Gender and Development

1. Gender and Development Lent Term 2009 David Sneath & Martin Walsh

3. Gender and Development • Lent Term Lectures: • Gendering development: from WID to GAD and beyond (MW) • 2. Gendering the household: economics and politics (MW) • 3. Gendering enterprise: from income generation to microfinance (MW) • 4. Gender, conflict and post-conflict (DS)

4. Gender and DevelopmentLecture 1: Monday 16 February 2009 Gendering development: from WID to GAD and beyond

5. Lecture outline: • Introduction: feminism and anthropology • The development of WID • Shortcomings of WID (and WAD) • The development of GAD • Shortcomings of GAD (and WID and WAD) • Postmodernising GAD? • Consolidating GAD? • Repoliticising GAD? • Concluding questions

6. 1. Introduction: feminism and anthropology Some milestones: Edwin Ardener, ‘Belief and the Problem of Women’, 1972: highlighted the absence of women’s voices in ethnographic texts and challenged women anthropologists 1970s: a series of volumes addressing this question (e.g. Rosaldo and Lamphere (eds.), Women, Culture and Society, 1974; S. Ardener (ed.) Perceiving Women, 1975) plus ethnographic monographs (e.g. Strathern, Women in Between, 1972) 1980s: gender, conceived as a social construct, became the primary focus of interest… (cf. Henrietta Moore, Feminism and Anthropology, 1988) “The basis for the feminist critique is not the study of women, but the analysis of gender relations, and of gender as a structuring principle in all human societies” (Moore 1988: vii)

7. 2. The development of WID • The origins of WID, “Women in Development” • Of seminal importance = Ester Boserup’s Women’s Role in Economic Development (1970), a comparative analysis of women’s work : • Gender a basic factor in the division of labour • Women’s labour at home and on the farm generally under-reported • Analysed some of the reasons for regional differences (e.g. in different farming systems) • Related these to participation in off-farm employment and labour migration • Highlighted the negative impacts of colonialism and the penetration of capitalism • (see also Boserup in Tinker 1990) Boserup’s study put gender on the development agenda. Later criticised for its oversimplification of the nature of women’s work and roles (Beneria and Sen in Visvanathan 1997)

8. 2. The development of WID • The establishment of WID • WID perspective was developed by American liberal feminists. “WID” was the name of a women’s caucus formed by the Society for International Development (SID/WID); part of a deliberate strategy to bring gender issues to the attention of policy-makers • Important role also played by the UN Commission on the Status of Women (> UN Decade for Women 1976-85) (see Tinker 1990) • Emphasis on strategies that would minimize discrimination against women and their disadvantaged economic position. This approach was closely linked to and represented a modification of the modernisation paradigm: concern that the benefits of modernisation should be for women as well as men >The solutions to women’s problems were generally envisaged as “technological fixes” of one kind or another. Focus on the better integration of women into existing development initiatives. Typical WID projects were income-generating activities with social and welfare components added (cf. Moser’s (1989; 1993) refined typology of WID approaches: welfare, gender equality, anti-poverty, efficiency, and empowerment)

9. 3. Shortcomings of WID (and WAD) Criticism of WID By the mid-late 1970s it was becoming clear that women had often fared worse under modernisation and the development efforts of the past decade. WID focused on integration and advocacy for greater participation. It didn’t question why women’s position was often declining and what the sources and nature of women’s subordination and oppression were. It was often ahistorical and shared in many of the weaknesses of the modernisation paradigm. WID also tended to focus on women as producers and ignore or minimise their reproductive role.

10. 3. Shortcomings of WID (and WAD) WID and WAD One source of these criticisms was the emerging neo-Marxism of the time. Just as the modernisation paradigm was attacked by dependency theorists, so WID was criticised by neo-Marxist feminists espousing an approach sometimes referred to as WAD, “Women and Development” (Beneria and Sen 1982; Rathgeber 1990) Neo-Marxist feminists focused on analysing women’s subordination within the structures of international dependency and class inequality (e.g. Young et al. 1981; Maria Mies, Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale,1986) But their analyses and prescriptions shared in many of the shortcomings of WID. Given that both sexes are seen to be disadvantaged in neo-Marxist accounts, insufficient attention was paid to the special features of women’s situation, e.g. the role of ideology of patriarchy; the importance of the labour invested by women in household reproduction and maintenance (cf. Kabeer 1994). And there wasn’t much difference between WID and WAD-influenced development strategies, at least not as far a women were concerned. Both reflected Western biases and assumptions (cf. Barbara Rogers, The Domestication of Women, 1980)

11. 4. The development of GAD • The origins of GAD, “Gender and Development” • GAD emerged in the 1980s with roots in socialist feminism and feminist anthropology. • Focus on the social relations of gender, identifying the social construction of production and reproduction as the basis of women’s oppression. Combines an analysis of the impact of patriarchy with some aspects of a neo-Marxism: • How are women’s and men’s roles and expectations constructed and assigned? • Why are women systematically assigned inferior roles? How can they be empowered? • GENDER RELATIONS replace ‘WOMEN’ as the main category of analysis. Men are potential allies. e.g. Sen and Grown, Development Crises and Alternative Visions: Third World Women’s Perspectives, 1987: popularised the concept of empowerment

12. 4. The development of GAD • Kate Young, ‘Gender and Development’, 1992 (in Visvanathan et al. 1997): • overview of the differences between WID and GAD. These include: • GAD focuses on gender relations rather than women per se • GAD views women as active rather than passive agents of development, though they may be unaware of the roots of their subordination • GAD starts from a holistic perspective, the totality of social organisation, and economic and political life (vs a focus on particular aspects of women’s lives, e.g. economic production) • GAD stresses the need for women’s self-organisation to increase their political power within the economic system (vs WID which emphasises the formation of productive groups and access to cash income as group members or individuals) • GAD is less optimistic about the role of the market as a distributor of benefits to women but places equal emphasis on the role of the state in promoting women’s emancipation Is GAD gendered modernisation in socialist clothing?

13. 4. The development of GAD GAD in practice “The GAD approach does not easily lend itself to integration into ongoing development strategies and programs. It demands a degree of commitment to structural change and power shifts that is unlikely to be found either in national or international agencies” (Rathgeber 1990: 495) Rathgeber found that most projects for women still had their origins in the WID perspective. Has this changed? (cf. Rathgeber in Marchand and Parpart 1995; also Goetz 1997 on the gendering of development organisations)

14. 5. Shortcomings of GAD (and WID and WAD) Critiques from the South Some of the sharpest criticism of GAD and its precursors has come from women in the South, arguing that they reflect the preoccupations and assumptions of Western feminists. ‘Third World’ women are ‘homogenised’ and treated as ‘victims’ of their own cultures, negating their agency. These critics argue instead that their subordination is a consequence of colonial and post-colonial exploitation rather than the cultural construction of gender in their own societies (Sen and Grown 1987) These critiques from the South connect with postmodern analyses of WID and GAD discourse as a component of mainstream development discourse (e.g. Escobar 1995). But the relevance of postmodernist academic theorising is also questioned by some critics of GAD…

15. 6. Postmodernising GAD? • GAD and postmodern theory: • Jane Parpart and Marianne Marchand, introduction to Feminism / Postmodernism / Development(1995): • mixed reaction of feminists to postmodern theory: opposition of liberal and Marxist feminists • postmodern focus on difference coincided with growing pressure from third world and other women for recognition of their own voices vs. simplified representations of them and the essentialisation of “woman”: “The issue of colonial / neo-colonial discourse has thus far been the most immediate “link” between postmodern feminism and gender and development” (1995: 15)

16. 6. Postmodernising GAD? Parpart and Marchand 1995 (cont.): “While GAD proponents rarely challenge the goal of modernization / Westernization, some scholars believe the GAD perspective provides the possible (discursive) space to do so” (1995: 14), hence disagreement among contributors to the Marchand and Parpart collection Although P & M and some contributors recognise the importance of deconstructing development discourse (e.g. by challenging essentialist views of third world women), they seem reluctant to use postmodern theory to deconstruct GAD itself… See also Parpart 1995

17. 7. Consolidating GAD? • Ruth Pearson and Cecile Jackson, introduction to Feminist Visions of Development: Gender Analysis and Policy(1998): • book ‘interrogates development’ from the perspective of gender analysis, where ‘development’ means both development policy and social and economic change • applies GAD “in the context of development policy and practice in the 1990s, which has become infused with gender. Gender has become not only a desirable attribute but a development goal of agencies and policy-makers” (1998: 5) = a consolidation of GAD, with its roots in feminist anthropology and socialist feminism. Pearson and Jackson also point to the role of “feminism as deconstruction”, with the interrogation of development policy and analysis as only one possibility (1998: 12)

18. 7. Consolidating GAD? • Mainstreaming gender: • Since the mid-1980s focus on “mainstreaming” gender equity concerns in policy and policy-making institutions (Goetz 1997) • This is the subject of ongoing debate and intervention, e.g. Mandy Macdonald’s (2003) briefing on Gender Equality and Mainstreaming in the Policy and Practice of the UK Department for International Development Naila Kabeer’s (2003) “handbook for policy makers and other stakeholders” on Gender Mainstreaming in Poverty Eradication and the Millennium Development Goals see also Rai 2003

19. 8. Repoliticising GAD? Andrea Cornwall, Elizabeth Harrison and Ann Whitehead, introduction to Repositioning Feminisms in Gender and Development(IDS Bulletin 2004): “Gender” is now well established in development discourse… “But the extent of change in women’s lives does not match this discursive landslide. For many gender and development advocates, it appears that the more women and poverty are equated in development discourse, the more many women experience entrenched poverty; the more gender is mainstreamed, the less we find effective gender equality policies within key policy spaces and documents. Represented to technocrats and policy-makers in the form of tools, frameworks and mechanisms, “gender” appears as neutralised of political intent. Diluted, denatured, depoliticised, included everywhere as an afterthought, “gender” has become something everyone knows about that they are supposed to do something about. One bureaucrat summed it up: ‘when it comes to “gender”, everyone sighs’’ (2004: 1)

20. 8. Repoliticising GAD? • Andrea Cornwall et al. 2004 (cont.) • critical examination of GAD narratives, critiques of how gender has been understood and policies implemented, stemming from general disillusionment and frustration with the limited impacts of GAD and continued bureaucratic resistance • rather than becoming “an exercise in deconstructing the achievements of GAD”, this led to a “shared concern with repoliticising the project of feminist engagement with development” (2004: 2)

21. 8. Repoliticising GAD? e.g. Maxine Molyneux, ‘The chimera of success’: “…despite a widespread recognition in development agencies that “gender matters”, this all too often translates into the token, partial and selective incorporation of gender awareness into public/international policy, so evident in anti-poverty programmes” (2004: abstract) Anne Marie Goetz, ‘Reinvigorating autonomous feminist spaces’: Proposes external feminist support for “femocrats” and “feminist infiltration” inside development agencies, to combat current market-based development planning orthodoxies and ineffective “mainstreaming” based on these (2004: abstract)

22. 9. Concluding questions How different are WID, WAD and GAD? Is this a useful typology? Is WID still with us? How do WID, WAD and GAD relate to the modernisation paradigm and to neo-Marxist modes of analysis? To what extent has GAD been incorporated into mainstream policy and institutions? Has it been neutralised? Is this just business – and modernisation – as usual?