WOMEN AND DEVELOPMENT : A critique

This chapter engages in a critical discussion of Gita Sen and Caren Grown’s much-acclaimed monograph, Development, Crises, and Alternative Visions.2 In addition to providing a detailed discussion of the development process in Third World countries and a poignant report on the “less than benign” development experiences of poor Third World women in the rural areas (note: not all women across the board), the authors suggest some possible remedies in the form of “alternative blueprints and strategies” to current development practices. These “alternative visions,” which include a potpourri of items ranging from tree planting for fuel needs in a local village in South Asia to peace justice and equality on earth for all, purport at the same time to give the Women in Development (WID) enterprise a much-needed reorientation and shift in focus. For Sen and Grown, it is not enough (though necessary) for WID to point out certain inherent sex and gender-related biases in mainstream development paradigms; it is necessary to establish an integral link between effective development and the eradication of the social oppression and material poverty of “poor women.” Development theorizing as well as planning should begin from the vantage point of “poor women” because: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…. 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 socio-economic development and human welfare.