Development Crises and Alternative Visions

Third World Women's Perspectives

Gita Sen, Caren Grown

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781134156894
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Ecology
• Index: Economics

More than half of the world's farmers are women. They are the majority of the poor, the uneducated and are the first to suffer from drought and famine. Yet their subordination is reinforced by well-meaning development policies that perpetuate social inequalities. During the 1975-85 United Nations Decade for the Advancement of Women their position actually worsened.

This book analyses three decades of policies towards Third World women. Focusing on global economic and political crises - debt, famine, militarization, fundamentalism - the authors show how women's moves to organize effective strategies for basic survival are central to an understanding of the development process.

Gender and Class in Development Experience

From the Vantage Point of Poor Women

The development debates of the last three decades have generally been conducted from the vantage points of different protagonists. The competing positions taken on such key issues as growth versus people-centred development, exportled growth versus inward-oriented production, the problems of international money and finance, the proper role and functioning of multinational corporations, and on technological modernization and appropriateness, all reflect the interests and concerns of various agents in the processes of economic and social transformation. Such actors usually include: different, and sometimes conflicting, national or regional interests; transnational or domestic firms; different groups of peasants, agricultural or industrial workers; and the landless or the unemployed. It is only within the last decade that a new protagonist has come to be recognized- women from the poorest, most oppressed sections of all societies.

The perspective of poor and oppressed women provides a unique and powerful vantage point from which we can examine the effects of development programmes and strategies. This point of departure is fruitful for a number of reasons. First , if the goals of development include improved standards of living, removal of poverty, access to dignified employment, and reduction in societal inequality, then it is quite natural to start with women. They constitute the majority of the poor, the underemployed, and the economically and socially disadvantaged in most societies. Further more, women suffer from the additional burdens imposed by gender-based hierarchies and subordination.

Second , women’s work, underremunerated and undervalued as it is, is vital to the survival and ongoing reproduction of human beings in all societies. In food production and processing, in responsibility for fuel, water, health care, childrearing, sanitation, and the entire range of so-called basic needs, women’s labour is dominant. Thus, if we are to understand the impact of development strategies on these same needs, the viewpoint of women as the principal producers and workers is an obvious starting point.

Third ,in many societies women’s work in trade, services and traditional industries is widespread. And finally, it is now recognized that women workers are often predominant in the most technologically advanced industries such as electronics, as well as in export production. The impact of development on technology, employment, incomes, and working conditions in these sectors is of interest not only to the women who work in them, but also to the economies dependent on the employment, foreign exchange earnings, or incomes thereby generated.

The vantage point of poor women thus enables us not only to evaluate the extent to which development strategies benefit or harm the poorest and most oppressed sections of the people, but also to judge their impact on a range of sectors and activities crucial to socioeconomic development and human welfare. But before we develop this perspective, a number of caveats are in order. Although we focus on poor women as the starting point for understanding development, our vision, strategies, and methods are addressed to all women. We hope this analysis can contribute to the ongoing debate about the commonalities and differences in the oppression of women of different nations, classes, or ethnic groups. “Sisterhood” is not an abstract principle; it is a concrete goal that must be achieved through a process of debate and action.

Another qualifier is that while most of our examples of development’s impact are drawn from the Third World, we believe that many of the issues raised–including the very meaning of development itself–are equally relevant to the more industrialized countries. Perhaps because the Western feminist movement (especially in the U.S.) gained strength in the late 1960s and early 1970s during most of which time employment, social services, and incomes (at least of the white majority) were relatively insulated from the shocks of the world economy, gaining parity with men often took the centre stage for the mainstream of the movement. But even during that time, the dissonant voices of poor women from racially or nationally oppressed groups could be heard stating their priorities–food, housing, jobs, services, and the struggle against racism. Equality with men who themselves suffered unemployment, low wages, poor work conditions and racism within the existing socioeconomic structures did not seem an adequate or worthy goal. Many white and middleclass women also held this view, both in the U.S. and a number of European countries. But it was not until the overt attacks on employment and social services began in the mid-1970s that the mainstream of the white women’s movement awoke to the “feminization of poverty.” A significant literature now exists on this and on the implications of newly emerging technologies, and we draw on it later.

A third major caveat is that we do not address the experience of socialist countries. Although this experience represents significantly different development strategies, and although some literature exists on the particular experiences of women under socialism, limitations of time and space have prevented us from discussing it here. We hope that our resultant sharper focus on the development experiences of women in nonsocialist Third World countries will better enable us to understand the concrete problems faced by societies in a transition to socialism, as well as its alternative visions and potentials. A careful reading of the historical experience of socialist societies indicates that they better satisfy many of the basic requirements of human life, and they tend to draw women into nontraditional production. However, the structures of gender subordination within families, social consciousness, and the political leadership have proven remarkably stubborn. As a result, a conscious attempt to break down these structures is essential, and women’s organizations have often played a critical role. It is important for us to evaluate these experiences within their social, economic, and historical milieus, rather than on the basis of some theoretical ideal type of socialism. This evaluation can best be grounded in concrete realities through the participation of women from socialist countries. We hope in the next stage of our work to begin such a discussion.

The main theme of this chapter is that women’s experiences with processes of economic growth, commercialization, and market expansion are determined by both gender and class. Existing economic and political structures tend to be highly inequitable between nations, classes, genders, and ethnic groups. These structures are often the historical legacy of colonial domination. We argue, however, that postcolonial development processes and strategies have often exacerbated these inequities, and in some instances even worsened the levels of absolute poverty. The interests of powerful nations and classes, both internationally and nationally, are enmeshed in these structures, and therefore often have a vested interest in their persistence. As a result, the survival of large sections of the population in the Third World has become increasingly uncertain and vulnerable.

For women this vulnerability is further reinforced by systems of male domination that, on the one hand, deny or limit their access to economic resources and political participation, and on the other hand, impose sexual divisions of labour that allocate to them the most onerous, labour-intensive, poorly rewarded tasks inside and outside the home, as well as the longest hours of work. Thus when development programmes have negative effects, these are felt more acutely by women.

Traditional gender based subordination has typically limited women’s access to and control over such productive resources as land and labour, imposed sexual divisions of labour (in which women’s work is accorded lower status or social importance), and curtailed women’s physical mobility. Of course, the specifics of subordination vary considerably across regions, historical time periods, and classes. A considerable amount of the research conducted before and during the past decade addresses precisely these variations, and there is now available a wealth of analysis rich in sectoral, regional, countrywide, and subnational detail. For example, while women of both the propertied and the working classes are subordinate to men, the nature of that subordination differs considerably. For poor women it may take the form of longer and harder work, while for richer women it may appear as controls on physical mobility and sexuality.

Gender-based subordination is deeply ingrained in the consciousness of both men and women and is usually viewed as a natural corollary of the biological differences between them. It is rein forced through religious beliefs, cultural practices, and educational systems (both traditional and modern) that assign to women lesser status and power. This takes a number of forms. The sexual division of labour is not only viewed as naturally given, but”women’s work” is considered demeaning to men and their manhood if they perform it. It is usually seen as male prerogative to be personally served by women within the home. As is now well-known, with very few exceptions, the spheres of religion and politics have been dominated and controlled by men. Even though female religious rituals and practices have existed, they have generally been more confined outside mainstream religions, although here again exceptions do exist.

The threat of sexual violence to restrict women’s physical mobility and to punish women who flouted social norms was practiced in most societies. Rape and other forms of sexual abuse are not individual acts; they have often received social sanction. And even when they have not, the victim is usually blamed for the aggressor’s action. Forms of sexual mutilation have been traditionally practiced to ensure male control of female sexuality, sometimes as part of the system of male monopoly over property and inheritance. That older women themselves are often in charge of mutilations should not make us overlook the fact that it is the underlying structure of male power over women’s lives that sanctions, indeed enforces, such practices. The resulting psychological trauma wrought on women and girls is manifest in their own belief that those who do not undergo the mutilations are unclean and impure.⁵

The control of women through sexual violence for reasons of property and inheritance is only one aspect. In many societies public spaces are physically dominated by men, making it extremely difficult for women to move, work, or earn a livelihood within them. (Women, however, do defy this norm.) This operates against women of all classes, though perhaps not in identical ways. Sexual control over women adds one more barrier to their ability to perform wage labour, market products, or obtain access to necessary services. Men are often oblivious of the extent to which fears of sexual aggression manipulate and threaten women’s lives.⁶

As we know, women have been the butt of male ridicule in proverbs and myths throughout history. While women have some times responded in kind, the predominant myths are usually insulting to women’s bodies, mental capacities, and social behaviour. Modern education and mass media often perpetuate such sex-biased stereotypes. It is only with the growth of the women’s movement that these prejudices have been challenged in any coherent way. Thus the cultural subordination of women has reinforced male control of resources and power, and the divisions of labour that have enshrined male privileges

While traditional gender based systems of subordination have been considerably transformed by the forces of economic growth, commercialization, and market expansion, subordination itself persists, although in some cases more impersonal forces in the labour market replace the direct control of women within patriar chal rural households.⁷ We must understand the impact of these processes on women’s relative access to resources, income and employment, as well as on the sexual division of labour. The combined effects are then reflected in women’s health and nutritional status, access to education, ability to control biological reproduction, and, perhaps most important, in women’s autonomy. The almost uniform conclusion of the Decade’s research is that, with a few exceptions, women’s relative access to economic resources, incomes, and employment has worsened, their burdens of work have increased, and their relative and even absolute health, nutritional, and educational status has declined.⁸ A clearer understanding of the causes must be sought initially in those larger development processes which affect poor women.

The Colonial Heritage

Variations in economic structures, political institutions, and cultural milieus notwithstanding, and despite considerable differences in the rates of economic accumulation and growth especially in the last fifteen to twenty years, most of the countries of the Third World exhibit remarkably little divergence in the patterns and consequences of development. At most, a small spectrum of patterns and processes can be identified along which band most Third World countries lie. These include:

• an unfavourable structural location in the international economy,

• vulnerability to the cycles and vagaries of international trade, prices, and capital flows,

• profound internal inequalities of land ownership and control over resources, access to income and employment,

• deprivation of such basic needs as adequate nutrition, health, housing, water, energy, sanitation, and education to significant sections of the population.

As scholars and analysts now recognize, these problems are in part the legacy of colonial systems of surplus transfer out of the Third World. But their persistence well into the third U.N. Development Decade bespeaks powerful underlying structures that have not been significantly modified. While not every Third World country suffers from all of the problems noted above, all experience at least one or more of them.

The structural features resulting from the Third World countries’ location in the international economy have been the subject of an extensive literature and debate.⁹ To summarize, both during the colonial era, and under new forms in the postcolonial period, the economic relations between developing countries and developed countries have tended to operate against the interests of the former so as to increase their vulnerability to exernal events and pressures. As is now widely recognized, the economic and political structures of colonial rule converted subject territories into sources of cheap raw materials, food, and labour, and markets for the ruling countries’ manufactures. The system operated not only to drain resources and wealth away from the colonies; it created export enclaves in agriculture, mining, and other primary subsectors, and transformed self-provisioning communities through forced commercialization and the introduction of private property in land. Colonial control suppressed the manufacturing potential of the colonies and destroyed traditional crafts and artisan production through imports of manufactures.¹⁰

The specific pattern varied from country to country, as did the extent of the resulting impoverishment of the population, the exacerbation of inequalities in access to land, resources, and power, and the growth of powerful internal classes and groups whose interests were linked to the maintenance of an open economy. That large sections of the people were severely impoveri...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preamble
• Introduction
• 1 Gender and Class in Development Experience
• 2 Systemic Crises, Reproduction Failures, and Women's Potential
• 3 Alternative Visions, Strategies, and Methods
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index