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Date Added to
Site: 18th November 2003 |
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Short Summary
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| Title |
The 'Gender Lens': A Racial Blinder |
| Author |
White, S. |
| Publication
Date |
June 2003 |
| Publisher |
Institute of Development Studies (IDS) |
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Short Summary |
Gender and Development (GAD) grew out of a political
motivation to change the power dynamics of development. Now however
there is a danger that GAD has become simply a technical process which
avoids challenging power structures. Furthermore, gender risks becoming
the only inequality addressed while other issues such as race are
sidelined. Instead of helping us see more clearly, the gender lens
blinds us to other justice issues. This paper looks at how paradoxically,
first and third world women have been merged into one category of
'women', and at the same time constructed as essentially and always
different from each other. The silence on race in development is explored,
as well as the initial resistance to black feminism within GAD. Black
feminist insights were however later taken on such as: the importance
of personal feeling and experience in giving meaning to theory; refusing
to see men as the enemy; questioning the equation of paid work with
women's empowerment; and questioning the understanding of family as
the primary location where oppression of women takes place. (Paper
prepared for the International Workshop Feminist Fables and Gender
Myths: Repositioning Gender in Development Policy and Practice, Institute
of Development Studies, Sussex, 2-4 July 2003)
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