Since time immemorial the bid to arrive at a gender equity state among various nations has been a long and tough road. Gender issues have raised concerns due to the levels of equalities among the women and men attributed to the various cultural systems, economic and political backgrounds. There has been quite an effort by the human rights activist, law enforcers, and gender based movements in trying to solve the gender inequality problem.
Borrowing from the various perspectives within the social sphere like changing the political structure and introducing new cultures that foster equity has been adopted. Economic empowerment of the disadvantaged gender, which is the women, has come out as the only source of rooting out gender inequalities (Taneja, Pryor & Oyler, 2012, p.45). The use of women in development approaches and the gender and development approaches has greatly impacted in the bid to attain gender balance (Bradshaw, Castellino & Diop, 2013, p. 4).
The Women and Development (WID) approach came up in the 1970’s after the increasing cases of the gender concerns from various people. The approach was aimed at salvaging the situation the women were in as per the time. The focus of the Women in Development approach was on integrating the women’s fraternity in all development initiatives. The incorporation of women to development related projects would mean a long term empowerment achievement in addressing inequalities.
Their main concern was as to why the women were always left out in all community projects and they fought for the increased women’s participation in all development issues. The women in development had a solution in mind in addressing the inequality in that development projects should be drafted along lines of gender. According to them, the women only related projects would solve the gender issues raised, the use of women based projects would raise their practical needs hence be able to meet also their strategic needs with time.
They faced several criticisms the major one being the sidelining of one gender, which are the men. Hence, it would be wrong to say WID was truly fighting for gender equality. Another criticism which brought down the approach was, it did not cut across the societal barriers such as social structures, ideological differences between communities and issues of sexuality.
Gender and Development approach was formed in the 1980’s due to the shortcomings the women in development faced. The GAD approach was focused on bringing equity among the various relationships between men and women; it specifically addressed both genders and trying to find a striking balance among the men and women.
Their main concern was the level of inequality between men and women; hence their goal was aimed at inclusiveness of both genders to attain a sustainable development project. According to GAD, empowerment of the women was the primary key in addressing gender concerns through the fusion of gender interrelated projects. The gender and development project was aimed at meeting the strategic need of the women.
Politics and development among women showed an inverse relationship in that with the political mileage women were bestowed with brought about increased levels of negative accountability concerns such as corruption. Also, it was evident that the lesser the economic empowerment women were going through the better the situation as it increased their productive gender role (Taneja, Pryor & Oyler, 2012, p.45).
On the other hand political empowerment of women is the key to all social problems. The notion that women in power are a problem is not taken seriously, but reciprocated with positive gains in terms of ensuring peace, equality and sustainable development.
Reference list
Bradshaw, S., Castellino, J., & Diop, B. (2013). Women’s Role in Economic Development: Overcoming the Constraints.
Taneja, S., Pryor, M. G., & Oyler, J. (2012). Empowerment and gender equality: The retention and promotion of women in the workforce. Journal of Business Diversity, 12(3), 43-53.