I am bringing up the Hirshman article now because I missed my chance to comment last November, because Hirshman just published a book expanding on her article, and because there has been more recent discussion of this in the blogosphere at:
DJW at Lawyers, Guns and Money
Daniel Nexon at Lawyers, Guns and Money
Also from last fall, we have commentary from:
I am very sceptical of Hirshman's core idea that more women in positions of power will help other women because those women power will be more tuned in to women's concerns.
To believe that you have to accept a class analysis: the idea that women have things in common as a class, and that more women in power will help futher women's interests as a class. But I can't help but feel a woman investment banker has more in common with male investment bankers that other women. Particularly as they have to do pretty much the same thing as a man to get into that position. I think elite women will also be indifferent to the concerns of the mass of women as by following an elite career they've differentiated themselves from them (they'll only have one child, they'll have different power dynamics in their marriages, they'll be mercenary about work, and so on).
I think Hirshman's advice is useful in the sense that if as a woman you want children and an elite career then she gives advice on how to do it. But I'm not sure of the broader political significance of it.
Posted by: nik | June 20, 2006 at 12:49 PM