Chapter 6 Chapter Summary

This chapter considers the issues and struggles faced by women in the Global South in the context of development programs and policies over the past 50 years. Beyond the mobilization of feminist movements and women’s groups to assert their rights, it reveals how the sometimes-conflicting evolution of theoretical approaches have shaped the field of “women, gender, and development.” Social constructions of gender and intersectional systems of power block fair and equitable development, and we find that the sexual division of labour operates both within and outside the home. To achieve gender equality in development, the role of masculinities and patriarchal privileges in the Global South and Global North must be understood and reconfigured, and the different levels of empowerment—individual, relational, socio-political, and economic—need to be identified and addressed. While transnational and global feminist alliances uniting grassroots groups and organizations provide some hope for improving the status and conditions of women, the contextual specificity of women in the Global South reminds us to pay particular attention to the voices of poor and marginalized women and to their gendered, class-structured experiences.