This study examines the ways in which gendered definitions of social provision in Costa Rica have created gaps in national health care programs that women's organizations are currently addressing. More specifically, I highlight how women's organizations are key actors in the politics of needs interpretation, wherein definitions of health needs are contested by policy makers, doctors, and women themselves. I argue that women's health organizations have begun to broaden and politicize health needs by including domestic violence in national debates. Using (...) interviews and organizational histories of six grassroots health organizations, I find that these groups have been successful, in large part, because they framed their concerns in ways that were convincing to politicians and national health care bureaucrats. (shrink)

This paper speaks across the divide between feminist theorists and praxis-oriented gender experts to argue for a more enabling reading of postcolonial feminist critiques of gender and development. Drawing on the activism of Afro-Colombian women in the Pacific Lowlands of Colombia – most especially Matamba y Guasá, a network of black women's organizations from the state of Cauca – it brings attention to the independent ability of women in these locations to reflect and act on their own realities and claims.

The international gender equality agenda evolved into one of mainstreaming a gender perspective into all policies and programmes. Within this process, the role of men gained increasing attention in the debates on gender equality. This resulted in the inclusion of ‘men's role’ as one of the themes of the agenda of the Commission on the Status of Women for the year 2004. While this is another step forward in the global efforts for achieving equality between women and men, its potential (...) risks should not be overlooked. Therefore, it is necessary to revisit the concept of gender and carefully assess and monitor how the role of men is included in the agenda. This article starts with the premise that gender inequalities are the product of historically determined gender order in which the differentially assigned male female attributes are unequally structured in layers of privileged and subordinate positions of masculinities and femininities. The concept of patriarchy is brought back into the analysis to capture the interlinkages between the various status hierarchies that lead to shifts in hegemonic forms of masculinity that reproduces itself under diverse and changing conditions. Thus, while the article attempts to account for the generic and universal characteristics of gender inequality, at the same time, it draws attention to its specific socio-cultural manifestations. Finally, policy guidelines are offered for the consideration of the role of men in gender agenda setting. Accordingly, it is suggested that men's initiatives for alternative masculinities are acknowledged and that the questions regarding which men, in what kinds of alliances and for which end are reflected upon in formulating policies. (shrink)

This article explores how research helps construct a certain type of ‘gender’ knowledge that arises from, informs and reinforces ‘instrumentalist’ gendered policy perspectives on development of the Global South. It uses a case study of research funded under the ESRC-DFID Joint Fund for Poverty Alleviation which awarded 122 grants amounting to £66.2 million between 2005 and 2015. From a systematic review of the awards a typology of gender inclusion and exclusion was constructed that found 60% of all awards mentioned gender (...) or included some level of gender analysis. The subsequent synthesis of the evidence suggested that in only 30% of all awards was the gendered knowledge produced central to the study and/or focused on better understanding gender roles, relations and identities. Applying a Feminist Institutionalist lens, the study highlights how institutional ideas around gender are reflected in the funding call specifications, and in turn influence how researchers ‘engendered’ their research, and the type of gendered knowledge produced. It finds much of the new gendered knowledge produced out of the Joint Fund emerged from non-gender focused research often produced by non-gender specialists. It suggests that as gender becomes mainstreamed into research, and as more researchers ‘do gender’, so research may become, conversely, less ‘gendered’. The ‘new’ gender knowledge produced may then merely evidence existing institutional policy positions rather than advance the policy agenda. (shrink)

Women have always been central concerning the provision of healthcare. The transitions into the modern world have been very slow for women because of how societies classify women. Starting from lay care, women provided healthcare for their family and sometimes to the members of the community in which they lived. With no formal education, women served as midwives and served in other specialised fields in medicine. They usually treated their fellow women because they saw ‘women’s medicine’ as women’s business. They (...) were discriminated against by the opposite sex and by the church, which regarded it as a taboo to allow women to practice medicine. This study points to a Ghanaian context on how the charismas of women have made them excel in their efforts to provide healthcare for their people. The study also focused on the role of indigenous practitioners who are mostly found in the rural areas and modern practitioners who are mostly found in the peri-urban, urban areas and larger cities in Ghana. (shrink)

Development literature on global gender empowerment devotes much attention to employment, a code word for the inclusion of women’s labor in the global market. Recent work in transnational feminisms shows that the emphasis on employment over assets may not prevent exploitation of labor and perpetuity of poverty. This paper first highlights research on how women are increasingly taking on too much responsibility, working in a confluence of survival-oriented activities that undermine their own well-being. I also address how women are increasingly (...) able to get out of poverty: when they can labor in such a way that they are not merely working to survive but also working for accumulation of their own material assets, foremost of which is basic housing. Finally, I consider these transnational feminist insights about the importance of housing for women in light of philosophical concerns about property ownership, specifically Locke’s theory of property. In justifying property rights through labor, and arguing against the state’s right to usurp property, a Lockean can give a defense against forced evictions that still occur in some contexts and give support for a normative connection between women’s labor and assets. (shrink)

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) provide a shares vision of a much improved world by 2015, where extreme poverty is cut in half, child mortality is greatly reduced, gender disparities in primary and secondary education are eliminated, women are more empowered and health and environment indicators improve within a global partnership for development. These goals are ambitious and their attainment will require a global effort. Using the normative framework for human rights codifi ed in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human (...) Rights, is a solid strategy for national and international policy in poverty reduction. This report establishes that Human Rights and the MDGs have much in common. They share guiding principles such as participation, empowerment and national ownership. They serve as tools for reporting processes that can hold governments accountable and most fundamentally, they share the ultimate objective of promoting human well-being and honouring the inherent dignity of all people. Therefore, Linking Millennium Development Goals with Human Rights is a good possibility in order to obtain a solid normative framework. From a gender perspective, the report link the Goal 3 gender equality and empowerment of women, with two treaty bodies, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights as well as the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women in order to give a solid framework to achieve this Goal. Gender equality is important not only as a goal in itself, but also as a path towards achieving the other goals. _Published online_: 11 December 2017. (shrink)

In this article, we examine an important but relatively under-researched form of corporate social responsibility, namely, employer support for employee voluntary activity. Using Canadian data, we examine two questions. First, we analyze the impacts of employer support on the total number of hours volunteered and on the voluntary activities which are undertaken. Second, we examine how employer support is distributed between male and female employees. Our results indicate that employer support is associated with a greater amount of volunteer activity by (...) both men and women employees and in a wide range of voluntary activities. However, we also find that women are less likely to receive employer support than men and are less likely to receive support in the form of flexible work hours and time-off. These results are puzzling given that women typically face more binding time constraints than men. We conclude the paper by discussing how employer policies might be changed to address this finding. (shrink)

A variety of water-based livelihood activities undertaken by women and men in the villages of North Gujarat are under threat due to the unavailability of adequate water. Excessive groundwater withdrawal and limited recharge have led to shrinking water tables. With shrinking supply and growing sectoral demand, the competition for access to water is growing and women, who command less political and social power in the patriarchal communities of South Asia, often find themselves marginalized. Women are basically considered domestic water users (...) while men are seen as productive water users, despite the fact that women make significant use of water for productive purposes as well. This paper, drawing mainly on fieldwork undertaken in six villages of North Gujarat, India, tries to show how women use water for multiple purposes and help sustain the household economy. The paper argues that recognizing women’s roles as multiple water users will help promote the productive use of water in enhancing rural livelihood and sustaining the household economy. With special reference to women respondents, the paper examines gender roles of both domestic and productive water users and explores how these roles help women to improve their socio-economic status. The paper also analyzes operational income and expenditures associated with water-based home enterprise. Individual interviews, focus group discussions, participant observation, daily routine diagrams, and key informant surveys were administered to collect primary data. Key findings show that access of women to water for productive use not only increases their income earning potential, but also helps strengthen their bargaining positions. (shrink)

Attention to differences within communities is important in working toward sustainability of an agro-ecosystem. In the Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management Collaborative Research Support Program, gender made a difference in terms of access and control over key resources – financial, human, natural, and social capital – critical for project success. Efforts to build social capital among women proved critical in developing both collective and households strategies for sustainability. The sites differed greatly in both landscape and lifescape. Women's position within (...) each landscape provided an important perspective with which to assess and act toward achieving ecosystem, economic, and social sustainability. (shrink)

This paper is not a critique of waterpolicies, or an advocacy of alternatives, but rathersuggests a shift of emphasis in the ways in whichgender analysis is applied to water, development, andenvironmental issues. It argues that feministpolitical ecology provides a generally strongerframework for understanding these issues thanecofeminism, but cautions against a reversion tomaterialist approaches in reactions to ecofeminismthat, like ecofeminism, can be static and ignore theagency of women and men. The paper draws attention tothe subjectivities of women and their embodiedlivelihoods as (...) a more useful approach to understandingthe ways in which women relate to water in bothirrigated agriculture and domestic provisioning. (shrink)