Marilyn Waring


Dame Marilyn Joy Waring is a New Zealand public policy scholar, international development consultant, former politician, environmentalist, feminist and a principal founder of feminist economics.
In 1975, aged 23, she became New Zealand's youngest member of parliament for the conservative New Zealand National Party. As a member of parliament she chaired the Public Expenditure Committee. Her support of the opposition Labour Party's proposed nuclear-free New Zealand policy was instrumental in precipitating the 1984 New Zealand general election, and she left parliament in 1984.
On leaving parliament she moved into academia; she is best known for her 1988 book If Women Counted, and she obtained a D.Phil in political economy in 1989. Through her research and writing she is known as the principal founder of the discipline of feminist economics. Since 2006, Waring has been a Professor of Public Policy at the Institute of Public Policy at AUT in Auckland, New Zealand, focusing on governance and public policy, political economy, gender analysis, and human rights. She has taken part in international aid work and served as a consultant to UNDP and other international organisations.
She has outspokenly criticised the concept of GDP, the economic measure that became a foundation of the United Nations System of National Accounts following World War II. She criticises a system which 'counts oil spills and wars as contributors to economic growth, while child-rearing and housekeeping are deemed valueless'. Her work has influenced academics, government accounting in a number of countries, and United Nations policies.

Early life

Marilyn Waring grew up at Taupiri, where her parents owned a butchery. Her great-grandfather Harry Waring had emigrated to New Zealand from Hopesay in Herefordshire, England, in 1881, and established the family butchery business at Taupiri. In 1927 Harry Waring stood unsuccessfully for election to parliament in the Raglan seat for the Reform Party, the forerunner of the National Party. A talented soprano in her youth, her parents had hoped that she would become a classical singer. In 1973, Waring received an Honours BA in political science and international politics from Victoria University of Wellington.

Career

Political career

Waring joined the National Party while still a student at Victoria University. She joined the party because she supported the opposition National MP Venn Young who introduced a private member's bill into parliament for homosexual law reform; this was opposed by Norman Kirk, the Labour Party Prime Minister.
In the 1975 general election, she became the New Zealand National Party member of Parliament for the Raglan electorate. Her selection in 1975 reflected her "obvious ability and... well-articulated convictions", but was helped because the two best-known local candidates disliked each other, and when one was eliminated his support went to Waring to prevent the selection of the other. Aged 23, she was the youngest member of parliament at the time of her election.
Together with Colleen Dewe, at the time of their election, they were only the fourteenth and fifteenth women elected as a Member of Parliament in New Zealand. She was only one of two women in the government caucus and only one of four women elected in the 1975 election. After the 1978 election she was the sole female government MP, until Ruth Richardson was elected at the 1981 election. Both Waring and Richardson were members of the Women's Electoral Lobby.
She fell out with Prime Minister Robert Muldoon almost immediately, and there were several episodes of conflict, although they also shared views on some issues such as welfare payments to single mothers, where Muldoon was a believer in the welfare state.
During her period in Parliament, she served as Chair of the Public Expenditure Committee, Senior Government Member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, and on the Disarmament and Arms Control Committee. The appointment to the Public Expenditure Committee after the 1978 election was a considerable achievement for a member of only three years' standing. According to Barry Gustafson,
She also served on the Select committee for Violent Offending, taking a particular interest in the Aroha Trust, formed by Black Power women. As a Member of Parliament, she was also the New Zealand Observer at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, and chaired the New Zealand Delegation to the OECD Conference on the Role of Women in the Economy in 1978.
Waring had come especially to disagree with the National Party policy over the issue of a nuclear-free New Zealand and, on 14 June 1984, she informed the leadership that she would vote independently on nuclear issues, disarmament issues, and rape but would continue to support the Government on confidence. Since the National Party had only a one-seat majority, the government would be likely to lose on an issue Muldoon regarded as one of national security.
That evening Muldoon decided to call a snap election to be held on 14 July. The election was a disaster for the National Party. Waring told Muldoon's biographer that she had deliberately sought to provoke Muldoon into this action. The nuclear-free New Zealand legislation was subsequently enacted by the new Labour government. In her autobiography, The Political Years, she described laughing as Muldoon berated her in a parliamentary office, and recounted eating an apple to taunt him as Muldoon drank and grew enraged.

Academic work

In 1984 Waring left politics and returned to academia, where her research has focused on feminist economics, well-being, human rights and on economic factors that influence legislation and aid.
In 1988 she published If Women Counted. The book has also been published as Counting for Nothing, but remains most widely known under the first title. It criticises the use of GDP as a surrogate for "progress," and argues that lacking valuation of women and nature drive decisions in globalisation that have unintended but terrible consequences for the world. According to Julie A. Nelson,
A highly influential thinker and practitioner, her work has influenced both academia and United Nations policies. If Women Counted "persuaded the United Nations to redefine gross domestic product, inspired new accounting methods in dozens of countries and became the founding document of the discipline of feminist economics." Waring has continued to challenge governments to adopt her work even though some countries such as Scotland, New Zealand, Australia, Canada and South Korea have recognised unpaid work and improved data collection and statistics to inform policy making.
In 1989 Waring gained a D.Phil. in political economy from the University of Waikato with a thesis on the United Nations System of National Accounts, and in 1990 a University of Waikato Research Council grant to continue work on "female human rights."
Between 1991 and 1994, Waring served as Senior Lecturer in Public Policy and the Politics of Human Rights with the Department of Politics at the University of Waikato, New Zealand.
In May 2006, Waring was appointed Professor of Public Policy at the Institute for Public Policy at AUT. Her research focuses on governance and public policy, political economy, gender analysis, and human rights.
She was one of 16 prominent intellectuals invited to contribute to a French publication on human rights around the globe in 2007, along with Ken Loach, Maude Barlow, Walden Bello and Susan George.
In 2014, the anthology Counting on Marilyn Waring: New Advances in Feminist Economics, edited by Margunn Bjørnholt and Ailsa McKay, was published. According to , the book explores "a wide range of issues—including the fundamental meaning of economic growth and activity to consumption, health care, mortality, unpaid household work, mothering, education, nutrition, equality, and sustainability" and reveals "the breadth, depth, and substance that can grow from innovative ideas and critical analysis." Diane Elson argues that "despite many valiant efforts, women do not as yet really count in the conduct of economic policy. This book is an imaginative contribution to an ongoing struggle."
According to Wired,

International aid work

Waring has led the Gender and Governance team for the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands. She also led UNDP's largest project in the Asia Pacific for the Gender and Economic Policy Management Initiative. She led the Commonwealth Secretariat teams on Unpaid Work and HIV/Aids and on Social Protection. She has also served as a technical expert on gender and poverty for both UNDP and AUSAid.

Other

She and Ngahuia Te Awekotuku contributed the piece "Foreigners in our own land" to the 1984 anthology , edited by Robin Morgan.
Waring speaks publicly on gay and lesbian rights, most recently in support of same-sex marriages. The New Zealand Truth tabloid newspaper "outed" her as a lesbian in 1976. She refused to comment at the time and the Prime Minister, Robert Muldoon, moved swiftly to minimize publicity and protect her, the general attitude among politicians being that it was a private matter. Also, Waring's strong pro-choice identification and vocal feminism would overshadow her lesbianism. Since she left Parliament in 1984, Waring has more openly acknowledged her sexual orientation.

Appointments and affiliations

Waring was a member of the Board of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand from 2005 to 2009. She has been a consultant for, and a board member of, international organisations such as the Commonwealth Secretariat, the Secretariat of the Pacific Community, United Nations Development Programme, Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands, the International Development Research Centre and the Association for Women's Rights in Development.

Farming

Since 1984 and in between her academic and activist engagements, Waring farmed angora goats and dry stock, latterly on her hill-farm north of Auckland. Her experiences of life on the farm, international questions, New Zealand politics, feminist issues, and women of influence, were recorded In the Lifetime of a Goat: Writings 1984–2000; her popular Listener columns Letters to My Sisters from 1984 to 1989, form the basis. She organised her farm for maximum simplicity and self-sufficiency. Waring gave up goat farming in 2003.

Awards and recognition

Waring's work was the subject of a 1995 film by Oscar-winning director Terre Nash, produced by the National Film Board of Canada, titled Who's Counting? Marilyn Waring on Sex, Lies and Global Economics. In 2012, she was included on the Wired Magazine Smart List of "50 people who will change the world." An anthology named was published in 2014, edited by Margunn Bjørnholt and Ailsa McKay and with contributions of a diverse group of scholars on advances made in the field since the publication of If Women Counted.
Waring's work is discussed in Melinda Gates' 2019 book The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World; former President Barack Obama starred in a comedy sketch in order to promote the book.

Selected works