Why gender a development issue?

Gender issue dominates the 21 st century discourse both in the developed world and in the developing countries. It is a top priority of United Nation policy and World Bank commitment to invest on any programmes that guarantee full participation of women. Gender inequality or discrimination has been blamed on the steady increase on poverty, unemployment and other related issues. It is by no means a Western concept aimed at liberating women from perceived discrimination. Gender equality is perceived as a meaningful guarantor of development. However, academic query on this important issue left some gap to be filled on the irony of gender equality. What does the concept stand for, where is it coming from, what is the motive of gender equality, does it really guarantee women freedom without subjecting them to forms of exploitation and dehumanization? This piece is critical in answering these questions and in accessing the economic development agenda behind the campaign on gender equality. In order to achieve this, Marxist position is utilized, while upholding Structural functionalist theory to maintain the status quo and with certain modification and improvement on the condition of women. However, the study indicted capitalist economic system as the major causes of gender inequality.

2006

Journal of Social Sciences, 2015

Within the gender-development discourse, there have been widespread concerns in relation to the neglect of women in benefitting from the process and outcomes of development. This has led in part to the proliferation of policy programming designed for women to achieve gender equality while ensuring that women benefit proportionally from development. However the extent to which gender-based interventions will succeed in relation to their aims will depend inter alia on how such programmes view other members (men) of the household. This paper critically examines the consequences of men's omission from gender-development theory and practice. We draw our discussion on the theoretical and empirical literature by focusing on two gender-based programmes i.e., microfinance schemes and HIV/AIDs interventions that have been implemented widely across the developing world with the aim of transforming gender relations and addressing gender subordination. We argue that in isolating men from gender based development programmes, interventions may fail to tackle the root causes of women's subordinate position in society. Central to our argument lies the fact that women's lives are embedded within the wider sociocultural dynamics and power structures and thus the lack of critical assessment of these elements may act as potential constraining factors hindering the success of these programmes. Besides, though it is undisputed that women have been underprivileged, the insipient emergence of "men in crisis" in development discourse may suggest that policies have not benefited all men either. The paper concludes with recommendations in improving the design of gender based programmes in efforts towards addressing the plight of women.

… 2007 conference on Gender and Food Security …, 2007

This paper reviews economics literature on the relationship between gender equality and economic development. Stylized facts indicate that women' s roles are, although restricted, in the midst of quite dramatic change, both in developing and in developed countries. Results of both empirical and theoretical research, explanatory models and studies exploring both forces that challenge and those that facilitate greater equality are presented. The literature covers issues in gender inequality and economic development as they relate to: values and religion, cultural restrictions and roles, legal and inheritance laws and practices, education of girls, resource allocation within marriage patterns, labor market access, education, fertility, gender specific market failures in finance, and power in the political decision making. We suggest that the findings in the literature are compatible with the long term trends in women' s roles in western countries that stem from technological improvement, as industrialization has made extensive home-based production obsolete, and reduced the demand for children. In this case, greater gender equality would be rather a consequence than a cause of development. However, gender equality does not seem to follow automatically from development, but there is a need for active policies.

School of Human studies B. R. Ambedkar University Delhi Man and woman are a peerless pair; being supplementary to one another; each helps the other, so that without the one, the existence of the other cannot be conceived and, therefore, it follows that anything that impairs the status of either of them will involve the equal ruin of them both.

Man and woman are a peerless pair; being supplementary to one another; each helps the other, so that without the one, the existence of the other cannot be conceived and, therefore, it follows that anything that impairs the status of either of them will involve the equal ruin of them both.

Development, 2010

highlights the most interesting and contentious issues to emerge during a conversation held among 25 people from key women's networks, UN agencies, research institutions and think tanks at the 54th Commission of the Status of Women (CSW) in New York March 2010. (1) Using charterhouse rules, the dialogue was an attempt to hold a new kind of conversation in the CSW space. The participants candidly held up to scrutiny the key concepts of gender and empowerment in the context of the new development institutions.

2018

The discourse on development has traditionally constructed women as beneficiaries and not as key players in creating an equitable society. The deep rooted patriarchal structures coupled with the hegemonic tendencies of the neo liberal state have further pushed them to the margins. However, women constitute half of the humanity and any discursive space would offer only a partial account of progress if it fails to take note of their vast potential. It is imperative, therefore, that any development agenda must evolve a nuanced approach that factors in the differentials – whether it be caste, class, race, sexuality and religion or a combination of all three. The writings in this book cover a wide spectrum of issues from a gendered perspective, critically scrutinizing existing policies and attempting to signal towards the alternative models. Among the themes discussed are: • Deconstructing development from a gendered perspective :Ideological debates • The discourse on rights and resisting inequalities • Reviewing and recasting initiatives: Policies and programmes • Women and media • Viewing women as beneficiaries or determinants? With its interdisciplinary character related to the development discourse in the context of women, this collection of papers will be of great interest to sociologists, historians, political scientists, educationists, home scientists, and those interested in gender studies and policy making.

The pre-World War II period saw flourishing movements of various forms of feminism; however, the nexus between (economic) development and women was not clearly articulated until the second half of the 20th century. Women first came into focus in development as objects of welfare policies, including birth control, nutrition, pregnancy, and so forth. [1] "In 1962 the UN General Assembly asked the Commission on Women's Status to prepare a report on the role of women in development. Ester Boserup's path breaking study on Women's Role in Economic Development was published in 1970." [2] These events marked monumental moments in developing liberal paradigm of women in development, and the welfarist approach still remains dominant in development practices today. This article scrutinizes various approaches in gender and development, but primarily covers the dominant liberal approaches starting from WID,