OSC Scientific Seminar 2020-2021
joint with MaxPo and PRESAGE

Friday, 9th October 2020, 12:00 am / 1:30 pm (On-site or Zoom videoconference)

The Gender of Capital

Céline Bessière - Sibylle Gollac

IRISSO, Université Paris Dauphine - CRESPPA-CSU, Université Paris 8

Discussant: Hélène Périvier (Sciences Po, Presage - OFCE)

We know that capitalism in the 21st century is synonymous with growing inequalities between social classes. What is less known is that the inequality of wealth between men and women is also increasing, despite formally equal rights and the belief that, by entering the labor market, women would have gained their autonomy.

To understand why, we have to look at what is happening in families, which accumulate and transmit economic capital in order to consolidate their social position from one generation to the next. Spouses, brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers do not occupy the same positions in family reproductive strategies, nor do they benefit from the same benefits.

The fruit of twenty years of research, this book shows that capital has a genre. Céline Bessière and Sibylle Gollac investigate the calculations, the divisions and the conflicts which take place at the time of marital separations and inheritances, with the assistance of the legal professions. From isolated mothers in the Yellow Vests movement to the divorce of Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos, the transmission of small businesses to the legacy of Johnny Hallyday, the mechanisms of control and distribution of capital vary according to social class, but always lead to dispossession women. This book thus analyzes how class society is reproduced thanks to the male appropriation of capital.

To learn more about the book (Recension, in French).

Registration is mandatory: Here to join the ZOOM meeting | Here for On-site (Lavau room, 98 rue de l'Université, Paris 7^e.