989.
Women, Work and Wages: Equal Pay for Jobs of Equal Value (Editor with Donald J. Treiman). Final Report of the Committee on Occupational Classification and Analysis, National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1981.
âContemporary Marxist Theory and Practice: A Feminist Critiqueâ (with Ann R. Markusen). Review of Radical Political Economics 12:2, pp. 87-94. 1980.
âCapitalism, Patriarchy, and Job Segregation by Sex.â Signs 1:2 Supplement (Spring 1976). Appears in Women and the Workplace: The Implications of Occupational Segregation, eds. Martha Blaxall and Barbara Reagan. (University of Chicago Press, 1976)
