Saturday, June 13, 2015

Gender and Development


In order to better understand Gender in Development I will first examine what gender and gender equality are, who created these definitions and what systems in our world contribute to the gendering of humans. After doing so, I will delve into how gender fits into development, historically and up to present times. I will go into detail discussing the current status of gender in development work is today and lastly, I will share my learnings and suggestions on where development practitioners can go in the future.

Major actors in international development include but are not limited to The United Nations (UN), the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Bank and United States Agency for International Development (USAID). All four of these organizations acknowledge in their definition of gender that it is a learned social construct associated to being male or female which can be changed (UN Women, 2011; WHO, 2015; World Bank, 2015; USAID, 2013). As the UN states, “In most societies there are differences and inequalities between women and men in responsibilities assigned, activities undertaken, access to and control over resources, as well as decision-making opportunities” (UN Women, 2001, p. 1). Gender has socially constructed characteristics of both women and men – such as norms, roles and relationships of and between groups of women and men and therefore affects both sexes and varies from context to context. In accordance with the aforementioned organizations and their definitions of gender, I will proceed using that as a basis for my definition of gender.

Often times in development work one will find gender conjoined with gender equality, the latter of which implies that there is an absence of discrimination based on the individuals’ gender with equal access and allocation of resources, services, opportunities, etc (USAID, 2013). A common fallacy is the equating of gender to women but on the contrary, it is necessary to recognize that gender and gender equality are “not women’s issues but should concern and fully engage men as well as women” (UN Women, 2011). Because gender is socially constructed, can be taught and therefore unlearned, it is vital that both men and women work together in this respect. Although there is widespread discrimination of women and girls around the world which ultimately leads to socio-economic and political disenfranchisement, men are also negatively impacted by gender norms and gender inequality.

The general approach development that dominated the field for decades viewed women as passive objects of concern and excluded them from project implementation. Often times this further marginalized them in their society. It wasn’t until the 1970s when the “women in development“ (WID) approach was first articulated opening up a space for women to be engaged in the discourse and practice of development. The WID agenda was to “ensure that the benefits of modernization accrued to women as well as men” (Rai, 2011, p. 29). However, this approach was critiqued and fell short in many aspects as it did not address the structural and societal processes that lead to inequality, injustice and hierarchy based on sexual differences and instead put women into said existing gender regimes (Cornwall, 2014).

A product of this critique was the “gender and development” (GAD) approach focusing it’s concern on transforming the patriarchal social structures which perpetuate the unfair and unequal oppression and marginalization of women. Ann Whitehead drew attention to the prevalent practices of women’s subordination worldwide in 1979 noting that “it is rare to find any social situation in which women do not experience some of the limiting or downright oppressive dimensions of gender” (Cornwall, 2014, p. 128). Around this same time, gender began to come more important in development work with the emergence of gender analysis and gender mainstreaming (Rai, 2011).

Again, this school of thought was vulnerable to many critiques. For example, Western feminist discourse became preoccupied with othering and homogenizing “the average third world woman” (Mohanty, 1984). Ultimately, this lead to an inability to recognize the multiple dimensions of a women’s identity and other forms/reasons for discrimination (Cornwall, 2014).

Postcolonialists voiced most of these critiques in the 1990s and wanted to create a de-colonized and holistic approach to gender in development. Postcolonialist rejected the notion of a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach and wanted to radically reconstruct history and knowledge production by giving a voice to those are who are marginalized and dominated (McEwan, 2001). During this time, several feminist activists from the majority world also spoke about women’s exclusion from socio-economic and political opportunities (Cornwell, 2014) and began to design an approach focusing on building women’s capacity to demand rights, recognition for their work and collectively mobilize productively. This shifted the focus from gender back to women in the early 2000’s.

Following suite was a series of axioms which caught the attention of policy makers and major actors in international development, neither of which were truly interested in tackling the oppressive systems that continued to tyrannize women. These axioms provided “a narrative that situated women as more deserving of assistance and as more useful to the development enterprise than men” (Cornwell, 2014, p. 129) and allowed for vast generalizations to become the norm and blanket “women empowerment” programs led by NGOs and IGOs to take shape.

Soon it became evident that gender equality was displaced with empowerment and the means were colonial uplift and rescue projects. These programs often excluded men and boys who are obviously necessary catalysts for change. Predictably, the next phase was to involve of boys and men while changing the axioms that depicted them as evil and an obstacle to girls and women’s empowerment. 

Programs prioritizing the engagement of men sprouted up and focused on working to alter notions of masculinity, improving the quality of men’s relationships (as fathers, lovers, husbands, etc). This approach brings us to our current situation of gender in development work as many of these programs are still being implemented today, however, not without feminist critique.

Feminist scholars noted that this particular method allows men to totally ignore male privilege and all of its manifestations and the vested interest men have in resisting change. Additionally, they felt these programs were taking away from the already minute development funds for women. The last critique and one that I can personally attest to is the complaint that there is a “ lack of interest, engagement, and solidarity among those working on and with men for broader struggles for gender justice” (Cornwell, 2014, p. 134). At SIT, there were several men who claimed to advocate gender equality yet were noticeably silent on issues of injustice and at times, possibly unknowingly, participating in the preservation of patriarchal practices and unfair treatment of women.

Now that we have reviewed what has been done in the past and what current trends of gender in development work are, I would like to make a few suggestions for strategies moving forward. First and foremost I think that we need to acknowledge women’s “informal” occupations as productive work. At the same time we need to move away from gendering systems that dichotomize/polarize male and female and introduce gender as a spectrum. Men need to be schooled on their privilege and how to reform their behavior. Both men and women need to be moved from the state of “magical thinking” to “critical consciousness” according to Paulo Friere (1973).

We need to remove ourselves from the boxes that binaries such as “empowering women and girls” and “engaging men and boys” put us in and imagine a world in which we, “stop defining each other by what we are not, and start defining ourselves by who we are” (Watson, 2014). It is obvious that one need not be female to be aware of and/or witness oppressive structures and do something about it. It is also fact that it is not only women who experience the negative effects of the gender regimes of the societies we live in.



Works Cited

Cornwall, A. (2014). Taking off International Development's Straightjacket of Gender.
Brown Journal Of World Affairs, 21(1), 127-139.

McEwan, C. (2001). Postcolonialism, feminism and development: intersections and
dilemmas. Progress In Development Studies, 1(2), 93-111.

Mohanty, C. (1984). Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses.
The Discourse of Humanism, 12(3), 333-358.

Freire, P. (1973). Education for Critical Consciousness. New York: Continuum International
Publishing Group Inc.

Rai, S. (2011). Gender and development : theoretical perspectives. In Visvanathan, N.,
Duggan, L., Wiegersma, N., & Nisonoff, L. (Eds.), The Women, Gender and
Development Reader (pp. 28–37). Halifax: Fernwood Pub.

UN WOMEN. 2011. Gender Mainstreaming: Concepts and Definitions. Retrieved from

USAID. 2013. Gender Equality at USAID: Glossary. Retrieved from

Watson E.  (2014). Speech: “Gender Equality is Your Issue Too.” UN Women. September 20,
2014

WHO. 2015. Gender, equity and human rights: Gender. Retrieved from 

World Bank. 2015. Gender and Development: A Trainers Manuel. Retrieved from

No comments:

Post a Comment