The WID movement faced a number of criticisms; such an approach had in some cases the unwanted consequence of depicting women as a unit whose claims are conditional on its productive value, associating increased female status with the value of cash income in women's lives.<ref name="Razavi1995pi">{{cite journal |last1=Razavi |first1=Shahrashoub |last2=Miller |first2=Carol |year=1995 |title=From WID to GAD: Conceptual shifts in the Women and Development discourse |url=http://unrisd.org/unrisd/website/document.nsf/ab82a6805797760f80256b4f005da1ab/d9c3fca78d3db32e80256b67005b6ab5/$FILE/opb1.pdf |journal=United Nations Research Institute Occasional Paper Series |publisher=United Nations Research Institute for Social Development |volume=1 |page=i |access-date=22 November 2013|hdl=10419/148819 |hdl-access=free }}</ref> The WID view and similar classifications based on Western feminism, applied a general definition to the status, experiences and contributions of women and the solutions for women in Third World countries.<ref>{{cite book|title=Producing women and progress in Zimbabwe : narratives of identity and work from the 1980s|last=1949-|firstauthor=Sylvester, Christine|date=2000|publisher=Heinemann|isbn=978-0325000701|___location=Portsmouth, NH|oclc=41445662}}</ref> Furthermore, the WID, although it advocated for greater [[gender equality]], did not tackle the unequal gender relations and roles at the basis of women's exclusion and gender subordination rather than addressing the stereotyped expectations entertained by men.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://unsdsn.org/files/2013/05/130520-Women-Economic-Development-Paper-for-HLP.pdf |title=Women's role in economic development: Overcoming the constraints |last1=Bradshaw |first1=Sarah |date=May 2013 |website=UNSDSN |publisher=UNSDSN |access-date=22 November 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131203003717/http://unsdsn.org/files/2013/05/130520-Women-Economic-Development-Paper-for-HLP.pdf |archive-date=3 December 2013 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Moreover, the underlying assumption behind the call for the integration of the [[Third World]] women with their national economy was that women were not already participating in development, thus downplaying women's roles in household production and informal economic and political activities.<ref name="Koczberski1998">{{cite journal |last=Koczberski |first=Sarah |year=1998 |title=Women In Development: A Critical Analysis |journal=Third World Quarterly |volume=19 |issue=3 |page=399 |doi=10.1080/01436599814316|hdl=20.500.11937/14444 |hdl-access=free }}</ref> The WID was also criticized for its views on the fact that women's status will improve by moving into “productive employment”, implying that the move to the “modern sector” need to be made from the “traditional” sector to achieve self-advancement, further implying that “traditional” work roles often occupied by women in the developing world were inhibiting to self-development.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Koczberski |first=Sarah |year=1998 |title=Women In Development: A Critical Analysis |journal=Third World Quarterly |volume=19 |issue=3 |page=400 |doi=10.1080/01436599814316|hdl=20.500.11937/14444 |url=https://espace.curtin.edu.au/bitstream/20.500.11937/14444/2/19189_downloaded_stream_281.pdf |hdl-access=free }}</ref>
