Robinson Crusoe and Silas Marner, or Two Stories on the Gendered Monetary Economy ( A Background Reader for Economic Literacy).

Abstract

This paper will discuss issues around money and capital from a broad perspecdve - recognising women's assigned role in the care economy. From this perspective, the question is how the different - and sometimes conflicting - roles in the market and the care economy can be combined. Or, to quote Diane Elson: "The key structural factor is not the way in which getting a living is organised, nor the way that raising children is organised, but the way these two processes are interrelated" (Diane Elson 1995: 13). This basic and gendered problem will be illustrated with the help of nvo literary metaphors.