Engendering Development: Limits of Feminist theories and justice (original) (raw)

Gender Equality and Development

Gender issue dominates the 21 st century discourse both in the developed world and in the developing countries. It is a top priority of United Nation policy and World Bank commitment to invest on any programmes that guarantee full participation of women. Gender inequality or discrimination has been blamed on the steady increase on poverty, unemployment and other related issues. It is by no means a Western concept aimed at liberating women from perceived discrimination. Gender equality is perceived as a meaningful guarantor of development. However, academic query on this important issue left some gap to be filled on the irony of gender equality. What does the concept stand for, where is it coming from, what is the motive of gender equality, does it really guarantee women freedom without subjecting them to forms of exploitation and dehumanization? This piece is critical in answering these questions and in accessing the economic development agenda behind the campaign on gender equality. In order to achieve this, Marxist position is utilized, while upholding Structural functionalist theory to maintain the status quo and with certain modification and improvement on the condition of women. However, the study indicted capitalist economic system as the major causes of gender inequality.

Gender Equality and the Economic Empowerment of Women

This paper examines the notion of rights discourse and its international application in recent feminist theory. Feminists seem to take at least two contradictory views of rights. On the one hand, some feminists criticize the notion of rights as a highly individualistic, abstract Western idea. They argue that rights are a culture-bound construct that does not do justice to more relational understandings of self, or to communal cultures. Yet other feminists argue that rights is an important tool for securing women"s protection from violence, and promoting women"s equality. I argue that both of these views inadvertently neglect economic issues, and so long as this is the case, current discussions of rights by Western feminists have only limited benefit for poor women in developing countries. I suggest that feminists concerned with global women"s issues and rights prioritize economic and social rights, rather than political and legal rights. I illustrate the connection between women"s economic empowerment and the resulting overall improvement of quality of life by looking at the impact of Indian women"s employment in two co-operatives, Marketplace India and SEWA (the Self-Employed Women"s Association).

Women and Development- Issues and Challenges

2018

The discourse on development has traditionally constructed women as beneficiaries and not as key players in creating an equitable society. The deep rooted patriarchal structures coupled with the hegemonic tendencies of the neo liberal state have further pushed them to the margins. However, women constitute half of the humanity and any discursive space would offer only a partial account of progress if it fails to take note of their vast potential. It is imperative, therefore, that any development agenda must evolve a nuanced approach that factors in the differentials – whether it be caste, class, race, sexuality and religion or a combination of all three. The writings in this book cover a wide spectrum of issues from a gendered perspective, critically scrutinizing existing policies and attempting to signal towards the alternative models. Among the themes discussed are: • Deconstructing development from a gendered perspective :Ideological debates • The discourse on rights and resisting inequalities • Reviewing and recasting initiatives: Policies and programmes • Women and media • Viewing women as beneficiaries or determinants? With its interdisciplinary character related to the development discourse in the context of women, this collection of papers will be of great interest to sociologists, historians, political scientists, educationists, home scientists, and those interested in gender studies and policy making.

Economics of Gender and Development by Prof. Dr. Vibhuti Patel

POLITICAL ECONOMY OF GENDER AND DEVELOPMENT-APPROACH NOTE Dr. Vibhuti Patel, Professor and Head, Post Graduate Department of Economics SNDT Women’s University, 1 Nathibai Thakersey Road, Churchgate, Mumbai-400020 Mobile-9321040048 Telephone-26770227 ® and 22031879, Ex. 243 Analytical tools provided by Gender Economics (GE) are extremely useful to deal with the socio-economic and legal issues concerning women’s work life and family life-marriage, divorce, custody of children, guardianship rights, alimony, maintenance, property rights of mother, sister, daughter, legally wedded wives and her child/ children, co-wives and their children, keeps and their children and the issues concerning adoption. GE has a special significance in the subsistence economy, which uses the kinship networks, institutions of polygamy and polyandry for concentration and centralisation of wealth and capital by either the patriarchs or the matriarchs. Domestic animals, women and children are the main assets in the subsistence sector where collection of fuel, fodder, water are important components of daily life over and above agrarian chores, live-stock rearing and kitchen gardening. GE has drawn heavily from all mainstream disciplines and innumerable social movements of the last three decades. GE provides insights to examine budgets of Government Organisations (GOs) and Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) from the point of view of gender justice. Priority areas being women's education, health and nutrition, skill development, accounts, financial and commercial viability, legal standing, asset and corpus building. GE contextualises day to day survival struggles of women in the family, in the households, in the community and in the micro, meso and macro economy with the perspective of power relations which control women and girl children's sexuality, fertility and labour. To explain this concept, I would like to give some examples from popular culture: 1. Control of women's sexuality A) Dress code which, restricts mobility of women and girls, does not allow her to do those chores which require flexible body movements, reduces her efficiency and employability in non-conventional occupations. B) "Tool" as a phallic symbol, not being allowed to be used by menstruating women as it is supposed to have contaminating influence. Hostility towards women who ride bicycles, drive cars and scooters, operate machines and use ploughs for farming, wheels for pottery, saw for carpentry. C) Women being treated as repository of custom and tradition and cultural practices, dedicated as devdasis, jogtis and forced to undergo series of masochistic fasting, scarification and self infliction of pain which make them unemployable and perpetually dependant on the patriarchs. They enjoy only subversive power of a comfort woman that too, is mediated by men, as they don't have any legal rights. In the commercial context, the same happens to women beneficiary of Maitri-Karar (friendship contract) and Seva-karar (Service contract). D) Need for male escorts, bodyguards for dainty, sickly and weak women who see their identity as anorexic women. Billion-dollar beauty business thrives by controlling young women so that they are incapable of using their body for manual chores. Here, women's insecurity about their looks is used by the cosmetic industry. E) Women eating last, the least and the left over. Nourishing and balanced diet as a male prerogative. Daughters and brides kept on starvation diet. Food secures middle-aged women as honorary men. Inference of A, B, C, D and E - Declining sex ratio – As per 2001 census (933 women per 1000 men), high mortality and morbidity rates. 2. Control of women's fertility: A) Women being treated as male-child producing machine. Customary practices of female infanticide and neglect and abandonment of girl child, scientific techniques of sex determination tests used for female foeticide, pre-conception elimination of female embryo with the help of sex-preselection techniques. B) Population policies targeting women for unsafe contraceptives and harmful hormone based contraceptive researches, which violate bodily integrity and dignity of married and unmarried girls and women. C) Laws on prostitution penalising and persecuting women victims of sexploitation running a parallel economy of as much as 200 billion rupees. D) Social boycott of unwed mothers. Illegitimate children being stigmatised by society and deprived of economic, social and educational opportunities. They are further marginalised in the economy, which is undergoing massive structural adjustments and instability. Facilities like identity card, ration card and other legal documents which are a must for citizenship rights are not provided to them. Inference of A, B, C and D, can be named as brothel model of economic development which thrives on unpaid and invisiblised labour of women. It perpetuates the vicious circle of Child marriage, child prostitution and child labour (CP, CM and CL). Super-exploitation of female headed household and domestic workers get sanctity in this model. Women have to shoulder this added burden along with the burden of the vicious circle of poverty, over-population and unemployment. 3 Control of women's labour: A) Use of women in the economy for the occupations which are extensions of housework, i.e. 3 Cs (cooking, cleaning and caring). Only 6 % of women are in the organised sector which guarantees protection of labour legislation and ERA (Equal Remuneration Act). 94% of women are in the informal sector which does not guarantee job-security, regular income and personal safety. B) Demonisation of highly qualified, efficiency plus and career women. Witch hunting of intellectually independent and verbally articulate women workers, employees, technicians and decision-makers. C) Sexual harassment as an occupational hazard to crush the confidence of women and to keep them in the state of perpetual terrorisation, humiliation and intimidation. Inference of A, B and C, can be limited opportunities for women and ghettoisation of women in non-challenging, routinised and low-status jobs known as "women prone industries" in the official discourse. Most of the economic activities done by majority of women are non-marketed and non-monetised and reward for labour does not reflect the value of their labour. In such a situation to gauge economic worth of their work Time Use studies are the most effective tools to identify their opportunity costs. Within this framework, now, we will examine efforts at empowerment of women by 550 feminist economists who are functioning in 31 countries under the banner of International Association of Feminist Economics to provide DAWN (Development Alternatives with Women). a. Visibility of women in statistics and data system- For effective execution of macro policies such as National Perspective Plan for Women, Maharashtra State Women's Policy, we need an accurate data-base, area studies and time allocation studies, studies on energy expenditure and food consumption patterns among women of different communities, public utility services such as safe transport, public urinals, women's room in the office. Gender economists have done pioneering work to understand demographic profile of women and sex-ratio. Formulation of gender aware data system on literacy, education level, employment and earnings, health and well-being helps proper planning and policy making for empowerment of women. Inter -district, Inter-state and Cross country comparisions of women's empowerment are obtained from Gender related Development Index (GDI). GDI owes its origin to its precursor, the HDI (Human Development Index), three main components of which are per capita income, educational attainment and life-expectancy which is a proxy for health attainment. .Gender disparities are measured keeping these three indicators into consideration. "An additional measure, gender empowerment measure (GEM) has been formulated to take into account aspects relating to economic participation and decision-making by women. The indicators used in GEM are share in income, share in parliamentary seats and an index that includes share in administrative and managerial jobs and share in professional and technical posts." (K. Seeta Prabhu, P.C. Sarkar and A. Radha. This exercise is done with a philosophical understanding that without engendering, human development is endangered. (UNDP, 1995) b. Economic Profile of special needs population- Female headed households (Divorced, deserted, widowed, separated women), home based workers, women workers in the family enterprise, self-employed women, and women entrepreneurs. c. Analysis of nature of occupational diversification among women, industrial classification- Implications of office automation, computerisation, flexi-time, job-sharing, tele working, and part time work. d. Effects of structural adjustment on Market segmentation- segmented factor market affects self-employed women directly when they want to buy raw material and other services. Segmented labour-market has direct bearing on the daily grind of women workers in the informal sector. Segmented product market makes unorganised women workers and women's collectives without networking insecure and vulnerable as sellers. e. Economic basis of customary laws and the family laws: When the customary laws get codified, we must be vigilant about the fact that women's interests are not sacrificed. Women’s land rights and property rights need special mention at the time of codification of personal laws. Except for Andhra Pradesh and the North Eastern states, women have lost their customary land rights due to Land Reform Act. f. In mega development projects, which displace the native population, care must be taken to see to it that women get equal share in monetary compensation, land-rights and right to shelter. The same applies to the social and natural disaster managem...

Gender, development, and the women's movement

Signposts: Gender issues in post-independence …, 1999

The ideologies of globalisation and structural adjustment seek to make one deaf to the immediate past and to anything that does not speak in the language of efficiency. However, the contemporary changes overtaking us, disturbing as they are, also hat hour the possibility of bringing our political and intellectual engagements on to new and fruitful terrain. For those who have been working at the interface of gender and development, it is time to refigure their priorities, not by secluding themselves within some putative 'pure' economy, but by broadening feminist conceptions of the economy itself Rescuing the notion of gender from its ritualistic incantations and making it really work for a more emancipatory and inclusive social order is one of the ways open to them, one they have every reason to take.

Women, Development and the State: On the Theoretical Impasse

Development and Change, 1986

Asoka Bandarage is to be applauded for her massive review of the literature on women and development which appeared in Development and Change (15[3], 1984) in her article on 'Women, in Development: Liberalism, Marxism and Marxism-Feminism'. She discusses important linkages that need to be taken into account in this field and confirms the necessity for making gender central to development studies. After a thoroughgoing critique of what she calls liberal feminism, she outlines Marxist-feminist approaches which she then concludes now to be at a theoretical impasse.

Book review Gender, Development and Globalization, second ed.docx

this new edition of Gender, Development and Globalisation explores the implications of the social and economic processes of change triggered by globalisation for gender inequality and women's lives across the world economy. While still making some reference to structural adjustment and to the debt crisis, which do remain key historical landmarks in the rise of neoliberalism and its 'globalisation project', the book also engages significantly with the impact of the 2008 financial crisis and its gendered dimension, both in the North and in the South. The book is organised into six chapters. The first two provide a great overview of the evolution of the gender agenda in development studies and economics. Quite a lot has already been written on the paradigmatic shift from the Women and Development (WID) to Gender and Development (GAD) framework -the focus of the first chapter of the book. However, in my view, the analysis in this chapter stands out for its concise historical overview; for its engagement with the Women and Development (WAD) approach, often glossed over in much of the contemporary gender literature, and for its efforts to compare the rationale, policies and implications of structural adjustment with those characterising the world economy after the 2008 financial crisis. The final part of the chapter, provides a necessary critique of contemporary notions of 'smart economics', and important reflections on the limited success of processes of gender mainstreaming adopted in the international policy arena, which often turn into a mere technical exercise, constituting what Andrea Cornwall (2007) has called 'empowerment lite'. 1