Despite its shortcomings, the “dismal science” has been perhaps the most powerful and successful policy discourse in recent history, and its impact on the evolution of other disciplines has been profound. Current political debates resound with neoliberal arguments about the values of “free markets,” sustained by neoclassical economic analysis. In academia, rational choice theory (RCT), with its central category of Rational Economic Man (REM), has spread from its birthplace in economics to become a force to be reckoned with in fields as varied as sociology, law, and political philosophy.
Sustained feminist engagement with economics as an academic discipline and policy science began rather later than in other disciplines. This is not entirely surprising for two reasons.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/j.1467-9760.2004.00193.x