The perm is a neoliberal cooptation of feminism that can never access the alternative

Taking gender seriously in global politics enables us to interrogate more fully the seductive power of adjectives such as ‘normal’ and ‘natural’, yet ‘gender’ remains one of global politics’ most ‘slippery’ concepts, persistently (if periodically) invisible and with ‘a sneaky capacity to evade theoretical discussion’ (Zalewski, 2013: 40). What it means to take gender seriously is not, generally, well understood (ibid.: 3). Taking gender seriously in relation to financial ‘crisis’ requires thinking carefully about how narratives of crisis have emerged and unfolded to affect women and men in particular and pernicious ways. The promised overhaul of financial practice and economic institutions that would allow for greater transparency, accountability and a care for the distributive impacts of proposed measures has not been enacted. Where reforms have been instituted, such as austerity measures and other forms of fiscal tightening, it is worth asking what such legislation changes and to what effect. It is not clear, as Enloe (2013: 52) notes, for example, whether sexist policy decisions and actions can be eradicated by members of any organisation who have permitted ‘an internal culture to take root that validates certain sorts of abusive or exclusivist masculinity, and that marginalizes most women and most forms of femininity’. This paper looks at the emergence of crisis discourses in recent years and how these might be gendered, but takes particular aim at narratives of governance that have emerged ‘after’ the crisis. It interrogates in particular two discourses of crisis governance, or discursive ‘sets’, that have emanated from sources of governance, including various actors, institutions, policies and ideas: the dismissal of feminist concerns, and the promotion of co-opted, governance-friendly ‘feminist’ knowledge. The effects of these discursive sets have been, the paper will argue, an ongoing failure to reform the foundations of the global financial system and a continuance of a ‘business as usual’ approach for neo-liberal actors and institutions with regard to financial reform, practice and mechanisms that serves to further entrench global finance as the preserve of a privileged, neo-liberal and masculine elite. The analysis below thus proceeds in three parts, beginning with a discussion of existing feminist approaches to crisis in order to begin to unravel the constitution of ‘crisis governance’ and how, then, ‘crisis’ can be understood as a mechanism of contemporary, everyday governance. A discussion of the first of the two crisis governance discursive sets then follows, with analysis concentrated on how crisis governance discourse has sought to dismiss important but awkward and uncontainable feminist critiques, particularly of the impacts of financial crises on women and the social costs of austerity. Consideration of the second discursive set focuses on how crisis governance discourse has co-opted and promoted the ‘feminist’ ideas that best fit prevailing neo-liberal logics. This is what this paper refers to as the promotion of ‘crisis governance feminism’, which is a form of feminist strategy friendly to existing neo-liberal governance and supportive of the resuscitation of neo-liberal global finance.