Social Theory and Women in Development Policy

Abstract

The adverse impact of policies of agencies toward poor women of developing countries has been documented since the 1970s. Policy proposals have included training programs, research and data collection on women and allocation of resources to employ more women professionals to set up and monitor programs related to women and development. The implementation of these policies has been minimal and explanations of why have redirected us to the original problems. This article explores the question of why these problems have persisted from an epistemological perspective by placing women in within the prevailing discourses of gender, development, and development research. Definitions of what women can and cannot do are determined by gender discourse; it may be willing to consider the constraints on women posed by the gender discourse if these constraints affect the economic success of projects, but otherwise its assumptions and methodology have, in general, not been receptive to the c...