Samuel Cohn and Rae Blumberg have just published a new book on women’s economic power. The book is titled Gender and Development: The Economic Basis of Women’s Power. It is published by Sage, and is available on their website, on Amazon and wherever fine books are sold. The book is a collection of essays by all-star authors in the field of gender and development.

Everyone knows that women’s economic power is the key to gender equality and the quality of women’s life chances. However, there are very few compelling explanations of how women get power. In what societies are women weak? How do they get the resources that would make them strong?

The fourteen authors take completely different approaches to the explanation of women’s economic power. Is women’s power shaped by armed force and rape? Is it shaped by processes of peace? Is it shaped by outraged low-status males? Is it shaped by the logic of male employers? Is it shaped by the law? Is it shaped by access by unequal access to basic sanitary needs? Is it shaped by citizenship? Is it shaped by women’s political organization? Is it shaped by oil? Is access to power by human females shaped by the same process that is observed in simians? Or does it all boil down to traditional religion and culture?

The book looks at all of these factors in new and unexpected ways.

Want your thinking about women’s power shaken up?

Pick up a copy of Gender and Development: The Economic Basis of Women’s Power and get seventeen ideas that you might not have previously had.

​