Cheers to Dr. Ostrom: Yet Another Glass Ceiling Shattered
October 16, 2009
by Kathryn Ciano
|The opinions expressed herein are those of the author, and not necessarily those of The New Agenda.
Last week I wrote that the only Nobel area where women have yet to win a prize was Economics. Elinor Ostrom shattered that glass ceiling this week!
Not only has Dr. Ostrom taken this prestigious prize, but she earned it in a distinctly womanly way. Ostrom demonstrates how a combination of privatization and cooperation can maximize both community wealth and individual opportunity. To the competitive, archetypically male thinking that tends to dominate political science Dr. Ostrom adds an element of mutual nurturing, a wile still soundly “feminine.”
Ostrom’s recommendation for society mirrors the “equal opportunity” language women have used for years. All humans were created equal, but society has not always treated everyone that way.
For minorities to manifest destiny – to manifest equality – we must maintain a link between output and reward. Dr. Ostrom begins with economists’ favorite illustration, the Tragedy of the Commons:
Imagine a field in the middle of a village, where everyone’s cows graze together. When all property is held in common people let their cows graze on the community-tended grass rather than spend time and money to maintain their own fields. There’s no reason to limit how much grass each cow eats — heavier cows bring more at market — and there’s no cost to grazing in this common field. Soon, though, tragically all the grass will be gone. Then no cows can graze there, and the entire community will suffer when the market flounders. By divvying up common property into private fields the village government can encourage villagers to tend to their cows’ private plots.
Similarly, when women felt they had nothing to gain by working hard, they found little incentive to work at all. Women statistically seek more nurturing, community-based roles than do our male colleagues. These roles can be wonderfully fulfilling, and they add warmth and life to our communities. If we are not rewarded for that nurturing, our energy for giving will run out; we’ll eventually withdraw.
At Marginal Revolution Prof. Tabarrok notes:
For Ostrom it’s not the tragedy of the commons but the opportunity of the commons. Not only can a commons be well-governed but the rules which help to provide efficiency in resource use are also those that foster community and engagement. A formally government protected forest, for example, will fail to protect if the local users do not regard the rules as legitimate . . . . [L]egislation is not the same as law. Ostrom’s work is about understanding how the laws of common resource governance evolve and how we may better conserve resources by making legislation that does not conflict with law.
This reasoning reflects a quintessentially feminine search for harmony. People need both rules and creativity. Communities require both property delineations and cooperation. Women need both reward for our hard work and reflective attention paid to those parts of us that are feminine.
Our role in society has evolved, but feminine wiles have not. Women everywhere should laud Ostrom’s tremendous achievement. We should also incorporate her prescription into our daily lives by remaining attentive to the private parts of our days while tending to our community as much as we can.
All genders benefit from the “opportunity of the commons.” Cheers to Dr. Ostrom for inspiring with such a high mind, and for reminding us all that feminine thought creates valuable opportunity for individuals and communities alike.
Kathryn thanks for making us notice. I of course had never heard about Dr. Ostrom. Kathryn do you know about her background, where she worked, how she got into economics, how she got recognized.
Could women like this please start running the world! It is so disheartening to know what the answers are and not be able to implement them because we live in a “dicks gone wild” world. I don’t know how much more of this I can take.
But, to use a child rearing strategy analysis: One of the ways to get a child to stop doing something is, to start by telling them that certain behaviors are unacceptable and why. Usually the unacceptable behavior escalates for awhile to try and get you to back down, so then you implement consequences for the unacceptable behavior. This usually sets off an even greater storm of unacceptable behavior, but when they realize that you aren’t going to back down and that the consequences for their unacceptable behavior are increasing self defeating, they change their behavior.
I hope this is part of the process we’re going through right now with all this unacceptable behavior the patriarchal system is demonstrating. And that because we’re calling them on it, they’re throwing a tantrum to try to get us to back down. But as long as we don’t back down and keep holding them accountable, maybe the system will change for the better. Oh, lord, I hope so! (and I’m not even a religious person).
As Hillary said in her 2008 democratic convention speech:
“And on that path to freedom, Harriet Tubman had one piece of advice.
If you hear the dogs, keep going.
If you see the torches in the woods, keep going.
If they’re shouting after you, keep going. Don’t ever stop. Keep going.
If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.”
Thank you New Agenda for giving us a way to “keep going”!
Uhhh.
Do you think that women’s contributions to economics have gone unrecognized in the past because their work embodied “feminine” concepts like “nurturing” and “harmony” (the connection to which in Ostrom’s work seems tenuous)? Or, just maybe, is it because women were barred from the field simply for being female?
congratulations to Dr Ostrum! Too bad the Nobel Committee didn’t use the same good sense when they awarded the Peace Prize
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