Women & Development: What Different Feminisms Have to Say

1. Women & Development: What Different Feminisms Have to Say By: Andrew Carvajal

2. Research Question • The effects that development has had on women and the goals of the feminist movement • What different feminist schools of thought have to say about the impact of current developmental trends and initiatives • Benefits, constraints and challenges that ‘development’ might pose to the ultimate feminist goal of deconstructing…

3. Patriarchy!!! The root of all EVIL…. Institutionalized male dominance

4. Some Necessary Definitions • Looking at development from a very specific and narrow view • Development initiatives have traditionally taken a specific direction, at least globally, and I want to look at those being focused primarily on economic growth as well as a neo-liberal, expansionist, and globalization agenda • Why? • Interested in assessing the impact of this dominant rhetoric and drive within developmental campaigns on women • Help determine whether it should take a different direction, and how its initiatives can be implemented in a way that are more conducive to feminist goals • Why use theory? Study what is problematic about development as we see it today within what different feminisms see as the underlying cause of women’s oppression • Contrast theoretical claims with some real life scenarios

5. Development as Globalization • A process of increasing intensity in different types of human interaction across trans-national borders, aided by technological developments in communications and transportation, amongst others • A pattern characterized by the increase of international trade; financial and economic deregulation; the strengthening of an economic neo-liberal agenda; the appearance of new international institutions, organizations and associations; the emergence of more types of supra-national and sub-national levels of governance, the consolidation of an international system of capitalism(s); amongst many other attributes

6. Some Necessary Definitions cntd Women • Individuals who collectively benefit or lose from the interaction between developmental initiatives and patriarchy, as a result of having been assigned a social female gender after having been born with a specific set of biological attributes • Not all women are the same • Development and its global agenda does not have the same effect on all women

7. Basic Premises Women’s weaknesses and inequality derive from their lack of education, freedom of choice and dependence on men Gender inequality can be resolved through legal measures that will end women’s economic and social dependence on men Introduction of these norms and values into society would permeate the private sphere with ideals of equality The Benefits of Development Promotes Western liberal values of equality, choice and opportunity Its movement leads to International treaties that uphold ideas of equality between the sexes, which are then enforced and monitored by international institutions The spread of liberal democracies and their market economies allow for the free participation of women in the public sphere Liberal Feminism

8. Liberal Feminism cntd Problems with this approach • Benefits have not been shared equally by all women. Liberal feminism has improved the lot of privileged women, but has left the social organization of everyday life untouched • A ‘hands-off’ liberal approach fails to recognize institutionalized inequities of class, race, ethnicity and disability, and as result, does not address them • Liberal model presumes a distinction between the private world of the home and public lives of individuals, without analyzing the spillover effect of one on the other • Development within this framework fails to address deeper patterns of inequality, which simple equality before the law cannot address. A non-interventionist state upholds and preserves these levels of inequity and widens the gap between those men and women who can truly access education and the public sphere freely, and those who don’t

9. Marxist Feminism Basic Premises • Women’s relationship to the economy is the origin of their oppression • Gender dichotomies are due to capitalism • The industrialized order relegated women to the private sphere in which they produce goods and services that are not exchangeable for money, making them dependent on men • Ownership of the means of production (in the public sphere) by few, mainly men, created oppression, inequality and misery • The modern nuclear family is a necessary tool to maintain capitalist values and socialize gender distinctions that are necessary to keep capitalist production going

10. Marxist Feminism cnt’d What does development do? • It expands and consolidates a system of unequal material benefits between men and women • It imposes the monogamous nuclear family as a standard to be replicated; one in which capitalist ideology and that of the division of labour by sex is idealized • The imposition of liberal economic markets introduces women into the labour force without socializing the jobs of cooking, cleaning, and childcare, making them work a “double-day”

11. Marxist Feminism cnt’d Any benefits from this developmental trend? • It could be argued that the internationalization of this oppressive capitalist system will soon generate a strong opposition from its oppressed class (women) • The expansion of communication might aid women from different parts of the world join hands together against capitalism and patriarchy • It can help diffuse a new ideology which is the only way to accomplish change • Along with the queer movement, the transnational expansion of queer culture and the introduction of women into the labour force, we see new forms of more egalitarian family organizations emerging

12. Global Feminism Some of the many problems with modern development • Basic Premise: The oppression of women is dependent on what happens in other parts of the world and no woman is free until the conditions of oppression of women are eliminated everywhere. The current ways in which our economic, political, and military relationships are structured do not work to foster greater security, peace, or equality of human rights for the majority of women • Neo-liberal system of progress can only afford a limited number of women to catch up with men, especially given the trend of measuring human happiness with the possession of material goods • For first world women to maintain their lifestyles, they pass their gains onto the third world as economic, social and ecological costs. In order to maintain our current ‘colonial world order’, the gap between the developed and developing world will continue to be upheld • Modern economic growth increases women’s financial dependence on men, deepens men’s and women’s dependence on wages, and concentrates wealth and power in fewer hands

13. Global Feminism cnt’d • Structural adjustment programs have shifted power away from public sectors and policies that alleviate women’s domestic burden • ‘Catching up development’ is not feasible nor desirable. The First World’s good life is negative as human relationships are concerned, and it leads to the loss of selfhood and increased concern with making money • Global market trends have left women more impoverished and more vulnerable to further exploitation • We have seen the increase of transnational sex-work as accompanying poverty and the opening of markets to tourists, as well as the legacy from Western-driven wars • Rather than seeing women’s participation in the current world-wide process of economic development, the process in itself must be questioned

14. Global Feminism cnt’d The promises of development as globalization • It has laid, nonetheless, the basis for regional and global dialogue and cooperation amongst feminists • It enhances the possibility for local groups to join internationally and fight the new form of economic, political and social oppression laid on women by the current neo-liberal order • International institutions can help universalize, provide and protect a set of basic capabilities that need to be provided by all governments to all citizens, and that may not be infringed upon to pursue any other types of social advantage

15. But globalists beware!! Not all women are the same Multicultural feminism • A commitment to diversity! Challenge the uniform idea of woman and remind us that not all women are created nor constructed equally • Multiculturalists warn us that the current trend of development is too Eurocentric and caution us about accepting a community's’ standards which are in themselves highly influenced by patriarchy • In order to accommodate all women, we need to abandon the homogenization of culture and the idea that ‘appropriate living standards’ are those based on the US and the West • Scope of feminism has to be broadened to all things that oppress women, be it class, race, gender, politics… • Highlight the politics of difference and the intersectionality of individuals • We need to be careful when coming up with universal characterizations and normative ideas of what is good and bad, as it may lead to assimilationism and cultural imperialism E.g. FGM • Some feminists have derived the idea of the use of consent in determining whether a practice is driven by oppression or not and whether it should be respected

16. Multicultural Feminism contd • On the plus side of development • It may provide those who have never been heard with a voice, or the tools to make themselves heard • It can facilitate the development of grassroots organizations based on local communities and issues which can then gather international attention and mobilize support abroad

17. Radical Feminism Some Basic Premises • Women’s oppression is the widest and deepest form of oppression • In the worldwide system of patriarchy, women are mainly subordinated through violence and sexual exploitation • Sexuality is a social construct of male power defined by men and forced on women • Femininity is constructed as being inferior to masculinity and women are defined through what male desire requires for arousal and satisfaction • Heterosexuality has been constructed as a compulsory political institution to which women are compelled to participate in for social respectability and economic survival • Other forms of sexuality seen as deviant

18. Radical Feminism cntd Problem with modern development • It disseminates a Western economic and political arrangement constructed by males and in which male dominance is institutionalized and ideals of masculinity are idealized • Imposes an ideal of sexuality in which women have been objectified and made submissive to men and their desires Some of its benefits • It may strengthen women’s bonds and bridge their differences, while creating a female-specific space where they can be sheltered from institutionalized male oppression and fight it

19. Preliminary Findings • Most problems deal with the pattern aspect of development and globalization • However, as a process, it provides various opportunities to advance feminist goals • We need to institute different approaches to development • Local vs. Universal • Indigenous vs. External • Individual vs. Collective