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Marilyn Waring, author of the book, If Women Counted,
was the first woman voted to serve in New Zealand's Parliament. When she
gained a seat on the nation's budget committee, she found herself mired
in the country's incomprehensible system of economics. She began researching
the roots of the global economic system and discovered that by design,
the system does not consider women's work significant. Her focus on the
disparities between women's unpaid labor and men's paid labor, eventually
led her to propose a TIME USE SURVEY which she recommends become integral
to the census. This would begin to bring women's work into the worldwide
monetary equation that currently does not recognize half the population
and misunderstands the idea of value.
The present system operates in terms of growth and only understands the value of MORE--not peace, and not mothers' work. The welfare of the people is not related to the Gross National Product. This is because United Nations' System of National Accounting which originated after WWII and was set in place by 1953, was developed as a way to pay for the war. Inherent in its design is the need to always have a market for the instruments of war. The economic system as we know it--the one under which powers like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund operate--finds value in activities not generally considered worthy by most moral standards. In this system, money from pimping, gambling and prison building are all pluses in the factoring of economics. Even major tragedies like the Exxon Valdez oil spill, with its sudden need for emergency crews and materials, is on the plus side for economic growth. Nuclear weapons development remains high on the list, although not as high as the most rapidly expanding worldwide enterprise of weapons trading. According to Marilyn Waring, "Killing people, or planning to is very, very valuable." The US alone spends $200 billion annually to keep its enemies away. And yet, according to surveys, 25% of its people fear leaving their homes at night. Waring explains that, by definition, "value" has nothing to do with economic gain. Rather, to have value is to be worthy. Women are the invisible workers of the world who put in long hours every day, but whose work is not even part of the economic discussion. This is because the system simply cannot respond to values it does not recognize. Statistics demonstrate the serious problem that has arisen from our current economic system.
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