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Lesbians and Economic/Social Change Prue Hyman Published online: 12 Oct 2008.
To cite this article: Prue Hyman (2001) Lesbians and Economic/Social Change, Journal of Lesbian Studies, 5:1-2, 115-132, DOI: 10.1300/J155v05n01_08 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1300/J155v05n01_08
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Lesbians and Economic/Social Change: Impacts of Globalisation on Our Community(ies) and Politics Prue Hyman
SUMMARY. This article discusses the globalisation juggernaut and its impacts on women in general and lesbians in particular. It outlines the inadequacies of the pink dollar g/luppie image of lesbians, and considers what lesbian economics involve. This leads to outlining some political implications for our own communities of globalisation and its individualistic world, internally, in coalitions, and in our dealings with governments. It concludes that economics is an important influence on our communities, for good and ill, and that values and politics should be critical to how we handle economic issues. Continuing the creation of lesbian economy and value systems and influencing those of the straight world are ongoing, difficult tasks. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-342-9678. E-mail address: Website: E 2001 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]
KEYWORDS. Globalisation, lesbian communities, lesbian economics, lesbian politics, pink dollar, New Zealand
INTRODUCTION Economics is an area from which many people shy away, yet it affects us all for both good and ill. This article attempts to point to some areas where globalisation and economic change affect lesbians [Haworth co-indexing entry note]: ‘‘Lesbians and Economic/Social Change: Impacts of Globalisation on Our Community(ies) and Politics.’’ Hyman, Prue. Co-published simultaneously in Journal of Lesbian Studies (Harrington Park Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc.) Vol. 5, No. 1/2, 2001, pp. 115-132; and: Lesbian Studies in Aotearoa/New Zealand (ed: Alison J. Laurie) Harrington Park Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc., 2001, pp. 115-132. Single or multiple copies of this article are available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service [1-800-342-9678, 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. (EST). E-mail address: [email protected]].
E 2001 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.
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and our communities, both generally and in ways particular to our lesbian identities. With so little empirical work in this area, it is inevitably more a speculative discussion piece than a fully documented argument. This article first discusses briefly the globalisation juggernaut and its impact on women in general and lesbians in particular, then outlines the inadequacies of the pink dollar g/luppie image of lesbians, and goes on to consider what lesbian economics could or does involve. It then discusses some political implications for our own communities of globalisation and its individualistic world, internally, in coalitions, and in our dealings with governments. Given that current ‘‘more market’’ orthodoxy in economics often attempts to sell itself with TINA (there is no alternative), despite there always being alternatives, it is probably only fair to indicate the bases of my own assessment. It is the viewpoint of one renegade idiosyncratic economist and 1970s-1980s lesbian/radical feminist who, like many writers in Radically Speaking (Bell/Klein, 1996), has bent only slightly to the queer 1990s. GLOBALISATION: JUGGERNAUT AND RESISTANCE Globalisation and economic/technological change have given massive power to mobile transnational corporations and, to a lesser extent, to international agencies, such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank. Both major New Zealand political parties, like many other governments and international institutions, give almost unequivocal theoretical support for globalisation, orthodox structural adjustment programmes, and only lightly regulated trade, investment, and capital flows. This support downplays the substantial distributional impacts within countries of free trade policies, the long-term and strategic costs outweighing short-term gains, and a lack of realism in the assumptions of the models. Of course in practice, hypocrisies abound, with fair trade meaning free entry overseas for your country’s exports, without full reciprocation, as the December 1999 failure of the WTO talks in Seattle illustrates (Hyman, 1999). Local, national, and international movements opposed to the impacts of these institutions on individuals, communities, and the environment are growing fast (see Kelsey, 1999, for an excellent discussion of the meaning and nature of recent globalisation trends, and the
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opposition both generally and in a specifically New Zealand context). But despite some successes, for example, on holding back the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) and halting production and sales of some genetically modified foodstuffs, as yet, opposition has made only minor dents in the juggernaut. Maori have long been among the strongest voices questioning the expropriation of indigenous knowledge under the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights agreement (TRIPS), opposing the MAI, fighting for cultural and intellectual property rights of indigenous peoples, and opposing unfettered corporate driven biotechology. Aroha Te Pareake Mead, comparing the current wave of colonialisation with British settlers’ felling of indigenous forests, has argued that: what is driving the biotechnology industry is actually more of the same--an obsession to dominate nature and peoples who do not agree with western capitalist models of development: an inability to appreciate nature and the natural order in its ‘‘raw’’ untouched state, needing instead to continually manipulate, reconfigure and assert ownership over. (Mead, 1996, p. 11) The fightbacks, in New Zealand and overseas, against poverty, exploitation, and colonialism exacerbated by globalisation have also seen the development of a range of local economic and social initiatives, alternative to or supplementing the standard economy. These include local economic trading schemes (LETS, Green or Time Dollars), some with their own currencies, and alternative banks and investment sources, usually for smallish sums at low or no interest and, in some cases, committed to ecological and other ethical principles. In July 1997, New Zealand had 46 Green Dollar exchanges in operation, as well as many Maori initiatives such as the Waipareira Trust. The costs of structural adjustment programmes fall largely on low income groups. In New Zealand, the so called ‘‘experiment’’ (Kelsey, 1995) has particularly hit Maori and Pacific Islands peoples, with vastly increased levels of inequality and numbers of families in need (see Podder and Chatterjee, 1998; Boston, Dalziel and St John, 1999). Women bear the heaviest burdens, with overrepresentation in low paid and part-time, casualised work carrying much of the burden of household and caring work, and with the impacts of the dismantling of the welfare state. Worldwide, most overseas aid initiatives and structural adjustment
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policies, enforced as a condition of loans by the IMF/World Bank/ credit rating agency orthodoxy, have until recently paid scant attention to impacts on women. Although there is increasing evidence that investment directed to women may have higher rates of return, strategies to tackle gender barriers and channel resources to women are still rare (Elson, 1991). In the quest for ever decreasing labour costs, low waged women in one country are pitted against those in another (ICFTUAPRO, 1992). ‘‘Class and race mediate the processes of global restructuring as capitalists seek women of color and working-class women to meet their needs for a flexible labor supply’’ (Ward, 1990, p. 3). In New Zealand, the 1991 Employment Contracts Act, intended to promote labour market flexibility, increase productivity, and push enterprise bargaining on the United States model, was effectively an employers’ charter. The claim of the then National Government’s Minister of Women’s Affairs (Jenny Shipley, later Prime Minister) that the legislation would promote equity for working women was widely challenged. The contention that a deregulated labour market and bargaining at enterprise level benefit women in general is highly dubious (Novitz and Jaber, 1990; Hyman, 1993). The only women to benefit were those with skills that were in scarce supply and/or were highly valued, with many women in traditionally female dominated and undervalued work, as well as those pushed into low-paid, part-time, and casualised work, missing out. Inequality among women has thus perhaps become as critical as, or even more critical than, the gap between men and women. LESBIANS AS PINK DOLLAR LUPPIES? Despite the negative aspects of globalisation highlighted above, economic growth and change have raised average standards of living in most countries, with greater average longevity and educational opportunities among the improvements. The inadequacies of national income and growth measures are well known (see, for example, Waring, 1988). Better socio-economic indicators are needed, and many miss out; but it would be misleading to ignore the benefits altogether. What of lesbians in all this? Many who ‘‘come out’’ at a young age will expect and need to be financially independent and to put a high value on education and paid work. A British group of 60 mainly white and highly educated lesbians, aged mostly from 20 to 40 at the inter-
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view date of 1990, and with few children, revealed high educational levels and labour force participation rates, and most had well paid jobs (Dunne, 1997). Dunne argues a link between economic independence and being lesbian, with a strong desire for such independence being expressed by 57 of the 60 women; and she concludes that ‘‘a lesbian life-style represents an economic achievement’’ (p. 125). This would locate lesbians mostly in the group doing well in a globalised free market world. However, there are problems with this picture. First, it makes lesbians in poverty and/or struggling to bring up children invisible. Second, it comes uncomfortably close to embracing the ‘‘new right’’ push to self-reliance and independence which has accompanied increases in inequality. That underlying philosophy blames those unable to be independent and fails to take sufficient account of our inevitable and not unwelcome interdependence at all levels, involving families (however we choose to form and define them), wider groups and communities, and national/international networks. So what do we know of the economic position of lesbians generally, in New Zealand and elsewhere? Not as much as we might like. Of course, there is considerable truth in the picture of many well-off, two-income, no dependents, ‘‘g/luppy’’ couples, though more so for gay men, with higher earnings and fewer dependent children in the household than lesbians have. Hence the marketing ‘‘pink dollar’’ phenomenon now being seized on by many firms and advertisers inside and outside our own communities, as they seek to show their lesbian/gay friendliness and capture our cash. However, the pink dollar picture is a myth when used as a generalisation about most lesbians/gay men. It is a dangerous myth when it is used politically to argue that we are already a privileged group, who need no further civil rights protections. ‘‘Queer Nation’’ on TV3 (like its UK counterparts, a professional, glitzy production, although the latter started in the form of ‘‘Out on Tuesday/Thursday’’ as an earnest, low-budget political programme) ran a series investigating the pink dollar as part of three programmes in August 1999. This series, reasonably well balanced in my view, interestingly drew on Australian estimates of annual income and interviews for much of its material. Ian Johnson, from Significant Others, outlined this Sydney gay/lesbian firm’s role in advising organisations inside and outside the community on how to tap the pink dollar, and
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showed bank and airline advertising with gay (male) imagery and appeal. Sally Gordon, out lesbian senior executive at Lion Nathan, talked of lesbian/gay trend setters who ‘‘support companies which support them.’’ Hence their sponsorship of Mardi Gras, ‘‘the largest gay party in the world’’ and their many employees out of the closet. Similarly, AMP puts money into the lesbian/gay market in the quest for new mortgage business, sponsoring a tourist train where 94 lesbians/gays pay $60 each for dinner. Travel, food, cars, alcohol, mortgages--the picture is one of apparently abundant discretionary spending by lesbians/gays, to profit any firm prepared to give some pay-off to our community in terms of visibility, acceptance, and sponsorship. The programme’s balance was provided by a section showing that not all gays/lesbians are well off. Curiously, the main example was a gay male unemployed couple in Auckland; an Australian male (Ian Johnson) was chosen to explain that lesbians, like all women, have a lower average income than men. To be fair, Carole Beu from the Auckland Women’s Bookshop also pointed out women’s lower disposable income, while talking of high community demand for lesbian books, and her move to Ponsonby Road partly to target and capture the gay male market. Why is it difficult to find hard facts to contradict the standard picture? Lesbian/gay are categories not much used in government statistical analyses, nor is it clear that we want to be visible in official statistics. Some Wellington lesbians organised a ‘‘dykecott’’ (boycott) of the 1981 New Zealand Census to protest our exclusion from its categories and the social oppression of lesbians more generally. Reasonable suspicions about the use of estimates of our numbers and issues/objections over definition and fluidity of identity, whatever language is used, mean that many people who do in fact have lesbian, gay, or bisexual orientation or behaviour would not record it. Some might not feel it was safe to do so. Census (mis)information could add fuel to the claims that figures often used for the prevalence of homosexuality, from Kinsey onwards, of around 10% are exaggerated, giving ammunition to those seeking to increase repressive treatment or deny equal rights. Visibility and factual information can certainly be used against us. On the other hand, without them, the realities of discrimination can be challenged and the need for policies to reduce it discounted. Given the lack of official statistics, marketing surveys are the main source of
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income figures for lesbians and gay men. These are mainly United States surveys, and tend to come from gay/lesbian magazines or surveys circulated in places where those active in the community gather. They are, therefore, likely to be read and completed by lesbians/gays with above ‘‘community’’ average involvement and incomes. However, much of the US information available on lesbian and gay economic status comes from Lee Badgett, who challenges the images of wealth. She critiques this market research and shows that the most reliable survey (Yankelovich Monitor 1993, a random sample of 2,503 people, of whom 143 identified as ‘‘gay, lesbian or homosexual’’) showed total household incomes differing little between gay and straight households. Badgett’s own statistical work was based on a small Social Survey (1680 full time workers, with 81 categorised as lesbian/gay/bisexual). It showed that lesbians working full-time earned US$15,056 on average against $18,341 for heterosexual women, $26,321 for gay men, and $28,312 for heterosexual men. The gender gap is, as usual, striking. After controlling for education and age, the gap between lesbians and straight women was not statistically significant (Badgett, 1997, p. 69). So where we have population-based random sample or census data, the ‘‘pink dollar’’ picture is an incomplete one, particularly when we focus on couples bringing up children, a bigger proportion of lesbian couples than many might expect. For New Zealand, the 1996 Census was the first where same-sex couples living together were asked to self identify. It recorded a total of 6,510 people in same-sex couples, including 3,626 lesbians, that is, 1,813 lesbian couples. This was inevitably an understatement even of those regarding themselves as having a partner, let alone all lesbians and gays, since it is confined to those who lived with the partner and were also prepared to acknowledge this to a government agency. (The Census uses only the terms ‘‘opposite sex/same sex couples’’; I refer also to gay/lesbian couples and male/female couples.) Over half of the same-sex couples so counted (55.7%) were women; of such lesbian couples, as many as 28.5% had children in their household, compared to 11.6% for gay men, and 55% for heterosexual couples (Byrne, 1998). While 1,813 is still a fairly small number of lesbian couples, it is by far the best basis yet for income and other information, albeit only for a small section of all New Zealand lesbians. Fewer of the people in same-sex couples specified their individual
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income than those in opposite-sex couples (10% of women/13% of men in same-sex couples, 7% in opposite-sex couples did not specify), perhaps for the reasons mentioned earlier. The proportion where family income is unavailable is even higher (19% for same-sex couples and 14% for opposite-sex couples). Nevertheless, the income data available on couples is striking, confirming the major influence of parenting on income and the similarity of the gender gap for those in both lesbian/gay couples and straight couples. Of all couples without children, gay/lesbian couples do indeed have higher average family income levels than their opposite-sex counterparts, with 67% of lesbian couples and 71% of gay male couples reporting self-estimated annual family income above $40,000 (year ending March 1996), as against only 31% of opposite-sex couples without children. Moreover, 26% lesbian, 36% gay male, and 16% opposite-sex couples reported income above $70,000. The size of this gap is partly a matter of different age structures, with proportionately fewer low income elderly among the same-sex couples without children. However, for those with children in the household, 60% of lesbian couples had incomes above $40,000, compared with 64% of oppositesex couples. For opposite-sex couples, therefore, overall, those with children are better off than those without; but this is reversed for lesbian/gay couples. Thus on average, lesbian/gay couples with children support them on lower incomes than those of their childless counterparts, and on incomes similar to or lower than those of their straight counterparts. The pink dollar is thus very selective. Some other aspects of new technology, globalisation, and increased affluence for many lesbians are worth noting. This group now has greater opportunities for direct contact with other cultures, with gradual reductions in the real price of air travel. New Zealand lesbians beat a path to Michigan, the Gay Games, Lesbos, and Mardi Gras. Those unable to afford this can buy the books and CDs, see and hear visiting musicians, and experience media versions of lesbian and gay culture. This seems largely positive, although the possible homogenisation of culture and domination by the richest and largest economy, that of the United States, might be of some concern. One impact of the opportunity to travel and/or make or maintain contacts through electronic mail is the inevitable increase in cross-country lesbian relationships. This increases the demand for immigration, one area where countries jealously guard national rights by not allowing free long-term entry, in
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contrast to the position on entry of money/investment from overseas. However, increasing numbers of countries, including New Zealand, have begun to accept immigration on the basis of lesbian/gay partnerships. This is usually less freely available than is the case for heterosexual couples, with most countries giving easier access to the legal spouse of a citizen than to a lesbian/gay partner. New Zealand has recently reduced the period of the relationship needing to be established from four to two years for such couples, aligning the period with that for de facto heterosexual couples. Married couples have no such wait period. LESBIANS AND ECONOMICS: IS THERE A LESBIAN ECONOMICS? Gender, race, class, and sexuality are all largely economic issues, with white, upper-class, heterosexual men having greater control over power and resources. Patriarchy and capitalism have been based on gender, class, and race divisions of labour in heterosexual households and the paid labour force. The restriction of women to low-paid jobs promoted and even necessitated heterosexual partnership as an institution. Hence, I argue that lesbian feminists working for change are basically doing, writing, and talking lesbian economics. Creating our own communities, organisations, and economy, as well as creating lesbian theory, ethics, values, and philosophy, is also doing lesbian economics (Hyman, 1995). There is a growing literature documenting the relationship of lesbians to the overall economy and to our own partly separatist economy (Edwalds and Stocker, 1995; Gluckman and Reed, 1997). ‘‘Lesbians-females who live by rejecting that primary form of obligation, obligation to men--bring about lesbian economics’’ (Allen, 1986, p. 37). As an excellent early New Zealand article on lesbian feminist theory puts its importance as a challenge to patriarchy: The threat of even non-political lesbianism to patriarchy is its demonstration that women don’t need men, personally at least. Once the romanticism and emotional mythology of heterosexuality is challenged, women are free to see the oppression that it obscures. (The Lesbians Ignite Fire Brigade, 1978, p. 73)
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Lillian Faderman (1991) and others have shown how the demand and supply factors leading to greater opportunity for women in the paid workforce and the possibility of economic independence have facilitated the emergence of lesbian community and identity. Sexuality, like gender, is socially constructed, with economic opportunities and constraints varying over time and between cultures (Matthaei, 1997). Feminist and lesbian/gay movements have attacked the core of the sexual division of labor, to the extent that gender differences are themselves being eroded, so that ‘‘if gender further fades into sex, we can expect an entirely new set of sexual categories, perhaps not even called ‘sexual’ to emerge’’ (Matthaei, 1997, p. 157). Lesbian separatism and lesbian community/communities, including lesbian business, volunteer services, and land, are all aspects of our own economy. So too are the ways we run our lives in terms of household types, financial arrangements, and the sharing of tasks--and the ways in which this may differ from non-lesbian households. Lesbian culture, including music, books, magazines, and crafts, maintained through our own publishing houses, bookshops, printers, clubs, and entertainment, has been crucial in creating community. It has provided paid work for some women, and its profits, with money earned by lesbians in the wider economy, have made possible internal community support, such as lesbian lines, radio programmes, and coming out groups. It enables many United States and visiting lesbians, at least for one glorious week a year at the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival and at other weekends, to behave as though the outside world does not exist. Of course, it is not problem free. As lesbian culture and business have grown, the market has attracted the attention of mainstream business, as discussed above. Issues may arise around whether to operate like any other business, or whether to maintain some differences based on lesbian or feminist principles, for example in decision making processes or wage structures. New Zealand’s foremost feminist magazine, Broadsheet, operated with equal hourly rates for all types of paid work throughout its 25 year history. Many areas, including price differentials and the mixing of voluntary and paid labour, bring up class and race issues. Choices over separatism by maintaining our own businesses while living in comparative poverty as opposed to wider exposure and higher incomes by joining the mainstream in larger publishing houses arise for many writers and musicians. These
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are not easy issues. As feminist and lesbian bookshop proprietors have pointed out in New Zealand and overseas, if we do not support our stores, but instead buy at the chains which undercut prices while stocking only the most popular titles, we will lose them. This points to the need to use our consumer power carefully, for the benefit of our own communities and for social justice and environmental causes, rather than just in response to short-term gain and glossy advertisements. We also have power to use as producers and investors, which may be less problematic than our consumer roles (Badgett, 1996). Another way of strengthening mutual support in social and economic terms is to run our own trading schemes. In Australia, an Adelaide lesbian community green dollar scheme (LESY) was based on the pooling of skills offered by individual lesbians (Young, 1991). LESBIAN POLITICS IN A GLOBALISED WORLD Most lesbian (and gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex) politics in the current individualistic climate involve the fight for equal rights with heterosexuals (the norm?) and the recognition of diversity in the overall world and within our own communities. When it comes to strategies and tactics, the issue of equality versus difference, which has been important in theoretical and policy debates on gender, arises also with respect to lesbian (and gay) identity and rights. Advocacy of total equality has been used against those arguing for special gender related provisions, such as pregnancy/childbirth leave. This is essentially a non-problem created by those seeking to put barriers in the way of equitable treatment. Equality and special treatment are not incompatible. Equality should be the norm except where there are relevant gender differences, such as pregnancy, requiring special (better) treatment. However, the compatibility of ideas of equality and difference is not fully accepted. Hence the issue can be used against the position of lesbian feminists who fight for equal treatment in many respects, but are not prepared on political grounds to argue that we are just like everyone else. It is important that we consider our position on the similarity/difference of our own relationships compared with those in the heterosexual world. The perspective that sexual orientation is a genetic feature, neither chosen nor able to be changed, is a belief for some, a useful strategy for others, and alien to a third group. If it is
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true, the argument that it is unjust to penalise those born lesbian or gay would attract wider support than otherwise. This belief/strategy often goes with the argument that we are, individually, in couples, and more generally, just like the heterosexual world, and hence should be treated equally. But for many lesbian feminists whose politics extend to linking heterosexism with the power dimensions of patriarchy, colonialism, and capitalism, such an approach is unappealing, whatever their position on the lesbian identity formation of themselves and others. Fighting for human rights does not require a heterosexual norm and is as applicable to a chosen identity as a genetic one. This argument is one for full human rights, including the economic rights envisaged in the Universal Declaration, for all. Hence our partner relationships (if any) should be treated like any other in terms of rights and non-discrimination, legally and socially. At present, there are cases of discrimination in judicial and policy judgements in areas such as adoption and custody of children, insemination services, domestic protection, partner benefits at work, superannuation benefits, honouring of wills, and next of kin treatment by the medical system. In most of these areas, it seems clear-cut to argue that being lesbian (or gay) should be absolutely irrelevant to one’s legal treatment. Nevertheless, many lesbians would be reluctant to have the current legal system with its biases let loose on their situations. There are many aspects of the existing economic and social treatment of couples which more radical analysis would want changed, rather than having equal rights granted within them. For example, with respect to marriage, it should be abolished for everyone. Along with this, it can be argued, as I do elsewhere (Hyman, 1994), that all adult benefits should be based on the individual, removing partner benefits and the expectation of dependence on a ‘‘spouse.’’ Even better would be abolition of the categorical system of benefits, with its stigmatising aspects, and the adoption of a universal basic income system (Hyman, 1998). But in the short term, abolishing marriage and partner benefits would disadvantage many women, including lesbians, with unequal access to income. So fighting for the extension of existing partner benefits to lesbians has some short-term appeal. It is a major campaign in the United States, where medical costs are high, private provision is the normal mode with only a minimal public system, and insurance coverage paid for by the employer is prevalent. Changes in New Zealand’s health services have increased the importance of insurance
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benefits here, although the election in November 1999 of a Labour government in coalition with Alliance may decelerate the shifts towards private health, as well as improving the chances of lesbian/gay friendly policies. Labour parliamentarians include two out gay men and one male to female transsexual, and they have issued the first full gay/lesbian policy, strongly supported by Prime Minister Helen Clark. And, of course, New Zealand, unlike the United States, has, since 1993, had human rights legislation outlawing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in the provision of goods and services, as well as employment and housing. The government itself is still exempted from this, after seven years of procrastination over the Consistency 2000 project. This was designed to examine government legislation, provisions, and policies embodying any discrimination, with a view to its removal, but it was never completed. The prospects of removing the exemption remain uncertain, as the issue is likely to be decided by individual conscience votes of Members of Parliament. However, the outcome is more promising in the new environment. Even in the short term, equal rights and responsibilities for lesbian/ gay couples, the latter especially appealing to governments, comes with some negative implications. Full recognition of our relationships would presumably mean that where the benefit system is based on couples, the rules would apply equally. Eligibility for income support for those qualifying for unemployment and sickness benefit (or ‘‘community wage’’) is at present based on the couple for married and de facto heterosexual relationships, but the individual in other cases. Extending the couple criterion to lesbian couples would involve both a financial loss for some women, and the likely state intrusion into the nature of relationships which many domestic purposes benefit recipients already suffer. This better financial treatment of some lesbian couples is, of course, hard to defend, and almost certain to be ended. This would matter less in a system with an individual basis for entitlement for adults, plus support for children, opening up the choices on how individuals form families and organise their interdependencies. All this highlights the dilemma of whether to fight for equal rights in the current system, fight to change it, or do the first as a short-term expedient while also going for the second. This is particularly pertinent at present, with the New Zealand government consulting on a
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Justice Department discussion paper putting forward some options in all the areas discussed above. These dilemmas are also illustrated by discussions over the years in the New Zealand lesbian community on the issue of coverage under the Matrimonial Property Act. The new government intends to extend the legislation to cover de facto heterosexual and lesbian/gay relationships dissolved after a specific time, probably three years. Some would prefer that disputes over property are kept away from the (patriarchal, heterosexist) judicial system. Others see the need for residual protection, with cases cited where financial unfairness has arisen after breakups. The need for clear financial understandings within relationships, preferably in the form of a written contract, is one obvious implication: such contracts allow opting out of the Act within marriage at present. Thus some argue for keeping the state out of our relationships where money is involved (Rankine, 1999), while strongly seeking equal rights elsewhere. Unfortunately, the line is not totally clear-cut. Individual choice, in which anything goes, is certainly reflected in lesbian communities. Sexual libertarianism is in vogue, from strip clubs, packing, and prostitution to acceptance and advocacy of s/m, with New Zealand possibly behind international trends, but catching up with lipstick lesbianism and lesbian chic. The argument is that anything goes as long as it is consensual; but this ignores the fact that consent is itself a construct, and in s/m it is a tool for negotiating inequality. The position that consenting to one’s own exploitation is fine ignores power differentials in society. The debates over sex work similarly reflect, inter alia, differences over issues such as the possibilities of real choice in a patriarchal, capitalist, colonialist world. The criticisms of and reactions against 1970s/80s lesbian feminism, in part for its supposed (though in my view exaggerated) narrow uniformity and neglect of difference, have produced a largely apolitical or weak equal rights movement. While lesbian feminist and other critiques preceding postmodernism have long deconstructed white male modernist false objectivity, they have gone far in deconstructing all elements of identity. On some interpretations, postmodernism negates the effectiveness of any challenge to current power structures. In the name of difference, everything becomes acceptable, with any attempt to make judgements or establish standards, ethics, and values ridiculed. But values are needed for political action:
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What is defined as value freedom, that is, not making judgments, may appear sensitive to and respectful of other women, but in reality it makes women passive and uncritical since it stops both judgments and action. And active social and political life stem from values, choices and activities that are defined with clarity and exercised with commitment. (Raymond, 1991, p. 18) This decline in political consciousness is seen in many lesbian and gay communities, with people prioritising owning property and having babies, seeking legitimation and polite lobbying for equal rights over ‘‘community organizing and the painstaking process of building coalitions with other disenfranchised groups’’ (Gluckman and Reed, 1997, p. xv). Many of the articles in the United States collection Homo Economics (Gluckman and Reed, 1997) show a concern for these issues, rather than for simply making it in a system newly tolerant, on an individualistic basis only, to lesbians and gays: As the best feminism is sensitive to more than questions of gender, the fight against homophobia will take on its most radically liberating forms only if it is conceived as part of a broader vision of social and economic justice. (Gluckman and Reed, 1997, p. 8) The liberal agendas for lesbian/gay equality trivialise the existence and priorities of working class gay/lesbians of colour: So getting a middle-of-the-road, mainstream gay rights agenda passed, how’s that going to stop me from being raped? How’s that going to help me from not getting breast cancer? How is it going to help the environment from not getting poisoned? How is it going to help the children of my community to have a chance for a decent life? (Smith, 1997, p. 200) As well as being part of coalition movements for economic and social justice, more organised and informal responses are needed to assist lesbians in poverty. The major differences in economic status among lesbians need more recognition than small differentials in the entry prices to dances. We have also reached or are reaching the stage when many of the first generation in our ‘‘out’’ lesbian communities are elderly and needing support. Some of this support is happening informally; but despite much discussion, there has been little progress
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beyond talk on initiatives such as lesbian land and supportive retirement or mixed age communities, in New Zealand at least. Wellington’s Dykes Out of Debt (DOODS) uses profits from its dances to assist lesbian organisations, such as Lesbian Line, the Lilac library, and the lesbian Access Radio programme, as well as some individuals whose ventures will feed back to the community. However, the grants are inevitably small, and more is needed. I have mentioned lesbian communities, assuming their existence and not attempting to define the term (or to define lesbian!). Some might argue either that they have never really come into being or that they have disintegrated with the individualistic era I have been discussing. My own position is that even if there are simply ill-defined, frequently changing groupings of individuals in networks and organisations, this amounts to some sort of community. On this, I take heart from Marilyn Frye, who argues that lesbian community bridges the separation from each other created by heterosexal/patriarchal forms of social organisation and makes space for connections to occur: What I’m saying is that lesbian community is possible . . . natural lesbian connection happens, which sustains and protects lesbians in many ways and varying degrees from the ravages of misogyny and heterosexualism, even, for some and in some ways from the violences of racism and poverty. In my community, lesbians don’t agree about anything and lesbians survive in droves. (Frye, 1990, p. 87) Beyond mutual support in Aotearoa/New Zealand is the need for international organising and a consciousness that in many other countries, the priority of sheer survival, avoiding imprisonment and death for gay or lesbian activity, is still a reality. The International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) is a key organisation in the fight for gay/lesbian rights, while Amnesty International has finally recognised lesbian/gay oppression in their campaigns for political prisoners. Some New Zealand lesbians attempted to influence the national delegation in support of the ILGA petition calling for lesbian rights issues to gain support at the UN Women’s Conference in Beijing in 1995, but the governments most opposed to lesbian/gay rights blocked progress.
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CONCLUSION I have argued that economics is an important influence on our communities, for good and ill, and that values and politics should be critical to how we handle economic issues. ‘‘Crucial relationships exist (often denied and rationalised) between culture and ethics and all economic/technical systems. Value systems and ethics, far from being peripheral, are the dominant, driving variables in all economic and technological systems’’ (Henderson, 1981, pp. 367-8, 376). Continuing the creation of lesbian economy and value systems, as well as influencing those of the straight world, are ongoing, difficult tasks. REFERENCES Allen, Jeffner (1986). Lesbian economics, Trivia, Winter, pp. 37-53. Badgett, Lee (1996). Thinking homo/economically, in A Queer World (The CLAGS Reader), Martin Duberman (ed.), New York and London: New York University Press, pp. 467-477. Badgett, Lee (1997). Beyond biased samples: Challenging the myths on the economic status of lesbians and gay men, in Amy Gluckman and Betsy Reed (eds.), Homo Economics: Capitalism, Community, and Lesbian and Gay Life, New York and London: Routledge, pp. 65-71. Bell, Dianne and Klein, Renate (eds.) (1996). Radically Speaking: Feminism Reclaimed, North Melbourne: Spinifex. Boston, Jonathan, Dalziel, Paul, and St John, Susan (1999). Rebuilding an effective welfare state, in Jonathan Boston, Paul Dalziel, and Susan St John (eds.), Redesigning the Welfare State in New Zealand: Problems, Policies, Prospects, Auckland: Oxford University Press, pp. 301-316. Byrne, Judith (1998). What the 1996 census tells us about lesbians, Women’s Studies Association 1998 Conference Papers, Auckland: Women’s Studies Association, pp. 52-57. Dunne, Gillian (1997). Lesbian Lifestyles: Women’s Work and the Politics of Sexuality, New York and London: Macmillan Press. Edwalds, Loraine and Stocker, Midge (eds.) (1995). The Woman-Centred Economy: Ideals, Reality and the Space in Between, Chicago: Third Side Press. Elson, Diana (1991). Male Bias in the Development Process, Manchester: Manchester University Press. Faderman, Lillian (1991). Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: a History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth Century America, New York: Columbia University Press. Frye, Marilyn (1990). Lesbian community, Lesbian Ethics 4(1), pp. 84-87. Gluckman, Amy and Reed, Betsy (1997). Introduction and The gay marketing moment, in Amy Gluckman and Betsy Reed (eds.), Homo Economics: Capitalism, Community, and Lesbian and Gay Life, New York and London: Routledge, pp. xi-xxxi and 3-9. Henderson, Hazel (1981). The Politics of the Solar Age: Alternatives to Economics, Garden City, New York: Anchor Press/Doubleday.
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Hyman, Prue (1993). Equal pay for women after the Employment Contracts Act: Legislation and practice--the emperor with no clothes?, New Zealand Journal of Industrial Relations 18(1), May, pp. 44-57. Hyman, Prue (1994). Women and Economics: a New Zealand Feminist Perspective, Wellington: Bridget Williams Books. Hyman, Prue (1995). Lesbian economics--how lesbian feminist perspectives might improve feminist economics: ‘‘Their’’ economy and ‘‘our’’ economy, Women’s Studies Association of New Zealand 1994 Conference Papers, Auckland: Women’s Studies Association, August, pp. 128-136. Hyman, Prue (1998). Universal basic income: a useful proposal for feminists? Women’s Studies Association 1998 Conference Papers, Auckland: Women’s Studies Association, pp. 112-117. Hyman, Prue (1999). The impacts of globalisation on Aotearoa/New Zealand, Pacific World 55, December, pp. 4-10. International Confederation of Free Trade Unions Asian and Pacific Regional Organisation (ICFTU-APRO) (1992). Regional Seminar on Structural Adjustment and Women--Report, Mahukari, Japan: ICFTU-APRO. Kelsey, Jane (1995). The New Zealand Experiment: A World Model for Structural Adjustment, Auckland: Auckland University Press/Bridget Williams Books. Kelsey, Jane (1999). Reclaiming the Future: New Zealand and the Global Economy, Wellington: Bridget Williams Books. Matthaei, Julie (1997). The sexual division of labor, sexuality, and lesbian/gay liberation: Towards a Marxist-feminist analysis of sexuality in U.S. capitalism, In Amy Gluckman and Betsy Reed (eds.), Homo Economics: Capitalism, Community, and Lesbian and Gay Life, New York and London: Routledge, pp. 135-164. Mead, Aroha (1996). How Are the Values of Maori Going to be Considered and Integrated in the Use of Plant Biotechnology in New Zealand?, address to Conference on Plant Biotechnology, available on Consumer Web site http://www. consumer.org.nz/tech/chp7-6.html and reprinted in Pacific World 46, March 1997, pp. 10-11. Novitz, Rosemary du Plessis and Jaber, Nabila (1990). Pay equity, the ‘‘free’’ market and state intervention, New Zealand Journal of Industrial Relations 15(3), December, pp. 251-262. Podder, Nripesh and Chaterjee, Srikanta (1998). Sharing The National Cake In Post Reform New Zealand: Income Inequality Trends In Terms Of Income Sources, paper to New Zealand Association of Economists Conference. Rankine, Jenny (1999). The costs of including lesbians in law for heterosexual women, Lesbian Quarterly 4(3), December pp. 4-6. Smith, Barbara (1997). Where has gay liberation gone? an interview with Barbara Smith, in Amy Gluckman and Betsy Reed (eds.), Homo Economics: Capitalism, Community, and Lesbian and Gay Life, New York and London: Routledge, pp. 195-207. The Lesbians Ignite Fire Brigade (1978). Lesbians ignite!: About lesbian feminism, Circle 29, pp. 68-75. Ward, Kathryn (1990). Introduction and overview, in Kathryn Ward (ed.), Women Workers and Global Restructuring Ithaca: Cornell University Press, pp. 1-22. Waring, Marilyn (1988). Counting for Nothing: What Men Value and What Women Are Worth, Wellington: Allen and Unwin/Port Nicholson Press. Young, Carole (1991). LESY-Adelaide: an example of a lesbian economy, Lesbian Ethics, 4(2), pp. 62-66.
Journal of Lesbian Studies Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wjls20
Lesbians and Economic/Social Change Prue Hyman Published online: 12 Oct 2008.
To cite this article: Prue Hyman (2001) Lesbians and Economic/Social Change, Journal of Lesbian Studies, 5:1-2, 115-132, DOI: 10.1300/J155v05n01_08 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1300/J155v05n01_08
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Lesbians and Economic/Social Change: Impacts of Globalisation on Our Community(ies) and Politics Prue Hyman
SUMMARY. This article discusses the globalisation juggernaut and its impacts on women in general and lesbians in particular. It outlines the inadequacies of the pink dollar g/luppie image of lesbians, and considers what lesbian economics involve. This leads to outlining some political implications for our own communities of globalisation and its individualistic world, internally, in coalitions, and in our dealings with governments. It concludes that economics is an important influence on our communities, for good and ill, and that values and politics should be critical to how we handle economic issues. Continuing the creation of lesbian economy and value systems and influencing those of the straight world are ongoing, difficult tasks. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-342-9678. E-mail address: Website: E 2001 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]
KEYWORDS. Globalisation, lesbian communities, lesbian economics, lesbian politics, pink dollar, New Zealand
INTRODUCTION Economics is an area from which many people shy away, yet it affects us all for both good and ill. This article attempts to point to some areas where globalisation and economic change affect lesbians [Haworth co-indexing entry note]: ‘‘Lesbians and Economic/Social Change: Impacts of Globalisation on Our Community(ies) and Politics.’’ Hyman, Prue. Co-published simultaneously in Journal of Lesbian Studies (Harrington Park Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc.) Vol. 5, No. 1/2, 2001, pp. 115-132; and: Lesbian Studies in Aotearoa/New Zealand (ed: Alison J. Laurie) Harrington Park Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc., 2001, pp. 115-132. Single or multiple copies of this article are available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service [1-800-342-9678, 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. (EST). E-mail address: [email protected]].
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and our communities, both generally and in ways particular to our lesbian identities. With so little empirical work in this area, it is inevitably more a speculative discussion piece than a fully documented argument. This article first discusses briefly the globalisation juggernaut and its impact on women in general and lesbians in particular, then outlines the inadequacies of the pink dollar g/luppie image of lesbians, and goes on to consider what lesbian economics could or does involve. It then discusses some political implications for our own communities of globalisation and its individualistic world, internally, in coalitions, and in our dealings with governments. Given that current ‘‘more market’’ orthodoxy in economics often attempts to sell itself with TINA (there is no alternative), despite there always being alternatives, it is probably only fair to indicate the bases of my own assessment. It is the viewpoint of one renegade idiosyncratic economist and 1970s-1980s lesbian/radical feminist who, like many writers in Radically Speaking (Bell/Klein, 1996), has bent only slightly to the queer 1990s. GLOBALISATION: JUGGERNAUT AND RESISTANCE Globalisation and economic/technological change have given massive power to mobile transnational corporations and, to a lesser extent, to international agencies, such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank. Both major New Zealand political parties, like many other governments and international institutions, give almost unequivocal theoretical support for globalisation, orthodox structural adjustment programmes, and only lightly regulated trade, investment, and capital flows. This support downplays the substantial distributional impacts within countries of free trade policies, the long-term and strategic costs outweighing short-term gains, and a lack of realism in the assumptions of the models. Of course in practice, hypocrisies abound, with fair trade meaning free entry overseas for your country’s exports, without full reciprocation, as the December 1999 failure of the WTO talks in Seattle illustrates (Hyman, 1999). Local, national, and international movements opposed to the impacts of these institutions on individuals, communities, and the environment are growing fast (see Kelsey, 1999, for an excellent discussion of the meaning and nature of recent globalisation trends, and the
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opposition both generally and in a specifically New Zealand context). But despite some successes, for example, on holding back the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) and halting production and sales of some genetically modified foodstuffs, as yet, opposition has made only minor dents in the juggernaut. Maori have long been among the strongest voices questioning the expropriation of indigenous knowledge under the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights agreement (TRIPS), opposing the MAI, fighting for cultural and intellectual property rights of indigenous peoples, and opposing unfettered corporate driven biotechology. Aroha Te Pareake Mead, comparing the current wave of colonialisation with British settlers’ felling of indigenous forests, has argued that: what is driving the biotechnology industry is actually more of the same--an obsession to dominate nature and peoples who do not agree with western capitalist models of development: an inability to appreciate nature and the natural order in its ‘‘raw’’ untouched state, needing instead to continually manipulate, reconfigure and assert ownership over. (Mead, 1996, p. 11) The fightbacks, in New Zealand and overseas, against poverty, exploitation, and colonialism exacerbated by globalisation have also seen the development of a range of local economic and social initiatives, alternative to or supplementing the standard economy. These include local economic trading schemes (LETS, Green or Time Dollars), some with their own currencies, and alternative banks and investment sources, usually for smallish sums at low or no interest and, in some cases, committed to ecological and other ethical principles. In July 1997, New Zealand had 46 Green Dollar exchanges in operation, as well as many Maori initiatives such as the Waipareira Trust. The costs of structural adjustment programmes fall largely on low income groups. In New Zealand, the so called ‘‘experiment’’ (Kelsey, 1995) has particularly hit Maori and Pacific Islands peoples, with vastly increased levels of inequality and numbers of families in need (see Podder and Chatterjee, 1998; Boston, Dalziel and St John, 1999). Women bear the heaviest burdens, with overrepresentation in low paid and part-time, casualised work carrying much of the burden of household and caring work, and with the impacts of the dismantling of the welfare state. Worldwide, most overseas aid initiatives and structural adjustment
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policies, enforced as a condition of loans by the IMF/World Bank/ credit rating agency orthodoxy, have until recently paid scant attention to impacts on women. Although there is increasing evidence that investment directed to women may have higher rates of return, strategies to tackle gender barriers and channel resources to women are still rare (Elson, 1991). In the quest for ever decreasing labour costs, low waged women in one country are pitted against those in another (ICFTUAPRO, 1992). ‘‘Class and race mediate the processes of global restructuring as capitalists seek women of color and working-class women to meet their needs for a flexible labor supply’’ (Ward, 1990, p. 3). In New Zealand, the 1991 Employment Contracts Act, intended to promote labour market flexibility, increase productivity, and push enterprise bargaining on the United States model, was effectively an employers’ charter. The claim of the then National Government’s Minister of Women’s Affairs (Jenny Shipley, later Prime Minister) that the legislation would promote equity for working women was widely challenged. The contention that a deregulated labour market and bargaining at enterprise level benefit women in general is highly dubious (Novitz and Jaber, 1990; Hyman, 1993). The only women to benefit were those with skills that were in scarce supply and/or were highly valued, with many women in traditionally female dominated and undervalued work, as well as those pushed into low-paid, part-time, and casualised work, missing out. Inequality among women has thus perhaps become as critical as, or even more critical than, the gap between men and women. LESBIANS AS PINK DOLLAR LUPPIES? Despite the negative aspects of globalisation highlighted above, economic growth and change have raised average standards of living in most countries, with greater average longevity and educational opportunities among the improvements. The inadequacies of national income and growth measures are well known (see, for example, Waring, 1988). Better socio-economic indicators are needed, and many miss out; but it would be misleading to ignore the benefits altogether. What of lesbians in all this? Many who ‘‘come out’’ at a young age will expect and need to be financially independent and to put a high value on education and paid work. A British group of 60 mainly white and highly educated lesbians, aged mostly from 20 to 40 at the inter-
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view date of 1990, and with few children, revealed high educational levels and labour force participation rates, and most had well paid jobs (Dunne, 1997). Dunne argues a link between economic independence and being lesbian, with a strong desire for such independence being expressed by 57 of the 60 women; and she concludes that ‘‘a lesbian life-style represents an economic achievement’’ (p. 125). This would locate lesbians mostly in the group doing well in a globalised free market world. However, there are problems with this picture. First, it makes lesbians in poverty and/or struggling to bring up children invisible. Second, it comes uncomfortably close to embracing the ‘‘new right’’ push to self-reliance and independence which has accompanied increases in inequality. That underlying philosophy blames those unable to be independent and fails to take sufficient account of our inevitable and not unwelcome interdependence at all levels, involving families (however we choose to form and define them), wider groups and communities, and national/international networks. So what do we know of the economic position of lesbians generally, in New Zealand and elsewhere? Not as much as we might like. Of course, there is considerable truth in the picture of many well-off, two-income, no dependents, ‘‘g/luppy’’ couples, though more so for gay men, with higher earnings and fewer dependent children in the household than lesbians have. Hence the marketing ‘‘pink dollar’’ phenomenon now being seized on by many firms and advertisers inside and outside our own communities, as they seek to show their lesbian/gay friendliness and capture our cash. However, the pink dollar picture is a myth when used as a generalisation about most lesbians/gay men. It is a dangerous myth when it is used politically to argue that we are already a privileged group, who need no further civil rights protections. ‘‘Queer Nation’’ on TV3 (like its UK counterparts, a professional, glitzy production, although the latter started in the form of ‘‘Out on Tuesday/Thursday’’ as an earnest, low-budget political programme) ran a series investigating the pink dollar as part of three programmes in August 1999. This series, reasonably well balanced in my view, interestingly drew on Australian estimates of annual income and interviews for much of its material. Ian Johnson, from Significant Others, outlined this Sydney gay/lesbian firm’s role in advising organisations inside and outside the community on how to tap the pink dollar, and
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showed bank and airline advertising with gay (male) imagery and appeal. Sally Gordon, out lesbian senior executive at Lion Nathan, talked of lesbian/gay trend setters who ‘‘support companies which support them.’’ Hence their sponsorship of Mardi Gras, ‘‘the largest gay party in the world’’ and their many employees out of the closet. Similarly, AMP puts money into the lesbian/gay market in the quest for new mortgage business, sponsoring a tourist train where 94 lesbians/gays pay $60 each for dinner. Travel, food, cars, alcohol, mortgages--the picture is one of apparently abundant discretionary spending by lesbians/gays, to profit any firm prepared to give some pay-off to our community in terms of visibility, acceptance, and sponsorship. The programme’s balance was provided by a section showing that not all gays/lesbians are well off. Curiously, the main example was a gay male unemployed couple in Auckland; an Australian male (Ian Johnson) was chosen to explain that lesbians, like all women, have a lower average income than men. To be fair, Carole Beu from the Auckland Women’s Bookshop also pointed out women’s lower disposable income, while talking of high community demand for lesbian books, and her move to Ponsonby Road partly to target and capture the gay male market. Why is it difficult to find hard facts to contradict the standard picture? Lesbian/gay are categories not much used in government statistical analyses, nor is it clear that we want to be visible in official statistics. Some Wellington lesbians organised a ‘‘dykecott’’ (boycott) of the 1981 New Zealand Census to protest our exclusion from its categories and the social oppression of lesbians more generally. Reasonable suspicions about the use of estimates of our numbers and issues/objections over definition and fluidity of identity, whatever language is used, mean that many people who do in fact have lesbian, gay, or bisexual orientation or behaviour would not record it. Some might not feel it was safe to do so. Census (mis)information could add fuel to the claims that figures often used for the prevalence of homosexuality, from Kinsey onwards, of around 10% are exaggerated, giving ammunition to those seeking to increase repressive treatment or deny equal rights. Visibility and factual information can certainly be used against us. On the other hand, without them, the realities of discrimination can be challenged and the need for policies to reduce it discounted. Given the lack of official statistics, marketing surveys are the main source of
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income figures for lesbians and gay men. These are mainly United States surveys, and tend to come from gay/lesbian magazines or surveys circulated in places where those active in the community gather. They are, therefore, likely to be read and completed by lesbians/gays with above ‘‘community’’ average involvement and incomes. However, much of the US information available on lesbian and gay economic status comes from Lee Badgett, who challenges the images of wealth. She critiques this market research and shows that the most reliable survey (Yankelovich Monitor 1993, a random sample of 2,503 people, of whom 143 identified as ‘‘gay, lesbian or homosexual’’) showed total household incomes differing little between gay and straight households. Badgett’s own statistical work was based on a small Social Survey (1680 full time workers, with 81 categorised as lesbian/gay/bisexual). It showed that lesbians working full-time earned US$15,056 on average against $18,341 for heterosexual women, $26,321 for gay men, and $28,312 for heterosexual men. The gender gap is, as usual, striking. After controlling for education and age, the gap between lesbians and straight women was not statistically significant (Badgett, 1997, p. 69). So where we have population-based random sample or census data, the ‘‘pink dollar’’ picture is an incomplete one, particularly when we focus on couples bringing up children, a bigger proportion of lesbian couples than many might expect. For New Zealand, the 1996 Census was the first where same-sex couples living together were asked to self identify. It recorded a total of 6,510 people in same-sex couples, including 3,626 lesbians, that is, 1,813 lesbian couples. This was inevitably an understatement even of those regarding themselves as having a partner, let alone all lesbians and gays, since it is confined to those who lived with the partner and were also prepared to acknowledge this to a government agency. (The Census uses only the terms ‘‘opposite sex/same sex couples’’; I refer also to gay/lesbian couples and male/female couples.) Over half of the same-sex couples so counted (55.7%) were women; of such lesbian couples, as many as 28.5% had children in their household, compared to 11.6% for gay men, and 55% for heterosexual couples (Byrne, 1998). While 1,813 is still a fairly small number of lesbian couples, it is by far the best basis yet for income and other information, albeit only for a small section of all New Zealand lesbians. Fewer of the people in same-sex couples specified their individual
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income than those in opposite-sex couples (10% of women/13% of men in same-sex couples, 7% in opposite-sex couples did not specify), perhaps for the reasons mentioned earlier. The proportion where family income is unavailable is even higher (19% for same-sex couples and 14% for opposite-sex couples). Nevertheless, the income data available on couples is striking, confirming the major influence of parenting on income and the similarity of the gender gap for those in both lesbian/gay couples and straight couples. Of all couples without children, gay/lesbian couples do indeed have higher average family income levels than their opposite-sex counterparts, with 67% of lesbian couples and 71% of gay male couples reporting self-estimated annual family income above $40,000 (year ending March 1996), as against only 31% of opposite-sex couples without children. Moreover, 26% lesbian, 36% gay male, and 16% opposite-sex couples reported income above $70,000. The size of this gap is partly a matter of different age structures, with proportionately fewer low income elderly among the same-sex couples without children. However, for those with children in the household, 60% of lesbian couples had incomes above $40,000, compared with 64% of oppositesex couples. For opposite-sex couples, therefore, overall, those with children are better off than those without; but this is reversed for lesbian/gay couples. Thus on average, lesbian/gay couples with children support them on lower incomes than those of their childless counterparts, and on incomes similar to or lower than those of their straight counterparts. The pink dollar is thus very selective. Some other aspects of new technology, globalisation, and increased affluence for many lesbians are worth noting. This group now has greater opportunities for direct contact with other cultures, with gradual reductions in the real price of air travel. New Zealand lesbians beat a path to Michigan, the Gay Games, Lesbos, and Mardi Gras. Those unable to afford this can buy the books and CDs, see and hear visiting musicians, and experience media versions of lesbian and gay culture. This seems largely positive, although the possible homogenisation of culture and domination by the richest and largest economy, that of the United States, might be of some concern. One impact of the opportunity to travel and/or make or maintain contacts through electronic mail is the inevitable increase in cross-country lesbian relationships. This increases the demand for immigration, one area where countries jealously guard national rights by not allowing free long-term entry, in
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contrast to the position on entry of money/investment from overseas. However, increasing numbers of countries, including New Zealand, have begun to accept immigration on the basis of lesbian/gay partnerships. This is usually less freely available than is the case for heterosexual couples, with most countries giving easier access to the legal spouse of a citizen than to a lesbian/gay partner. New Zealand has recently reduced the period of the relationship needing to be established from four to two years for such couples, aligning the period with that for de facto heterosexual couples. Married couples have no such wait period. LESBIANS AND ECONOMICS: IS THERE A LESBIAN ECONOMICS? Gender, race, class, and sexuality are all largely economic issues, with white, upper-class, heterosexual men having greater control over power and resources. Patriarchy and capitalism have been based on gender, class, and race divisions of labour in heterosexual households and the paid labour force. The restriction of women to low-paid jobs promoted and even necessitated heterosexual partnership as an institution. Hence, I argue that lesbian feminists working for change are basically doing, writing, and talking lesbian economics. Creating our own communities, organisations, and economy, as well as creating lesbian theory, ethics, values, and philosophy, is also doing lesbian economics (Hyman, 1995). There is a growing literature documenting the relationship of lesbians to the overall economy and to our own partly separatist economy (Edwalds and Stocker, 1995; Gluckman and Reed, 1997). ‘‘Lesbians-females who live by rejecting that primary form of obligation, obligation to men--bring about lesbian economics’’ (Allen, 1986, p. 37). As an excellent early New Zealand article on lesbian feminist theory puts its importance as a challenge to patriarchy: The threat of even non-political lesbianism to patriarchy is its demonstration that women don’t need men, personally at least. Once the romanticism and emotional mythology of heterosexuality is challenged, women are free to see the oppression that it obscures. (The Lesbians Ignite Fire Brigade, 1978, p. 73)
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Lillian Faderman (1991) and others have shown how the demand and supply factors leading to greater opportunity for women in the paid workforce and the possibility of economic independence have facilitated the emergence of lesbian community and identity. Sexuality, like gender, is socially constructed, with economic opportunities and constraints varying over time and between cultures (Matthaei, 1997). Feminist and lesbian/gay movements have attacked the core of the sexual division of labor, to the extent that gender differences are themselves being eroded, so that ‘‘if gender further fades into sex, we can expect an entirely new set of sexual categories, perhaps not even called ‘sexual’ to emerge’’ (Matthaei, 1997, p. 157). Lesbian separatism and lesbian community/communities, including lesbian business, volunteer services, and land, are all aspects of our own economy. So too are the ways we run our lives in terms of household types, financial arrangements, and the sharing of tasks--and the ways in which this may differ from non-lesbian households. Lesbian culture, including music, books, magazines, and crafts, maintained through our own publishing houses, bookshops, printers, clubs, and entertainment, has been crucial in creating community. It has provided paid work for some women, and its profits, with money earned by lesbians in the wider economy, have made possible internal community support, such as lesbian lines, radio programmes, and coming out groups. It enables many United States and visiting lesbians, at least for one glorious week a year at the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival and at other weekends, to behave as though the outside world does not exist. Of course, it is not problem free. As lesbian culture and business have grown, the market has attracted the attention of mainstream business, as discussed above. Issues may arise around whether to operate like any other business, or whether to maintain some differences based on lesbian or feminist principles, for example in decision making processes or wage structures. New Zealand’s foremost feminist magazine, Broadsheet, operated with equal hourly rates for all types of paid work throughout its 25 year history. Many areas, including price differentials and the mixing of voluntary and paid labour, bring up class and race issues. Choices over separatism by maintaining our own businesses while living in comparative poverty as opposed to wider exposure and higher incomes by joining the mainstream in larger publishing houses arise for many writers and musicians. These
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are not easy issues. As feminist and lesbian bookshop proprietors have pointed out in New Zealand and overseas, if we do not support our stores, but instead buy at the chains which undercut prices while stocking only the most popular titles, we will lose them. This points to the need to use our consumer power carefully, for the benefit of our own communities and for social justice and environmental causes, rather than just in response to short-term gain and glossy advertisements. We also have power to use as producers and investors, which may be less problematic than our consumer roles (Badgett, 1996). Another way of strengthening mutual support in social and economic terms is to run our own trading schemes. In Australia, an Adelaide lesbian community green dollar scheme (LESY) was based on the pooling of skills offered by individual lesbians (Young, 1991). LESBIAN POLITICS IN A GLOBALISED WORLD Most lesbian (and gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex) politics in the current individualistic climate involve the fight for equal rights with heterosexuals (the norm?) and the recognition of diversity in the overall world and within our own communities. When it comes to strategies and tactics, the issue of equality versus difference, which has been important in theoretical and policy debates on gender, arises also with respect to lesbian (and gay) identity and rights. Advocacy of total equality has been used against those arguing for special gender related provisions, such as pregnancy/childbirth leave. This is essentially a non-problem created by those seeking to put barriers in the way of equitable treatment. Equality and special treatment are not incompatible. Equality should be the norm except where there are relevant gender differences, such as pregnancy, requiring special (better) treatment. However, the compatibility of ideas of equality and difference is not fully accepted. Hence the issue can be used against the position of lesbian feminists who fight for equal treatment in many respects, but are not prepared on political grounds to argue that we are just like everyone else. It is important that we consider our position on the similarity/difference of our own relationships compared with those in the heterosexual world. The perspective that sexual orientation is a genetic feature, neither chosen nor able to be changed, is a belief for some, a useful strategy for others, and alien to a third group. If it is
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true, the argument that it is unjust to penalise those born lesbian or gay would attract wider support than otherwise. This belief/strategy often goes with the argument that we are, individually, in couples, and more generally, just like the heterosexual world, and hence should be treated equally. But for many lesbian feminists whose politics extend to linking heterosexism with the power dimensions of patriarchy, colonialism, and capitalism, such an approach is unappealing, whatever their position on the lesbian identity formation of themselves and others. Fighting for human rights does not require a heterosexual norm and is as applicable to a chosen identity as a genetic one. This argument is one for full human rights, including the economic rights envisaged in the Universal Declaration, for all. Hence our partner relationships (if any) should be treated like any other in terms of rights and non-discrimination, legally and socially. At present, there are cases of discrimination in judicial and policy judgements in areas such as adoption and custody of children, insemination services, domestic protection, partner benefits at work, superannuation benefits, honouring of wills, and next of kin treatment by the medical system. In most of these areas, it seems clear-cut to argue that being lesbian (or gay) should be absolutely irrelevant to one’s legal treatment. Nevertheless, many lesbians would be reluctant to have the current legal system with its biases let loose on their situations. There are many aspects of the existing economic and social treatment of couples which more radical analysis would want changed, rather than having equal rights granted within them. For example, with respect to marriage, it should be abolished for everyone. Along with this, it can be argued, as I do elsewhere (Hyman, 1994), that all adult benefits should be based on the individual, removing partner benefits and the expectation of dependence on a ‘‘spouse.’’ Even better would be abolition of the categorical system of benefits, with its stigmatising aspects, and the adoption of a universal basic income system (Hyman, 1998). But in the short term, abolishing marriage and partner benefits would disadvantage many women, including lesbians, with unequal access to income. So fighting for the extension of existing partner benefits to lesbians has some short-term appeal. It is a major campaign in the United States, where medical costs are high, private provision is the normal mode with only a minimal public system, and insurance coverage paid for by the employer is prevalent. Changes in New Zealand’s health services have increased the importance of insurance
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benefits here, although the election in November 1999 of a Labour government in coalition with Alliance may decelerate the shifts towards private health, as well as improving the chances of lesbian/gay friendly policies. Labour parliamentarians include two out gay men and one male to female transsexual, and they have issued the first full gay/lesbian policy, strongly supported by Prime Minister Helen Clark. And, of course, New Zealand, unlike the United States, has, since 1993, had human rights legislation outlawing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in the provision of goods and services, as well as employment and housing. The government itself is still exempted from this, after seven years of procrastination over the Consistency 2000 project. This was designed to examine government legislation, provisions, and policies embodying any discrimination, with a view to its removal, but it was never completed. The prospects of removing the exemption remain uncertain, as the issue is likely to be decided by individual conscience votes of Members of Parliament. However, the outcome is more promising in the new environment. Even in the short term, equal rights and responsibilities for lesbian/ gay couples, the latter especially appealing to governments, comes with some negative implications. Full recognition of our relationships would presumably mean that where the benefit system is based on couples, the rules would apply equally. Eligibility for income support for those qualifying for unemployment and sickness benefit (or ‘‘community wage’’) is at present based on the couple for married and de facto heterosexual relationships, but the individual in other cases. Extending the couple criterion to lesbian couples would involve both a financial loss for some women, and the likely state intrusion into the nature of relationships which many domestic purposes benefit recipients already suffer. This better financial treatment of some lesbian couples is, of course, hard to defend, and almost certain to be ended. This would matter less in a system with an individual basis for entitlement for adults, plus support for children, opening up the choices on how individuals form families and organise their interdependencies. All this highlights the dilemma of whether to fight for equal rights in the current system, fight to change it, or do the first as a short-term expedient while also going for the second. This is particularly pertinent at present, with the New Zealand government consulting on a
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Justice Department discussion paper putting forward some options in all the areas discussed above. These dilemmas are also illustrated by discussions over the years in the New Zealand lesbian community on the issue of coverage under the Matrimonial Property Act. The new government intends to extend the legislation to cover de facto heterosexual and lesbian/gay relationships dissolved after a specific time, probably three years. Some would prefer that disputes over property are kept away from the (patriarchal, heterosexist) judicial system. Others see the need for residual protection, with cases cited where financial unfairness has arisen after breakups. The need for clear financial understandings within relationships, preferably in the form of a written contract, is one obvious implication: such contracts allow opting out of the Act within marriage at present. Thus some argue for keeping the state out of our relationships where money is involved (Rankine, 1999), while strongly seeking equal rights elsewhere. Unfortunately, the line is not totally clear-cut. Individual choice, in which anything goes, is certainly reflected in lesbian communities. Sexual libertarianism is in vogue, from strip clubs, packing, and prostitution to acceptance and advocacy of s/m, with New Zealand possibly behind international trends, but catching up with lipstick lesbianism and lesbian chic. The argument is that anything goes as long as it is consensual; but this ignores the fact that consent is itself a construct, and in s/m it is a tool for negotiating inequality. The position that consenting to one’s own exploitation is fine ignores power differentials in society. The debates over sex work similarly reflect, inter alia, differences over issues such as the possibilities of real choice in a patriarchal, capitalist, colonialist world. The criticisms of and reactions against 1970s/80s lesbian feminism, in part for its supposed (though in my view exaggerated) narrow uniformity and neglect of difference, have produced a largely apolitical or weak equal rights movement. While lesbian feminist and other critiques preceding postmodernism have long deconstructed white male modernist false objectivity, they have gone far in deconstructing all elements of identity. On some interpretations, postmodernism negates the effectiveness of any challenge to current power structures. In the name of difference, everything becomes acceptable, with any attempt to make judgements or establish standards, ethics, and values ridiculed. But values are needed for political action:
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What is defined as value freedom, that is, not making judgments, may appear sensitive to and respectful of other women, but in reality it makes women passive and uncritical since it stops both judgments and action. And active social and political life stem from values, choices and activities that are defined with clarity and exercised with commitment. (Raymond, 1991, p. 18) This decline in political consciousness is seen in many lesbian and gay communities, with people prioritising owning property and having babies, seeking legitimation and polite lobbying for equal rights over ‘‘community organizing and the painstaking process of building coalitions with other disenfranchised groups’’ (Gluckman and Reed, 1997, p. xv). Many of the articles in the United States collection Homo Economics (Gluckman and Reed, 1997) show a concern for these issues, rather than for simply making it in a system newly tolerant, on an individualistic basis only, to lesbians and gays: As the best feminism is sensitive to more than questions of gender, the fight against homophobia will take on its most radically liberating forms only if it is conceived as part of a broader vision of social and economic justice. (Gluckman and Reed, 1997, p. 8) The liberal agendas for lesbian/gay equality trivialise the existence and priorities of working class gay/lesbians of colour: So getting a middle-of-the-road, mainstream gay rights agenda passed, how’s that going to stop me from being raped? How’s that going to help me from not getting breast cancer? How is it going to help the environment from not getting poisoned? How is it going to help the children of my community to have a chance for a decent life? (Smith, 1997, p. 200) As well as being part of coalition movements for economic and social justice, more organised and informal responses are needed to assist lesbians in poverty. The major differences in economic status among lesbians need more recognition than small differentials in the entry prices to dances. We have also reached or are reaching the stage when many of the first generation in our ‘‘out’’ lesbian communities are elderly and needing support. Some of this support is happening informally; but despite much discussion, there has been little progress
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beyond talk on initiatives such as lesbian land and supportive retirement or mixed age communities, in New Zealand at least. Wellington’s Dykes Out of Debt (DOODS) uses profits from its dances to assist lesbian organisations, such as Lesbian Line, the Lilac library, and the lesbian Access Radio programme, as well as some individuals whose ventures will feed back to the community. However, the grants are inevitably small, and more is needed. I have mentioned lesbian communities, assuming their existence and not attempting to define the term (or to define lesbian!). Some might argue either that they have never really come into being or that they have disintegrated with the individualistic era I have been discussing. My own position is that even if there are simply ill-defined, frequently changing groupings of individuals in networks and organisations, this amounts to some sort of community. On this, I take heart from Marilyn Frye, who argues that lesbian community bridges the separation from each other created by heterosexal/patriarchal forms of social organisation and makes space for connections to occur: What I’m saying is that lesbian community is possible . . . natural lesbian connection happens, which sustains and protects lesbians in many ways and varying degrees from the ravages of misogyny and heterosexualism, even, for some and in some ways from the violences of racism and poverty. In my community, lesbians don’t agree about anything and lesbians survive in droves. (Frye, 1990, p. 87) Beyond mutual support in Aotearoa/New Zealand is the need for international organising and a consciousness that in many other countries, the priority of sheer survival, avoiding imprisonment and death for gay or lesbian activity, is still a reality. The International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) is a key organisation in the fight for gay/lesbian rights, while Amnesty International has finally recognised lesbian/gay oppression in their campaigns for political prisoners. Some New Zealand lesbians attempted to influence the national delegation in support of the ILGA petition calling for lesbian rights issues to gain support at the UN Women’s Conference in Beijing in 1995, but the governments most opposed to lesbian/gay rights blocked progress.
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CONCLUSION I have argued that economics is an important influence on our communities, for good and ill, and that values and politics should be critical to how we handle economic issues. ‘‘Crucial relationships exist (often denied and rationalised) between culture and ethics and all economic/technical systems. Value systems and ethics, far from being peripheral, are the dominant, driving variables in all economic and technological systems’’ (Henderson, 1981, pp. 367-8, 376). Continuing the creation of lesbian economy and value systems, as well as influencing those of the straight world, are ongoing, difficult tasks. REFERENCES Allen, Jeffner (1986). Lesbian economics, Trivia, Winter, pp. 37-53. Badgett, Lee (1996). Thinking homo/economically, in A Queer World (The CLAGS Reader), Martin Duberman (ed.), New York and London: New York University Press, pp. 467-477. Badgett, Lee (1997). Beyond biased samples: Challenging the myths on the economic status of lesbians and gay men, in Amy Gluckman and Betsy Reed (eds.), Homo Economics: Capitalism, Community, and Lesbian and Gay Life, New York and London: Routledge, pp. 65-71. Bell, Dianne and Klein, Renate (eds.) (1996). Radically Speaking: Feminism Reclaimed, North Melbourne: Spinifex. Boston, Jonathan, Dalziel, Paul, and St John, Susan (1999). Rebuilding an effective welfare state, in Jonathan Boston, Paul Dalziel, and Susan St John (eds.), Redesigning the Welfare State in New Zealand: Problems, Policies, Prospects, Auckland: Oxford University Press, pp. 301-316. Byrne, Judith (1998). What the 1996 census tells us about lesbians, Women’s Studies Association 1998 Conference Papers, Auckland: Women’s Studies Association, pp. 52-57. Dunne, Gillian (1997). Lesbian Lifestyles: Women’s Work and the Politics of Sexuality, New York and London: Macmillan Press. Edwalds, Loraine and Stocker, Midge (eds.) (1995). The Woman-Centred Economy: Ideals, Reality and the Space in Between, Chicago: Third Side Press. Elson, Diana (1991). Male Bias in the Development Process, Manchester: Manchester University Press. Faderman, Lillian (1991). Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: a History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth Century America, New York: Columbia University Press. Frye, Marilyn (1990). Lesbian community, Lesbian Ethics 4(1), pp. 84-87. Gluckman, Amy and Reed, Betsy (1997). Introduction and The gay marketing moment, in Amy Gluckman and Betsy Reed (eds.), Homo Economics: Capitalism, Community, and Lesbian and Gay Life, New York and London: Routledge, pp. xi-xxxi and 3-9. Henderson, Hazel (1981). The Politics of the Solar Age: Alternatives to Economics, Garden City, New York: Anchor Press/Doubleday.
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Hyman, Prue (1993). Equal pay for women after the Employment Contracts Act: Legislation and practice--the emperor with no clothes?, New Zealand Journal of Industrial Relations 18(1), May, pp. 44-57. Hyman, Prue (1994). Women and Economics: a New Zealand Feminist Perspective, Wellington: Bridget Williams Books. Hyman, Prue (1995). Lesbian economics--how lesbian feminist perspectives might improve feminist economics: ‘‘Their’’ economy and ‘‘our’’ economy, Women’s Studies Association of New Zealand 1994 Conference Papers, Auckland: Women’s Studies Association, August, pp. 128-136. Hyman, Prue (1998). Universal basic income: a useful proposal for feminists? Women’s Studies Association 1998 Conference Papers, Auckland: Women’s Studies Association, pp. 112-117. Hyman, Prue (1999). The impacts of globalisation on Aotearoa/New Zealand, Pacific World 55, December, pp. 4-10. International Confederation of Free Trade Unions Asian and Pacific Regional Organisation (ICFTU-APRO) (1992). Regional Seminar on Structural Adjustment and Women--Report, Mahukari, Japan: ICFTU-APRO. Kelsey, Jane (1995). The New Zealand Experiment: A World Model for Structural Adjustment, Auckland: Auckland University Press/Bridget Williams Books. Kelsey, Jane (1999). Reclaiming the Future: New Zealand and the Global Economy, Wellington: Bridget Williams Books. Matthaei, Julie (1997). The sexual division of labor, sexuality, and lesbian/gay liberation: Towards a Marxist-feminist analysis of sexuality in U.S. capitalism, In Amy Gluckman and Betsy Reed (eds.), Homo Economics: Capitalism, Community, and Lesbian and Gay Life, New York and London: Routledge, pp. 135-164. Mead, Aroha (1996). How Are the Values of Maori Going to be Considered and Integrated in the Use of Plant Biotechnology in New Zealand?, address to Conference on Plant Biotechnology, available on Consumer Web site http://www. consumer.org.nz/tech/chp7-6.html and reprinted in Pacific World 46, March 1997, pp. 10-11. Novitz, Rosemary du Plessis and Jaber, Nabila (1990). Pay equity, the ‘‘free’’ market and state intervention, New Zealand Journal of Industrial Relations 15(3), December, pp. 251-262. Podder, Nripesh and Chaterjee, Srikanta (1998). Sharing The National Cake In Post Reform New Zealand: Income Inequality Trends In Terms Of Income Sources, paper to New Zealand Association of Economists Conference. Rankine, Jenny (1999). The costs of including lesbians in law for heterosexual women, Lesbian Quarterly 4(3), December pp. 4-6. Smith, Barbara (1997). Where has gay liberation gone? an interview with Barbara Smith, in Amy Gluckman and Betsy Reed (eds.), Homo Economics: Capitalism, Community, and Lesbian and Gay Life, New York and London: Routledge, pp. 195-207. The Lesbians Ignite Fire Brigade (1978). Lesbians ignite!: About lesbian feminism, Circle 29, pp. 68-75. Ward, Kathryn (1990). Introduction and overview, in Kathryn Ward (ed.), Women Workers and Global Restructuring Ithaca: Cornell University Press, pp. 1-22. Waring, Marilyn (1988). Counting for Nothing: What Men Value and What Women Are Worth, Wellington: Allen and Unwin/Port Nicholson Press. Young, Carole (1991). LESY-Adelaide: an example of a lesbian economy, Lesbian Ethics, 4(2), pp. 62-66.
