Republic of the Philippines

UNIVERSITY OF EASTERN PHILIPPINES

Pedro Rebadulla Memorial Campus
Catubig, Northern Samar
Web: http://www.uep.edu.ph Email: uepprmcampus@gmail.com

MODULE IN GENDER AND SOCIETY

CLASS NO.1153522
SUBJECT CODE: GEE 2
DESCRIPTION: GENDER AND SOCIETY
COURSE: BSHM
VANESSA G. LLUZ, INSTRUCTOR
09166809785

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Name of Student

MODULE I
GENDER AND
DEVELOPMENT,
NEOLIBERAL APPROACHES,
LIBERAL APPROACHES
 OVERVIEW

This module is focus on the concept of Gender and Development, its historical
development and the different approaches. Gender and development  development is an
interdisciplinary field of research and applied study that implements
a feminist 
feminist approach to understanding and addressing the disparate impact
that 
that economic development 
development and 
and globalization 
globalization have on people based upon their
location, gender, class background, and other socio-political identities. A strictly
economic approach to development views a country's development in quantitative
terms such as job creation, inflation control, and high employment – all of which aim
to improve the ‘economic wellbeing’ of a country and the subsequent quality of life
for its people. 
people. In terms of economic development, quality of life is defined as access
to necessary rights and resources including but not limited to quality education,
medical facilities, affordable housing, clean environments, and low crime rate.
Gender and development considers many of these same factors; however, gender
and development emphasizes efforts towards understanding how multifaceted these
issues are in the entangled context of culture, government, and globalization.
Accounting for this need, gender and development
implements 
implements ethnographic 
ethnographic research, research that studies a specific culture or group
of people by physically immersing the researcher into the environment and daily
routine of those being studied, 
studied, in order to comprehensively
understand 
understand how 
how development policy and practices affect the everyday life of targeted
groups or areas.

LEARNING OUTCOMES :
At the end of the module you should be able to:
1. Define gender and development and be able to know its goals.
2. Define the different terminologies such as gender equity, gender
mainstreaming, and women’s empowerment
3. Understand its historical development.
4. Know the different approaches in the study of gender and development.
4. Be able to know the important personalities involved in gender and
development.

LESSON 1

GENDER AND DEVELOPMENT

 Gender and development is a development perspective that recognizes the
unequal status and situation of women and men in society.

Women and men have different development needs and interests, which is
institutionalized and perpetuated by cultural, social, economic and political norms,
systems and structures.

GOAL OF GENDER AND DEVELOPMENT (GAD)

As a development approach, GAD seeks to equalize the status and condition

of and relations between women and men by influencing the process and output of
policy making, planning, budgeting, implementation and evaluation so that they
would deliberately address the gender issues and concerns affecting the full
development of women.

GENDER EQUITY

Means giving more opportunities to those who have less and those who are
historically and socially disadvantaged based on their needs for them to operate on a
level platintg field. “Focusing on the needs of women does not mean discriminating
against men or putting them at a disadvantage.”

UN-CEDAW (United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms

of Discrimination Against Women) recognized the need to remove the biases
against and provide special attention to women through affirmative action. It is a
temporary measure that will be discontinued when the objectives of eqaulity of
opportunity and treatment have been achieved.

WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT

-Is a goal of and an essential process for women’s advancement.

-Is a process and condition by which women mobilize to understand, identify,

and overcome gender discrimination and achieve equality.

-Women become agents of development and not just beneficiaries.

-A kind of participation in development that enables women to make decisions

based on their own views and perspective.

-To empower women, access to information, training, technology, market and

credit is necessary.

HISTORY

The history of this field dates back to the 1950s, when studies of economic
development first brought women into its discourse, 
discourse, focusing on women only as
subjects of welfare policies – notably those centered on  food aid 
aid and 
and family planning.
planning.
The focus of women in development increased throughout the decade, and by 1962,
the 
the United Nations General Assembly 
Assembly called for the 
the Commission on the Status of
Women 
Women  to collaborate with the 
the Secretary General 
General   and a number of other UN sectors
to develop a longstanding program dedicated to women's advancement in
developing countries. 
countries. A decade later, feminist economist 
economist Ester Boserup’s
Boserup’s pioneering
book 
book Women’s Role in Economic Development 
Development (1970) was published, radically
shifting perspectives of development and contributing to the birth of what eventually
became the gender and development field.

Since Boserup's consider that development affects men and women

differently, the study of gender's relation to development has gathered major interest
amongst scholars and international policymakers. The field has undergone major
theoretical shifts, beginning with 
with Women in Development 
Development (WID), shifting to Women
and Development (WAD), and finally becoming the contemporary Gender and
Development (GAD). Each of these frameworks emerged as an evolution of its
predecessor, aiming to encompass a broader range of topics and  social
science 
science perspectives. In addition to these frameworks, international financial
institutions such as the 
the World Bank 
Bank and the 
the International Monetary Fund 
Fund (IMF) have
implemented policies, programs, and research regarding gender and development,
contributing a a neoliberal 
neoliberal and smart economics approach to the study. Examples of
these policies and programs include 
include Structural Adjustment
Programs 
Programs (SAPs), 
(SAPs), microfinance,
microfinance, outsourcing,
outsourcing, and 
and privatizing public enterprises,
enterprises, all of
which direct focus towards economic growth and suggest that advancement towards
gender equality will follow.

ACTIVITY I

1. What is gender and development? What are its necessity?

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2. What is the role of UN-CEDAW?

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LESSON 2
Early Approaches
Women In Development (WID)
Theoretical Approach

The term “women in development” was originally coined by a Washington-

based network of female development professionals in the early 1970’s 
1970’s who sought
to question 
question trickle down 
down existing theories of development by contesting that
economic development had identical impacts on men and women. women. The Women in
Development movement (WID) gained momentum in the 1970s, driven by the
resurgence of women's movements in developed countries, and particularly through
liberal feminists striving for equal rights and labour opportunities in the United
States. 
States. Liberal feminism,
feminism, postulating that women's disadvantages in society may be
eliminated by breaking down customary expectations of women by offering better
education to women and introducing equal opportunity programmes, had a notable
influence on the formulation of the WID approaches.

The focus of the 1970s 

1970s feminist movements 
movements and their repeated calls for
employment opportunities in the development agenda meant that particular attention
was given to the productive labour of women, leaving aside reproductive concerns
and social welfare. This approach was pushed forward by WID advocates, reacting
to the general policy environment maintained by early colonial authorities and post-
war development authorities, wherein inadequate reference to the work undertook by
women as producers was made, as they were almost solely identified as their roles
as wives and mothers. 
mothers. The WID's opposition to this “welfare approach” was in part
motivated by the work of Danish economist 
economist Ester Boserup 
Boserup in the early 1970s, who
challenged the assumptions of the said approach and highlighted the role women by
women in the agricultural production and economy.

Reeves and Baden (2000) point out that the WID approach stresses the need
for women to play a greater role in the development process. According to this
perspective, women's active involvement in policymaking will lead to more
successful policies overall. Thus, a dominant strand of thinking within WID sought to
link women's issues with development, highlighting how such issues acted as
impediments to economic growth; this “relevance” approach stemmed from the
experience of WID advocates which illustrated that it was more effective if demands
of equity and social justice for women were strategically linked to mainstream
development concerns, in an attempt to have WID policy goals taken up by
development agencies. The Women in Development approach was the first
contemporary movement to specifically integrate women in the broader development
agenda and acted as the precursor to later movements such as the Women and
Development (WAD), and ultimately, the Gender and Development approach,
departing from some of the criticized aspects imputed to the WID.

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. 
lives. 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. 
countries. Furthermore, the WID, although it advocated for greater 
greater gender equality,
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. 
men. Moreover, the underlying assumption behind the
call for the integration of the 
the Third World 
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.
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.

Women and Development (WAD)

Women and development (WAD) is a theoretical and practical approach to
development. It was introduced into 
into gender studies 
studies scholarship in the second half of
the 1970s, following its origins, which can be traced to the  First World Conference on
Women 
Women in Mexico City in 1975, organized by the UN. It is a departure from the
previously predominant theory, WID (Women in Development) and is often mistaken
for WID, but has many distinct characteristics.

Theoretical Approach

WAD arose out of a shift in thinking about women's role in development, and
concerns about the explanatory limitations of 
of modernization theory.
theory. While previous
thinking held that development was a vehicle to advance women, new ideas
suggested that development was only made possible by the involvement of women,
and rather than being simply passive recipients of 
of development aid,aid, they should be
actively involved in development projects. 
projects. WAD took this thinking a step further and
suggested that women have always been an integral part of development, and did
not suddenly appear in the 1970s as a result of exogenous development efforts. The
WAD approach suggests that there be women-only development projects that were
theorized to remove women from the patriarchal hegemony that would exist if
women participated in development alongside men in a patriarchal culture, though
this concept has been heavily debated by theorists in the field.  In this sense, WAD is
differentiated from WID by way of the theoretical framework upon which it was built.
Rather than focus specifically on women's relationship to development, WAD
focuses on the relationship between patriarchy and capitalism. This theory seeks to
understand women's issues from the perspectives of 
of neo-Marxism 
neo-Marxism and 
and dependency
theory,
theory, though much of the theorizing about WAD remains undocumented due to the
persistent and pressing nature of development work in which many WAD theorists
engage.

Practical approach

The WAD paradigm stresses the relationship between women, and the work
that they perform in their societies as economic agents in both the public and
domestic spheres. It also emphasizes the distinctive nature of the roles women play
in the maintenance and development of their societies, with the understanding that
purely the integration of women into development efforts would serve to reinforce the
existing structures of inequality present in societies overrun by patriarchal interests.
In general, WAD is thought to offer a more critical conceptualization of women's
position compared to WID.

The WAD approach emphasizes the distinctive nature of women's knowledge,

work, goals, and responsibilities, as well as advocating for the recognition of their
distinctiveness. This fact, combined with a recognized tendency for development
agencies to be dominated by patriarchal interests, is at the root of the women-only
initiatives introduced by WAD subscribers.

Criticism

Some of the common critiques of the WAD approach include concerns that
the women-only development projects would struggle, or ultimately fail, due to their
scale, and the marginalized status of these women. Furthermore, the WAD
perspective suffers from a tendency to view women as a class, and pay little
attention to the differences among women (such as feminist concept
of 
of intersectionality),
intersectionality), including race and ethnicity, and prescribe development
endeavors that may only serve to address the needs of a particular group. While an
improvement on WID, WAD fails to fully consider the relationships
between 
between patriarchy,
patriarchy, modes of production, and the marginalization of women. It also
presumes that the position of women around the world will improve when
international conditions become more equitable. Additionally, WAD has been
criticized for its singular preoccupation with the productive side of women's work,
while it ignores the reproductive aspect of women's work and lives. Therefore,
WID/WAD intervention strategies have tended to concentrate on the development of
income-generating activities without taking into account the time burdens that such
strategies place on women. 
women. Value is placed on income-generating activities, and
none is ascribed to social and cultural reproduction.

Gender And Development (GAD)

Theoretical Approach

The Gender and Development (GAD) approach focuses on the socially

constructed differences between men and women, the need to challenge existing
gender roles and relations, and the creation and effects of class differences on
development. 
development. This approach was majorly influenced by the writings of academic
scholars such as Oakley (1972) and Rubin (1975), who argue the social relationship
between men and women have systematically subordinated women, along with
economist scholars Lourdes Benería and Amartya Sen (1981), who assess the
impact of colonialism on development and gender inequality. They state that
colonialism imposed more than a 'value system' upon developing nations, it
introduced a system of economics 'designed to promote capital accumulation which
caused class differentiation'.

GAD departs from WID, which discussed women's subordination and lack of
inclusion in discussions of international development without examining broader
systems of gender relations. 
relations. Influenced by this work, by the late 1970s, some
practitioners working in the development field questioned focusing on women in
isolation. 
isolation. GAD challenged the WID focus on women as an important ‘target
group’ 
group’ and ‘untapped resources’ for development. GAD marked a shift in thinking
about the need to understand how women and men are socially constructed and
how ‘those constructions are powerfully reinforced by the social activities that both
define and are defined by them.’ 
them.’ GAD focuses primarily on the gendered division of
labor and gender as a relation of power embedded in institutions.  Consequently, two
major frameworks, ‘Gender roles’ and ‘social relations analysis’, are used in this
approach. 
approach. 'Gender roles' focuses on the social construction of identities within the
household; it also reveals the expectations from ‘maleness and femaleness” 
femaleness” in their
relative access to resources. 'Social relations analysis' exposes the social
dimensions of hierarchical power relations embedded in social institutions, as well as
its determining influence on ‘the relative position of men and women in society.’ This
relative positioning tends to discriminate against women.

Unlike WID, the GAD approach is not concerned specifically with women, but
with the way in which a society assigns roles, responsibilities and expectations to
both women and men. GAD applies  applies gender analysis 
analysis to uncover the ways in which
men and women work together, presenting results in neutral terms of economics and
efficiency. 
efficiency. In an attempt to create gender equality (denoting women having the same
opportunities as men, including ability to participate in the public sphere), GAD
policies aim to redefine traditional gender role expectations. Women are expected to
fulfill household management tasks, home-based production as well as bearing and
raising children and caring for family members. The role of a wife is largely
interpreted as 'the responsibilities of motherhood. Men, however, are expected to be
breadwinners, associated with paid work and market production. In the labor market,
women tend to earn less than men. For instance, 'a study by the Equality and
Human Rights Commission found massive pay inequities in some United Kingdom's
top finance companies, women received around 80 percent less performance-related
pay than their male colleagues. 
colleagues. In response to pervasive gender inequalities, 
inequalities, Beijing
Platform for Action 
Action established 
established gender mainstreaming 
mainstreaming in 1995 as a strategy across
all policy areas at all levels of governance for achieving gender equality.

GAD has been largely utilized in debates regarding development but this
trend is not seen in the actual practice of developmental agencies and plans for
development. 
development. Caroline Moser 
Moser claims WID persists due to the challenging nature of
GAD, but 
but Shirin M. Rai 
Rai counters this claim noting that the real issue lies in the
tendency to overlap WID and GAD in policy. Therefore, it would only be possible if
development agencies fully adopted GAD language exclusively. Caroline Moser
developed the 
the Moser Gender Planning Framework 
Framework for GAD-oriented development
planning in the 1980s while working at the Development Planning Unit of
the 
the University of London.
London. Working with Caren Levy, she expanded it into a
methodology for gender policy and planning. The Moser framework follows the
Gender and Development approach in emphasizing the importance of gender
relations. As with the WID-based 
WID-based Harvard Analytical Framework,
Framework, it includes a
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 within the household,
planning for balancing work and household responsibilities, distinguishing between
different aims in interventions and involving women and gender-aware organizations
in planning.

CRITICISM

GAD has been criticized for emphasizing the social differences between men
and women while neglecting the bonds between them and also the potential for
changes in roles. Another criticism is that GAD does not dig deeply enough into
social relations and so may not explain how these relations can undermine programs
directed at women. It also does not uncover the types of trade-offs that women are
prepared to make for the sake of achieving their ideals of marriage or motherhood.
Another criticism is that the GAD perspective is theoretically distinct from WID, but in
practice, programs seem to have elements of both. Whilst many development
agencies are now committed to a gender approach, in practice, the primary
institutional perspective remain focused on a WID approach. 
approach. Specifically, the
language of GAD has been incorporated into WID programs.  There is a slippage in
reality where gender mainstreaming is often based in a single normative perspective
as synonymous to women.  women. Development agencies still advance gender
transformation to mean economic betterment for women. Further criticisms of GAD is
its insufficient attention to culture, with a new framework being offered instead:
Women, Culture and Development (WCD). This framework, unlike GAD, wouldn't
look at women as victims but would rather evaluate the Third World life of women
through the context of the language and practice of gender, the Global South, and
culture.

ACTIVITY 2

1. What is the significance of Gender and Development to our society?

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2. What is the role of Women In Development in Gender and Development?

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3. Cite one criticism for Women In Development discuss it thouroughly.

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4. In your opinion, how does the ‘economic wellbeing’ of a country and the
subsequent quality of life for its people be improve relating to gender and
development?

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LESSON 3

Neoliberal Approaches

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). 
(IMF). Neoliberalism was cemented as the dominant
global policy framework in the 1980s and 1990s. Among development institutions,
gender issues have increasingly become part of economic development agendas, as
the examples of the 
the World Bank 
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. The
World Bank, for example, started focusing on gender in 1977 with the appointment of
a first Women in Development Adviser. 
Adviser. 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 programs. Thirty years after the
appointment of a first Women in Development Adviser, a so-called  Gender Action
Plan 
Plan was launched to underline the importance of the topic within development
strategies and to introduce the new 
new Smart Economics 
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. 
equality. 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. 
markets. In 2012, the 
the World
Development Report 
Report was the first report of the series examining Gender Equality
and Development.

An argument made on the functions behind institutional financial institutions

such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank are that they
support capitalist ideals through their means of economic growth of countries
globally and their participation in the global economy and capitalist systems. The
roles of banks as institutions and the creation of new workers’ economy reflect
neoliberal developing ideals is also present in the criticisms on neoliberal developing
institutions. 
institutions. Another critique made on the market and institutions is that it contributes
to the creation of policies and aid with gender-related outcomes. An argument made
on the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is that it creates a
neoliberal dominance that continues the construction and reconstruction of gender
norms by homogenously category women rather than the gender disparities within its
policies.
Gender and Outsourcing
One of the features of development encouraged in neoliberal approaches is
outsourcing. Outsourcing is when companies from the western world moves some of
their business to another country. The reasons these companies make the decision
to move is often because of cheap labor costs. Although outsourcing is about
businesses it is directly related to gender because it has greatly affected women.
The reason it is related to gender is that women are mainly the people that are being
hired for these cheap labor jobs and why they are being hired.

One example of a popular place for factories to relocate is to China. In China

the main people who work in these factories are women, these women move from
their home towns to cities far away for the factory jobs. The reasons these women
move is to be able to make a wage to take care of not only themselves but their
families as well. Oftentimes these women are expected to get these jobs.

Another example of a country the garment industry outsources work to is

Bangladesh, which has one of the lowest costs of labor compared to other third
world countries. 
countries. With low labor costs, there is also poor compliance with labor
standards in the factories. 
factories. The factory workers in Bangladesh can experience
several types of violations of their rights. These violations include: long working
hours with no choice but to work overtime, deductions to wages, as well as
dangerous and unsanitary working conditions.

Figure 1

Although the discussions made around outsourcing do not often involve the
effects on women, women daily endure constant results from it. Women in countries
and areas that may not have been able to work and make their own income now
have the opportunity to provide for themselves and their kids.  Gender is brought to
attention because unemployment is sometimes a threat to women. The reason for it
being a threat is because without jobs and their own income women may fall victim
to discrimination or abuse. 
abuse. It is very valuable to many women to be able to obtain
their own source of income, outsourcing allows women in countries that may not
easily obtain a job the opportunity to obtain jobs. Many times factory owners discuss
how many women want the jobs they have to offer.

With the availability of jobs and the seeming benefits comes a concern for the
work conditions in these outsourced jobs. Although some women have acquired a
job the work conditions may not be safe or ideal. As mentioned above the jobs are in
extreme demand because of how limited opportunities for employment is in certain
regions. This leads to the idea of women being disposable at the workplace. As a
result of this the workers in these factories do not have room to complain. They also
are not able to expect safe working conditions in their work environments. Women
have to move far from their hometowns and families to work at these factory jobs.
The hours are long and because they are not home they typically also move into
dormitories and live at their jobs.
Gender And Microfinance
Women have been identified by some development institutions as a key to
successful development, for example through financial inclusion. Microcredit is giving
small loans to people in poverty without collateral. This was first started
by 
by Muhammad Yunus,
Yunus, who formed the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. 
Bangladesh. Studies have
showed that women are more likely to repay their debt than men, and the Grameen
Bank focuses on aiding women. 
women. This financial opportunity allows women to start their
own businesses for a steady income. Women have been the focus of microcredit for
their subsequent increased status as well as the overall well-being of the home being
improved when given to women rather than men.
 There were numerous case studies done in Tanzania about the correlation of
the role of 
of SACCoS 
SACCoS (savings and credit cooperative organization) and the economic
development of the country. The research showed that the microfinance policies
were not being carried out in the most efficient ways due to exploitation.  One case
study went a step further to claim that this financial service could provide a more
equal society for women in Tanzania.

While there are such cases in which women were able to lift themselves out of
poverty, there are also cases in which women fell into a  a poverty trap 
trap as they were
unable to repay their loans. 
loans. It is even said that microcredit is actually an "anti-
developmental" approach. 
approach. There is little evidence of significant development for
these women within the 30 years that the microfinance has been around.  In South
Africa, unemployment is high due to the introduction of microfinance, more so than it
was under apartheid. Microcredit intensified poverty in Johannesburg, South Africa
as poor communities, mostly women, who needed to repay debt were forced to work
in the informal sector.

Some arguments that microcredit is not effective insist that the structure of the
economy, with large informal and agriculture sectors, do not provide a system in
which borrowers can be successful. In Nigeria, where the informal economy is
approximately 45–60% of economy, women working within it could not attain access
to microcredit because of the high demand for loans triggered by high unemployment
rates in the formal sector. This study found Nigerian woman are forced into “the
hustle” and enhanced risk of the informal economy, which is unpredictable and
contributes to women's inability to repay the loans. Another example from a study
conducted in Arampur, Bangladesh, found that microcredit programs within the
agrarian community do not effectively help the borrower pay their loan because the
terms of the loan are not compatible with farm work. If was found that MFIs force
borrowers to repay before the harvesting season starts and in some cases endure
the struggles of sharecropping work that is funded by the loan.

Although there is debate on how effective microcredit is in alleviating poverty

in general, there is an argument that microcredit enables women to participate and
fulfill their capabilities in society. 
society. For example, a study conducted in Malayasia
showed that their version of microcredit, AIM, had a positive effect on Muslim
women's empowerment in terms of allowing them to have more control over family
planning and over decisions that were made in the home.

In contrast, out of a study conducted on 205 different MFIs, they concluded

that there is still gender discrimination within microfinance institutions themselves
and microcredit which impact the existing discrimination within communities as well.
In Bangladesh, another outcome seen for some of the Grameen recipients was that
they faced domestic abuse as a result of their husbands feeling threatened about
women bringing in more income. A study in Uganda also noted that men felt
threatened through increased female financial dominance, increasing women's
vulnerability at home.

Through the “constructivist

“constructivist feminist standpoint,”
standpoint,” women can understand that
the limitations they face are not inherent and in fact, are “constructed” by traditional
gender roles, which they have the ability to challenge through owning their own small
business. Through this focus, a study focused on the Foundation for International
Community Assistance's (FINCA) involvement and impact in Peru, where women are
made aware of the “machismo” patriarchal culture in which they live through their
experiences with building small enterprises. In Rajasthan, India, another study found
mixed results for women participating in a microlending program. Though many
women were not able to pay back their loans, many were still eager to take on debt
because their microfinance participation created a platform to address other
inequities within the community.

Another example is the Women's Development Business (WDB) in South

Africa, a 
a Grameen Bank 
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. 
programs. 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.
inclusion.

Diving into another example regarding Microfinance and women from  Women
Entrepreneurship Promotion in Developing Countries: What  explains the gender gap
in entrepreneurship and how to close it? is Vossenberg (2013) describes how
although there has been an increase in entrepreneurship for women, the gender gap
still persists. The author states “The gender gap is commonly defined as the
difference between men and women in terms of numbers engaged in entrepreneurial
activity, motives to start or run a business, industry choice and business
performance and growth” (Vossenberg, 2). The article dives into how in Eastern
Europe there is a low rate of women entrepreneurs. Although the author discusses
how in Africa nearly fifty percent of women make up entrepreneurs.

As a reaction, a current topic in the feminist literature on economic

development is the ‘gendering’ of of microfinance,
microfinance, as women have increasingly become
the target borrowers for rural 
rural microcredit 
microcredit lending. This, in turn, creates the
assumption of a “rational economic woman” which can exacerbate existing social
hierarchies). 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.

The impact of programs of the 

the Bretton Woods Institutions 
Institutions and other similar
organizations on gender are being monitored by Gender Action, a watchdog group
founded in 2002 by Elaine Zuckerman who is a former World Bank economist.

Gender, Financial Crises, And Neoliberal Economic Policy

The 
The global financial crisis 
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 in social reproduction needs to be given more
weight. 
weight. The 
The International Labour Organization 
Organization (ILO) assessed the impact of the
global financial crisis on workers and concluded that while the crisis initially affected
industries that were dominated by male workers (such as finance, construction and
manufacturing) it then spread over to sectors in which female workers are
predominantly active. Examples for these sectors are the service sector or
wholesale-retail trade.
 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 
Wilson criticized 
criticized state capitalism 
capitalism and the 
the welfare
state 
state as a tool to oppress women. Therefore, neoliberal economic policies
featuring 
featuring privatization 
privatization and 
and deregulation,
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  a macroeconomic policy 
policy level deregulation and a reduced role of the
state.

Therefore, some scholars in the field argue that 

that feminism,
feminism, especially during
its 
its second wave,
wave, has contributed key ideas to Neoliberalism that, according to these
authors, creates new forms of inequality and exploitation.

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’ 
feminism’  or even ‘faux-feminism’.
Smart Economics
Theoretical approaches 
approaches advocated chiefly by the  the World Bank,
Bank, smart
economics is an approach to define gender equality as an integral part of economic
development and it aims to spur development through investing more efficiently in
women and girls. It stresses that the gap between men and women in  human capital,
capital,
economic opportunities, and voice/agency is a chief obstacle in achieving more
efficient development. As an approach, it is a direct descendant of the efficiency
approach taken by WID which “rationalizes ‘investing’ in women and girls for more
effective development outcomes.” 
outcomes.” As articulated in the section of WID, the efficiency
approach to women in development was chiefly articulated by  by Caroline Moser 
Moser in the
late 1980s. Continuing the stream of WID, smart economics’ key unit of analysis is
women as individual and it particularly focuses on measures that promote to narrow
down the gender gap. Its approach identifies women are relatively underinvested
source of development and it defines 
defines gender equality 
equality an opportunity of higher return
investment. “Gender equality itself is here depicted as smart economics, in that it
enables women to contribute their utmost skills and energies to the project of world
economic development.” In this term, smart economics champions neoliberal
perspective in seeing business as a vital vehicle for change and it takes a stance
of 
of liberal feminism.
feminism.

The thinking behind smart economics dates back, at least, to the lost decade
of the 
the Structural Adjustment 
  Adjustment Policies (SAPs) in the 1980s. 
1980s. In 1995, World Bank
issued its flagship publication on gender matters of the year Enhancing Women's
Participation in Economic Development (World Bank 1995). This report marked a
critical foundation to the naissance of Smart Economics; in a chapter entitled ‘The
Pay-offs to Investing in Women,’ the Bank proclaimed that investing in women
“speeds economic development by raising productivity and promoting the more
efficient use of resources; it produces significant social returns, improving child
survival and reducing fertility, and it has considerable intergenerational pay-offs.”  
The Bank also emphasized its associated social benefits generated by investing in
women. For example, the Bank turned to researches of Whitehead that evidenced a
greater female-control of household income is associated with better outcomes for
children's welfare 
welfare  and Jeffery and Jeffery who analyzed the positive correlation
between female education and lower fertility rates. 
rates. In the 2000s, the approach of
smart economics came to be further crystallized through various frameworks and
initiatives. A first step was World Bank's Gender Action Plan (GAP) 2007-/2010,
followed by the “Three Year Road Map for Gender Mainstreaming 2010-13.” The
2010-13 framework responded to criticisms for its precursor and incorporated some
shifts in thematic priorities. Lastly but not least, the decisive turning point was 2012
marked by its publication of “World
“World Development Report 
Report 2012: Gender Equality and
Development.” 
Development.” This Bank's first comprehensive focus on the gender issues was
welcomed by various scholars and practitioners, as an indicator of its seriousness.
For example, 
example, Shahra Razavi 
Razavi appraised the report as ‘a welcome opportunity for
widening the intellectual space’.

Other 
Other international organizations,
organizations, particular 
particular UN 
UN families, have so far endorsed
the approach of smart economics. Examining the relationship between child well-
being and gender equality, for example, 
example, UNICEF 
UNICEF also referred to the “Double
Dividend of Gender Equality.” 
Equality.” Its explicit link to a wider framework of the 
the Millennium
Development Goals 
Goals (where the Goal 3 is Promoting Gender Equality and Women's
Empowerment) claimed a wider legitimacy beyond economic efficiency. In 2007, the
Bank proclaimed that “The business case for investing in MDG 3 is strong; it is
nothing more than smart economics.” 
economics.” In addition, “Development organisations and
governments have been joined in this focus on the ‘business case’ for gender
equality and the empowerment of women, by businesses and enterprises which are
interested in contributing to social good.” 
good.” A good example is “Girl Effect initiative”
taken by Nike Foundation. 
Foundation. Its claim for economic imperative and a broader socio-
economic impact also met a strategic need of NGOs and community organizations
that seeks justification for their program funding.  funding. Thus, some NGOs, for
example 
example Plan International,
International, captured this trend to further their program. The then-
president of the World Bank 
Bank Robert B. Zoellick 
Zoellick was quoted by Plan International in
stating “Investing in adolescent girls is precisely the catalyst poor countries need to
break intergenerational poverty and to create a better distribution of income.
Investing in them is not only fair, it is a smart economic move.” The global financial
meltdown and austerity measures taken by major donor counties further supported
this approach, since 
since international financial institutions 
institutions and international NGOs
received a greater pressure from donors and from global public to design and
implement maximally cost-effective programs

Criticisms 
Criticisms From the mid-2000s, the approach of smart economics and its chief
proponent –World Bank– met a wide range of criticisms and denouncements. These
discontents can be broadly categorized into three major claims; Subordination of
Intrinsic Value; Ignorance for the need of systemic transformation; Feminisation of
responsibility; Overemphasized efficiency; and Opportunistic pragmatism. This is not
exhaustive list of criticisms, but the list aims to highlight different emphasis among
existing criticisms.

The World Bank's gender policy aims to eliminate poverty and enhance
economic growth by addressing gender disparities and inequalities that hinders
development. A critique on the World Bank's gender policy is it being ‘gender-blind’
and not properly addressing gender inequity. 
inequity. Rather a critique made is that the
World Bank's gender policy utilizes gender equality as an ends means rather than
analyzing root causes for economic disparities and gender equity.

Smart economics’ subordination of women under the justification of

development invited fierce criticisms. Chant expresses her grave concern that
“Smart economics is concerned with building women’s capacities in the interests of
development rather than promoting women’s rights for their own sake.”  She
disagrees that investment in women should be promoted by its instrumental utility: “it
is imperative to ask whether the goal of female investment is primarily to promote
gender equality and women’s ‘empowerment
‘empowerment’,’, or to facilitate development ‘on the
cheap’, and/or to promote further economic liberalization.”  Although smart
economics outlines that gender equality has intrinsic value (realizing gender equality
is an end itself) and instrumental value (realizing gender equality is a means to a
more efficient development), 
development), many points out that the Bank pays almost exclusive
attentions to the latter in defining its framework and strategy. Zuckerman also
echoed this point by stating “business case [which] ignores the moral imperative of
empowering women to achieve women’s human rights and full equal rights with
men.” In short, Chant casts a doubt that if it is not “possible to promote rights
through 
through utilitarianism.”
utilitarianism.”  

A wide range of scholars and practitioners has criticized that smart economics
rather endorse the current status-quo of gender inequality and keep silence for the
demand of institutional reform. Its approach “does not involves public action to
transform the laws, policies, and practices which constrain personal and group
agency.” Naila Kabeer 
Kabeer also posits that “attention to collective action to enable
women to challenge structural discrimination has been downplayed.” Simply, smart
economics assumes that women are entirely capable of increasingly contributing for
economic growth amid the ongoing structural barriers to realize their capabilities.

Sylvia Chant (2008) discredited its approach as ‘feminisation of responsibility

and/or obligation’ where the smart economics intends to spur growth simply by
demanding more from women in terms of time, labour, energy, and other resources.
She also agrees that “Smart economics seeks to use women and girls to fix the
world.” She further goes by clarifying that “It is less welcome to women who are
already contributing vast amounts to both production and unpaid reproduction to be
romanticised and depicted as the salvation of the world.”

Chant is concerned that “An efficiency-driven focus on young women and girls
as smart economics leaves this critical part of the global population out.” Smart
economics assumes that all women are at their productive stage and fallaciously
neglects lives of the elderly women, or women with handicaps. Thus she calls for
recognition of “equal rights of all women and girls -regardless of age, or the extent of
nature of their economic contribution.”  Also, its approach does not talk about
cooperation and collaboration between males and females thus leaving men and
boys completely out of picture.

Chant emphasize that “The smart economics approach represents, at best,

pragmatism in a time of economic restructuring and 
and austerity.”
austerity.”  Smart economics can
have a wider acceptance and legitimacy because now is the time when efficiency is
most demanded, not because its utilitarianism has universal appeal. She further
warns that feminists should be very cautious about "supporting, and working in
coalition with, individuals and institutions who approach gender equality through the
lens of smart economics. This may have attractions in strategic terms, enabling us to
access resources for work focusing on supporting the individual agency of women
and girls, but risks aggravating many of the complex problems that gender and
development seeks to transform."
ACTIVITY III

1. What is gender roles? Can you give an example of a gender role

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2. Explain: “The smart economics approach represents, at best, pragmatism in a

time of economic restructuring and 
and austerity.”
austerity.”

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3. What is the role of Labor International Organization?

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4. What is World Bank’s gender policy?

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LESSON 4
Alternative Approaches
Other approaches with different paradigms have also played a historically
important role in advancing theories and practices in gender and development.
Marxism and Neo-Marxism
The structuralist debate was first triggered by 
by Marxist 
Marxist and 
and socialist feminists.
feminists.
Marxism, particularly through alternative models of  of state socialist 
socialist development
practiced in 
in China 
China and 
and Cuba,
Cuba, challenged the dominant liberal approach over
time. 
time. Neo-Marxist 
Neo-Marxist proponents focused on the role of the  the post-colonial 
post-colonial state in
development in general and also on localized class struggles Marxist
feminists 
feminists advanced these criticisms towards liberal approaches and made
significant contribution to the contemporary debate.
Dependency theory
Dependency theorists opposed that liberal development models, including the
attempt to incorporate women into the existing global capitalism, was, in fact,
nothing more than the "development of 
of underdevelopment."
underdevelopment." This view led them to
propose that delinking from the structural oppression of  of global capitalism 
capitalism is the
only way to achieve balanced human development. In the 1980s, there also
emerged "a sustained questioning by 
by post-structuralist 
post-structuralist critics of the development
paradigm as a narrative of progress and as an achievable enterprise."

Basic Needs Approach, Capability Approach, and Ecofeminism

Within the liberal paradigm of women and development, various criticism

have emerged. The 
The Basic Needs 
Needs (BN) approach began to pose questions to the
focus on growth and income as indicators of development. It was heavily
influenced by 
by Sen 
Sen and Nussbaum's 
Nussbaum's capability approach,
approach, which was more gender
sensitive than BN and focused on expanding human freedom.  The BN
particularly proposed a participatory approach to development and challenged
the dominant discourse of trickle down effects. These approaches focused on the
human freedom led to development of other important concepts such as human
development and and human security.
security. From a perspective of  of sustainable
development,
development, ecofeminists articulated the direct link between 
between colonialism 
colonialism and
environmental degradation, which resulted in degradation of women's lives
themselves.

ACTIVITY IV
 1. What is the difference between Basic Needs (BN) approach, Capability
approach and Ecofeminism.

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2. In your own opinion what is Dependency Theory?

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3. What is a Neo-Marxcist approach in gender and development?

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MIDTERM EXAMINATION

________________1. Assumes that all women are at their productive stage and
fallaciously neglects lives of the elderly women, or women with handicaps.
________________2. An approach which began to pose questions to the focus on
growth and income as indicators of development.
________________3. In itself it is depicted as smart economics, in that it enables
women to contribute their utmost skills and energies to the project of world economic
development.”
________________4.She is more focused in an efficiency-driven focus on young
women and girls as smart economics leaves this critical part of the global population
out.”
________________5.The act of giving small loans to people in poverty without
collateral.
________________6. Its policy aims to address policy and institutional constraints
that maintain disparities between the genders and thus limit the effectiveness of
development programs.
________________7.The
________________7.The difference between men and women in terms of numbers
engaged in entrepreneurial activity, motives to start or run a business, industry
choice and business performance and growth.

________________8.They have been the focus of microcredit for their subsequent

increased status as well as the overall well-being of the home being improved when
given to women rather than men.

________________9. It 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.

________________10. It was the first contemporary movement to specifically

integrate women in the broader development agenda and acted as the precursor to
later movements.

________________11. It postulates that women's disadvantages in society may be

eliminated by breaking down customary expectations of women by offering better
education to women and introducing equal opportunity programmes, had a notable
influence on the formulation of the WID approaches.

________________12. It is an interdisciplinary field of research and applied study

that implements a 
a feminist 
feminist approach to understanding and addressing the disparate
impact that 
that economic development 
development and 
and globalization 
globalization have on people based upon
their

13._________________14.________________15.______________16.__________

_________________17. A feminist economist who is a pioneering of a

book 
book Women’s Role in Economic Development 
Development (1970) was published, radically
shifting perspectives of development and contributing to the birth of what eventually
became the gender and development field.

__________________18. According to her, “Smart

“Smart economics seeks to use women
and girls to fix the world.”
___________________________19.
19. seeks to equalize the status and condition of and relations
between 20.__________and 21._________ by influencing the process and output of
22.________________, 23._________________, 24.__________so that they would
deliberately address the gender issues and concerns affecting the full development
of women.

___________________25. Aside from World Bank it is also a financial institution

which have implemented policies, programs, and research regarding gender and
development, contributing a 
a neoliberal 
neoliberal and smart economics approach to the study.

___________________26. It happens when companies from the western world

moves some of their business to another country.

___________________27. Giving more opportunities to those who have less and

those who are historically and socially disadvantaged based on their needs for them
to operate on a level plating field.

___________________28. In this country main people who work in these factories

are women, these women move from their home towns to cities far away for the
factory jobs.

___________________29. To empower women, access to information, training,

technology, market and credit is necessary.

___________________30. She  She criticized 

criticized state capitalism 
capitalism and the 
the welfare state 
state as a
tool to oppress women. Therefore, neoliberal economic policies
featuring 
featuring privatization 
privatization and 
and deregulation,
deregulation, hence a reduction of the influence of the
state and more individual freedom was argued to improve conditions for women.

ESSAY
1.What is your insight on this line. “Investing in adolescent girls is precisely the
catalyst poor countries need to break intergenerational poverty and to create a better
distribution of income. Investing in them is not only fair, it is a smart economic move.”
2. State the WAD paradigm and it importance in todays uncertain times.
3. What is the role of gender and development in nation building?

GOOD LUCK ! GOD BLESS YOU ! STAY SAFE !

 Prepared by:
Vanessa Galit-Lluz
Instructor-III