Social Work
Women in Development (WID):
WID is a special effort to include women as participants in and beneficiaries of development because women, more often than men, have been left out of the development process. Sometimes it has focused on women’s projects rather than being integrated into other development projects.
Gender and Development [GAD]:
An approach to development that focuses on everyone: men and women, boys and girls. Gender is much more than equity, issue, gender roles, including access to resources, affects economic growth as well as social stability and well being in a society.
Women in Development vs. Gender and Development:
Most of the people who inhabit this world live in poverty. However, women are more likely than men to be impoverished. This is called the feminization of poverty. In the 1970s, feminists and agents of development came up with an approach to address this problem called the Women in Development [WID] approach. As the years went by, this approach was criticized. A new approach emerged out of this critique called Gender and Development [GAD] approach. This paper makes two arguments: that GAD is the best approach to address the inequalities women experience in developing countries, and that the WID approach must also play a supportive role in addressing these inequalities.
A crucial difference between the GAD approach and the WID approach is that GAD focuses on gender whereas WID focuses on women. Although many people may think this is the same thing, they are mistaken. Gender is a cultural construct. It is the set of dispositions, behaviors, and roles that a given culture considers appropriate for each sex. Sex, on the other hand, is different from gender. Sex is the physical and biological attributes that differentiate between males and females. The category of women, as focused on by the WID approach, is clearly a category of sex and not gender. This is a major flaw in the WID analysis, for it assumes that women
WID is a special effort to include women as participants in and beneficiaries of development because women, more often than men, have been left out of the development process. Sometimes it has focused on women’s projects rather than being integrated into other development projects.
Gender and Development [GAD]:
An approach to development that focuses on everyone: men and women, boys and girls. Gender is much more than equity, issue, gender roles, including access to resources, affects economic growth as well as social stability and well being in a society.
Women in Development vs. Gender and Development:
Most of the people who inhabit this world live in poverty. However, women are more likely than men to be impoverished. This is called the feminization of poverty. In the 1970s, feminists and agents of development came up with an approach to address this problem called the Women in Development [WID] approach. As the years went by, this approach was criticized. A new approach emerged out of this critique called Gender and Development [GAD] approach. This paper makes two arguments: that GAD is the best approach to address the inequalities women experience in developing countries, and that the WID approach must also play a supportive role in addressing these inequalities.
A crucial difference between the GAD approach and the WID approach is that GAD focuses on gender whereas WID focuses on women. Although many people may think this is the same thing, they are mistaken. Gender is a cultural construct. It is the set of dispositions, behaviors, and roles that a given culture considers appropriate for each sex. Sex, on the other hand, is different from gender. Sex is the physical and biological attributes that differentiate between males and females. The category of women, as focused on by the WID approach, is clearly a category of sex and not gender. This is a major flaw in the WID analysis, for it assumes that women