The Sex Factor

Why did the West become so rich? Why is inequality rising? How free should markets be? And what does sex have to do with it?

In this passionate and skilfully argued book, leading feminist Victoria Bateman shows how we can only understand the burning economic issues of our time if we put sex and gender the sex factor at the heart of the picture. Spanning the globe and drawing on thousands of years of history, Bateman tells a bold story about how the status and freedom of women are central to our prosperity. Genuine female empowerment requires us not only to recognize the liberating potential of markets and smart government policies but also to challenge the double-standard of many modern feminists when they celebrate the brain while denigrating the body.

This iconoclastic book is a devastating exposé of what we have lost from ignoring the sex factor and of how reversing this neglect can drive the smart economic policies we need today.

Victoria Bateman is a fellow and lecturer in economics at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge University. She has led calls for a sexual revolution in economics as well as conducting various high profile naked protests to highlight the marginalization of womens bodies in public life.

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part I: Prosperity

Chapter 1. Censored: How the West (supposedly) got ahead

Chapter 2. Uncensored: The Secret Recipe of Economic Success

Part II: Inequality

Chapter 3. When did sexism begin?

Chapter 4. Income inequality: what does sex have to do with it?

Chapter 5. Sex sells

Part III: State versus Markets

Chapter 6. Marx versus Markets

Chapter 7. Why women make better states

Part IV: Humanity

Chapter 8. Me, Myself and I: a history of the individual

Chapter 9. Humans versus Robots

Chapter 10. Economics meets Feminism

Conclusion

Endnotes

Bibliography