Western feminism and development
Western feminism started mainly emphasizing on women’s role in development during the 1970s what is known as the “Second Wave” of feminist movements. Ester Boserup, a Danish economist, analyzed development as an ideology that excluded women, and proposed alteration in looking at the established development processes, and policies in her book “Woman’s Role in Economic Development” in the 1970. Aguinaga et al (2013) mentions that Boserup’s book resulted to the first World Conference on Women, which the United Nations declared the next decade the “Decade of Women” and institutionalized women’s perspective as part of development on July 2, 1975 in Mexico. Until the 1970s, women had only been considered in development policies as submissive beneficiaries, as being mothers and housewives, while training, technology and finance were in the hands of men. The Western model became popular through development programs and the model focused on the home as a standard recipient unit and women were dependants, in charge of the home. More particularly the model considered men as breadwinners with a salaried job. Hence, the involvement of UN lead to including women in development areas and development related resources and lead to concepts like Women in Development” (WID), “Women and Development” (WAD) and “Gender and Development” (GAD).
In the “Women in Development” (WID) huge numbers of NGOs were involved, that were programmed so that women can gain access funds and be included as program beneficiaries in the development process. “Women and Development” (WAD) its roots in Marxist feminism and the theory of dependence, which believes that the fruit of development which the North or western world enjoys is the ...
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...ironmental destruction, but also by the complicity between those who hold local power - and try to carry out “development” - and the forces of global capital.
References
1) Bruno, J.P. , 2006-08-10 "Feminist Approaches to Development and the Critique to Western Feminist Paradigms" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, Montreal Convention Center, Montreal, Quebec, Canada Online . 2013-12-16 fromhttp://citation.allacademic.com/meta/p103333_index.html
2) Rai, S. 1998 "Engendered Development in a Global Age?" CSGR Working Paper No. 20/98, December 1998 from http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/2105/1/WRAP_Rai_wp2098.pdf
3) Aguinaga,M., Lang,M., Mokrani,D., & Santillana, A., 2013 “Development Critiques and Alternatives: A Feminist Perspective” from http://www.tni.org/sites/www.tni.org/files/download/beyonddevelopment_critiques.pdf
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Throughout our program, I still maintained and took into consideration the general and primary focus of this learning plan. However, to my surprise, I began to touch on very country specific topics concerning the lives of women. This was because each country we visited was so different than the others, each had its own view towards wome...
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30, No. 4, New Feminist Approaches to Social Science Methodologies, Special Issue Editors, Sandra Harding and Kathryn
The principal of empowerment lies in the capability of a woman to control her own purposes. Previously in the 70’s, being an empowered women wasn’t an option. They didn’t have equal capabilities such as education to achieve literacy, health and equal access to resources and opportunities such as employment with same wage as men. However, to use those rights, skills, resources, and opportunities to make deliberate decisions such as providing through management opportunities and involvement in political organizations, weren’t an option either. Also women wanted to live without the fear of pressure and violence threw out those historical times. Because the stereotype for women was the proper place for them to be was home while men worked to provide for his family. These boundaries have made men the guardians of what has been taught and understood concerning gender and the placement of men and women in society. However, this perspective has changed over the years. Women have now stepped outside of those powerless limits of domesticity and have now been recognized as gender equality. Women today in society now have strengthen opportunities for a proper education, assurance for sexual and reproductive health and rights, abolish gender discrimination in employment by decreasing women’s dependence as a house wife as an employment, increased women’s share of seats in
...ntries women are restricted in where they can and cannot work. Most commonly, they seem to be restricted from jobs in which physically taxing tasks are the norm. This is no doubt due to the stereotype that women are fragile and weak and must be protected (a stereotype that can hold true, but that is not always true). This also seems to be consistent across culture. However, despite the fact that these restrictions were enacted to protect women, they place heavy limitations on women’s opportunities. Furthermore, these are not the only injustices many women across the world face. However, the only way to fight these injustices is to increase women’s participation in politics, as discussed in the UN report from 2008. It is absolutely vital that women be able to actively participate in politics without letting gender discrimination and stereotypes get in the way.
Udayagiri, Mridula. (1995) “Challenging Modernization: Gender and Development, Postmodern Feminism and Activism”, in Marchand, Marianne and Parpart, Jane (eds) Feminism Postmodernism Devlopment, London; New York: Routledge: 159-179.
In her essay, “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses,” Chandra Talpade Mohanty explores the simplified construction of the “third-world woman” in hegemonic feminist discourses. In contrast, in her essay “US Third-World Feminism: The Theory and Method of Oppositional Consciousness in the Postmodern World,” Chela Sandoval specifically analyzes “US third-world feminism” and how it is the model for not only oppositional political activity, but also consciousness in the United States and how this has not been recognized by hegemonic “western” feminist discourses (). While Mohanty and Sandoval are analyzing and critiquing gender and gender politics, Mohanty is specifically focused on the simplified portrayal in “western” feminist discourses of “third world women” as victims, and Sandoval examines an oppositional mode of consciousness, which she defines as “differential consciousness” and how it is employed by “US third world feminism.” Both authors deconstruct gendered bodies of knowledge with an emphasis on the deconstruction of power, race, and colonialism. It is the deconstruction of these gendered bodies of knowledge that this essay will specifically analyze, as well as the depiction of what each author argues is missing from present discourses on gender, and finally, what they believe would be a better way to analyze gender discourses in a postmodern world. (maybe add another similar point, how western feminists are trying to portray “third-world women” and their motivation behind this act)
A growing population of women’s activists can be attributed to the growing number of courses being offered and information available. Only a few decades ago this would not have been heard of. It is due to the increasing amount of awareness on the topic of women’s status as second class citizens that activism has increased. Through various media, we have learned of topics such as the “glass ceiling”, the working conditions of women in Third World countries, the current injustices against women being carried out in the First World, reproductive rights, as written about by Angle Davis, and other limitations imposed on women.
Class this semester was widely based on the ideas and problematic events in which revolve around the idea of globalization. This term, idea, or concept poses many negativities to the gender of women. Despite the media and the common portrayal that the idea of globalization is a positive thing for the world, in many instances it is causing great negativity for people, specifically women. Globalization can be applied to many aspects of culture but many times it is applied in terms of economics. In the patriarchal world in which exists when speaking about economics it is typically a male centered conversation due to the males typically being in lead roles of the work force despite many women in this country and well across borders in other countries being very highly educated and capable of carrying out such jobs. Many of these women who seek to be educated and successful in the workforce do not achieve their goals and fall back into their gender roles which goes against their personal goals. This was demonstrated very well by the case study of “Clashing Dreams: Highly Educated Overseas Brides and Low-Wage U.S. Husbands” written by Hung Cam Thai. Not only are these brides in which are talked about in this essay failing at their personal goals they are also failing at the goals in which Estelle B. Freedman discusses in her book No Turning Back. In this work she speaks much about transnational feminism and the objectives in which much be met to obtain equality rights for women transnational. The link between Freedman’s work and the study of Vietnamese brides marrying transnational is undeniable not for positive outcomes but for negative. By linking these two works not only will it show what needs to be done for women to obtain equal ri...
Pieterse, Jan. "Dilemmas of Development Discourse: The Crisis of Developmentalism and the Comparative Method" in Development and Change 22 (1991)
Ellison, Jesse. "The 2011 Global Women's Progress Report." Newsweek 158.13 (2011): 27-29. Academic Search Complete. Web. 1 May 2012.
McMichael, Philip, ed 2012. Development and Social Change: A Global Perspective, 5th ed. London: Sage Publications, Inc.
The modern world has resulted in earnings, wages and salaries for the women similar to that of men, but the women are continuously facing inequalities in the work force (Andal 2002). This2 can be attributed to the pre-established notion that women shall not be given access to finance or communication with the world outside of the home which is highly unethical and unfair (Eisenhower, 2002). In the past, they were considered as the underprivileged ones which were not thought of having equal rights but this fact has changed now. The status of women can be explicitly defined as the equality and the freedom of the women.