Gender issues in developement

GENDER ISSUES AND
DEVELOPEMENT
GENDER ISSUES IN DEVELOPMENT

STUDY SUMMARY
• By the end of this module you should be able to:
• Define different concepts used in Gender studies and
their application to development
• Discuss Gender issues in Development
• Explain the role of gender in Development
 Why Gender matter in Development
Women’s Role in Development(three theories)

DEFINITION OF CONCEPTS
• GENDER
• Gender is a social and cultural construction. It
refers to ways in which a particular society
constructs or makes differences between men
and women, masculinities and femininities.

Gender cont…
• Mosse (1993:2) define “Gender as a set of
roles which, like costumes or masks in the
theatre, communicate to other people that we
are feminine or masculine.” These masks
include dress, attitudes, personalities, work
both within and outside the house, family
commitments etc.

Sex
• The term "sex" denotes the actual physical
makeup of individuals that define them as
male or female. Sex is determined by genetic
makeup, internal reproductive organs, the
organization of the brain (such as in the
control of hormone production)

Gender and Development Issues
• Some of the development issues are such as life
expectancy, population, education, healthy and
employment .
• Life expectancy is the number of years on
average that someone can expect to live.
• High and rising life expectancy is associated with
a good and improving quality of life.
• A country’s life expectancy is therefore a measure
of how effectively it is governed and how it
compares with the rest of the world

Gender and Development Issues
• Women live longer than men, but there are
slightly more men than women in the world
today, and this pattern varies in different parts
of the world. In developed countries, women
live longer than men.
• In developing countries, men live longer than
women. This suggests that, assuming women
in both sets of countries are genetically
similar, there must be social factors at work.

Gender and Development Issues….
• Population
• Male to female ratios
• Population: In some societies where male
children are preferred, male-female imbalances
are increasing due, for example, to sex-selective
abortion or infanticide.
• Based on population statistics it is reasonable to
assume that in any country the proportional of
male to female would be 50/50. But this is not
the case

• although women live longer than men do, and
although in 1985 there were more women than
men, there are slightly more men than women in
the world today.
• The fact and figure:
• The world statistical average of women per every
100 men is 98.6.
• There are 72 countries where men outnumber
women. Nearly all of these countries are in the
developing world.

• particularly in Asia, the South Pacific, Latin
America and North Africa.
• A striking case is that of India, where the
gender ratio is 92.7 women to every 100 men,
and even more startlingly, in a relatively
wealthy state such as the Punjab, only 79.3
women per 100 men.

• A serious imbalance in the gender ratio is
likely to be the result of human intervention in
countries where there is strong preference for
male children.
• Education: Women make up two-thirds of the
illiterate population in the world.
• illiteracy levels, access to schooling , school
dropout rates

illiteracy levels
• In regions where illiteracy is evident, it is much higher
among women than among men.
• Currently, 64 per cent of the world’s 800 million
illiterates are women
• While many countries achieve near parity in
educational enrolment (i.e. equal numbers of boys and
girls), progress towards gender equality in education is
a more complex goal and more difficult to measure
• School dropout rates are higher for girls than boys in
many developing countries.

• Health: Women experience more health
problems than men because of problems
related to their reproductive functions
• (e.g. early child-bearing, unsafe abortion) and
because of discriminatory practices (e.g.
discriminatory childcare, undernutrition).

• Although girls are born with biological
advantage inheritance that make them less
vulnerable to childhood diseases given equal
nutrition, health conditions and health care.
However, discrimination in the treatment of
girls can destabilize their inborn biological
advantages

• The key factors that adversely affect girls’
health include:
• discriminatory childcare practices
• female genital mutilation
• sex selection and sex selective abortion.

• Girls in adolescence
• A number of other problems affect adolescents
and have a much more negative impact on
females. These include:
• early childbearing
• unsafe abortion
• sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS
• under-nutrition
• substance and drug abuse

• Earlier childbearing:
• The proportion of women giving birth during
their teenage years ranges from 10–50 per
cent depending on the country and region.
• Early pregnancy can have particularly harmful
effects on a girl’s social and economic
opportunities

• Adolescent girls are not physically prepared
for childbirth, since linear growth is not
complete until the age of 18 and the birth
canal does not reach mature size until two to
three years later hence serious problem in
pregnant related complication. One in every
four suffer,
• Early pregnancy increases the chances of
maternal mortality and illness.

• Many unmarried adolescents seek abortion –
whether legal or not in order to avoid expulsion
from school and social condemnation. However
they end up in unsafe abortion.
• STIs and HIV/AIDS
• Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) including
HIV are spreading rapidly among young women,
mainly through heterosexual sex and especially
unprotected sexual relations with older men.

• Inadequate diet and micronutrient deficiency
during this period can jeopardise girls’ health
and physical development, resulting in lifelong
problems.
• unemployment is a serious problem for all
people, but women’s rates of unemployment
are generally higher than men

SEX VS GENDER
SEX
• Biological characteristics
(including genetics,
anatomy and physiology)
that generally define
humans as female or male.
• Born with it
• Natural
GENDER
• Socially constructed set of
roles and responsibilities
associated with being girl
and or boy, women and m
men, and in some cultures a
third or other gender.
• Not born with it
• Learned

SEX VS GENDER
• Universal, A-historical
• No variation from
culture to culture or
time to time.
• Gender roles vary
greatly in different
societies, cultures and
historical periods as
well as they depend
also on socio-economic
factors, age, education,
ethnicity and religion

SEX VS GENDER
sex
• Cannot be changed,
except with the medical
treatment.
Gender
• Although deeply rooted,
gender roles can be
changed over time,
since social values and
norms are not static.

Gender Equality Vs Gender Equity
• Gender Equality
• The state or condition that affords women
and men equal enjoyment of human rights,
socially valued goods, opportunities and
resources, allowing both sexes the same
opportunities and potential to contribute
to, and benefit from, all spheres of society
(economic, political, social, and cultural).

• In other word Gender equality refers to equal
rights, responsibilities and opportunities that all
persons should enjoy, regardless of whether one
is born male or female.
• Given that women are usually in a disadvantaged
position in the workplace compared to men,
promotion of gender equality implies explicit
attention to women’s needs and perspectives.

• Importance of Gender Equality:
• Empowered women contribute to the health and
productivity of whole families and communities
and to improved prospects for the next
generation.
• The importance of gender equality is underscored
by its inclusion as one of the eight Millennium
Development Goals. Gender equality is
acknowledged as being a key to achieving the
other seven goals

• Gender Equity
• Justice and fairness in the treatment of
women and men in order to eventually
achieve gender equality, often requesting
differential treatment of women and men (or
specific measures) in order to compensate for
the historical and social disadvantages that
prevent women and men from sharing a level
playing field.

• In the context of the world of work, equality
between women and men includes the
following elements:
• Equality of opportunity and treatment in
employment
• Equal remuneration for work of equal value
• Equal access to safe and healthy working
environments and to social security

• Equality in association and collective
bargaining
• Equality in obtaining meaningful career
development
• A balance between work and home life that is
fair to both women and men
• Equal participation in decision-making at all
levels

• Patterns of inequalities
 Political power and representation: Women
are often underrepresented in formal
decision-making structures, including
governments, community councils, and policy-
making institutions.

Economic participation and opportunities: In
most countries, women and men are
distributed differently across sectors. Women
are receiving lower wages for similar work, are
more likely to be in low-paid jobs and
unsecured work (part-time, temporary, home-
based) and are likely to have less access than
men to productive assets such as education,
skills, property and credit.

 Educational attainment: In most countries women
have lower literacy rate, lower level of enrolment in
primary, secondary and tertiary education.
 Differences in legal status and entitlements: There are
many instances in which equal rights to personal
status, security, land, inheritance and employment
opportunities are denied to women by law or practice.

Sexual and domestic violence: Women tend
to be more often victims in a form a domestic
violence by woman’s intimate partner, sexual
exploitation through trafficking and sex trade,
in wars by an enemy army as a weapon of
attempted ‘ethnic cleansing’ etc.

Gender Mainstreaming
• An organizational strategy to bring a gender
perspective to all aspects of an institution’s
policy and activities, through building gender
capacity and accountability

Role of Gender in Development
• Why Gender is a Development Issue
• The word ‘development’ entails the notion of
progress in all spheres of society – economic,
political, social and cultural. Development of a
local community, such as the one in which you
live, cannot take place in isolation. It is always
influenced by political and economic decisions
taken at higher levels, whether regional,
national or international.

• Therefore as a development agent, you will at
times need to consider the development
needs of women and men separately, in order
to pursue development activities optimally

Role of women in Development
• Three theories:
• Since 1970 theorist have tried to devise a
number of strategies to address the problem
of gender difference in development and
particularly to women disadvantage. Three
important theories have been developed:
• Women in Development (WID)
• Women and Development (WAD)
• Gender and Development (GAD)

Role of women in Development ..
• Women in Development (WID)
• The WID (or Women in Development)
approach calls for greater attention to women
in development policy and practice, and
emphasizes the need to integrate them into
the development process. It evolved in the
early 1970s as a reaction to women being
seen as passive beneficiaries of development.

Role of women in Development…
• The movement identified other problems,
such as women’s disadvantaged position in
education, health and employment. WID
writers concluded that women were being
sidelined in the development process so they
sought practical methods to improve women’s
material conditions.

• With the help of female Academic pressure
group WID theory soon became a descriptor
for any policy that insisted on bringing women
into the development process. This also led to
the declaration of the 1976-1985 period as
the United Nations Decade for Women:
Equality, Development and Peace.

• It marked an important corrective, highlighting the
fact that women need to be integrated into
development processes as active agents if efficient
and effective development is to be achieved.
• Women’s significant productive contribution was
made visible, although their reproductive role was
downplayed. Women’s subordination was seen in
terms of their exclusion from the market sphere, and
limited access to and control over resources.

• Programmes informed by a WID approach
addressed women’s practical needs by, for
example, creating employment and income-
generating opportunities, improving access to
credit and to education

The Shortcoming of WID
This approach made demands for women’s inclusion in
development, but it did not call for changes in the overall
structure or economic system in which women were to
be included.
The WID approach concentrated very narrowly on the
inequalities between men and women and ignored the
social, cultural, legal and economic factors that give rise
to those inequalities in society.
WID focused on women almost exclusively and assumed
that women were outside the mainstream of
development.

• Gender and Development (GAD)
• Focuses on the socially constructed basis of
differences between men and women and
emphasizes the need to challenge existing gender
roles and relations
• GAD emerged from a frustration with the lack of
progress of WID policy, in changing women’s lives
and in influencing the broader development agenda.

• GAD challenged the WID focus on women in
isolation, seeing women’s real problem as the
imbalance of power between women and
men.
• GAD approaches generally aim to meet both
women’s practical gender needs and more
strategic gender needs, by challenging existing
divisions of labour or power relations

• The concept of GAD looks at:
• The gender division of labour – for both
productive and reproductive work
• Access to and control of resources and benefits
• The specific social, economic and environmental
factors that influence the division of labour and
access to resources.
• GAD tries to analyse the roles and contribution of
all members of a community – not just women –
to the development process, and focuses on
differences and disparities in their conditions.

• The GAD approach to development policy
“examines the socially constructed basis of
differences between men and women and re-
emphasises the need to challenge existing gender
roles and relations” where these are inequitable
and where they impede the process of
development. The main ethical argument is that
women are not mere reproducers and passive
recipients of basic needs and resources, but
should be seen as having inalienable rights and
also as being key agents of development

• Shortcoming of GAD
• GAD has been criticized for emphasizing the
social differences between men and women
while neglecting the bonds this policy aims to
address policy and institutional constraints
that maintain disparities between them and
also the potential for changes in roles

Role of women in Development..
• Another criticism is that GAD does not dig
deep 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-off
that women are prepared to make for the sake
of achieving their ideals of marriage or
motherhood

• Women and Development (WAD)
• The theoretical base for the WAD theory was the
neo-colonial dependence model. Its proponents
argued that developing countries are modern
versions of colonies because they are
economically dependent on their rich-country
trading partners. So they are forced by this
system, intentionally or unintentionally, to
experience unequal and exploitative relationships
with the developed capitalist countries.

• In this situation, men and women alike are in
disadvantaged positions because they are all
victims of international economic and
financial structures that cause unequal
distribution of wealth

• The WAD approach argues that women are
deeply integrated in these structures, and no
amount of superficial manipulation will solve
their problems. What is required for women
to advance is the removal of the inequitable
structures and relationships. The needed
reforms are both international and domestic,
and must be at the political and institutional
level as well as the economic

• A further WAD argument is that since men
have failed to achieve these equitable
relationships (which are the basis for the
emancipation of all people), women would do
better than men – if given the chance. Women
could achieve the desired equitable
development, acting on their own. Hence the
name of the theory

• A weakness in the WAD approach is that it does not do
enough to address the different experiences of women
and men.
• It does not look at the way women are oppressed and
subordinated in male/ female relationships.
• It tends to lump men’s and women’s problems together
and fails to tease out the subtleties of the problems
and to address women’s added disadvantage.
• Moreover, the global reach of the theory over-
emphasises the elimination of inequitable international
structures. It could be argued that this is idealistic and
not relevant to the goal of dynamic local change.

Gender issues in developement

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