Document(s) 3 of 11

Introduction

This chapter introduces the concepts of gender and development and the factors that gave rise to their emergence. It also provides an explanation of the precolonial experience of so-called Third World people, especially with respect to gender relations and the experiences of women and men in social, political, and economic life. The discussion challenges simplistic characterizations and generalizations of precolonial societies and points to their rich diversity and difference.

This chapter provides a framework for considering alternative ways of perceiving human social and cultural development and organizing social, economic, and political life. It also provides information that challenges traditional monolithic assumptions about women and the sexual division of labour.

Objectives

The objectives of this chapter are the following:

To explore the evolution of the concepts of gender and development and to critically examine their underlying assumptions;

To recognize the diversity of human experience and the alternative measures of value and standards for the assessment of progress and human achievement; and

To provide a general historical understanding of the lives of Third World people before the institutionalization of development.

Why development?

In ordinary usage, development (a noun derived from the verb develop) implies movement from one level to another, usually with some increase in size, number, or quality of some sort. In the Penguin English Dictionary, the verb develop means “to unfold, bring out latent powers of; expand; strengthen; spread; grow; evolve; become more mature; show by degrees; explain more fully; elaborate; exploit the potentialities (of a site) by building, mining, etc.” (Penguin 1977).

For our purposes, these meanings of development apply to human societies. The usage of the word in this context was popularized in the post-World War II period to describe the process through which countries and societies outside North America and Europe (many of them former colonial territories) were to be transformed into modern, developed nations from what their colonizers saw as backward, primitive, underdeveloped societies (see Box 1).

Box 1 Colonialism Colonialism refers in general to the extension of the power of a state through the acquisition, usually by conquest, of other territories; the subjugation of the inhabitants to a rule imposed by force; and the financial and economic exploitation of the inhabitants to the advantage of the colonial power. Characteristic of this form was the maintenance of a sharp and fundamental distinction (often expressed in law as well as in fact) between the ruling nation and the subordinate (colonial) populations. This led to entrenched forms of racism. In the modern period, that is, since 1492, colonial powers initially included the Dutch, English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish. Later, other European states also became involved, such as the Belgians and Germans. In the 20th century, the United States, too, became a colonial power. It is necessary to differentiate between settler colonialism and nonsettler colonialism. In the case of the United Kingdom, for example, special status of dominion (or protectorate) was given to settler colonies, such as Australia, Canada, the Irish Free States, Newfoundland, New Zealand, Southern Rhodesia, and the Union of South Africa, which had large communities of European migrants. They were usually self-governing territories of the British empire. Protectorate was used to refer to territories governed by a colonial power although not formally annexed by it. In these areas also, including the United States, internal colonialism is often used to describe the relationship between the settlers and the native or indigenous people and minorities. Although other forms of domination and hegemony have existed in human history, this chapter concentrates on the specific form of European colonization and colonial domination that has taken place since the 16th century. Source: Fontana (1988)

Which were these societies?

These areas comprised most of Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, the Middle East, the Pacific region, and South and Central America. Today, this grouping includes former colonial, largely but not totally tropical, countries, peopled mainly by non-Europeans. It is usually referred to as the Third World, underdeveloped countries, developing countries, and, more recently, the South or the economic South.

Although it would be helpful to have one term to designate all of these countries, none of the above terms is really adequate. All are based on assumptions that we should be aware of when we use them. They are an improvement, however, on the terms first used in development writing, such as backward or economically backward countries.

It is important to note that before European colonial domination, many societies had already felt the impact of other dominating forces. For example, in North Africa the spread of the Islamic influence wrought great changes in the lifestyle of the native people — so much so that, now, some people hardly have any memory of a pre-Islamic past. In India, the spread of Hinduism over the continent had a similar, although more varied, impact. In some instances, the colonizers entered countries already controlled by well-established, stratified, patriarchal structures and introduced yet another controlling force into women’s lives.

In this chapter, I briefly explore each of these concepts and the contexts within which they arose.

Underdeveloped-developing countries

The concept of underdeveloped-developing countries emerged as part of the work of early development economists in the 1950s, who theorized very simplistically about the stages of development that societies had to pass through to become “developed,” or “modern.” These concepts sought to encompass all of the countries and areas to which I referred earlier, ignoring the vast differences among them. In addition, the history of Western industrialized countries was used as a broad model for the process through which all societies were to pass.

These development economists coined the following triad:

Underdeveloped » Developing » Developed

Around the 1960s, with nationalist sentiments becoming vocal, the term less developed was added, as it was considered less pejorative than underdeveloped. This approach is sometimes critically referred to as developmentalism.

Not much later, a school of mainly sociologists and political scientists emerged. They were eventually referred to as modernization theorists because they described this process as one of becoming modern. They, too, developed a triad:

Traditional » Transitional » Modern

In the words of Shyama Charan Dube,

Modernity may be understood as the common behaviourial system historically associated with the urban, industrial, literate, and participant societies of Western Europe and North America. The system is characterised by a rational and scientific world view, growth and ever-increasing application of science and technology, together with continuous adaptation of the institutions of society to the imperatives of the new world view and the emerging technological ethos.

 — Dube (1988, p. 17)

One of the main features common to these two approaches is that they equated development (or modernity) with industrialization. Industrialization and its companion, urbanization (the emergence of towns and cities), were considered the only ways for backward societies to become modern, or developed. Progress and advancement were also seen in this light.

There was little appreciation of the social, cultural, economic, or political attributes of non-Western societies. Indeed, these approaches accepted to a large degree the colonial feeling of superiority over indigenous peoples, many of whom were decimated, robbed of their land, or confined to reservations or territories (for example, in Australia, Canada, and the United States), or marginalized and forced to flee into the mountains (for example, in parts of Asia and most of South and Central America) (see Box 2).

Box 2 Staying alive Thus are economies based on indigenous technologies viewed as “backward” and “unproductive.” Poverty, as the denial of basic needs, is not necessarily associated with the existence of traditional technologies, and its removal is not necessarily an outcome of the growth of modern ones. On the contrary, the destruction of ecologically sound traditional technologies, often created and used by women, along with the destruction of their material base is generally believed to be responsible for the “feminisation” of poverty in societies which have had to bear the costs of resource destruction. — Shiva (1988, p. 12)

 

Exercise 1 Indigenous technologies What does the author mean by “indigenous technologies”? Give examples of indigenous technologies used in your society today by Women Men

These approaches also had little to say about women. Women were largely linked to the traditional and backward aspects of these societies and most resistant to change. Because the theorists used traditional in such a general sense, with little recourse to history or social anthropology, they little realized the diversity in women and men’s relations, in modes of domestic and family organization, or in social, economic, and political life.

Third World

“Third World” is the English translation of le tiers monde, developed in France in the 1950s. It emerged with the heightened anticolonial consciousness that arose with the coming of the new nation-states in Africa and Asia. This was also a time when the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union – Eastern Europe was dividing the world along ideological and geopolitical lines.

In this context, the newly independent states of Africa and Asia (including Ghana, India, Indonesia, and Nigeria), as well as Yugoslavia, met in Bandung, Indonesia, in April 1955. They adopted the position of nonalignment with either camp, arguing the need for a third, alternative world grouping. The term Third World was adopted by many of these countries to differentiate themselves from the First World (the North Atlantic capitalist world, or the world of advanced market economies) and the Second World (the centrally planned economies of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union). The Third World consisted of all other nations — usually in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, the Pacific, and South and Central America, including the centrally planned economies in these areas.

One of the main criticisms of the concept of the Third World has been that it suggests a hierarchy of nations. Some people argue that to accept third place is to accept a lower status in the world order. The people who coined the phrase probably never considered this but simply saw Third World as an alternative to the two main options their countries were being pushed to accept, options that, as history would show, they would eventually agree to.

North–South

North–South became a popular term around 1980, after the publication of the report of the Independent Commission on International Development Issues, popularly known as the Brandt Commission because it was led by the late Willy Brandt, former Chancellor of West Germany (see Brandt 1980). According to one source,

The expression was selected by the Commission to emphasize the economic divide between the North (rich nations) and the South (poor nations) and to highlight the presumed desirability of a North–South dialogue grounded in a common concern for global problems and freed from the complications of East–West political interests.

— Hulme (1990, p. 8)

This division, like many associated with relations of power, is geographically incorrect. Some countries in the South are neither low income nor not former colonial countries; likewise, some economies and conditions of life in the North, such as can be found in Eastern and Southern Europe, have little in common with the leading industrialized capitalist economies of the North. For some, this terminology reflects global restructuring and the changes taking place in the global economy. Economic South was a term coined to further delineate this grouping in economic and political terms, rather than in purely geographic ones.

Development today

The heyday of developmentalism — in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s — fostered some strong beliefs, such as

That state or government should play the central determining role in introducing development policies and strategies that could lead to improved standards of living and conditions of life; and

That international investment, loans, and aid can redirect economies away from their traditional bases — usually in agriculture — toward industry and manufacture.

Today, although much of this sentiment has changed, much has remained the same. The dominant thinking in the late 1980s and early 1990s has been that the state has a leading, but only facilitating, role in the economy. Development is now seen as the responsibility of private companies and, increasingly, private nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). In addition, the market is seen as the main arbiter of decision-making.

This approach is based on the renewed influence of liberal economic thinking (now called neoliberal economics), which has affected international economic policy and development thinking. All this has taken place within the context of a Third World debt crisis, within which economic restructuring and structural-adjustment policies are advocated as mechanisms for generating income to repay debt. Such thinking has become reality through the conditions on the stabilization and structural-adjustment loans offered by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (the World Bank) to countries facing balance-of-payments difficulties.

The IMF and the World Bank were established in 1944 at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in the United States. At this meeting, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States set up a system to facilitate the reconstruction of Western Europe after World War II. The main purpose of the new organizations was to provide a basis for monetary and currency stability for increased trade and expansion of these economies. This was to be accomplished by providing financial support during periods of balance-of-payments difficulties, that is, when imports exceeded exports. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade was later added, and, according to Dennis Pantin, each of these institutions would play a complementary role in the management of a world economy that did not restrict the movement of goods, services, and money (Pantin 1989).

Since the emergence of the new nation-states in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and the Pacific in the 1950s and 1960s, the Bretton Woods Agreement has widened in scope. As a result of the current trend in monetarist, or neoliberal, economics, the role of this agreement has expanded. The IMF provides short-term stabilization assistance to countries with balance-of-payments difficulties, on condition that they implement certain fiscal and monetary policies. The World Bank, on the other hand, is more concerned with long-term adjustment through restructuring of host economies along fixed lines. Its policies can be summarized as follows (Blackden 1993):

Stabilization or reduction of budget or balance-of-payments deficits, reduction of budget deficits or freezes in public-sector employment, cutbacks in public-sector investment, removal of public-sector subsidies (usually away from the agriculture and social sector to the private commercial sector), and tax reform;

Promotion of the private sector through contracting of public services, sale of state enterprises, and deregulation;

Market liberalization and price reforms, in which the local market is opened to greater foreign and domestic competition; exchange-rate liberalization, usually devaluations or floatation of local currency to encourage exports; and removal of price controls and supports to local industry; and

Rationalization of public-sector institutions, including civil-service (public-sector) reform, privatization of state enterprises, and reform of the social sector to make it cost-effective.

Aspects of these neoliberal policies have also been implemented since the 1980s in Northern countries, such as Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and, more recently, in continental Europe. Additionally, many governments have implemented economic-adjustment programs without being involved in an IMF or World Bank program.

In the Third World, these programs have been severely criticized for the following reasons:

They are not tailored to the particular needs of individual economies;

They contribute to major declines in standards of living, including nutritional levels, educational standards, employment rates, and access to social-support systems;

They shift more of the responsibility for health care, education, and care of the sick and elderly to women already burdened by unpaid work;

They increase social ills, such as violent crime, drug abuse, and violence against women; and

They result in increased levels of migration (legal and illegal) from the South to the North.

Sustainable development

In many parts of the North and South, women’s organizations and NGOs are involved in developing sustainable and economically feasible alternatives to these neoliberal policies of structural adjustment.

The term sustainable development came into popular use after the 1987 report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, popularly known as the Brundtland Report and the Brundtland Commission, respectively. The report was largely a response to the growing international environmental and ecological lobby. It defined sustainable development as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED 1987, p. 43). According to Donald Brooks (1990), the paradigm, or worldview, emerging around this concept recognized the need to ensure and facilitate the following:

Integration of conservation and development;

Maintenance of ecological integrity;

Satisfaction of basic human needs (see Chapter 3);

Achievement of equity and social justice; and

Provision of social self-determination and cultural diversity.

This comprehensive approach does not reflect all approaches to sustainable development. Some economists, for example, speak of “sustainable growth.” Critics agree, however, that economic growth (that is, continuous increase in the quantity of economic production) cannot be sustained indefinitely, given the renewable and nonrenewable resources of the planet. Nevertheless, a more equitable distribution of existing resources could lead to improvements in the quality of life.

Feminist activists have been central to the movement against environmental degradation and for sustainability right from the movement’s inception. They have also often gone beyond the narrower definitions of the issues to include the struggle for peace and the struggle against the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Whereas most of the discussions on sustainable development have taken place within the context of mainstream development economics, feminist activists have for the most part seen sustainable development as part of a larger alternative model of development or societal transformation.

Kamla Bhasin [1993] identified the following components of sustainable development:

It must be in harmony with nature (if nature is to sustain us, we must sustain nature);

It must be people centred and oriented (people have to be seen as the subjects, not the objects, of development);

It must be women centred (recognizing the responsibility that women have always assumed for catering to the basic needs of society);

It must cater to the needs of the majority (consumption levels of the rich and industrialized world must be reduced);

There must be decentralization of decision-making and control over resources within countries and internationally;

Democracy must become more participatory and direct, unleashing the latent energies of the people; and

At every level, sustainable development must promote the politics of peace, nonviolence, and respect for life.

In short, sustainable development for many feminists from the South and North implies a new kind of political, economic, social, and cultural system and a new value orientation.

The women’s challenge to modernization and development¹

The seeds of the women-and-development concept (a broad-based term that includes a number of approaches to women’s development; see below) were planted during the 1950s and 1960s. During this time, 50 countries were freed from colonialism, and the women who had participated in independence movements acted on their convictions that they must join with men in building these new nations. For example, at the beginning of the 1960s, women of East African countries, led by Margaret Kenyatta, met at seminars to adopt strategies aimed at reaching their goals. This was at a time when the revived feminist movement in the North had not yet found a distinct voice and The Feminine Mystique (Friedan 1963), the book that some credit with signaling the revival of feminism and launching the women’s liberation movement in Northern countries, had not yet been written.

Before that time, in 1947, just 2 years after the formation of the United Nations, the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) was established to monitor United Nations activities on behalf of women. To a large extent, however, its efforts were limited within the legalistic context of human rights. By the 1950s and 1960s, women of these newly independent countries began taking their delegations to the United Nations (though in small numbers) and were able to challenge the legalistic agenda of CSW by raising development-oriented issues.

By 1970, when the United Nations General Assembly reviewed the results of the First Development Decade of the 1960s, three factors that would eventually converge to foster the various approaches to women’s development had become evident:

It was found that the industrialization strategies of the 1960s had been ineffective and had, in fact, worsened the lives of the poor and the women in Third World countries. The Second Development Decade was therefore designed to address this and “bring about sustainable” improvement in the well-being of individuals and bestow benefits on all.

Evidence was brought forward in Ester Boserup’s (1970) now classic Women’s Role in Economic Development. Boserup, an agricultural economist, used research data from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and Latin America to highlight women’s central positions in the economic life of these societies, and she described the disruptive effects of colonialism and modernization on the sexual division of labour through the introduction of the international market economy. Among other things, this process drew men away from production based on family labour and gave them near-exclusive access to economic and other resources. Boserup concluded that the economic survival and development of the Third World would depend heavily on efforts to reverse this trend and to more fully integrate women into the development process.

The feminist movement reemerged in Western countries around 1968, alongside other social movements for civil rights. Although the movement’s energies were, for the most part, directed internally, some Western women used their position to pressure their government’s foreign-aid offices to ensure that grants to recipient countries supported women as well as men.

The central point of the original women-and-development approach was that both women and men must be lifted from poverty and both women and men must contribute to and benefit from development efforts. Margaret Snyder and Mary Tadesse, in their book, African Women and Development: A History, defined women and development as follows:

“Women and Development” is an inclusive term used throughout this book to signify a concept and a movement whose long-range goal is the well-being of society — the community of men, women and children. Its formulation is based on the following suppositions:

“Development,” in accordance with the International Development Strategy for the Second Development Decade, means “to bring about sustained improvement in the well-being of the individual and to bestow benefits on all.”

Because women comprise more than half of the human resources and are central to the economic as well as the social well-being of societies, development goals cannot be fully reached without their participation.

Women and development is thus a holistic concept wherein the goal of one cannot be achieved without the success of the other.

Women, therefore, must have “both the legal right and access to existing means for the improvement of oneself and of society.”

 — Snyder and Tadesse (1995, p. 6)

International Women’s Year was declared by the United Nations in 1975, and the celebration of this at the First International Women’s Conference in Mexico City marked the globalization of the movement. This unique intergovernmental conference and the nongovernmental International Women’s Tribune Centre (IWTC), a networking and communications institution, brought together women from nearly all countries of the world under the theme Equality, Development and Peace and extended its work during the United Nations Decade for Women, 1976–85. This sparked the creation of institutions and networks worldwide as “women and development” became an area of specialization in the development field.

The United Nations Voluntary Fund for Women (later called the United Nations Development Fund for Women) and the International Training and Research Centre for Women were soon established within the United Nations system. IWTC and the Women’s World Bank, a loan-guaranteeing organization, came into existence as NGOs. At the national level, “national machineries” — commissions on women, women’s desks, and women’s bureaus — were soon established in most countries. New women’s organizations and networks sprang up at the community and national levels. These contributed to the institutionalization of women and development as an internationally recognized set of concepts and did much to generalize knowledge and consciousness about women’s issues internationally.

Exercise 2 National machineries for women Visit the national machinery for women’s affairs in your country. It may be a women’s desk, a women’s bureau, or a ministry of women’s affairs. Write a short history of its emergence and analyze its interpretation of the term women and development.

Why gender?

The concern with gender emerged as feminist theorists sought to understand the complexities of women’s subordination. The word gender came into mainly academic use some 15 years after the reemergence of late-20th-century feminism, which has, unlike its earlier manifestations, made a significant dent in male-dominated (androcentric) scholarship (at least, I like to think so).

Feminist scholars argued that the Western academic tradition, of which most universities and colleges in the world are part, has systematically ignored the experiences of women in its fields of learning, concepts, theories, and research methods. Additionally, although claiming to be scientific, it has really embodied mythical assumptions about women’s and men’s capabilities, the sexual division of labour in early human history, and, as a result, women’s place in today’s society. These assumptions were extended to non-Western societies, with the result that Western assumptions and values influenced relations between the sexes and between groups within each sex, relations that ranged from egalitarian to highly patriarchal and stratified.

The word gender, like development, had a specific usage before feminist theorists extended its meaning. One of the earliest uses of gender in feminist theory can be traced to the 1976 University of Sussex Workshop on the Subordination of Women and the school of thought that emerged from this workshop. Scholars such as Olivia Harris, Maureen Mackintosh, Felicity Odlum, Ann Whitehead, and Kate Young argued that women, like men, are biological beings but that women’s subordination was socially constructed and not biologically determined. They argued further that to conceptually differentiate between these two realities, it is necessary to identify “sex” as the biological differentiation between male and female, and “gender” as the differentiation between masculinity and femininity as constructed through socialization and education, among other factors. What is biological is fixed and unchangeable, but what is social is subject to change and should be the focus of attention for feminist theorists.

In its more recent use, as you will see in Chapter 3, gender has come to be used, like class and ethnicityor race, to designate an analytical social category, one that interacts with other social factors in influencing life experiences of groups and individuals (see Box 3).

Box 3 The social relations of gender Firstly, what is gender? It is somewhat ironic that the term “gender,” which was first coined by psychologists and then used by feminists to get away from the biologistic referent of the word sex, is now virtually synonymous with the latter word. Yet by using gender we are using a shorthand term which encodes a very crucial point: that our basic social identities as men and women are socially constructed rather than based on fixed biological characteristics. In this sense we can talk about societies in which there are more than two genders (and in the anthropological record there are several such societies), as well as the historical differences in masculinity (femininity) in a given society. — Young (1988, p. 98)

Since that time this concept has gained widespread acceptance in a range of groups and often for different reasons. Some of these reasons are as follows:

The need to include men in our analysis:

Those who worried that women’s studies scholarship focused too narrowly and separately on women used the term … to introduce a relational notion into our analytic vocabulary.

— Scott (1989, p. 16) 

To gain academic acceptance:

In its simplest recent usage, “gender” is a synonym for “women.” Any number of books and articles whose subject is women’s history have in the past few years substituted “gender” for “women” in their titles. In some cases this usage … is about political acceptability in the field. In these instances, the use of “gender” is meant to denote scholarly seriousness of a work, for “gender” has a more neutral and objective sound than does “women.”

— Scott (1989, p. 16)

Recently, the phrase “women in development” (WID) is also being replaced in some circles by “gender and development” (GAD) or “gender concerns in development” (GCID) The details of these approaches will be dealt with in more explicitly in Chapter 3.

Today, however, two types of critiques have emerged in relation to the concept of gender. One of these comes from a movement perspective. As noted by Joan W. Scott, gender has become a useful and almost inescapable concept in women’s studies and feminist theory (Scott 1989). Many people in the women’s movement fear, however, that this is leading to a situation in which women are once more invisible. They note that the fields of WID, GAD, GCID, feminist theory, and women’s studies all owe their origins to the women’s movement and the struggles of women in the streets, towns, villages, and academies. Yet, today, with the growing acceptance of academic women’s studies and gender specialists, the concern with the day-to-day problems and struggles of women and the movement is being marginalized and, indeed, no longer even acknowledged.

The other critique comes from a theoretical perspective. It is now being found that

The divisions between male and female are not as fixed and clear cut as once thought — the male–female dichotomy is seen as being just as problematic as other dichotomies in Western thought; and

It is not so simple to extricate what is “sex” from what is “gender,” as these two phenomena, as described, intertwine.

Although the concept of gender can never substitute for that of woman, it has added to our understanding of the complexities of human social relations in numerous ways. Clearly, it is a concept that is here to stay.

Gender and society before the development era

It is important that we recall the richness of the history of most developing countries before colonialism and the era of development. It is also important for us to understand the nature of social relations in the earlier periods of that history. As I noted earlier, the Third World, or the South, really comprises most of the world. It is a mistake to speak of this vast and varied area as if it were all the same.

Until recently, most of our history of this region was androcentric. It focused on the period after the encounter with Western Europe and emphasized male action or agency. In addition, it was often first written in Western languages by Western male scholars who, with few exceptions, were Eurocentric and intolerant of the people they studied. As a result, our historical records are laced with racism, sexism, and imperialist sentiments. The following 17th-century European male’s description of matrilineality in West Africa is a clear example:

The Right of Inheritance is very oddly adjusted; as far as I could observe, the Brother’s and Sister’s Children are the right and lawful Heirs, in the manner following. They do not jointly inherit, but the eldest Son of his Mother is Heir to his Mother’s Brother or her Son, as the eldest Daughter is Heiress of her Mother’s Sister or her Daughter: neither the Father himself or his Relations as Brothers, Sisters etc. have any claim to the Goods of the Defunct, for what Reason they can’t tell: But I am of the Opinion that this Custom was introduc’d on account of the Whoredom of the Women, herein following the custom of some East-Indian Kings who (as Authors Fay) educate their Sister’s Son as their own, and appoint him to succeed in the Throne, because they are more sure that their Sister’s Son is of their Blood than they can be of their own [sic].

— Bosman (1967, p. 203)

Although development theorists paid little attention to the complexities of these societies before the era of development, social anthropologists did. However, they also took with them androcentric and ethnocentric biases that clouded their view of these societies and of gender relations in these societies.

In the heyday of Third World nationalism, in the 1960s and 1970s, indigenous historians sought to correct this wrong. Most of these historians were male or trained in the androcentric worldview, so knowledge of women’s experiences in precolonial society continued to be hidden. To counteract centuries of what Peter Worsley (1970) called “imperialist history,” nationalist historians often distorted this history to highlight a great and glorious past, stressing the kings and queens, wealth and empire. In so doing, they often ignored the traditional egalitarianism of many precolonial societies, in which women had greater power and autonomy and life was more in tune with nature and the environment, not based on its destruction.

Today, as feminist activists and other concerned scholars reevaluate development and modernization, there is a renewed appreciation of the positive features of the ways of life in earlier societies, although we realize the limitations of those times. We also understand the need to preserve and protect the egalitarian and environmentally friendly practices that have survived in our societies and have been adapted to serve people’s needs, often outside mainstream political and economic structures.

Exercise 3 Women’s knowledge Collect examples of women’s knowledge of medicine and healing and the ways in which these have been passed on from one generation to another.

Gender relations and social change

Since the late 18th century, social scientists have sought to develop a schema to explain the variety and differences in human experience. Early evolutionists incorporated the notion of progress: human development moving from primitive, backward forms to advanced and developed ones. Functionalist anthropologists in the mid-20th century concentrated on seeing each society as an integrated whole. They could not help interpreting what they observed through their biased perspectives and basing conclusions on their customary assumptions.

Today, although critical scholars no longer attribute value to societies in terms of progress or backwardness, they do recognize that precolonial societies may have been at different stages of social development. These stages are usually described in relation to the production systems that predominated at the time. Like all schemas, however, these descriptions provide only a partial understanding. Most societies cannot be neatly classified in one category or another. Many show signs of being at more than one “stage.” In addition, it must be stressed that all societies do not necessarily pass through all the recognized stages.

Some anthropologists totally reject any theory of stages of social development because of their links to the notions of modernization and progress. They argue, instead, for a nonstage approach that examines each society on its own terms and sees movement (social change) taking place in any direction. Transitions from one stage to another, if these are thought to occur at all, are therefore the result of many factors that anthropologists are still exploring, including a society’s environment and its historical relationships with other groups. The stages are usually identified as follows:

Hunter–gatherer or foraging societies

Horticultural societies

Matrilineal descent

Patrilineal descent

Agricultural or agrarian societies

Pastoral or herding societies

Industrial societies

Various combinations of the above

Feminist anthropologists have also argued that the organization of social and production relations — such as social stratification, the monogamous family, ownership of property, and forms of work and production — has greatly influenced the differences in gender relations around the world.

In some instances, as discussed earlier, societies were extremely stratified patriarchies before the arrival of European colonizers. This was sometimes the result of domination by other patriarchal and highly stratified groups or an existing system of social stratification. In many other instances, however, this was not the case, especially in matrilineal societies, as shown in Fatima Mernissi’s description of Morocco before its Islamization:

The panorama of female sexual rights in pre-Islamic culture reveals that women’s sexuality was not bound by the concept of legitimacy. Children belonged to their mother’s tribe. Women had sexual freedom to enter into and break off unions with more than one man, either simultaneously or successively. A woman could either reserve herself to one man at a time, on a more or less temporary basis, as in a mut’a marriage, or she could be visited by many husbands at different times whenever their nomadic tribe or trade caravan came through the woman’s town or camping ground. The husband would come and go; the main unit was the mother and child with an entourage of kinfolk.

— Mernissi 1987, p. 78)

In all situations, women had been able to create spaces and possibilities for autonomy within the structures of subordination existing in their societies (see Case Studies 1–4). However, these strategies were complicated or removed by the imposition of assumptions about a woman’s or man’s place in the new systems of stratification that were based on notions of class and racial or ethnic superiority.

Case Study 1

The Bari of Columbia

Elisa Buenaventura-Posso and Susan E. Brown, in their study of the Bari, an indigenous people of Columbia, traced the Bari’s historical background and described their society as “fully egalitarian,” a society without stratification, differential access to resources, or accumulation of wealth; exhibiting full sexual symmetry and individual autonomy; and valuing each person’s work as socially equal. Buenaventura-Posso and Brown (1976) made their assessment through analyses of the processes of leadership, stratification, decision-making, division of labour, ritual, interpersonal relationships, and general social atmosphere.

The ferocity with which the Bari resisted usurpation and extinction by powerful external forces for 400 years contrasts sharply with their harmonious, classless, internal social organization and very high regard for peace. In 1772, a colonial envoy noted that "they do not live subject to anyone’s domination … [but] in fraternal union, making decisions by unanimous agreement."

Two hundred years later, a visiting Capuchin monk made similar observations, adding that “there are no privileged classes … everyone is equal and for everyone exist the same opportunities. The head of the group cannot be called a chief … but … primus inter pares. Everyone enjoys absolute freedom within … required norms.” Buenaventura-Posso and Brown concurred and explained that sanctions for inappropriate behaviour among the Bari come through social-control mechanisms such as group pressure and public opinion. There are special positions of responsibility, which may be changed, but they do not carry even temporary authority.

The Bari are forest horticulturists who live in autonomous groups of 40–80, occupying two or more dwellings several days’ travel apart from one another. House members belong to three groups, named after the positions of their hearths — east, west, and centre — and the people in these groups cook and share food together. Each group has its own hearth, and each individual has his or her own space. Order is maintained, collective activities are performed, and each individual has a recognized place. No one has more access to strategic resources, authority, or knowledge than any other person.

The organization and division of labour between the sexes and among children are practical, flexible, and complementary, with little prohibition against interchange. Although a few tasks are restricted, many are communal or, like house-building, performed by both sexes. Interdependence is high, and consequently there are no resulting hierarchies, social divisions, or antagonisms between the sexes.

The Bari’s few rituals and ceremonies display full sexual symmetry. These rituals and ceremonies help each group maintain alliances with other groups. Both men and women can invite guests of the same sex, exchange gifts, and sing songs about their respective activities over days or weeks. Sexual independence is maintained before and after marriage. Unions are generally stable but are dissolved without a fuss when they are not.

Interpersonal relations are shaped by complex, subtle connections, pacts, alliances, and kinships among the separate, autonomous groups. All Bari are either ojibara (ally) or sadodi (kin) to one another, and sagdoji-okjibara is the linking principle, promoting order and taking the place of genealogical descent. Like earlier observers, Buenaventura-Posso and Brown noted the harmonious, egalitarian, and gentle relations between man and woman, as well as in the general social atmosphere.

Case Study 2

The Nayar of south India

Studies considering gender hegemonies from medieval times to the early postcolonial period in south India indicate that within the strictures of caste, class, and gender stratifications, Nayar matrilineal social structure vested leadership and power in the male and allowed various degrees of autonomy to women.

Kalpana Kannabiran, in her thesis, “Temple Women in South India: A Study in Political Economy and Social History”, suggested that the matrilinearity of the Hindu Nayar caste may hinge, in a sense, on the patrilineal structure of their close, but superior, caste Brahmin neighbours, the Nambudiri (Kannabiran 1992).

Paul Thomas’ (1964) observations on the Nayar of Kerala in south India in Indian Women Through the Ages, from his research during the early 1950s, are remarkably similar to those of Robin Jeffrey (1993) in her Politics, Women and Well-Being.

Kerala has a caste-based society and an agricultural economy with a per capita income well below the national average. Yet, other statistics indicate higher standards of living in most vital aspects than found in the rest of the country: birth rates and infant mortality rates are lower; life expectancy is longer; and education and literacy levels are higher. The figures are particularly striking for women (who live longer in Kerala), and explanations have been sought in the social history and development of the people of the region.

The Nayar constitute a numerous fourth-level martial Hindu caste in Kerala, south India. Until the middle of this century, their social system was matrilineal. Their’s was a humane system in which the eldest male managed the family affairs but descent was traced through the female line from a female ancestor. Properties were jointly owned by families in the name of the senior female. A woman was free to move about the locality and had a say in choosing her own husband.

The Nayar marriage ceremony, Sambandam, comprised a single reception and the presentation of a gift of cloth from the bridegroom to the bride. Although liaisons did not have to be permanent, there was considerable constancy. Divorce was easy, remarriage was common, and polyandry almost certainly occurred. Women and their children were the responsibility of the maternal family, whose surname they retained. Free from tyrannical husbands, child marriage, sati, and purdah, women were autonomous, self-reliant, independent, and able to manage men and affairs far better than other women in similar situations elsewhere in India. They never, however, had full equality with men.

Nayar men were soldiers and supervisors for the highest level Hindu Brahmin Nambudiri caste. Its men — like those of the second-level Kshatriya caste — had access to Nayar women through Sambandam marriage. Nayar women were responsible for family domestic affairs and child-rearing. Nayar social organization allowed the women considerable sexual freedom and material and social security.

With British colonization, however, persistent pressure, including government legislation, changed much of the matrilineal system. Consequently, although Nayar women have enjoyed higher levels of autonomy and quality of life than other women in equivalent positions elsewhere in India, they have relatively less personal freedom and social security, today, than their female ancestors.

Case Study 3

The Tiwi women of north Australia

In a case study of the contemporary social life of the Tiwi of Melville Island, north Australia, M. Kay Martin and Barbara Voorhies suggested that the social organization of these hunters and gatherers has a dual structure: whereas inheritance and clan membership are patrilineal, families frequently reside in their maternal camps, with a man often marrying several daughters of one mother, thus making matrilineal affiliation important to both men and women (Martin and Voorhies 1975).

To compare male and female anthropological perspectives on Aboriginal women, Ruby Rohrlich-Leavitt, Barbara Sykes, and Elizabeth Weatherford surveyed various studies, including some on the Tiwi of Australia, and concluded that Tiwi women enjoy partnership with men and the same rights, self-respect, and dignity (Rohrlich-Leavitt et al. 1975). Although men are the social and political leaders in Tiwi society, women play a crucial role in their community’s economic survival. They forage and hunt small game to provide most, sometimes all, of the family food supply, and they carry much of the load when their nomadic bands travel. The community fully recognizes the importance of women’s contribution and their commensurate participation in other institutions.

Tiwi society requires that all women past the age of puberty marry and that husband and wife enter into real economic cooperation. Both sexes go on joint hunting and fishing excursions. The tools the women make and use satisfy most of the essential needs of the group. Because of their economic contribution, women are respected and assured of just and good treatment. There is no simple division of labour by sex. Both men and women practice hunting and gathering. Land resources, both plant and animal, are associated with women, whereas air and sea resources are associated with men. However, men hunt larger animals, such as the wallaby, which requires particular strength, speed, and close-range dexterity with spears.

Women have the right to own property and to trade some of their handiwork. Among themselves, they also hold corroborrees — secret ritual festivals and symbolic dances — that help unify them and give them, as the men’s rituals give them, opportunities for drama, recreation, and emotional security. Like the men, the women practice sorcery against undependable partners.

Young people of both sexes have casual premarital affairs, but full sexual intercourse is not sanctioned before puberty. When a girl gets pregnant, her betrothed becomes the child’s social father. Usually, a betrothed begins to stay at the girl’s parents’ camp before puberty so that they will get to know each other by the time she goes to live in his territory. 

The men (fathers, brothers, and prospective husband) make the marriage arrangements, but the girl’s mother plays a part in the negotiations. A man remains indebted all his life to his mother-in-law, who alone may void the contract if she is dissatisfied with the gifts he provides her.

Polygamy is practiced, and men try to acquire as many wives as they can. Girls are usually much younger than their first husbands, but older widows often choose younger men. Sometimes they agree to exchange sons. Both men and women often have several spouses over a lifetime. Wives are economic assets to a man, as they can free him from subsistence activity, enabling him to pursue the public and ceremonial affairs that bring him power and prestige in the community.

Strong bonds of special affection and respect are recognized between women and their biological children, who have close ties with their mother’s group. Women share in the gifts given when their sons are initiated. They visit and exchange gifts with their married daughters, and both sons and daughters care for their mother when she is old.

Both women and men have a deeply rooted belief in the totemic ancestors, and the egalitarian relationships between the sexes are reflected in the myths that depict both sexes as existing together from the first. In their creation myth, the creator deity is female, as are the deities of the sun and the Milky Way.

With increasing age, women become more assertive and wield more power and authority. They have tremendous influence through their mature sons. Older women teach the younger ones economic skills, preside over women’s rites and secret corroborrees, and settle disputes. Like their male counterparts, they are the guardians of myths and are responsible for passing on tribal law and custom. As such, they support the stability and continuity of tribal life.

Case Study 4

The Nile Valley civilization

The Civilization of Ancient Egypt, Paul Johnson’s (1978) study of Nile Valley civilization from neolithic times, cites the fundamental characteristics of the world’s first highly stratified nation-state as stability, permanence, and isolation; and the essence of its culture as majesty and self-confidence. State, religion, culture, and land formed a creative unity lasting three millennia, until the Christian era; it was a civilization circumscribed by the desert and dominated by the great river Nile.

As Egypt’s only (and very dependable) source of water, the Nile provided the valley with reliable alluvial deposits, fertility, and a transportation route. It enabled the very early hunter nomads of the valley to transform themselves into farmers and herders, and their exploitation of the Nile allowed them to develop a sound agricultural economy.

Ancient Egypt’s social organization was patriarchal and included a system of social stratification. Although inheritance came through the maternal line, men managed their families and occupied all positions of leadership. The sexual division of labour did not allow women to take part in trade or expeditions or become secular officials. Nevertheless, women were afforded high status in ancient Egyptian society, and a child’s status was determined by that of its mother.

Outside the domestic sphere, women could become temple dancers, singers, attendants, or high-ranking priestesses. Peasant women worked in the fields, drew water, and sometimes herded livestock. Pictorial evidence also shows that women occupied positions of authority — responsible positions, such manageress of a dining hall, superintendent of a workshop of weavers, head of a wig workshop, or conductor of the singers of the royal harem.

Health care for women was important. Gynaecology was very advanced. Women from wealthy families enjoyed wide property rights and could own slaves, servants, houses, and land; they retained these rights when they married. Women could inherit their father’s and husband’s estates and could adopt children. Egyptians were particularly fond of children and displayed their affection quite openly. In this polygamous society, men were encouraged to be considerate and faithful to their wives. Unfaithful wives, however, were put to death with their lovers. Auspicious days for lovemaking between husband and wife were determined by the astrologer.

Among the royalty, rulership was a male prerogative but gained through a female line. Kingship passed to the husband of the former king’s eldest daughter or to the husband of the former king’s first daughter with his favourite senior wife. Although women were forbidden by law from becoming a ruling queen, some women, like Queen Hatshepsut, did in fact rule, and these women intrigued to have their daughters succeed them. The power of Egypt’s theocratic monarchy was thus not entirely absolute, but there was little freedom to act against the law. Yet, the state’s remarkable stability and order encouraged tremendous development in agriculture, the arts, and science. Eventually, when Egypt’s retreat into the regulated collectivism of its past proved ineffective against persistent external invasion, the country was overtaken, and new people with new religions and languages replaced its ancient civilization.

Conclusion

This chapter suggests that the sexual division of labour in our society, today, may not be as fixed as we think. It suggests that the subordination of women and and the dominance of men are neither natural nor eternal. A change toward a more egalitarian society is possible, a change that could fulfill the potentials of all human beings — women and men.

This chapter also recommends that to change these difficult relations between women and men, we have to examine and challenge the systems of inegalitarianism and subordination in our own countries and throughout the world: these could be based on race or ethnicity, colour, class, age, sexual orientation, or nationality. In addition, we need to consider the organization of work and the effects of modern life and work on the environment.

The chapters that follow explore some of these issues in depth and introduce you to some of the theories and approaches developed to more fully understand the issues of gender and development.

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¹ This section benefited greatly from the contributions of Margaret Snyder and Mary Tadesse (1995). Return

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