ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how the so-called development policies transform women into financial subjects. It first describes the content of these policies in the light of recent experiences: as in the past decades, women are understood as workers, cheap and flexible labour, indispensable to the proper functioning of capitalism, but they are now also seen as consumers and borrowers, supposedly emancipated through their purchasing acts and good financial management. The second part of the chapter examines the concrete implementation of these policies using an example from India. We observe that woman as financial subject is neither the rational and thrifty manager of the family budget imagined by the developmentalists, nor the insatiable consumer and borrower dreamed of by the capitalists, but she pursues her own paths and directions. Understanding the lived experience of financialization involves an analysis of the structural mechanisms of women’s oppression. This in turn requires taking into account their multiple aspirations for dignity, recognition and emancipation.
