Gendered and feminist inequalities : a review and framing notes

Abstract

This article provides a brief review and mapping of the critical field of inequality studies in both general and gender-feminist-specific terms. The article approaches the topic by interrogating the meanings associated with inequalities and then turns to the gendered and feminist scholarship to assess the relevance of an evolving literature in providing a lens, both conceptual and empirical, within which African theorisations also accrue. The argument centres on limitations that arise when overdetermining the economic and fiscal at the expense of the social, structural and political, providing some illustrations about the attributes of gendered and feminist inequalities that move beyond the economic. The article opts for a social inequality framework in order to understand the complex and contested spaces and zones within which the feminisation of inequalities are located, positioned and interpreted.