The Women, Gender and Development Reader

Nalini Visvanathan, Lynn Duggan, Nan Wiegersma, Laurie Nisonoff, Nalini Visvanathan, Lynn Duggan, Nan Wiegersma, Laurie Nisonoff

• Publisher: Zed Books
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781780321387
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Gender Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

The Women, Gender and Development Reader is the definitive volume of literature dedicated to women in the development process. Now in a fully revised second edition, the editors expertly present the impacts of social, political and economic change by reviewing such topical issues as migration, persistent structural discrimination, the global recession, and climate change. Approached from a multidisciplinary perspective, the theoretical debates are vividly illustrated by an array of global case studies. This now classic book, has been designed as a comprehensive reader, presenting the best of the now vast body of literature. The book is divided into five parts, incorporating readings from the leading experts and authorities in each field. The result is a unique and extensive discussion, a guide to the evolution of the field, and a vital point of reference for those studying or with a keen interest in women in the development process.

PART ONE

History of international development; theories and discourse of women, gender and development

Introduction to Part One

Nalini Visvanathan

This introduction discusses significant historical events in the development arena since the mid-1990s, and links the narrative to the readings given in this section. While changes in the development establishment, mainly financial and multilateral institutions, are covered here, accounts of women’s movements and organized responses to continuing gender inequities are found in an expanded Part 5. The sections that follow the history subsection address three major categories in development: Theories, Practice and Discourse. The last category presents an unconventional critique of development theory and practice.

A: Historical background

International development,¹ as an area of intellectual inquiry, can be traced to the 1950s and the post-World War II period of reconstruction. The success of the United States Marshall Plan convinced Western and Western-trained economic planners that aid-based strategic planning would enable developing countries to bridge the gap that separated them from the industrialized world.² High-income nations channeled monetary and technical aid through United Nations (UN) agencies, based on the theory that this aid would foster growth that would trickle down to the masses. This trickle-down approach to economic planning contributed to the failure of the development work in the first UN Development Decade (1961–70).³ (See Rai, Ch. 1.)

Economic development (growth) is only one aspect of the human security and progress needed to lift the majority of the world’s population out of poverty; however, it is external aid that often helps highlight and address deficits in national spending on health, education and vulnerable groups. The recent milestones covered here provide context for readings and references.

Reforming aid architecture From the setting up of the Bretton Woods institutions, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Bank for Reconstruction (IBRD) (World Bank), the United States took leadership of the international financial system and assumed a dominant role in decision-making within the international financial institutions (IFIs) for the first fifty years. The impact of the oil crisis (1973) and the restructuring of national economies in an interdependent world economy created national financial crises in Mexico, Russia and East Asian countries with consequences far beyond their borders (see Ghosh, Ch. 2). Initially the IFIs viewed these crises as instances of individual state failures that could be set right by stringent prescriptions. However, the Asian crisis commencing in 1998 moved the singular country focus to a regional stage and precipitated a reformation of the international financial system. The year 1999 marked a milestone in the evolution of international political and financial governance, when IFIs introduced reforms for strengthening transparency and regulation (Germain 2002). The Group of 20 was constituted to include the emerging high-growth economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) to assume greater responsibility in crisis prevention. Despite these changes critics see little done to dispel the selectiveness of the club or its accountability to the majority of the countries.⁴

Emerging economies as donors A longstanding history of South-to-South Cooperation (SSC) is being reshaped by new donors China, India and Brazil, accounting for almost 10 percent of aid flowing to developing countries in 2006 (ODI 2010). China’s aid, which topped two billion dollars that year, is widely spread over the African continent. Brazil follows India, with one billion dollars in aid, and targets mainly lusophone countries. All three countries still receive aid and appear to follow in Japan’s path from recipient to donor nation.

World Bank and global governance Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) initiated in the 1980s for fiscal discipline undermined social and economic development and imposed severe hardships on the most vulnerable groups; responding to their critics, the IMF and the World Bank replaced conditionality-tied loans for Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs) with a broader strategy ostensibly promoting poverty reduction through greater self-governance. Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) enjoin participatory consultation processes and were designed as strategic interventions for the HIPCs to bring transparency and accountability in highlighting neglected issues and marginalized groups. However, initial evaluation showed little evidence of women’s participation and limited attention to the root causes of gender disparities.⁵ A recent evaluation indicated that women, indigenous populations and the role of gender status in discriminatory practices and relations are being overlooked.⁶ Feminist critics of PRSPs underscore the gap between the Bank’s rhetoric and women’s reality; others view it as a tool that enables the IMF to dictate macroeconomic policy and the World Bank to align social and structural policies to that framework (Cammack 2002: 45).

Aid effectiveness Fostering partnerships between agencies and groups in the North and their counterparts in the South has now become a priority for donors. The High Level Forum on Harmonization convened in 2003 initiated the first efforts to harmonize funding activities aiming for a paradigmatic change in the relations between donors and recipients. In 2005, the Paris Declaration on AID Effectiveness was endorsed by countries around the world.⁷ The Third High Level Forum, in Accra, Ghana (2008), through the Accra Agenda for Action (AAA), committed countries to the five principles of aid effectiveness: ownership; alignment; harmonization; managing for development; and mutual accountability.

Millennium Development Goals At the 2000 Millennium Summit, a gathering of world leaders signed a commitment that generated the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to be met by 2015.⁸ At the summit in September 2010, a UN report stressed that many nations have made both absolute progress as well as progress relative to MDG goals.⁹ Three goals focus on women and girls and include gender equality and women’s health. The MDGs represent an unprecedented effort to mobilize the world community to recognize the urgency of eradicating poverty and its related issues.

United Nations Agency for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women As we complete work on the reader, the United Nations has announced the creation of a new agency for women that consolidates the work of four longstanding UN agencies working on different aspects of women’s development.¹⁰ The 1995 Beijing Platform of Action calling for Women’s Equality is in effect the agenda for the new agency, which opens next year.

Global crisis The 2008 global financial crisis has deepened across the world, undermining economic and food security, destroying livelihoods in urban and rural areas, and affecting particularly women workers.¹¹

It exacerbates the triple crisis in climate, food and energy that activists had long exposed (Shiva 2008). Financial crises have multiplied during this period of neoliberal globalization, sometimes threatening the foundations of state and society as was the case in Argentina in 2001; the IMF has tallied 158 financial crises between 1975 and 1997 (Young 2003: 103). Governments are responding with social provisioning strategies such as cash transfers and legislative actions like India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) as we await the emergence of a more just and equitable order for women.

Readings In Chapter 1 Shirin Rai’s historical overview encompasses the role of the newly emerging post-colonial states, their elite leaders and their vision for national development. Her account frames political events and economic processes that joined visionary leaders and their liberated people in a quest for material and human progress, rendering a rich contextual introduction to the development project.

In Chapter 2, Jayati Ghosh provides a concise overview of the history of financial crises during the last few decades, the conditions that precipitate them and their impact on countries in the global South. Her essay discusses the ramifications of a financial crisis brought about by a dominant neoliberal growth model and emphasizes the gendered nature of the detrimental impact, particularly for women, drawing on historical experiences and the current economic situation.

B: Theories

In 1997, an exposition of the radical political economy approach was critical in distinguishing progressive philosophy from the capitalist paradigm and elucidating the polarized ideologies that shaped the preceding decades. This edition of the reader is broadly grounded in feminist political economy (FPE) and variants from discipline-specific theorizing.¹² Riley (2008) clarifies and defines FPE: ‘Feminist political economy is one among several heterodox economics that challenge the reigning orthodox neo-liberal economic model which emphasizes the market economy with growth and accumulation as its primary goals. FPE, in contrast, focuses on the provisioning of human needs and human well-being.’¹³ She underscores the stress placed on gendered analysis in FPE frames.

In their introduction to a special issue of Signs dedicated to feminist political economy, Bedford and Rai (2010) decry the continuing absence of gendered concerns within mainstream international political economy. They underscore a critical feminist analysis of systems of production and exchange and also examine gendered governance, the neglect of women’s role in social reproduction and the dominance of normative heterosexuality even within feminist political economy discourse and debate.

The concept of social reproduction has evolved from its early interpretation, as biological reproduction and household work for reproducing and sustaining the labor force, found in multidisciplinary historical Marxist feminist theorizing.¹⁴ Folbre (2001) broadens the theoretical frame for ‘Care,’ to include ‘reproduction’ work services provided in the market (private) and by the state (public). Razavi’s (2007) ‘care diamond,’ which builds on this view, depicts the four providers of Care as the family, community, market and state. Feminist scholars (Truong et al. 2006) see the growing complexity of caring labor and recognize it as a manifestation of social relation with grounding in ‘ethical and political practice.’

The migration of healthcare workers from South to North has created critical shortages in countries of sub-Saharan Africa and spotlighted the care economy. Whether in local and national settings or in the care chains binding the global economy of the two hemispheres, care workers are predominantly women, vulnerable to sexual and labor exploitation (see Part 3). Lately, changing conditions of care workers in low-income countries, where they are concentrated, are being highlighted¹⁵ and particularly within areas of the AIDS epidemic where family caregivers are the care workers (see Part 4). In many spheres feminist scholars are re-examining social reproduction as a critical area for making progress in gender justice (Bakker and Gill 2003).

Readings Chapter 3 provides a comprehensive overview of the principal theories and frameworks that guide research and practice in the field of women, gender and development. Going beyond the political bifurcation in the theoretical domain during the Cold War period, Rai examines the emergence of critical theories and methodologies that enable progressive feminist theorizing and analyses.

Chapter 4 presents a short extract from Ester Boserup’s Women’s Role in Economic Development, which is said to have launched the subfield of women and development within development studies. The classic text is exemplified by her discussion of male and female farming systems, a widely recognized aspect of her pioneering work.¹⁶

Chapter 5 is an excerpt from Nancy Folbre’s ‘The invisible heart: care and the global economy’ that explicates the concept of care as social reproduction and links it to the formal economy. Her lucid exposition of the concept is central to understanding how much of the labor produced by the world’s women remains undervalued and largely uncounted.

Chapter 6 on feminist political ecology traces the fluid transformations that characterize the sustainable development arena when feminist environmentalist activists, scholars and writers steer a progressive path. Reacting to the mainstreaming of this concept after its universal acceptance in the 1990s, feminists in the South and the North have engendered an inclusive vision that encompasses those at the margins and those who are customarily excluded.

C: Practice

Tinker (1990) documents the major role that advocates and practitioners played, no less than scholars, in launching the women and development field and determining its course. The distinction between these groups is blurred when women and men practitioners, within institutions of development, seize strategic moments to address male bias in policymaking (Miller and Razavi 1998). The movement for gender equality gained momentum at the 1995 Fourth UN World Conference on Women at Beijing, and placed women’s rights on the agenda for action. Since then, gender mainstreaming within the UN, the IFIs and other agencies overseeing development has gained little ground in changing deeply embedded cultural mores (see Chapter 9). This subsection highlights three major themes that have engaged practitioners in recent years: empowerment; gender equality; and violence against women.

A UN survey links gender inequalities to women’s lack of resources and the consequent implications for them.¹⁷ Among its recommendations for women’s economic e...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• About the editors
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Tables and boxes
• Introductory note
• Acknowledgements
• Sources
• PART ONE
• PART TWO
• PART THREE
• PART FOUR
• PART FIVE
• Notes
• References
• Index
• About Zed Books