Gender and development: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 14:12, 19 September 2023

Revision as of 18:48, 23 September 2023

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'''Criticism'''

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 report |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|author=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>

===Women and development (WAD)===

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===Gender and neoliberal development institutions===

Neoliberalism consists of policies that will privatize public industry, deregulate any laws or policies that interfere with the free flow of the market and cut back on all social services. These policies were often introduced to many low-income countries through structural adjustment programs (SAPs) by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).<ref>{{cite book|title=Gender, Development, and Globalization:Economics as if All People Mattered.|last1=Beneria|first1=Lourdes|last2=Berik|first2=Gunseli|last3=Floro|first3=Maria S|publisher=Routledge|year=2016|isbn=978-0-415-53748-3|___location=New York|pages=95}}</ref> Neoliberalism was cemented as the dominant global policy framework in the 1980s and 1990s.<ref name=":02"/> Among development institutions, gender issues have increasingly become part of economic development agendas, as the examples of the [[World Bank]] shows. Awareness by international organizations of the need to address gender issues evolved over the past decades. The World Bank, and regional development banks, donor agencies, and government ministries have provided many examples of instrumental arguments for gender equality, for instance by emphasizing the importance of women's education as a way of increasing productivity in the household and the market. Their concerns have often focused on women's contributions to economic growth rather than the importance of women's education as a means for empowering women and enhancing their capabilities.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Benería |first1=Lourdes |last2=Günseli |first2=Berik |last3=Floro |first3=Maria S. |title=Gender, Development, and Globalization: Economics As If All People Mattered |date=2016 |publisher=Routledge |edition= 2}}</ref> The World Bank, for example, started focusing on gender in 1977 with the appointment of a first Women in Development Adviser.<ref name="WB Gender">{{cite web |url= http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/gender/overview |title=World Bank Gender Overview |date=3 May 2013 |website=World Bank |publisher=World Bank |access-date=5 November 2013}}</ref> In 1984 the bank mandated that its programs consider women's issues. In 1994 the bank issued a policy paper on Gender and Development, reflecting current thinking on the subject. This policy aims to address policy and institutional constraints that maintain disparities between the genders and thus limit the effectiveness of development program.<ref name="WB2010" /> Thirty years after the appointment of a first Women in Development Adviser, a so-called Gender Action Plan was launched to underline the importance of the topic within development strategies and to introduce the new [[gender and development#Smart economics|Smart Economics]] strategy.

Gender mainstreaming mandated by the 1995 Beijing Platform for action integrates gender in all aspects of individuals lives in regards to policy development on gender equality.<ref name="WB2010">World Bank. An Evaluation of World Bank Support, 2002-08: Gender and Development. Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 2010. IEG Study Ser. Web.</ref> The World Bank's Gender Action Plan of 2007-10 is built upon the Bank's gender mainstreaming strategy for gender equality. The Gender Action Plan's objective was advance women's economic empowerment through their participation in land, labor, financial and product markets.<ref>World Bank. "Gender Equality as Smart Economics: A World Bank Group Gender Action Plan (Fiscal Years 2007-10)." IDEAS Working Paper Series from RePEc (2006): IDEAS Working Paper Series from RePEc, 2006. Web.</ref> In 2012, the [[World Development Report]] was the first report of the series examining Gender Equality and Development.<ref name="WB Gender"/> [[Florika Fink-Hooijer]], head of the [[European Commission]]'s [[Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations]] introduced cash-based aid as well as gender and age sensitive aid.<ref>Fink-Hooijer, Florika (2014-01-01). "7 The EU's Competence in the Field of Civil Protection (Article 196, Paragraph 1, a–c TFEU)". ''EU Management of Global Emergencies'': 137–145. [[Doi (identifier)|doi]]:10.1163/9789004268333_009.</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Boin|first=Arjen|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/854975218|title=The European Union as crisis manager : patterns and prospects|date=2013|others=Magnus Ekengren, Mark Rhinard|isbn=978-1-4619-3669-5|___location=Cambridge|oclc=854975218}}</ref>