This document summarizes the evolution of approaches to gender in development, beginning with Boserup's (1970) work highlighting the impact of development projects on women. It describes the Women in Development (WID) approach of the 1970s, which emphasized women's economic roles but was criticized for oversimplifying gender roles. The Gender and Development (GAD) perspective emerged in the 1980s-90s to consider gender divisions of labor and power relations, but was difficult to implement. More recently, the importance of analyzing masculinities and including men has been recognized, though there are concerns this could recentralize patriarchal perspectives. The document reviews critiques of each approach.

1. MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow.
Gender Matters:
Why we need to take women and
men into consideration when we
conceptualise peaceful and
effective development
Matt Maycock and Julie Brethfeld

2. MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow.
Introduction
“despite a widespread recognition in
development agencies that gender
matters, this all too often translates into
the token, partial and selective
incorporation of gender awareness into
public/international policy, so evident in
anti-poverty programmes”
Molyneux (2004, abstract)

3. MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow.
Boserup (1970) Woman's Role in Economic Development
Boserup investigated the impact of development projects on
women in the Global South.
Boserup ’s study challenged the argument that benefits of
Development automatically trickle down to women and other
disadvantaged groups
Boserup’s study put gender on the development agenda. This
was subsequently criticised for its oversimplification of the
nature of women’s work and roles. (Beneria and Sen in
Visvanathan 1997)

4. MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow.
Women in Development (WID), 1970s
The convergence of Women’s issues and Development problems
led to the growth of the “Women in Development” (WID), which
emphasised women’s economic and productive roles
WID advocates argued that:
• the benefits of Development had not reached women
• in some economic sectors women’s position was undermined
• women should be integrated into the design and
implementation of development programs through legal and
administrative changes

5. MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow.
Women in Development (WID) – Critiques
Assumed women were not already integrated into economic production
Influenced by American feminism: accepted existing social and political
structures (Mohanty, 1984)
Assumed women all had common problems and interests;
De-emphasized the family and community contexts affecting women’s
activities;
Often resulted in separate projects for women separate from broad
development programs. Non-confrontational, thus failed to transform the
fundamental status of women.
Tends to see development as an activity of a government-to-government
nature and consequently generally refrains from criticizing governments.

6. MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow.
Gender and Development (GAD), 1980s and 90s
The GAD perspective sought to move beyond gender
dichotomies and unilateral focus that had characterised WID.
GAD practitioners studied gender divisions of labour rather
than women and production.
Gender is verb not a noun, it is performed and socially
constructed (Butler, 1990)
Gender is shaped not only by a multiplicity of interacting
time-and place-contingent influences (culture, mode of
production, legal and political institutions, etc…), but is
further mediated by men’s and women’s insertion into other
socially generated categories such as class, age and “race”
(Moser 1993:3). Intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1989)

7. MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow.
Gender and Development (GAD), 1980s and 90s
One of the key aims of this approach was to reveal and
potentially alter, through appropriate development methods
and practices, the power relations implied by gender as a
socially constructed identity (Chant 2000:8).
It also called for the integration of a gender perspective at all
levels of development activity (2000:8) and aimed to promote
men’s role as potential supporters of women
Feminist anthropologists influencing GAD, contended that
there was nothing `natural’ about the gender inequalities that
take different forms in different cultures (cf. Strathern 1980,
Moore 1988).

8. MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow.
Gender and Development (GAD) – Critiques
GAD has faced criticism from gender theorists (cf. Jackson,
2001; Chant 2000), among others, who are unconvinced that
GAD has provided any alternative to the shortcomings of WID.
In the literature and reports of development agencies and NGOs,
the terms ‘gender’ and ‘women’ are often used interchangeably
as if one were synonymous with the other (Kaufman 2003:3)
On a more practical level, the complicated concept of gender as
performed, relational and contested is less easily incorporated
into development planning than the ‘add on’ WID approach that
preceded it. GAD often requires action beyond the limited time
and resources of development agencies

9. MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow.
Men, Masculinities and Development
The perceived failure of GAD to adopt a truly relational and
integrated approach has meant that development agencies are
becoming increasingly interested to ‘bring men in’ to work on
gender (White 2000:33).
Analyses of men as gendered beings (Connell, 1995), their
perceptions of the relationships they have with women and with
other men have been largely missing from the GAD agenda.
Various contributions to GAD debates have emphasised the
importance of a male-inclusive approach (Chant 2003; Jackson
2001) and drawn attention to the ways in which GAD practice and
policy, based on hegemonic gender ideologies, has negated the
diversity of men and masculinities.

10. MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow.
Men, Masculinities and Development – Critiques
It is important that an agency-centred approach to the analysis of
gender and power does not go too far in legitimising non-
equitable hierarchies of power.
Turning attention to men may allow the ‘reinscription’ of
patriarchal explanations which lie conveniently close to hand
(White 2000:35).
There is a concern that there is an emerging assumption that
women in development have been ‘done’ and all that is needed
now is to ‘bring men in’ (White 2000:35).
Incorporating men will not solve the problematic of gender
discourse as ‘sex-dressed’ (2000:37).

11. MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow.
http://www.saferworld.org.uk

12. MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow.

13. MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow.
Thank you!
Matt Maycock
Matthew.maycock@glasgow.ac.uk
Julie Brethfeld
jbrethfeld@saferworld.org.uk