ABSTRACT
This essay explores the extent to which a reading of feminist literary texts might contribute to feminist economic analysis. The exploration rests on the assumption, defended by various literary critics and economists (Nussbaum 1990, 1995; Gagnier 1991; Henderson 1995;Woodmansee and Osteen 1999), that fiction has epistemological value for the social sciences, including for the analysis of economic behavior.2 Ulla Grapard and Gillian Hewitson demonstrated the significance of a feminist economic analysis of literary sources to economics (Grapard 1995; Hewitson 1999). Their work on the Robinson Crusoe story, a literary text widely referred to in economics, reveals the gendered dualisms and raced metaphors embedded in it. As a part of this emerging tradition, I will suggest some ways to use feminist literary texts as possible epistemological sources for feminist economics.3
