Women and human development: the capabilities approach

Women in much of the world lack support for fundamental functions of a human life.They are less well nourished than men, less healthy, more vulnerable to physical violence and sexual abuse.They are much less likely than men to be literate, and still less likely to have preprofessional or technical education.Should they attempt to enter the workplace, they face greater obstacles, including intimidation from family or spouse, sex discrimination in hiring, and sexual harassment in the workplace -all, frequently, without effective legal recourse.Similar obstacles often impede their effective participation in political life.In many nations women are not full equals under the law: they do not have the same property rights as men, the same rights to make a contract, the same rights of association, mobility, and religious liberty. 1 Burdened, often, with the ''double day'' of taxing employment and full responsibility for housework and child care, they lack opportunities for play and for the cultivation of their imaginative and cognitive faculties.All these factors take their toll on emotional well-being: women have fewer opportunities than men to live free from fear and to enjoy rewarding types of love -especially when, as often happens, they are married without choice in childhood and have no recourse from bad marriages.In all these ways, unequal social and political circumstances give women unequal human capabilities.1 For examples of these inequalities, see Chapter 3, and my ''Religion and Women's