New mergers of feminism and finance
A one-day symposium at the London School of Economics 8 May 2026
Organisers: Dr Rachel O’Neill and Dr Simidele Dosekun, Department of Media and Communications London School of Economics and Political Science.
Looking across the contemporary media and cultural landscape, new ‘mergers’ of feminism and finance (Murphy 2013) appear to be afoot. Across a variety of national contexts, promulgated by diverse actors operating through multiple media forms, women are being called to become savvy about and confident in matters of money management, or presenting and promoting themselves as such – as savers, investors, homeowners, speculators, traders, venture capitalists, fintech innovators and more. Through such representations and practices, women are being asked to invest in finance as the best means to secure themselves, now and into the future.
Of course, the ‘feminisation of finance’ is not new: women have long been “actively encouraged to engage with personal finance, mortgage finance and financial markets more generally as part of their efforts to be autonomous, responsible and enterprising subjects” (Allon 2014: 18). Our proposition, however, is that the feminisation of finance is changing in the present conjuncture in ways that call for renewed feminist scrutiny. Among other things, it is intensifying, proliferating and becoming ever more popular (Dosekun and O’Neill 2026). It is also being cast in explicitly feminist terms, a means for women to ‘uplift’ and ‘empower’ both themselves and other women.
Far from being limited to the global north or Anglosphere, new mergers of feminism and finance can be seen transnationally, from Chinese podcast Girls with Money to Nigerian book and TV show Smart Money Woman, to a host feminist ‘'financial influencers’ operating on Instagram, TikTok, Telegram and Xiaohongshu, to separatist South Korean feminists pursuing financial independence to enable them to go their own way. Globally, it seems, we are in the era of feminist economicus (Kim 2025).
This one-day symposium aims to bring together an interdisciplinary cohort of scholars interested in the shifting interplay and developing entente between feminism and finance. We invite contributions that take up this thematic by engaging questions including but not limited to:
• What claims to financial insight and expertise are currently made in popular media under the auspices of feminism, and how? Conversely, what claims to feminism are made by financial actors, for whom, and to what ends?
• How are women of different kinds positioned in contemporary financial discourse, including that which claims a specifically feminist remit? What kinds of ideas about ‘women and money’ (Adkins 2015; 2018) circulate here?
• What are women being invited to invest in – literally, metaphorically, ideologically – when finance is presented as a secure and reliable pathway to personal empowerment and individual appreciation?
• How can new mergers of feminism and finance be understood in relation to longstanding discourses and practices in the development sector, where women’s empowerment is posited as ‘smart economics’ (Wilson 2011)? How do they fit with and potentially bolster the workings of ‘racial capitalism’ (Bhattacharya 2023)? In what ways and to what extent do they address the all too real and intersectionally mediated issue of women’s economic subordination, both historic and contemporary?
• How can the coming together of popular feminism and popular finance be understood in relation to wider dynamics of economic crisis, decline, lack and uncertainty, new or longstanding, across a range of national contexts? To what extent can such modalities be understood in terms of shifting ‘reproductive bargains’ (Pearson 1997) between states and their citizenry?
• What implications might these new mergers of feminism and finance have for a feminist politics centred on redistribution (Fraser 1995)? Relatedly, how might such cultural formations be placed in relation to calls to envision a feminism for the 99% (Arruzza, Bhattacharya & Fraser 2019), and for women to ‘lean out’ (Foster, 2015)?
• What prospects remain for the elaboration of left and socialist feminisms? Wherewith a ‘red feminist horizon’ (Women’s Strike Assembly, 2018)?
Those interested in participating in this symposium are invited to submit abstracts (max. 2000 characters) to the organisers, via this form by 23 March 2026.
See the full call for papers here: feminism-finance-2026.pdf
Notifications of acceptance will be sent out by 30 March 2026. While it is hoped that the majority of accepted papers will be delivered in person, provision will also be made for remote participation. For further information, please contact: r.o.neill@lse.ac.uk.