Nitya Rao School of International Development University of East - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Nitya Rao School of International Development University of East Anglia

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Policy frameworks for gender equality emphasise women’s access to/control over productive assets.

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Post 1980’s focus is on:

• Land rights: Increased from 1% to 10%
• Credit: 2‐4% of mainstream credit + microfinance
• Employment: Decline in decent work opportunities both

in quality and earnings, resulting from globalisation and an individualised, monetised, market framework.

Not an implementation / resourcing problem, but an inadequate analytical framework?

Assets Policy & Governance Agency Recognition

• f identity/

Wellbeing

CONVENTIONAL

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Assets as economic values and material outcomes;

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Framework is Individualised and transactional, compartmentalises the economic and social as distinct categories;

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Men and women seen as homogenous, static and isolated categories

ALTERNATIVE

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Assets as physical & social, – a source of security, status, recognition and meaning;

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Respect, self‐worth, ability to take risks, belongingness are coveted assets;

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Framework of valuation is dynamic, socially embedded & recognises mutuality & cooperation alongside individual gains.

CONVENTIONAL

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Victim vs Agent binary

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Agency reduced to certain characteristics such as mobility, decision‐making capacity.

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Attributes of an empowered woman constructed ‐ the starting point is one of ‘deficits’

ALTERNATIVE

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Continuums/multidimensional

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Agency‐ the ‘ability to define one’s goals and act upon them

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Variations in women’s & men’s aspirations and practice

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Positive construction of women’s knowledge, skills & identity

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Acknowledge women’s everyday struggles for survival, negotiation, and attempts to build shared and reciprocal lives

CONVENTIONAL

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Top down approach to gender equality through rules, laws and policies;

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Statutory understanding of legitimacy as defined by a patriarchal state may not reflect women’s aspirations

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Lack of consistency & policy contradictions at different levels – economic, social and political.

ALTERNATIVE

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Lived experiences and ground realities of women inform standards of legitimacy;

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Standards of respect, recognition, ethics and legitimacy across institutions.

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Mechanisms for accountability, transparency, and giving women voice & representation within governance structures.

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60 % of world’s population and 57% of poor

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30% of total arable land

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Majority are smallholder cultivators

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Even with legal (statutory & customary) & policy equality, 10% women have land in their names.

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Legitimacy to concepts of ‘male head of household’ and ‘Asian values of the family’ acr0ss institutions

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No linear relationship between land ownership and gender equality: son preference strong in India and China despite women’s economic participation.

Assets Policy & Governance Agency Recognition & Wellbeing Livelihoods Social Relations & Kinship Structures Legitimacy (Legal & Social)

Legal equality assured

Livelihoods State control of over land allocation & production services Rapid urbanisation & migration Urban registration not easily provided Married women concentrated in rural areas Social relations Discrimination against daughters in land allocation Women receive shares from husbands Separated women denied land share Conflict between village rules & law Exclusion from local decision-making Legitimacy Male names on titles Women denied compensation in land appropriation by State Recognition of women as farmers for production support from cooperatives Legal restrictions on redistribution exclude single women

Livelihoods State control of over land allocation & production services Rapid urbanisation & migration Urban registration not easily provided Married women concentrated in rural areas Social relations Discrimination against daughters in land allocation Women receive shares from husbands Separated women denied land share Conflict between village rules & law Exclusion from local decision-making Legitimacy Male names on titles Women denied compensation in land appropriation by State Recognition of women as farmers for production support from cooperatives Legal restrictions on redistribution exclude single women

Legal equality, though with some variations by religion

Livelihoods Private land allocation and control Large-scale male out-migration Feminisation of the rural and agriculture Not recognised, poor services & support Dependence on low paid work Growing inequality & impoverishment Social relations Patrilineal systems deny women rights Quotas in local government, excluded from other institutions Interventions target men Shifts in voice with lifecycle Legitimacy Widow’s rights socially acknowledged Single women seen as deviants Daughters belong to husband’s family Women lack access to cash to buy land Failure to recognise equal entitlements despite joint titles

Livelihoods Private land allocation and control Large-scale male out-migration Feminisation of the rural and agriculture Not recognised, poor services & support Dependence on low paid work Growing inequality & impoverishment Social relations Patrilineal systems deny women rights Quotas in local government, excluded from other institutions Interventions target men Shifts in voice with lifecycle Legitimacy Widow’s rights socially acknowledged Single women seen as deviants Daughters belong to husband’s family Women lack access to cash to buy land Failure to recognise equal entitlements despite joint titles

Ensure legal equality

Livelihoods Land controlled by private small-holders Migration for work by men and women Labour contributions of both spouses Social relations Kinship patterns ensure equal inheritance Female labour contributions central to secure entitlements Commercial land grabs and market regimes reinforce inequality Legitimacy Male head of household given precedence in resource allocation Separated women face difficulties due to state emphasis on the ‘family’

Livelihoods Land controlled by private small-holders Migration for work by men and women Labour contributions of both spouses Social relations Kinship patterns ensure equal inheritance Female labour contributions central to secure entitlements Commercial land grabs and market regimes reinforce inequality Legitimacy Male head of household given precedence in resource allocation Separated women face difficulties due to state emphasis on the ‘family’

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Commercialisation and contract farming promoted: embedded in unequal power relations

• Abolishes customary rights to both private

and common lands; and access to key forest produce

• Land registered in male names & women

excluded from compensation payments

• Women employed as casual, low paid

workers or engaged with unpaid work – labour marginalised

• Do benefit from male cash earnings, but

comes with malpractices

CONVENTIONAL

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Legal equality established;

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Patriarchy and kinship/ social norms seen as immutable barriers

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Diversity of household structures not recognised

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Single women (separated and divorced) constructed as ‘deviants’, denied rights

ALTERNATIVE

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Recognise women’s identity as legitimate citizens

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Women’s rights to marital property, not just inheritance

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(Economic) Partnership in conjugal relations, distinct but complementary interests

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Social valuation of work (productive & reproductive) central to personal worth & household economy.

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Agency as struggles to assert identity, which entails control over bodies (reproductive + labouring) and assertion of intellect:

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This implies rethinking ‘individual’ decisions:

• Productive, reproductive, personal (marriage, fertility) and

knowledge domains and their relative valuation;

• Complexity of decision‐making and modes/processes of influence

(not agency vs absence);

• Women’s subject‐position linked to gender interests;
• Respond to changes in context (male migration) over time,

modes of production and reproduction.

• Within a given context, women have an inherent tendency to

collectivise around certain activities;

• Women not a single category, so collective processes can both

include and exclude;

• Who sets the agenda (elite capture?), who participates & the

mechanisms through which different voices heard (Fraser, 2009).

• Negotiation between top‐down/modernist visions and

submerged/indigenous categories.

• Multiple levels, spaces and forms of power involved in women’s

engagement with social institutions (state, community, media, researchers.), formal & informal.

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Start with women’s lives, experiences, their definition, meanings and claims (material and symbolic) around assets and wellbeing;

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Locate in specific time and space contexts, build linkages with wider environment & levels of analysis: micro to macro.

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Rural women are a diverse group: caste, class, subject‐position, life cycle, education matter

• Women adopt new strategies to express their

identities in response to contextual changes – recognise gaps between norms and practice, and how meanings and practice reformulated (Butler, 1997).

• Move from binary choices to multidimensional

realities.

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Confronting two hard realities: market‐led development and environmental/climate change.

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Frameworks must recognise alternate bodies of knowledge‐practice to strengthen women’s agency and wellbeing;

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Address the construction of women as either workers

• r mothers/wives; and pay attention to women’s

holistic needs and claims as ‘persons’, engaging equally with the productive and reproductive domains

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Knowledge and technologies that are pro‐ women (& pro‐poor)

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Upscale policy not by repetition of innovations across contexts, but application of principles.

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Strengthen appropriate databases (qualitative and quantitative over time)