CHAPTER 4 CHAPTER 4
4.3 Gender and development in the third world
4.3.3 Critique of the WID approach
gender interests are those formulated from the concrete conditions experienced by women as a result of their social positioning within the gender division of labour. They are usually a response to an immediate perceived need for human survival without any long terms goals for structural change (Molyneux 1985:233).
Moser (1989; 1993) popularised this distinction between strategic and gender interests in the development literature. For Moser, distinguishing differing needs is crucial to the planning process which focuses on the prioritised concerns of women. Moser (1989; 1993) defines these prioritised concerns as interests which she then translates into needs.
With this distinction, gender policy and planning can be formulated and the tools and techniques for implementing them clarified. For example, if the strategic gender interest... is for a more equal society, then a strategic gender need... can be identified as the abolition of the gender division of labour. On the other hand, if the practical gender interest is for human survival, then a practical gender need could be the provision of water (Moser 1993:38).
Moser’s appropriation of strategic and practical needs is still widely used today in the literature, particularly in training materials on gender and development (CEDPA 1996;
Parker 1993; Slocum et al 1995; von Kotze and Holloway 1996; Williams et al 1994).
participation in education, employment, and skills training (Rathgeber 1990:491).
Linked to this emphasis, was an almost exclusive focus on the productive aspects of poor women while simultaneously minimising the reproductive aspects which were integral to their lives (Rathgeber 1990:492).15 This resulted in WID projects typically being
characterised by income generating projects with an attached “welfare” agenda where women were simultaneously taught literacy, hygiene, and child care (Rathgeber 1990:492). These projects assumed that with the economic incentive women would simply find ways to juggle their time to fit in yet another activity into their already overburdened day (Buvinic 1986;
Rathgeber 1990). It was in response to these critiques that Moser (1989) later introduced her
“interests” model discussed above in an attempt to address the structural oppression of women.
15 I will argue in section 5.4 that this emphasis by white liberal feminists on productive equality to the exclusion of the reproductive qualities of women’s lives has been a source of division amongst women in the South African context. Here, white liberal academic feminists have stressed equality while activist women who have tended not to be white have to the contrary emphasised the reproductive capacity of women as a source of activism in the struggle against oppression. African American feminists (hooks 1984; Collins 2000) have made a similar argument in the North American context.
However, the “interests” model itself has since come under attack. Molyneux (1985) who first discussed “women’s interests” argued for a theoretical framework that acknowledged competing and conflicting interests amongst women themselves. Critics (Kabeer 1994;
Wieringa 1994) maintained that the liberal belief in an universal argument for the equality between human beings remained at the heart of WID discourse where “women’s interests”
have been popularised.16 Differences of culture, race and class were negated in favour of the more fundamental belief in the equality of the sexes (Kabeer 1994:27). The stress on the equality of the sexes led to describing behaviour normatively and dualistically with a strong emphasis on the notion of a global sisterhood based on the similarity of “women’s
experience” throughout the world. “Global sisterhood” has come under fierce attack by non- western theorists who have argued that it merely serves to disguise and deny material
differences in power, resources and interests between women themselves, as well as privileging particular interpretations of women’s needs and interests over others (Kabeer 1994; Mohanty 1988; see Chapter 5).
Wieringa (1994) argues that the theoretical distinction made by Moser (1989) and others between strategic and practical interests does exactly that - it privileges particular
interpretations of interests over and against other interpretations. Gender is but one aspect among many (race, class, ethnicity, sexual preference) that influence women’s lives.
16 Molyneux (1998) has defended her original formulation (1985) of the “interests” paradigm. She argues that it was precisely her intention at the time to nuance and foreground the complexity of
“women’s interests” located within a particular historical situation. Molyneux (1998) claims that the appropriation of her paradigm into an over-simplified schematic model leaves her questioning its usefulness at all to understanding “women’s interests”. Its usage in the planning field has resulted in a hierarchy of “interests” and suggests that “practical interests” are not concerned with political
transformation”. Furthermore, (Moser 1989), in translating “interests” into “needs” suggests a less fluid and less political construct which Molyneux (1998) objects to. For Molyneux (1998), much of her original formulation in this regard has been lost in translation. Women’s objective interests, she asserts, always need to be located in specific historical contexts which are subject to cultural, historical, and political variation that cannot be known in advance (Molyneux 1998:77).
Interests based on these diverse aspects may contradict each other, may strengthen or alleviate relations of oppression in which they live, and their impact may be felt differently at distinct times or phases in their lifecycle.
Women (and men, for that matter) are engaged in a constant struggle of negotiating the different interests with which they are faced: ambivalence, contradictions, clashes with the interests of other individuals or groups are central in these processes. Neither defining women’s gender interests nor defending them can be seen as a linear process, starting from a fixed condition. Rather it should be seen as a complex, confusing process,
sometimes making advances, sometimes withdrawing, another corner always waiting to be turned (Wieringa 1994:835-836).
This has certainly been my experience in working with women in Vulindlela. Increasingly I have come to realise how important it is for me to be surprised by what they understand as their interests. During the Bible study group process with the Nxamalala women, what I often perceived to be important, such as inviting women involved in community projects to come and address the group, was rejected by them. On reflection, there are ways in which they negotiate the clashing and contradictory interests that make up their lives at home, in the church, and in the community that are outside of my experience. My (clashing and
contradictory) interests too are different from theirs which they do not always fully
understand. The process of engagement with one another and my presence in that space is most definitely not linear, but is a process that takes many twists and turns (see section 7.5).
As Wieringa (1994:836) points out, categorising “gender interests” is less important than asking questions as to who is defining those interests and what role the “expert” is playing in that process (Parpart 1995). So while being sympathetic to the usefulness of “interest”
categories in policy and programme planning, with Wieringa (1994) and Parpart (1995) I assert that there has to be a recognition of the power dynamics in the relationship between the person defining the “interests” and those she works with. There also has to be a
“locatedness” in its usage. These aspects are highlighted throughout this study in discussions on feminism and “global sisterhood”, postmodernism and its stress on identity and
particularity, and my role as an activist-intellectual in my work with the women of Vulindlela.
The question of who defines “women’s interests” is linked to a further critique of the WID approach. Non-western development practitioners argued that despite shifting emphases in the WID approach over the years, their policies continued to remain squarely within the modernisation paradigm. Because this was so, the western women of WID have remained concerned with “modernising” third world women without understanding their lives and experiences, nor giving them voice (Chowdry 1995; Hirshman 1995; Kabeer 1994).
WID discourse...represents Third World women as helpless victims trapped by tradition and incompetence in an endless cycle of poverty and despair. The possibility that Third World women (and men) might have skills and strategies to protect themselves rarely surfaces. Third World women are characterized as uniformly poor, inadequately prepared to cope with the current economic crisis and desperately in need of salvation through foreign expertise (Parpart 1993:451).
Representing the “third world woman” in the gender and development debate resonates with my own work in the South African context where all too often poor and marginalised women are seen as victims with little resources of their own. This debate has become crucial to the feminist project as a whole and is deeply shaped by the racial divide. Within the theological sphere, issues of representation still need to be placed on the agenda. My work overtly foregrounds representation both in terms of my role as an activist intellectual working with poor women and also in terms of foregrounding the theological resources of women in their struggle to survive.
The critique of the WID approach to gender and development which is rooted within the liberal modernisation paradigm stands as a cautionary reminder that poor and marginalised women, the subjects of this study, are not victims who have no voice, but active agents who take control of their lives in their struggle to survive within particular locations. They know
their needs and how best to navigate the conflicting and competing interests of their lives.
This view is central to my work which attempts to add a religious dimension to the resources that poor women contribute and offer to the process of development.