Gender Inequality in the Third World

Women were undermined when they participated in development discourse based on the sexual division of labor and their role in the economy. The development was about economic growth and women were absent in the debate. Women were relegated to the reserves while men were exploited outside the household (Pala, 2005).

Different approaches came into existence to fight the challenges faced by women in the ‘Third World’. Women in development (WID) approach was made as a result of three major feminist waves which were concerned with the feminine conditions. The first wave began in North America in the nineteenth century, when women fought for equal rights to vote and partake in politics. The second wave battled to manage the excess social and cultural imbalances that women faced on a daily basis, for instance, sexual brutality, reproductive rights, and sexual discrimination. Even though the second wave was controversial, women’s movement was very influential that the UN organized the first global conference on women back in 1975 at Mexico. The conference addresses the nations’ role on fighting gender inequalities and support women’s rights. The WID approach helped to ensure the integration of women into the workforce and increase their level of productivity in order to improve their lives. However, some have criticized this approach as being very western and the approach has been tagged as being rather cumbersome on women, as it fails to understand the dynamics of private sphere but focus solely on the public sphere. Late 1970s feminists reacted to WID drawing ideas from underdevelopment thesis and argue that lack of development in third world is due to unequal historical relations between imperialists and ex-colonies.

The women and development (WAD) approach originated back in 1975 in Mexico City. It discusses women’s issues from a neo-Marxist and dependency theory perspective. Its main focus was to explain the relationship between women and the process of capitalist development in terms of material conditions that contribute to their exploitation. WAD is often interpreted as WID, however, what sets it apart is that WAD focuses specifically on the relationship between patriarchy and capitalism. This perspective states that women have always participated and contributed towards economic development, regardless of the public or private sphere.

The gender and development approach originated in the 1980s by a socialist feminism. It served as a transitioning point in the way in which feminists have understood development. It served as a comprehensive overview of the social, economic, and political realities of development. It originates back to the development alternatives with women for a new era (DAWN) network, when it was first initiated in India. The DAWN program held a conference and discussed the achievements made from the previous decades evaluation of promoting equality among sexes, and a full scope of the obstacles limiting women’s advancements, especially in the developing world. The forum discussed about the effectiveness of the continuous debt crisis and structural adjustment program implemented by the IMF and the World Bank, and how such concept of neoliberalism tends to marginalize and discriminate women more in developing countries. The diversity of this approach was open to the experience and need of women in the developing world. The two main goals were to prove that the unequal relationship between sexes hinders development and female participation. The second approach sought to change the structure of power into a long-term goal whereby all decision making, and benefits of development are distributed on equal basis of gender neutrality. The GAD approach is not just focused on biological inequalities among sexes which is men and women, however on how social roles, reproductive roles, and economic roles are linked to gender inequalities of masculinity and femininity.

The effectiveness approach (EA) originated in the 1980s. its ideas are linked to the concept surrounding WID, which was all about the inequalities women faced and how societies fail to acknowledge the impact of women in economic development. However, EA sort not to just include women into development projects but also reinforce their level of productivity and effectiveness in the labor market. So, this requires the development of infrastructure and equipment that aided to increase women’s earnings and productivity, especially women in the rural areas.

Mainstreaming gender equality (MGE) is the most recent development approach aimed on women. It ensures that all gender issues are addressed and integrated in all level of society, politics, and programs. It originated in 1995 at the 4th UN Conference on women in Beijing, China. At the forum, 189 state representatives agreed that the inclusion of both women and men in every development project was the only way to succeed and progress in a nation economic growth and development. The WID approach had been dropped by various aid agencies like CIDA, due to its negative interpretation from supporters as being too feminist and brought about hostility from men towards such programs. So basically, organizations like CIDA now have to include men in their annual development report concerning the allocation of funds spent towards education, health care, and employment of both sexes.

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International companies, financial institution development policy created structural underdevelopment keeping ex-colonies under control of imperial nations. Women and development feminists recognized different positions of women and men in capitalist power relations and development process and added a new layer of development research on waged and unpaid labor in producing a critique of women in global economy. WAD limited in scope where they focused on working class and ignored those not in the waged economy to reduce chances for coalitions.

Present WID Integration

Present WID integration efforts by disregarding factors other than male-bias that affect women's lives and by ignoring the wider problems associated with mainstream development, a narrow approach to women based on 'integration' emerged in the 1970s. This concept of integration remains dominant in contemporary WID/GAD practice and has served to limit the scope and success of WID/GAD practice by the major aid organizations.

Institutional Construction of Integration

When the goal of integration first emerged in the 1970s, it was based on the view that through integration with national economies, Third World women would begin to participate in the development process. However, integration by development agencies assumed that women were not already participating in development, thereby concealing and devaluing women's existing roles in informal economic and political activities and household production. Women's work in subsistence production, informal markets and community and household work was therefore considered outside the domain of 'development', with the result that a large part of women's work and daily life was neglected. As Sicoli rightfully remarked at a time when most donor agencies were proudly espousing the importance of integrating women into development: “the role of women in food and agricultural production is already so pervasive in most countries that exhortations to 'integrate' women into rural development run the risk of sounding ridiculous”. By ignoring women's work in informal economic and political spheres, not only was the concept of integrating women flawed from the outset, but it also suffered from the very problem WID practitioners were reportedly fighting against that is, the invisibility of women's multiple work roles. Also, underpinning many of the integration efforts by development agencies was the belief that by increasing Third World women's participation in formal economic and political structures, their status and position in the household and society generally would be enhanced. For example, USAID documents repeatedly refer to improvements in women's status gained through integration efforts. Similarly, USAID programs and projects throughout most of the 1980s promoted activities to integrate women into the economy of their respective countries, thereby improving their status. While a change in intra-household income patterns may lead to a change in gender relations within a household, it cannot be concluded that this will result in the improved status of women. Indeed, a growing body of literature now questions the simplistic correlation between labor force participation and women's status. These studies do not question the value of cash income in women's lives, but rather its association with increased female status. Not only is such an equation between income and status predicated upon a dominantly Western view, but it also fails to recognize that the factors determining women's status may be culturally specific and multidimensional rather than unidimensional.

Associated with the view that women's status will improve if they move into 'productive employment' is the implicit assumption that women must move from the 'traditional' sector to the 'modern' sector to achieve self-advancement. Such a view is predicated on two main assumptions: the modern sector is socially progressive and a necessary precursor to self-advancement, and 'traditional' work roles are inhibiting to self-development. That these assumptions also underpin modernization theory reveals that WID, rather than offering an alternative approach, remains wedded to existing mainstream development frameworks. Further, the close alignment of integration and modernization means that they share other common problems. For example, both see development as a linear cumulative process, 'traditional' structures as static, and consider anything 'modern' as advanced and 'traditional' as backward. Thus, it was accepted that, with the right inputs and incentives, the 'traditional' Third World woman could be transformed into a 'modern' woman, based largely on the image of the Western woman. Finally, the reliance on modernization theory justified the argument that women needed to be integrated into development before they could be part of the development process. Modernization theorists measure development by GDP, which only records formal sector activities. Since women were not seen to be contributing to the formal economy, then they were seen as not contributing to 'development'. In this way Third World women were unproductive, under- utilized and, as the World Bank put it, 'in a sense wasted'.

The Privileging and Power of the Practice of Integration

The narrow focus on integration has also inadvertently led to privileging this objective above broader issues concerning the viability and appropriateness of prevailing WID and mainstream development practice. Many reports document the level of integration in donor aid activities and the reasons for the poor record of integration, but few seriously question the planning techniques used to promote the integration of women, or critically examine the benefits of integration. Hence there is little analysis of whether integration translates into genuine participation of women and this, I would suggest, is attributable to the belief that 'gender sensitive' projects will automatically benefit women. However, such an assumption ignores problems associated with the techniques used to integrate women into projects and the other shortcomings and biases surrounding aid delivery. Although gender analysis frameworks require the collection of baseline data, which is commendable and represents an advance on previous gender-blind planning, the usefulness of such frameworks is questionable for several reasons. First, the method is grounded in the concept of women as a separate socioeconomic category, and so underestimates the linkages and interactive nature of people's lives.

Conclusion

The approaches clearly show that gender inequality is highly linked with the power struggle that hinders recognition of women as significant actors and negotiators of the development process and the need for including actual fieldwork results into theories of development. WID/GAD does not really offer an alternative approach to mainstream development practice, as many of its assumptions, strategies and notions of 'development' remain firmly rooted in existing development frameworks. The problems found in mainstream development practice, such as misrepresentation and over-generalizing, the use of rigid project frameworks, and the limits placed on Third World people to define and control their own lives, remain in the WID/GAD approach. Third World women were given little say in the way development initiatives were planned in the early stages of the UN Decade for Women. It is somewhat disturbing that Boulding's comment continues to ring true today as project planning techniques continue to restrict women's involvement in a development process where projects largely remain externally operated and controlled. In the current integration efforts of large donors there is little emphasis on harnessing indigenous knowledge and expertise, and opportunities for women to design and manage their own projects remain limited.