The Masculinity of Homo Oeconomicus. Maffeo Pantaleoni and Feminism
Journal title HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT AND POLICY
Author/s Manuela Mosca
Publishing Year 2025 Issue 2025/1
Language English Pages 24 P. 13-36 File size 108 KB
DOI 10.3280/SPE2025-001002
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The paper discusses Pantaleoni’s feminism, as explicitly attributed to him by Pareto, against the backdrop of the first wave of feminism in the Western world. Pantaleoni was personally in contact with feminists from the aristocracy and upper-middle class and supported many of their initiatives in favour of women. The article examines Pantaleoni’s scarce writings on women’s behaviour and role in society, as well as his views on the feminist movement. Pantaleoni’s favoured subject of enquiry, as well as the distinguishing feature of pure economics, was homo oeconomicus, a figure whose actual existence he never doubted and to whose popularity he made a crucial contribution. In the 1990s, feminist economics criticised the neoclassical approach, denouncing the androcentric bias in its notion of rationality and thus the masculinity of homo oeconomicus. In response, microeconomists argued that homo oeconomicus is an ungendered, abstract, universal category. By reconstructing the features of economic rationality that Pantaleoni attributed exclusively to men, this article provides a crucial element into the masculine connotation of homo oeconomicus.
Keywords: marginalism, feminist economics, homo oeconomicus
Jel codes: B13, B41, B54, J16, K38
Manuela Mosca, The Masculinity of Homo Oeconomicus. Maffeo Pantaleoni and Feminism in "HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT AND POLICY" 1/2025, pp 13-36, DOI: 10.3280/SPE2025-001002