Gender and Development
10. Challenges to Development II: From Women-in-Development to Gender
Mainstreaming
Naila Kabeer
One of the earliest expressions of dissent with modernization and “trickle down”
approaches to development came from feminist constituencies. Some argued that the
assumed benefits of development were unevenly distributed between men and
women and that development could exacerbate the gender gap in access to resources. Starting
from a plea in the 1970s to “include” women in development, the field has moved on to
acknowledging gender as one of the central axes of power differentials in society. Gender
analysis in development planning and gender “mainstreaming” in institutional design are now
an accepted part of the development lexicon.
EXAM QUESTIONS
2010: ‘Gender analysis provides useful tools for planning at the project level but does little to
address structural inequalities based on gender.’ Evaluate this statement.
2009: ‘The incorporation of gender concerns into development policy and practice may
be both hailed as a great success and critiqued as an unfulfilled promise’.
Discuss critically using relevant illustrations.
2008: How have attempts to address gender inequalities in development reflected the changing
priorities of the mainstream development agenda?
2007: The move from WID to GAD changed understandings of empowerment.’ Assess.
2006: Represented to technocrats and policy-makers in the form of tools, frameworks and
mechanisms, ‘gender’ appears devoid of political intent.” Evaluate this statement with reference to
frameworks for gender analysis.
2005: What are the limitations of considering:
(a) gender relations
OR
(b) environmental issues
as merely additional items on the development policy agenda?
How might those limitations be overcome?
2004: “Advocacy for mainstreaming gender in development has more often than not taken the form
of efficiency rather than equity arguments.” What are the implications of this statement for the
empowerment of women?
2003: How convincing do you find the concept of ‘mainstreaming gender’ as a vehicle of women’s
empowerment in the South?
ESSAY Q
Advocacy for gender equality in development policy draws on both intrinsic and instrumental
arguments. Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of these arguments.
DEFINITIONS
WID (Women in Development) efforts to integrate women into the mainstream agenda and
development process = concentrating on women’s lack of access to resources as the key to their
subordination without raising questions about the role of gender relations in restricting that access
in the first place (RAZAVI). N.b. this emphasises exclusion from the development process and does
not look to find fault with the process itself.
GAD (Gender and Development) efforts to transform the mainstream agenda from a gender
equality perspective. Suggests that very models of development themselves need to be transformed
into a more holistic/equitable approach. Problematising focus on women – issues are relational,
Gender Mainstreaming: The UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) offered the following
definition:
“the process of assessing the implications for women and men of any planned action, including
legislation, policies or programmes in any area and at all levels. It is a strategy for making the
concerns of and experiences of women as well as men an integral part of the design, implementation,
monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes in all political, economic and societal spheres,
so that women and men benefit equally, and inequality is not perpetuated”.
This implies the incorporation of gender-aware planning across all sectoral ministries and in all
policies and projects (rather than only in women-targeted projects and dedicated national
machineries for the advancement of women).
MOLYNEUX distinguishes between:
Practical gender interests: every day needs – translating as desire for resources, services and
infrastructure to support role in reproductive activities, such as clean water, access to primary health
facilities, occupation-related training, housing and safe local environment. (n.b instrumental
approach)
Strategic gender interests: changes and investments required to address women’s disadvantage in
terms of poverty and deprivation and vis-à-vis men e.g. representation in local or national political
bodies, inequalities in wages or non-waged benefits and social protection, access to different levels
of education, social sanctioning of freedom of mobility, expressions of sexuality, the reversal of son
preference, renegotiation of unfair divisions of labour, freedom from gender based violence (GBV).
(intrinsic approach)
NAILA’S G&D LECTURE (WEEK 3) n.b very similar to TPP lecture, but I think a bit better as not so
closely tied to core readings – her lecture notes for TPP are incorporated into core reading notes.
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INTERPLAY BETWEEN FEMINISM AND DEVELOPMENT: Need to find conceptual frameworks
that do not only speak to gender inequalities in contexts of absolute scarcity but also that speak
to those who have the power and resources to address these stark inequalities: bridging
feminist theories and the development problematic, on the one hand, and feminist politics
and development practice on the other. Gender and development scholars draw on those
aspects of feminist theory that offer conceptual resources that prove of value in critiquing
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mainstream development and they use the insights of development theory and practice to
challenge both the parochial preoccupations and the sweeping generalisations of certain
forms of feminism.
Divisions of nationality and location in world economic order challenges politics of solidarity.
Constant interaction between theory/concept and practical concerns. Mainstreaming as
indication of success; the adoption of gender equality as one of the eight MDGs and the
decision to devote the 2012 World Development Report to gender equality issues.
HOWEVER, policy progress does not marry up with progress on the ground. Despite
blurring of the boundaries between WID and GAD, the constituency around gender equality
issues is by no means a unified one. Tensions and divisions remain that do not necessarily fit
into a WID/GAD polarity.
Instrumental/intrinsic. INSTRUMENTAL = INTEGRATIONIST STRATEGY = EQUALITY AS A
MEANS TO OTHER ENDS. INTRINSIC = TRANSFORMATIVE STRATEGY = EQUALITY AS
VALUED GOAL IN ITSELF.
Instrumental = efficiency arguments = women as providers of family welfare, reproducers of
population, conservers of the environment, solution to poverty reduction etc = has had
greater resonance for policy makers = not surprising considering centrality of economic
growth to mainstream policy processes.
Efficiency argument first being pushed by Boserup in 1970s. Pre-WID policies (Welfarist
approach) focused solely on women’s reproductive roles – confined to reproductive roles
(e.g. family planning, hygiene etc) – Boserup argued that women had economic potential,
particularly in SSA through contributions to agriculture and trading.
WID scholars took up this position – economic role – need greater share of development
resources. However, planners still treating households as unified entities and men as
primary producers. NC economists pushing efficiency model - Mexico’s well known Progresa
programme which targets women as recipients of CCTs is believed to be a direct outcome of
reformulated model of the household.
Efficiency arguments mainly carried out in the late 80s re SAPs. Mainstream economists
such as COLLIER and HUGHES make a strong case that the rigidities imposed by gender roles
and responsibilities on women’s ability to respond to market incentives was undermining
the effectiveness of SAPs. World Bank’s current gender plan which is called Gender equality
as ‘smart economics’. Here the focus is on building evidence to demonstrate the
indispensability of gender equality to economic growth. The plan documents begins with a
quote from the Economist (2006): ‘Forget China, India and the internet: economic growth is
driven by women’.
INTRINSIC ARGUMENTS for gender equality, on the other hand, has argued for gender
equality on the grounds of the gross violations of HUMAN RIGHTS, the repression of the full
potential of women and girls, the denial of full personhood that inequalities entail. This was
the starting point of the GAD CRITIQUE OF MAINSTREAM DEVELOPMENT (AND FOCUS ON
ECONOMIC GROWTH) but also of WID FEMINISTS WHO ADHERED TO MARKET PARADIGM
AND DOWNPLAYED VALUE OF WOMEN’S UNPAID WORK AND REPRODUCTIVE ROLES.
GAD focus on relations of inequality, power, cooperation and interdependence. Drew
attention to the way in which social relations played out in different institutional domains of
households and kinship, states, markets and civil society, creating systematic inequalities in
the positioning of men and women in relation to institutional processes and outcomes.
Solidarity and difference in global economic order. Challenge to find a politics that would
speak to commonalities of women without denying difference. MOLYNEUX’s
distinction between PRACTICAL AND STRATEGIC GENDER INTERESTS, based on her analysis
of the Sandanista government’s approach to gender-related policies, has played an
important role in stimulating a debate about what women might share in common beyond
their more visible differences. It also became an important element in GAD strategies to
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influence policy by providing a bridge between things as they were and things as they could
be.
Practical gender interests = everyday concerns articulated by women in different regions of
the world and reflect their position in the gender division of roles and responsibilities that
prevailed in their context. Strategic gender interests = women, as a subordinate group, had
in the transformation of the structures of their subordination. For some, the two were seen
in dichotomous terms; for others, as particular entry points for social change. An entry
through women’s practical gender needs could bring them together to reflect on more
strategic issues while an entry through strategic gender interests might ensure more
responsive approaches to immediate concerns.
GAD position would argue that the unequal relations of everyday life cannot by understood
in isolation from larger processes of structural stagnation. SEN & GROWN argue that
struggles for gender justice were collective struggles and inextricably tied up with struggles
for social justice.
Early GAD scholarship was focused on the critique of mainstream development and of
integrationist WID approaches. In addition, the focus on the collective nature of the
struggle for gender and social justice led to detailed analysis of processes of women’s
empowerment and the kinds of organisational strategies that would best promote it. In
other words, like WID, it too focused on what might be described on the downstream stages
of the policy process but less on development projects and more on grassroots women’s
organisations and movements – often in response to male-dominated left movements and
trade unions.
Later GAD position in context of NL policies and SAPs – unlike instrumental position which
focused on constraints to effective operation of SAPs, GAD challenged structural adjustment
packages because of their exacerbation of gender inequality. Over time, GAD scholars also
have taken on the gender and growth debate. Here too they have sought to reverse the
emphasis of instrumental arguments: regardless of whether gender equality promoted
growth or not, the evidence was very uneven that economic growth benefited gender
equality.
Despite critical stance, many elements of GAD have been mainstreamed. By the time of the
UN World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995, gender mainstreaming was established
as the main policy tool to further gender equity in place of the women-only projects
associated with early WID.
In principle, gender-aware analyses of different institutional domains should be able to raise
the issue of the need for gender redistributive policies and address the strategic interests
of women as a precondition for empowerment. In practice, however, progress on gender
equality has been ambivalent and some argue that it appeared to have lost steam by the
1990s. What factors are put forward to explain this? The greater receptiveness of
mainstream agencies to instrumentalist arguments and their continued failure to tackle
the underlying structures of power which reproduced gender inequality is one part of the
explanation.
Others relate to continued divisions, not simply along a WID/GAD dichotomy, but also in
terms of tactics and strategies among feminists of different persuasions. One key fault line
here was between ENGAGEMENT AND DISENGAGEMENT. Many feminists scholars and
activists are firm in their rejection of any form of engagement with national or global
institutions of development, seeing these ‘an expression of women’s integration into
hegemonic patriarchal institutions, where they are reduced to a lobbying group, an appendix
without influence’ (BRAIG & WHITE).
Others do choose to engage with mainstream agencies (incl. govs) – in control huge
resources, they are meant to be accountable for their use of these resources and they can
make a major difference to women’s everyday lives. However, there are hazards with doing
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so. A number of leading scholars argue that GAD fell victim to the same power structures
that had undermined the WID agenda, that it has become the NEW STATUS QUO, that many
prominent GAD scholars have taken up positions within the mainstream agencies.
However, others argue that mainstream agencies never seriously took on GAD arguments.
CORNWALL ET AL note a widespread sense among feminist activists and researchers that the
gender agenda has been DEPOLITICISED as it has been taken up by the mainstream, stripped
of original concern with inequitable power relations and reduced to interventions that are
merely palliative rather than transformative. Pearson suggests that their version of GAD was
simply WID re-clothed in a different language (Pearson). Many believed that the appeal of
the language of GAD was that it allowed some within the agencies to sidestep a focus on
women at all, arguing that it would reproduce the weaknesses of WID and invisibilise men
while others merely used it as a synonym for women.
Coalition politics must be rethought to think about the ways in which hegemonic forms of
masculinity have oppressed many men.
Where those who have different views about the role of GAD in explanations for the limited
progress on gender equality within development agencies appear to agree is in the
significance of changes in the LARGER ENVIRONMENT. The rise of religious fundamentalisms
of various kinds, the war on terror, globally deregulated markets and periodic financial crisis
which have become hallmarks of the global economy.
TENSIONS IN THE FIELD = different STRATEGIES OF CHANGE: JAQUETTE & STAUDT talk
about the need to work with power dynamics in different institutional arenas in order to
revitalize concerns with women’s practical and strategic interests: these include
bureaucracies, states, civil society and markets, the need to focus on the larger economic
structures that marginalize countries and people, thickening of civil society through
coalitions with others, including trade unions, strengthening co-governance with states
and engagement at the global level, to assist women into the market place but also to
promote women’s bargaining power within the market. Interestingly, the place a great deal
of emphasis on universities as an arena where influential forms of knowledge that can be
put to the service of this agenda is produced. Staudt, Goetz and others have made the case
for greater collaboration between feminists and their allies working within ‘various masters’
houses’ and those working outside. Others made a distinction between the kinds of agencies
that they will work with – seeing the UN agencies with their somewhat more democratic
structures as more conducive to alternative voices than the IFIs. Pearson suggests the need
to return gender and development to its RADICAL ROOTS. MOLYNEUX and RAZAVI point out
that detaching women’s campaigns from broader social or economic justice issues will limit
their efficacy. How can women’s organisations simultaneously tackle gender inequality as
well as confront the broader processes and policies which entrench inequalities between
and within states. They also stress the importance of feminist research in debates over
globalisation by casting light on the various processes that link gender and the justice
agenda.
CORE READINGS
1. *R. Pearson “The rise and rise of gender and development” in U. Kothari (ed.)
Ruth PEARSON’s article picks up on two conferences that took place in the 1970s, one in Wellesley
College in the US and one at the Institute of Development studies at Sussex, as indicative of two
strands of thought on the issue: one concerned with women and national development
and other with the continuing subordination of women and tension between
the particular and the universal in unequal gender relations. The WID led to the
demand for greater gender equality in the distribution of development resources,
an argument forcefully put by Ester Boserup in 1970, on the grounds of women’s potential
contribution to the GNP while the Gender and Development strand sought to engage with the
hidden and not so hidden mechanisms in the different spheres of society that perpetuated
unequal power relations between men and women. Molyneux’s distinction between
women’s practical and strategic gender interests became an important element in their
attempts to influence policy by bridging things as they were and things as they could be. Practical
gender interests referred to the everyday concerns articulated by women in different regions of the
world and reflect their position in the gender division of roles and responsibilities that prevailed in
their context. Strategic gender interests reflected that women, as a subordinate group, had in the
transformation of the structures of their subordination.
Not surprisingly, it was the instrumentalist arguments that were largely couched in the
language of practical gender interests were picked up over time by the major agencies because it
resonated with their preoccupation with achieving certain predefined goals. While gender equality
has begun to surface with greater frequency as one of these goals (MDG 3 is the most recent
example), in fact, the likelihood that investments in women provided a means to the realisation of
family welfare/poverty reduction/ economic growth/environmental sustainability/population
decline generally proved to have a more powerful appeal. The language for expressing genderrelated arguments gradually evolved from women in development to gender and development, an
apparently progressive move. However, closer examination suggests that this was more
apparent than real. Gender was either used as a code to bring men back into the
picture, on the grounds that the WID discourse privileged women and rendered men invisible, or
else as a synonym for women.
Summary
The incorporation of gender issues into development policies, programmes and projects (‘gender
mainstreaming’) has proven to be largely driven towards achieving additional objectives
(instrumental approach) rather than intrinsically committed to achieving gender equality as a means
to an end in itself. We need to repoliticise gender and development and return to ‘radical roots’
(p.328) if we are to bring about radical change.
Core Arguments
 As above, gender mainstreaming within development policy and practice has been
implemented across many organisations/institutions, however, ‘key development
programmes and actors in fact only pay lip-service to the importance of issues’(p.326) and
demonstrate unsubstantiated bureaucratic responses through the adoption of gender
sensitive mission statements/policy documents without effective structures in place to
ensure their delivery.
 There has been a shift towards a relational Gender and Development (GAD) approach over
Women in Development (WID) integrationist approach. WID can be linked to conceptions of
instrumentalism as both see ‘women’s poverty and disadvantage as a direct consequence of
the lack of development in the global South, rather than engaging with any kind of genderbased discrimination’ (p.327) and focus on mobilizing women’s productive potential.
 Thus, the World Bank’s position within a neoliberal frame may be reinforced – an
‘increasing incorporation of economic rationality’(p.327) does not necessarily challenge the
gender bias inherent within macroeconomic models and there is an increasingly marketbased approach to poverty which prioritises meeting women’s ‘practical’ over ‘strategic’
needs.
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Dissolving gender into a more generalised/holistic category of disadvantage/equality has
become increasingly common within institutions. Subsequently there has been a movement
towards a Rights Based Approach to Development (RBA) where gender is posed as a crosscutting issue.
The feminist commitment to political struggle has been ‘decoupled’ from development
policy – there is a need to repoliticise gender and development and return to ‘radical roots’
(p.328).
Strengths
 The distinction between intrinsic and instrumental achievements and the need to recentre
and repoliticise the debate: ‘gender is so twentieth century’p.324
 ‘Academic machismo’ exists and can be self-reinforcing.
 The need to critique macroeconomic policies from a gender perspective.
Weaknesses
 More attention to men’s ‘gender identities and interests’ (p.309) needed – issues are
relational.
 Conceptual confusion/vagueness around gender mainstreaming/GAD – underdeveloped
definitions.
 No clear agenda put forward for gender transformative action and the realisation of ‘radical
roots’.
Questions
 How can institutional change be best achieved? Is a bottom-up (over top-down) model more
effective/empowering?
 Can there be unhelpful/negative consequences in the ‘politicisation’ of gender issues in
relation to women’s rights? Justification of military action etc.
 Do we need to explore debates around cultural relativism more fully?
2. A.M. Goetz “Mainstreaming gender equity to national development planning” in C.
Miller and S. Razavi (eds.) Missionaries and Mandarins (IT Publications, 1998).
That the appeal of instrumentalist arguments was, at least in part, genuine is testified to by the
Anne Marie Goetz article which charts the institutional arrangements through which
gender was gradually integrated and then ‘mainstreamed’ with national and international
agencies. Initially priority was given setting up national machineries tasked with
responsibility for the promotion of gender issues but then as mainstreaming strategies came to
the foreground, gender desks and focal points proliferated across different sectors. That
the appeal was limited is evident in the paucity of resources allocated to these institutional
ministries/desks, the precariousness of their location, the quality of their staff.
(see my additional notes on the ‘state’ in my PLAN for a bit more on Goetz)
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Since UN Decade for Women, integration of women’s needs into policy-making and
project-implementing institution – most important = THE STATE.
Role of state largely problematized in context of SAPs.
National ‘women’s machinary’ has produced many important gains – mainly legitimising
the place of gender issues. WID/GAD government units have innovated policy analysis
and monitoring tools – ‘focal points’ in line ministries and synoptic gender sensitive plans.
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HOWEVER, these machineries have encountered a range of problems:
UNDERRESOURCING in terms of STAFF, SKILLS, FUNDING and through patterns of
INSTITUTIONAL ROLE ASSIGNMENT WHICH STIGMATISE AND CONDEMN IN ADVANCE
THEIR AMBITIONS FOR GENDER-TRANSFORMATIVE POLICY CHANGE = BUREAUCRATIC
RESISTANCE. Also, gender-sensitive policy proposals tend to rarely be traced through to
actual budgetary implications.
Second big constraint is the nature of the connections between WID/GAD units in public
administration and women’s constituency in civil society = NEED A STRONG
CONSTITUENCY BASE in order to strengthen the agenda in gov and also sensitising to
female citizenship.
DONOR PRESSURE – has actually served to increase problems of ambivalence in
administrations and also undermine LOCAL INTERNALISATION/OWNERSHIP.
In confirming and institutionalising the arrangements that distinguish the public from the
private, states are involved in the social and political instituinoalisiation of genderend
power differences – i.e. inheritance rights, differential wages, overlooking domestic
violence.
Socialist states show a different pattern with socialist land reforms accompanied by
liberalisation of marriage and inheritance laws in order to rupture patriarchal lineagebased landholding systems. However, in VIETNAM concern with gender equality in
socialist states often showing an instrumental concern to harness women’s productive
and reproductive energies for state projects of econ dev.
In socialist and captilaist states = MIS-ROUTING OF FEMINST POLICY.
Feminist theorists of the state suggest that the state is gendered and largely oriented to
male interests. Historically, the purpose of establishing institutions has been to reduce
uncertainty by routinizing preferred forms of social interaction i.e. limiting the
possibilities of choosing discriminatory forms of social organisation.
WID implies discourse concerned with issues of access. GAD as political project.
Social sector policies targeting women do so from an increasingly instrumental
perspective.
Policymakers interview felt that GAD had lost credibility as a policy concept given policy
makers’ difficulty in understanding the significance in the discursive shift in the WID/GAD
field. Transformative visions translate badly into technocratic planning languages.
The WID/GAD agenda does not fall neatly into a single development sector. Finding an
institutional location has 2 responses: 1. Set up advocacy unit at a central level with a
mandate to influence planning processes across all development sectors. 2. Set up a
WID/GAD desk in a sector which is seen as most closely identified with the issue or set up
a new WID/GAD sector.
WID/GAD units playing a combination of roles: policy oversight (may be granted
automatic rights to review projects), monitoring and advocacy (promoting attention to
gender issues and giving advice to various gov units) is likely to be most effective
(sometimes these units may be able to create programmes e.g. shelters for victims of
domestic violence) = no one WID/GAD unit has achieved this - underequipped: In
UGANDA = WID/GAD unit lacks access to central planning decisions and technical skills
necessary to make an input to them. Central WID unit suffered from a certain amount of
administrative precarity and was demoted into the Ministry of WID, Youth and Culture. It
has focused on provoking sustainable attitudinal and procedural changes across other
Ministries and made some strategic gains in consequence, however all of these relied on
donor funding.
CHILE = SERNAM (national service for women) has unit in ministry of planning but lacks
clear mechanisms for ensuring concrete changes. SERNAM’s formal mandate explicitly
excludes project implementation has lead it to retreat to a focus on public-awareness
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building and implementing pilot projects which are donor funded = BEHAVING MORE LIKE
AN NGO.
National development plans and budgets are important public statements expressing
politically chosen priorities for change and progress.
In Morocco there is no WID presence.
Whilst there has been an explosion of women’s activism in associational life in Uganda,
which has been an important resource for the Department of WID, no formal
mechanisms exist to enhance women’s representation in the administration.
A primordial constraint on the WID/GAD agenda is the hierarchical and undemocratic
nature of bureaucracies, where women’s needs are largely seen as a matter for private
provision, not public administration.
More positive institutional environments are created through national leadership backing
(Uganda and Chile)
Ideally WID/GAD units ought to perform policy advisory roles and provide technical
inputs, but there has been shown to be a lack of technical skills.
Fear that ‘gender’ issues will only be ‘noticed’ where these policies (new policy agendas)
impinge on sectors traditionally associated with women, on social development and
welfare matters.
New policy agendas which provide support for human rights observance and for good
government, poverty reduction and environmental sustainability and a focus on
human/social development represent important opportunities for furthering genderequity agenda. To avoid these becoming missed opportunities, WID/GAD advocates beed
to take active ownership. Cases in MALI and MOROCCO have shown that cultural
imperialism in the projection of Western notions of gender equity to other contexts is an
undeniable problem = SLOW PROCESS OF ATTITUDINAL CHANGE.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR FURTHERING THE WID/GAD AGENDA HAVE COME FROM
STRATEGIC ALLIES FROM MOMENTS OF POLITICAL SYSTEMS CHANGE AND FROM
CHANTES IN THE INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT POLICY ENVIRONMENT = CHILE AND
UGANDA HAS RECENTLY BENEFITED FROM STRONG SUPPORT FROM THE TOP STATE
EXECUTIVE.
However, WID/GAD units have failed to exhibit this kind of strategic analysis and planning
to exploit new policy agendas – tend to be reactive, missing opportunities.
EFFECTIVE STRATEGIES FOR INSTITUTIONALISING WOMEN’S INTERESTS IN THE STATE
MUST THEREFORE BE ATTUNED TO POLITICAL OPPORTUNITIES AND BACKED UP BY THE
MOBILISED POLITICAL ENGERGIES OF ADVOCATES OF GENDER JUSTICE IN CIVIL SOCIETY
AND THE STATE.
3. C. Jackson “Rescuing gender from the poverty trap” in C. Jackson and R. Pearson (eds.)
Feminist Visions of Development (Routledge, 1998).
Cecile Jackson tackles the problems of instrumentalism head on using the ‘feminisation
of poverty’ argument to make her point. She recognises why instrumentalism flourished
within mainstream agencies – easier to ring-fence gender issues as a problem
of poverty than admit the controversial feminist view of gender
inequality as cutting across class, race ethnicity etc. She points to the way in
which women had been brought into the anti-poverty agenda through a conflation of
gender disadvantage and poverty: women’s problem was treated primarily as one of
poverty, non-poor women were marginalised as were poor men. Such arguments essentially
ignore the extent to which gender inequality intersects with other forms of inequality. She
too points to the gender-blind spots of mainstream poverty analysis and argues that the
failure to carry out a gendered analysis, cognisant of the relational nature of power, failed to
address either gender inequality or poverty.
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Anti-poverty policies cannot be expected to necessarily improve the position of women.
Gender appears to have collapsed into the poverty trap.
MOSER describes an ‘anti-poverty approach to women’ as a strand in WID which sees
women’s poverty as a consequence of underdevelopment rather than subordination,
and she distinguished this from the ‘efficiency’ approach = shared assumptions about
causes and remedies for gender disadvantage.
Instrumentalism = WB POSITION = justifications for gender are in terms of how this will
FACILITATE OTHER DEVELOPMENT OBJECTIVES RATHER THAN BEING AN END IN ITSELF =
SYNERGISM – positive, mutually beneficial relationship between gender equity and
development objectives.
UNFPA = POPULATION CONTROL.
WOMEN USING THE VEHICLE OF DEVELOPMENT INTERVENTIONS: British ODA funds a
poverty-focused agricultural project in the Chhotanagpur Plateau region of INDIA – the
Rainfed Farming Project – vegetable gardening with low caste women. Over a few years
they have spontaneously begun to collectively punish male domestic violence and act
against alcohol abuse by destroying the equipment of village distillers. Thus an
agricultural project has been enrolled as a project of collective action against domestic
violence.
Northern OMAN: over a decade, rural Muslim women involved in an ineffective income
generating weaving project shaped and used the project to improve gender relations
within and beyond the household. These strategies were not based on improved
financial independence through weaving but included the establishment of relations of
patronage with the state, then used to deflect control by household men and to
legitimise new freedoms in behaviour.
Rural MEXICO: group of women bee-keepers, with an initial image of themselves as
rustic housewives, who considered the bee-keeping as a hobby – WID initiative –
government agency sought to label the women as needy victims in live with government
discourses in on incorporation, whilst local male opinion denied them as any threat.
These women ‘learned the language of subordination’ in order to extract benefits from
it.
If women are instrumental too, does instrumentalism as identified in feminist critiques
matter? YES, because ‘projects’ of actors do not interlock or overlap without struggle,
negotiation and compromise, a process in which participants and officials are seldom
equal.
BANGLADESH: Grameen Bank: donors’ preoccupation with cost recovery – to the degree
that loan repayments have become the primary index of success, however much they
obscure the important issue of the QUALITY OF THE USE’. This also ignores the fact that
whilst predominantly disbursed to women, loans arguably have limited benefits for
women because the loans enter into gendered social relations in the household ad
women largely lose control of the loans.
Gender & Development is frequently justified in terms of the poverty of female-headed
households, however, this is a complex issue – depends on why households are female
headed e.g. in GHANA shown that female-headedness is not associated with low
income.
NEW POVERTY AGENDA of multilateral development agencies claims that the concept of
poverty has ‘been broadened beyond the notions of inadequate private income or
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consumption, toward a more comprehensive perspective: absence of a secure and
sustainable livelihood.’ BUT does it deal with bias?
NPA emphasises safety nets and targeted social welfare – high admin costs/means
testing, and an emphasis that men and women experience poverty differently. Women
in Bangladesh unable to take up food for work opportunities because of male
disapproval. Women refugees experience gendered problems in obtaining separate food
rations if they are not attached to a male household. DOUGLAS points out that women
consistently do not reliably report or seek attention for their own ill-health.
NPA has shifted to more of an emphasis on perception of poor people themselves as
opposed to income/consumption, however, the livelihood concept consists of familiar
elements: poverty lines defining inadequate incomes, consumption, nutrition, health,
life expectancy and relates to the household as a unit of analysis = NOTION THAT
WOMEN ARE DISADVANTAGED BY A DIFFERENT METRIC TO MEN – AND THAT THE
POPULIST ALTERNATIVE TO POVERTY LINES, THE DEFINITION AND ASSESSMENT OF
POVERTY BY THE POOR THEMSELVES FAILS TO TRANSCEND DOMINANT GENDER
IDEOLOGIES.
Food consumption: traditional emphasis on women not having ‘food access’, but
consumption is not necessarily simply determined by availability e.g. in Asian
households there is an emphasis on self-sacrifice. Attention is not paid to the ways in
which women’s agency subverts norms e.g. snack food consumption and left-overs.
Life expectancy: despite being socially and economically disadvantaged women live
longer than men = gender analysis suggests that the quantity of life is not a good
measure of well-being = women are more likely to experience ill-health (often about
reproductive ill-health, gender violence and rape)
Assets: women have widely different property relations to men and most possession
indices are not relevant to assessing poverty of women as they’re based on male-owned
property – few conjugal contracts uphold the rights of wives to a share of joint property.
Household income: tells us little about individual access to income – men and women
consume jointly and as individuals. Women spend more of their money on children and
household needs than men. Idea that this position is seen as important towards
maintaining child welfare: ‘a real shift in altruism could involve a shift to less altruism,
yet paradoxically this could undermine the support of development agencies for GAD’
Kuznets curve shows that as a household income rises so too do levels of inequality. (i.e
not simply enough to raise levels of household income)
Entitlements: Sen’s idea of entitlements has been seen as an alternative approach to
poverty lines. Kabeer points out that for Bangladesh the entitlements of women are
embedded to a far greater degree than those of men within family kinship structures.
Kabeer calls for more qualitiative poverty indicators which recognise how marriage for
example mediates the experience of poverty for women.
THE TURN TO QUALITATIVE UNDERSTANDINGS OF POVERTY HAS NOT GENERALLY BEEN
CONDUCIVE TO GREATER GENDER AWARENESS AND THE APPROACH WHICH CLAIMS TO
BE BASED ON HOW THE POOR THEMSELVES DEFINE POVERTY (CHAMBERS) IS IN WAYS
EVEN MORE GENDER BLIND THAN THE HEADCOUNT METHODS IT CRITICISES = poor
people treated as an homogenous group.
Wealth ranking: ranking of households obscures the situation of women within it.
Gendered subjectivities: large subjective perceptions of well-being. Clearly income is
only one measure of well-being and it might be argues that poverty lines underestimate
well-being, but Sen insists that measures of poverty as a counterpoint to perceptions
which reflect the biases and prejudices inherent in all cultures. Researchers blinded by
populist sympathy for the poor easily overlook gender relations of inequality. One
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problem of measuring men and women by the same poverty yardstick is that it both
exaggerates women’s poverty and conceals it in other ways
In conclusion, GENDER JUSTICE IS NOT A POVERTY ISSUE. Idea that mainstreaming is
better than targeted approaches (which don’t emphasise agency etc) – however, idea
that ‘mainstreaming gender into every page of every project document’ (PATTEN, ODI)
‘depoliticises gender analysis and exposes it to the prevailing gender ideologies’.
Subordination of women is not caused by poverty – also need to be focusing on
identities, achievements and opportunities of NON-POOR WOMEN.
4. D. Elson “Male bias in the development process: an overview” in D. Elson (ed.) Male Bias
in the Development Process (Manchester University Press, 1991).
The article by Diane Elson is a classic example of the combination of theoretical
sophistication and committed advocacy that characterised gender and development
scholarship outside the mainstream. It draws attention to the blindness of mainstream economic
theories to what she refers to as male bias, the institutionalised asymmetries of
power across society which served to keep women subordinate to men but she
is cognisant that women cannot be regarded as a homogenous category any more than men can,
that both are divided by the other social inequalities that characterise their society. Elson goes on to
argue that while male bias, and women’s internalisation of their own inferior position in society,
helps to explain the various ways in which gender discrimination occurs, with women often the
primary agents, such short term rationality carries long-term efficiency costs for society. Her
arguments thus combine the intrinsic argument for gender equality as a desirable goal in itself with
an instrumental argument couched in terms of economic growth.
Summary:
 Understanding and critique of ‘male bias’ in development processes.
Elson discusses ‘male bias’ in reference to three categories.
Firstly, in everyday attitudes and actions,
secondly, in theoretical reasoning, and
thirdly, in public policy.
Elson concludes that ‘male bias’ has an upward effect from attitudes and actions (eg. A preference
for sons), and theoretical reasoning (eg. Male/female roles in the household; the ‘male bias’ of
supposedly neutral terms that refer to income, ‘farmer’, ‘worker’) towards policy. Women are
therefore marginalised in the formulation of economic policy, which views male-bias to be in the
general interest (as men are seen as main income-generators, male-biased policies implemented
which don’t necessarily lead to more output/income but to more male-generated output/income).
She finally discusses the structural factors that support male bias; namely how those people whose
responsibility it is to look after children earn their living.
Strengths:
 Different approach: by looking at male bias instead of women’s helplessness, gives strength
to the argument, as it allows for a broader analysis of women in development, rather than
generic “women’s issues”.
 Elson argues that gender equality is necessary for the benefit of all society, not just women.
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Discussion of the relationship between gender inequality at a local level and at a policy level
Weaknesses:
 Problems associated with referring to ‘male bias’: the term is highly ‘emotive’, even if it is
understood as ‘a bias that operates in favour of men as a gender, and against women as a
gender, not that all men are biased against women.’ (p. 3)
 Lack of historical context. There is little analysis of why ‘male bias’ emerged in the first place,
and in most parts of the world. Surely this is the first step to explaining why it is no longer
justified in modern society.
Class Qs:
1) What would the effects of employing the term ‘male bias’ instead of ‘gender approach’ to
development be?
2) How can you change embedded ‘male bias’ in society?
3) Is there a danger of a ‘female bias’ emerging in development processes?
4) Should gender equality be instrumental or intrinsic in the development process?
It is worth noting that Elson concludes with a stress on the ‘EMPOWERMENT APPROACH’ to
gender and development (MOSER). This approach arises from feminist writings and grass-roots
organisations and experiences of Third World women, and has begun to raise the question of
alternative forms of development rather than integrating women into existing patterns of
development (DAWN). In that direction, through women’s collective action and through attempts
to reconceptualise development in a gender-aware way, would seem to lie the best prospects for
overcoming male bias.
ADDITIONAL READINGS
Subrahmanian:
 ‘gender mainstreaming has become a hollow discourse’ political dilution, those who have
opposed the takeover of feminist agendas by the state, and the dangers of co-optation. BUT
ENGAGEMENT WITH THE STATE IS CRITICAL.
 Gender ‘mainstreaming’ is the GAD ‘buzzword’. World Conference on Women (Beijing,
1995)
 States seeking to ‘legitimise themselves through public policy and participation-based
accountability. The state as agent of transformative change.
 Help orgs think more deeply about gender relations as opposed to ‘add women and stir’.
 Criticisms: narrowness of the strategy – conflating policy reform with changes in
bureaucratic practice. Located at national level. ‘Implicit’ models of social change –
investment of resources in women as the key to their liberation – old models. Analytical
weakness/policy evaporation – not seen as explicitly political.
 ‘Usage commits the user neither to a clear agenda on gender transformative action, nor to a
clear institutional transformative agenda’. – varied approach. Underdeveloped definitions
and understanding. MYTHICAL BEAST. UNDERLYING AND IMPLICIT ASSUMPTIONS (AND
MODELS) OF INSTITUTIONAL AND SOCIAL CHANGE ASSOCIATED WITH IT REMAIN
UNINTERROGATED.
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Fine. Frameworks and intellectual tools still accord to primacy to neo-classical economics
and the dominance of the market. Reductionist analysis if have economic analysis being
applied to social dimensions of life.
Call for broader context of dev discourse but more precise and specific strategies =
OVERBURDENING OF EXPECTATIONS. Various feminist actions/debates.
STATE FEMINISM – FEMOCRATS. POLITICAL IDEOLOGY OF STATE. LEVEL OF STATE
FEMINISM.
Discard term. Break up into component parts.. POLICY REFORM. ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM.
ANALYTICAL AND CONCEPTUAL STRENGTHENING, POLITICAL ADVOCACY. Wider political
contexts.
Limits of space. NL. MORE APPROPRIATE LABELS.
Rathgeber:
 WID. Better integrated into economic systems – disadvantage of women in the productive
sectors. Benefits of modernisation as trickle down – invest heavily in education systems.
Technological fix, provision of extra services, credit facilities.
 Nonconfrontational. Not questioning source of subordination.
 Exploitation as component of global system of capital accumulation.
 WAD/neo-Marxist. Okello. ‘Integrating women into development’ linked to maintenance of
dependency of third world.
 WAD – processes. Inside/outside household. Gives little attention to social relations within
classes. Social structures, Global strucutres. Doesn’t make full-scale analysis of
subordination/oppression etc. Doesn’t look at patriarchy in detail. Doesn’t acknoweledge
reproductive sector.
 GAD roots in socialist feminism. Linking re and pro duction. Rejects private/public
dichotomy. Puts greater emphasis on state. GAD sees women as agents of change over
passive recipients of dev assistance. Looks at race, class etc, strengthening of legal rights,
land laws etc…
 Not just integration, re-examination of social structures, institutions and power of elites
which can effect some men and women.
 GAD DOES NOT EASILY LEND ITSELF TO INTEGRATION INTO ONGOING DEVELOPMENT
STRATEGIES AND PROGRAMMES. STRUCUTURAL CHANGE AND POWER SHIFTS.
 Majority of projects find their roots in the WID perspective. Idea that problems can be
‘solved’ through application of specific intervention strategy.
 Existence of official WID policies cannot be judged as an accurate indicator of commitment
to gender issues within an agency.