Well-intended measures: Conceptualizing gender as a social structure in post-conflict policy development

Abstract

Abstract Purpose This chapter critically analyzes the outcomes of a legal reform enacted in Bali to address unintended consequences of a World Bank policy that undermined women’s economic, legal, and human rights. Design/methodology/approach This qualitative exploratory inquiry employs ethnographic data including participant observations and 18 interviews conducted in Denpasar, Bali. Findings The analysis suggests that policy measures intended to empower women which fail to address the influence of gender in the formation and functioning of social institutions reinforce conceptualizations of gender that constrain women’s autonomy and reify patriarchal sociocultural institutions. Research implications Conceptualizations of gender in post-conflict research have lagged behind the richness of theories pertaining to gender as a social structure. Incorporating analyses of gender ideologies into the research phase of policy development will bridge this gap between theory and application. Practical and social implications Calls for women’s empowerment in the wake of the collapse of central governance structures, such as in the Arab Spring, must be accompanied by attention of feminist researchers and activists ensuring that policy measures intended to address barriers to women’s equality move beyond conceptions of empowerment that privilege economic capital. Dominant frameworks employed by microcredit programs and legal reformers emphasizing economic independence without attending to structural causes of women’s marginalization run the ironic risk of more deeply entrenching harmful social institutions. Originality This project allows women’s voices to reciprocally transform social theories and practices, contributing to understandings of the influence of gender in legal reform efforts and gender as a social structure.