WID WAD GAD Theoretical Debates and Issues Theoretical

WID, WAD, GAD: Theoretical Debates and Issues

Theoretical Framework • WID liberal Feminists (a school of thought ) • WAD Marxist feminists • GAD Socialist Feminists • WED - Ecofeminists

Theoretical basis of Women in Development (WID)

Some milestones: Edwin Ardener, ‘Belief and the Problem of Women’, 1972: highlighted the absence of women’s voices in ethnographic texts and challenged women anthropologists 1970 s: a series of volumes addressing this question (e. g. Rosaldo and Lamphere (eds. ), Women, Culture and Society, 1974; S. Ardener (ed. ) Perceiving Women, 1975) plus ethnographi monographs (e. g. Strathern, Women in Between, 1972) 1980 s: gender, conceived as a social construct, became the primary focus of interest…

The origins of WID, “Women in Development” Ester Boserup’s Women’s Role in Economic Development (1970), a comparative analysis of women’s work : Ø Gender a basic factor in the division of labour Ø Women’s labour at home and on the farm generally under-reported Ø Analysed some of the reasons for regional differences (e. g. in different

Ø Related these to participation in offfarm employment and labour migration Ø Highlighted the negative impacts of colonialism and the penetration of capitalism(see also Boserup in Tinker 1990) • Boserup’s study put gender on the development agenda. • Later criticised for its oversimplification of the nature of women’s work and roles

The development of WID perspective was developed by American liberal feminists. “WID” was the name of a women’s caucus formed by the Society for International Development (SID/WID); part of a deliberate strategy to bring gender issues to the attention of policy-makers Important role also played by the UN Commission on the Status of Women (> UN Decade for Women 1976 -85) (see Tinker 1990) ØEmphasis on strategies that would minimize discrimination against women and their disadvantaged economic position. This approach was closely linked to and represented a modification of the modernisation paradigm: concern that the benefits of modernisation should be for women as well as men >The solutions to women’s problems were generally envisaged as “technological fixes” of one kind or another. Focus on the better integration of women into existing development initiatives. Typical WID projects were income-generating activities with social and welfare components added (cf. Moser’s (1989; 1993) refined typology of WID approaches: welfare, gender equality, anti-poverty, efficiency, and empowerment)

Different approaches of WID: • Welfare approach • Equity approach • Anti-poverty approach • Efficiency approach • Empowerment approach

Policy and Analytic Approaches • • • Welfare: Focus on poor women, mainly in the roles of wife and mother. This was the only approach during colonial periods, and was favoured by many missionaries. Equity: Focus on equality between women and fair distribution of benefits of development Anti-poverty: Women targeted as the poorest of the poor, with emphasis on income-generating activities and access to productive resources such as training and micro-finance. Efficiency: Emphasis on need for women’s participation for success, effectiveness of development; assumes increased economic participation will result in increased equity. They are most likely to be useful when advocacy for the advancement of women is based on the more effective use of all factors of production, and/or desire for stronger and more sustainable project results. This is the approach currently most favoured by development agencies Empowerment: Focus on increasing women’s capacity to analyze their own situation and determine their own life choices and societal directions. likely to be most useful where a human development and rights-based approach to development predominates, or is desired.

Criticism of WID By the mid-late 1970 s it was becoming clear that women had often fared worse under modernisation and the development efforts of the past decade. WID focused on integration and advocacy for greater participation. It didn’t question why women’s position was often declining and what the sources and nature of women’s subordination and oppression were. It was often ahistorical and shared in many of the weaknesses of the modernisation paradigm. WID also tended to focus on women as producers and ignore or minimise their reproductive role.

Theoretical basis of Women and Development (WAD):

Women And Development Approach (WAD) Origin: • Emerged from a critique of the modernization theory and the WID approach in the second half of the 1970 s Theoretical base : • Draws from the dependency theory Focus: • Women have always been part of development process-therefore integrating women in development is a myth • Focuses on relationship between women and development process

WAD Approach Contribution : • Accepts women as important economic actors in their societies • Women’s work in the public and private domain is central to the maintenance of their societal structures • Looks at the nature of integration of women in development which sustains existing international structures of inequality.

Wome And Development (WAD) Approach Features : • Fails to analyze the relationship between patriarchy, differing modes of production and women’s subordination and oppression. • Discourages a strict analytical focus on the problems of women independent of those of men since both sexes are seen to be disadvantaged with oppressive global structure based on class and capital. • Singular preoccupation with women’s productive role at the expense of the reproductive side of women’s work and lives. • Assumes that once international structures become more equitable, women’s position would improve. • WAD doesn't question the relations between gender roles.

Shortcomings of WID (and WAD) One source of these criticisms was the emerging neo-Marxism of the time. WID was criticised by neo-Marxist feminists espousing an approach sometimes referred to as WAD, “Women and Development” (Beneria and Sen 1982; Rathgeber 1990) Neo-Marxist feminists focused on analysing women’s subordination within the structures of international dependency and class inequality (e. g. Young et al. 1981; Maria Mies, Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale, 1986) But their analyses and prescriptions shared in many of the shortcomings of WID. Given that both sexes are seen to be disadvantaged in neo-Marxist accounts, insufficient attention was paid to the special features of women’s situation, e. g. the role of ideology of patriarchy; the importance of the labour invested by women in household reproduction and maintenance (cf. Kabeer 1994). And there wasn’t much difference between WID and WADinfluenced development strategies, at least not as far a women were concerned. Both reflected Western biases and assumptions (cf. Barbara Rogers, The Domestication of Women, 1980)

Gender and Development (GAD) approach Origin • As an alternative to the WID focus this approach developed in the 1980 s. Theoretical base: • Influenced by socialist feminist thinking. Focus: • Offers a holistic perspective looking at all aspects of women’s lives. • It questions the basis of assigning specific gender roles to different sexes Contribution • Does not exclusively emphasize female solidarity- welcomes contributions of sensitive men. • Recognizes women’s contribution inside and outside the household, including non-commodity production.

Gender and Development Approach Features: • GAD rejects the public/private dichotomy. • It gives special attention to oppression of women in the family by entering the so called `private sphere’ • It emphasizes the state’s duty to provide social services in promoting women’s emancipation. • Women seen as agents of change rather than as passive recipients of development assistance. • Stresses the need for women to organize themselves for a more effective political voice. • Recognizes that patriarchy operates within and across classes to oppress women • Focuses on strengthening women’s legal rights, including the reform of inheritance and laws. • It talks in terms of upsetting the existing power relations in society between men and women.

The development of GAD Kate Young, ‘Gender and Development’, 1992 (in Visvanathan et al. 1997): overview of the differences between WID and GAD. These include: Ø GAD focuses on gender relations rather than women per se Ø GAD views women as active rather than passive agents of development, though they may be unaware of the roots of their subordination Ø GAD starts from a holistic perspective, the totality of social organisation, and economic and political life (vs a focus on particular aspects of women’s lives, e. g. economic production) Ø GAD stresses the need for women’s self-organisation to increase their political power within the economic system (vs WID which emphasises the formation of productive groups and access to cash income as group members or individuals) Ø GAD is less optimistic about the role of the market as a distributor of benefits to women but places equal emphasis on the role of the state in promoting women’s emancipation Is GAD gendered modernisation in socialist clothing?

Critiques from the South Some of the sharpest criticism of GAD and its precursors has come from women in the South, arguing that they reflect the preoccupations and assumptions of Western feminists. ‘Third World’ women are ‘homogenised’ and treated as ‘victims’ of their own cultures, negating their agency. These critics argue instead that their subordination is a consequence of colonial and post-colonial exploitation rather than the cultural construction of gender in their own societies (Sen and Grown 1987)

Women , Environment and Development (WED) • • Origin in 1970 s (Northern Feminist ) Male control over nature and women Ecofeminism Ecofeminist (Rosi Braidotti, Harcourt, Maria Mies, Vandana Shiva etc. ) Theoretical stream within feminist movement Environment decline – patriarchal authority in Development planning Destroying relationship between community, women and nature

Practical Gender Needs and Strategic Gender Interests The following is a summary of some of the principal differences between practical gender needs and strategic gender interests. Practical needs: • • Short-term, immediate (e. g. clean water, food, housing, income) Unique to particular women (i. e. site specific) When asked, women can identify their basic needs. Involves women as beneficiaries/participants Problems can be met by concrete and specific inputs, usually economic inputs (e. g. water pumps, seeds, credit, employment) Benefits the condition of some women Is potentially successful in ameliorating the circumstances of some women

Strategic Gender Interests Strategic interests : • Long-term • Common to all women (e. g. vulnerability to physical violence, legal limitations on rights to hold or inherit property, difficulty of gaining access to higher education) • Women are not always in a position to recognize the sources or basis of their strategic disadvantages or limitations • Solutions must involve women as active agents • Must be addressed through consciousness raising, education and political mobilization at all levels of society • Improves the position of all women in a society • Has the potential to transform or fundamentally change one or more aspects of women's lives. This is called 'transformatory potential' of the project/policy