Gender and development: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 13:47, 1 December 2013

Revision as of 01:08, 2 December 2013

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As with the WID-based [[Harvard Analytical Framework]], it includes collection of quantitative empirical facts. Going further, it investigates the reasons and processes that lead to conventions of access and control.

The Moser Framework includes gender roles identification, gender needs assessment, disaggregating control of resources and decision making withn the household, planning for balancing the triple role, distinguishing between different aims in interventions and involving women and gender-aware organizations in planning.{{sfn|Van Marle|2006|pp=126}}

==Neoliberal approaches==

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===Gender and neoliberal development institutions===

Among development institutions, gender issues have increasingly become part of economic development agendas, as the examples of the [[World Bank]] shows. The World Bank started focusing on gender in 1977 with the appointment of a first Women in Development Advisor.<ref name="WB Gender">{{cite web |url= http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/gender/overview |title=World Bank Gender Overview |author= |date=033 May 2013 |website=World Bank |publisher=World Bank |accessdate=055 November 2013}}</ref>. Thirty years later, a [[Gender Action Plan]] was launched to underline the importance of the topic within development strategies. In 2012, the [[World Development Report]] was the first report of the series examining Gender Equality and Development.<ref name="WB Gender">{{cite web |url= http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/gender/overview |title=World Bank Gender Overview |author= |date=033 May 2013 |website=World Bank |publisher=World Bank |accessdate=055 November 2013}}</ref>.

Women have been identified by some development institutions as a key to successful development, for example through financial inclusion. One example is the [[Women’s Development Business]] (WDB) in South Africa, a [[Grameen Bank]] microfinance replicator. According to WDB, the goal is to ensure “[…] that rural women are given the tools to free themselves from the chains of poverty […]” through allocation of financial resources directly to women including enterprise development programs.<ref name="WDB">{{cite web |url= http://wdb.co.za/about/#.UpUPR-KmZRc |title=WDB about page |author= |dateyear= 2013 |website=Women’s Development Business |publisher=WDB |accessdate=28 November 2013}}</ref>. The idea is to use microfinance as a market-oriented tool to ensure access to financial services for disadvantaged and low-income people and therefore fostering economic development through [[financial inclusion]].

As a reaction, a current topic in the feminist literature on economic development is the ‘gendering’ of [[microfinance]], as women have increasingly become the target borrowers for rural [[microcredit]] lending. This, in turn, creates the assumption of a “rational economic woman” which can exacerbate existing social hierarchies<ref name="Rankin2001">{{cite journal |last=Rankin |first=Katharine N. |dateyear=2001 |title= Governing Development: Neoliberalism, Microcredit, and Rational Economic Woman |url= http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/apcity/unpan011685.pdf |journal= Economy and Society |publisher=Fondation Maison des sciences de l'homme |volume=30 |pages=20 |accessdate=022 November 2013}}</ref>).

Therefore, the critique is that the assumption of economic development through microfinance does not take into account all possible outcomes, especially the ones affecting women.

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===Response to neoliberal approaches in gender and feminist literature===

The [[global financial crisis]] and the following politics of austerity have opened up a wide range of gender and feminist debates on neoliberalism and the impact of the crisis on women. One view is that the crisis has affected women disproportionately and that there is a need for alternative economic structures in which investment is social reproduction needs to be given more weight.<ref>{{cite web |url= https://soundcloud.com/genderconfyork/elson-and-pearson-keynote |title=Keynote of Diane Elson and Ruth Pearson at the Gender, Neoliberalism and Financial Crisis Conference at the University of York |last1=Elson |first1=Diane |last2=Pearson |first2=Ruth |date=27 September 2013 |website=Soundcloud |accessdate=27 November 2013}}</ref>.

There are different views among feminists on whether neoliberal economic policies have more positive or negative impacts on women. In the post-war era, feminist scholars such as Elizabeth Wilson<ref name="Wilson1977">{{cite book |author=Elizabeth Wilson |title= Women and the Welfare State |url= http://www.amazon.com/Women-Welfare-State-Routledge-1977/dp/B00DHPQZPO |publisher=Routledge}}</ref> criticized [[state capitalism]] and the [[welfare state]] as a tool to oppress women. Therefore, neoliberal economic policies featuring [[privatization]] and [[deregulation]], hence a reduction of the influence of the state and more individual freedom was argued to improve conditions for women. This anti-welfare state thinking arguably led to feminist support for neoliberal ideas embarking on a [[macroeconomic policy]] level deregulation and a reduced role of the state.

Therefore, some scholars in the field argue that [[feminism]], especially during its [[second wave]], has contributed key ideas to Neoliberalism that, according to these authors, creates new forms of inequality and exploitation.<ref name="Fraser2012">{{cite web |last=Fraser |first=Nancy |dateyear=2012 |title= Feminism, Capitalism, and the Cunning of History |url= http://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/72/50/55/PDF/FMSH-WP-2012-17_Fraser1.pdf |journal=Working paper |publisher=Fondation Maison des sciences de l'homme |pages=14 |accessdate=022 November 2013}}</ref>.

As a reaction to the phenomenon that some forms of feminism are increasingly interwoven with capitalism, many suggestions on how to name these movements have emerged in the feminist literature. Examples are ‘free market feminism’ <ref name="Eisenstein2009">{{cite book |last=Eisenstein |first=Hester |dateyear=2009 |title= Feminism Seduced: How Global Elites Use Women’s Labor and Ideas to Exploit the World |url= http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/feminism-seduced-hester-eisenstein/1101405471?ean=9781594516597&itm=1&usri=9781594516597 |___location=Boulder |publisher= Paradigm Publishers |isbn= 1594516596 |accessdate=25 November 2013 }}</ref> or even ‘faux-feminism’.<ref name="McRobbie2009">{{cite book |last=McRobbie |first=Angela |dateyear=2009 |title= The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and Social Change |url= http://product.half.ebay.com/The-Aftermath-of-Feminism-Gender-Culture-and-Social-Change-by-Angela-McRobbie-2008-Paperback/2879527&cpid=1169202753 |___location=London |publisher= Sage |isbn= 0761970622 |accessdate=25 November 2013 }}</ref>.

==Usage==

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==Notes==

{{Ibid|date=November 2013}}

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==References==

{{Ibid|date=November 2013}}

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