Mother of Invention -
How Good Ideas Get Ignored
In An Economy Built For Men
UK publication date: 24 June 2021
US publication date: 19 October 2021
Original Swedish publication: 2020
Other languages coming: German, French, Italian, Korean, Hungarian, Polish, Estonian
We live in a world shaped by gender.
Virtually every aspect of our existence – from the cars we drive and the luggage we carry, to the defining inventions of our past and the ideas that shape our future - is affected by our deeply held beliefs about the role of men and women within society.
It’s the reason why, every day, extraordinary inventions and innovative ideas are ignored by investors.
And why it took more than 5,000 years to attach wheels to a suitcase.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
For too long we have underestimated the consequences of sexism in our economy, and the way it holds all of us – women and men - back. In Mother of Invention bestselling author Katrine Marçal sets the record straight and shows how, in a time of crisis, the ideas and ingenuity of women are the key to our future.






Previous book:
Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner?
Adam Smith, the founder of modern economics, believed that our actions stem from self-interest and the world turns because of financial gain.
But every night Adam Smith's mother served him his dinner, not out of self-interest but out of love...
Today, economics disregards the unpaid work of mothering, caring, cleaning and cooking and its influence has spread from the market to how we shop, think and date...
In this engaging takedown of the economics that has failed us, Katrine Marçal journeys from Adam Smith's dinner table to the financial crisis and shows us how different, how much better, things could be.
If economics hadn't forgotten about women...

"A smart, funny, readable book on economics, money [and] women"
- Margaret Atwood
"Marçal’s romp through the development of the field and the work of Smith, Keynes, Freud, the Chicago School, and Lawrence Summers (among others) is as diverting as it is thoughtful, especially as she points out the gaping hole at its center: the places where self-interest and the market can’t quite reach. Midway through her book, Marçal writes about Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique — in its own way, this vivid, entertaining work is equally groundbreaking."
- The Boston Globe
It's 200 pages of angry polemic - which is a total compliment!
- Steve Eisman (known from The Big Short)
"A sprawling, engaging feminist polemic. Interesting."
- New York Times Book Review
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