Document Type
Article
Publication Date
January 2023
Journal
Encyclopedia of the Social and Solidarity Economy
Abstract
The social and solidarity economy (SSE) has been successful in providing millions of women with good incomes and dignified working conditions, social services and protections, and sources of affiliation and solidarity that have positive effects upon their health and wellbeing. In the future, the SSE must engage with other persistent challenges to gender inequality, including women’s underrepresentation in leadership roles, their inability to access land and property rights and to participate in politics at par with men, and the fact that women all over the world continue to shoulder a disproportionate burden of household maintenance and caregiving activities. The SSE must also engage with the fact that not all men are beneficiaries of patriarchal privilege just as not all women are victims of patriarchal oppression. Moving beyond the “gender equals women” conceptualization of gender inequality will enable the SSE to recognize and rectify other forms of social oppression and inequality based on race, ethnicity, class, caste, sexuality, and dis/ability.