Oxford Centre for Global History 4th Anthony Gwilliam Annual Lecture 2025
Femina Oeconomica: Global Gender Orders and the Rise of Neoliberal Woman
Professor Maria Misra (Oxford)
The decades between the 1970s to the 1990s brought striking transformation in the conceptualisation of women, gender, and the economy. New ideas, particularly connected with notions of 'empowerment', presented a major challenge to prevalent views of the proper role of women in markets and households. In the case of the global South, women and girls came to be seen as the key drivers of development. This paper will explore the various dimensions of this moment, and will argue that it constitutes a major shift in the vision of the global gender order.
Professor Maria Misra is a Professor of Global History at the University of Oxford, and a fellow of Keble College. She is the author of Business, Race and Politics in British India, 1850-1960 (Clarendon, 1999) and Vishnu's Crowded Temple: India Since the Great Rebellion (Yale University Press, 2008). She is currently completing a book on the global history of gender.
