Feminist View of Development

Women contribution to national development is

crucial. The process of development would be
incomplete and lopsided, unless women are fully
involved in it. Emancipation of women is an
essential pre-requisite for economic development
and social progress of the nation. If any program
as to be implemented successfully, so that certain
modifications if any needed for the improvement
of the programme can be taken into consideration.
Women play a vital role in the process of
development. Their participation is not recognized
and is often ignored. Women contribute in every
field of work be it politics, agriculture and
economics. Women had been exploited over the
years by society. Women are declared the weaker
sex by default. Women position in society has
been improving over the years. Women still
continue to be the weaker sex. The male
domination of society and government are often
seen for the purpose of serving male interests and
in the continued subordination of women.
Development is a process not a level, it is for the
entire population not for one person or one
gender. Just as gender inequality exacerbates
poverty, poverty contributes to increased
gender disparity. Gender equality is not only a
women’s issue, but should concern ad fully
engage men and boys who can and do contribute
to advancing gender.
equality, as individuals, within the family, community
and in all spheres of society. Boys also face
discriminatory barriers and practices themselves
which need to be addressed. Poverty and gender
inequality are denials of human rights because
they infringe n human freedom, destroy human
dignity and involve discrimination and injustice.
Policy and strategies to eliminate both, must
address, above all else, the structural and
systemic factors that have caused poverty and
gender inequality to rise. Also key, is taking a
human rights approach and engaging women and
men, boys and their communities to develop their
own strategies to address poverty. Without a
strong commitment to and investment in
addressing the gender dimensions of poverty and
women’s economic and political empowerment,
the goal
of poverty elimination will remain elusive. Womea’s
participation in decision-making at all levels of
governance structures
is inadequate. When we speak of women’s work we
initially think of the work that women do at home,
their unpaid domestic labour. The old catchcry
‘women’s work is never done’ refers to the
hundreds of household chores for which women
are assumed to take total responsibility. However
there is also another sort of ‘women’s work’ – the
work done by women in the paid workforce, which
is characterised by the fact that it tends to be
done only by women. Although the work women
perform at home is itself invisible because it is
always done away from the public eye, women are
seen by society as housewives and mothers and
not as paid workers. Women’s unpaid domestic
work is seen as primary and paramount, and their
workforce participation is therefore reduced to
apparent insignificance and social ‘invisibility’.
The social invisibility of women’s paid labour is used
to justify paying women lower wages than men.
Underlying the conception that housewifery and
motherhood constitute women’s primary role is
the assumption that they are dependent on
fathers and husbands. Thus when women enter
the workforce they are not seen as needing the
same remuneration as men because they are
already ‘sharing’ a man’s wage. Women as
individuals are also rendered vulnerable to
accepting low wages because they themselves see
their paid labour as less significant than their
primary task of home-making. As Juliet Mitchell
says in Woman’s Estate, ‘Their exploitation is
invisible behind an ideology that masks the fact
that they work at all their work appears
inessential. Equality between men and women is
not the aim of feminist, it is a misconception that
feminist fight for the right of women. It is not just
about equality they are fighting for the recognition
of their differences from men and fighting for their
right against it. There are certain social handicap
about biological differences between men and
women which needs to be considered and women
differences should be recognized.
Feminst fight for women dignity and they want
women to be at par with men despite their biological
differences. Dignity is the main issue for feminist.
Importance given to men is socially and culturally
inbuilt. The major fight for rights of the women is
against this supremacy of men, gender bias is every
where in every field.
Education is widely recognized as the gateway to
economic security and opportunity- particularly for
girls and women.
World figures in literacy relate a sorry tale. Of the
130 million 6-11 year-old children not in school - a
majority - 60 percent are girls. The figures only go to
show how in most regions of the world, specially the
developing societies, gender bias impinges on girls'
education.
The foremost factor limiting female education is
poverty. Economics plays a key role when it comes to
coping with directs costs such as tuition fees, cost of
textbooks, uniforms, transportation and other
expenses. Wherever, especially in families with many
children, these costs exceed the income of the
family, girls are the first to be denied schooling.
All this despite the fact that educating girls is one of
the best investments a society can make. An
educated woman has the skills, the self-confidence
and the information she needs to become a better
parent, worker and citizen.

Girls’ lack of access to education isn’t always related

to scarcity of places in schools. It also emerges from
expectations, attitudes and biases in communities
and families. Economic costs, social traditions, and
religious and cultural beliefs limit girls’ educational
opportunities. Whatever the underlying reason(s),
having large number of girls outside the formal
schooling system brings developmental challenges to
both current and future generations. Individuals,
families, communities and nations are affected.
Inability to read, write and calculate complicates a
girl’s efforts to engage in both market-focused
production and household activities as effectively
and efficiently possible. This affects her family’s
welfare and diminishes her potential contribution to
the development of the household, local and national
economy.

Women in Development (WID) /

Gender and Development (GAD)

What is WID?

• The term “women in development” was coined

in the early 1970s by the Women’s Committee of
the Washington, DC, Chapter of the Society for
International Development, a network of female
development professionals. The term was very
rapidly adopted by the United States Agency for
International Development (USAID) in their so-
called Women in Development (WID) approach,
the underlying rationale of which was that
women are an untapped resource who can
provide an economic contribution to
development. (Moser, 1993)
• The approach starts with the basic assumption
that economic strategies have frequently had a
negative impact on women. It acknowledges
that they must be “brought into” the
development process through access to
employment and the market place. It therefore
accepts women’s practical gender need to earn
a livelihood. However, the equity approach is
also concerned with fundamental issues of
equality (between men and women in the
 marketplace). It places considerable emphasis
on economic independence as synonymous with
equity. (Moser, 1993)
o The WID approach…focuses mainly on
women in isolation, promoting measures
such as access to credit and employment as
the means by which women can be better
integrated into the development process.
o WID, while recognizing the critical role of
women in the development process, does so
without necessarily referring to the nature
of women’s subordination. (Marchland and
Parpart, 1995)
o Although WID interventions have been a
necessary step in the right direction, this
approach has proven incapable of
challenging gender stereotypes and male
structures of power. (Hirshman, 1995)

What is GAD?
• Gender and Development…has focused on an
analysis of gender as a socially constructed
relationship, shaped and sanctioned by values
held by the members of society. GAD identifies
the social construction of production and
reproduction as the basis of women’s
oppression. (Riaño 1994)
• The GAD approach maintains that to focus on
women in isolation is to ignore the real problem,
which remains their subordinate status to men.
In insisting that women cannot be viewed in
isolation, it emphasizes a focus on gender
relations, when designing measures to “help”
 women in the development process. (Moser,
1993)
o An understanding of the social construction
of gender allows for the recognition that
because men and women play different
roles in society, they often, consequently,
have different needs.
o GAD calls for both short-term and long-term
approaches to women’s development, and
to a gender-sensitive rather than a woman-
only approach. The short-term goals of GAD
specialists are often cast in much the same
language as WID, i.e. they involve
education, credit, improvements in the legal
system, etc. The long-term goals include
ways to empower women through collective
action, to encourage women to challenge
gender ideologies and institutions that
subordinate women. (Par part, 1995)
o While GAD proponents rarely challenge the
goal of modernization/Westernization, some
scholars believe the GAD perspective
provides the possible space to do so.

Wid is a good approach towards empowerment of

women but the major criticism is that it should
include women in the process.

Conclusion;
Women plays a major part in development but the
problem is that their significance their contribution is
overshadowed by men in the society. Feminist are
working towards this goal and will achieve it sooner
than later.