Rethinking Gender Planning: A Critical Discussion of the Use of the Concept of Gender

Abstract

The introduction of the concept of gender has allowed development practitioners to focus on social relations and powerstructures underlying women’s subordination. Since then the term Gender and Development (GAD) has replaced the term Women in Development (WID). This approach has been welcomed by ’mainstream’ development agencies. The price for acceptance has been the depoliticization and desexualization of gender planning. In this article I argue that gender should be used by gender planners in the comprehensive and radical way used by feminist social scientists. I investigate three recent texts of major theorists on gender and development issues, Kabeer, Moser and Young. I argue that by reducing gender to socio-economic issues, gender analysis loses its critical edge, its political, symbolic and sexual content. I maintain that feminism should be seen as the motivating force behind genderplanning and planning efforts should be directed towards maximizing the transformative potential any project or program may have.