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Gender and Development Theories, Wid, Wad and Gad, Their Strengths and Weaknesse

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INVESTING IN AFRICA’S FUTURE FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCE

Name: Chupical Shollah Manuel

Reg Number: R 086305 HU

Lecturer: Musvosvi, E (Ms)

Course: Gender and Development (HSO 306)

Question: Briefly discuss the following theories and show the strengths and weaknesses of each approach to Gender Development; WID, WAD and GAD.

Gender relates to the social constructions and relations between men and women and it does not simply look at maleness or femaleness. Development is a multidimensional concept but in general it entails social upward mobility and empowerment but not limited to this. In studying gender relations and development it is of great importance to look at the approaches adopted by feminists in redressing and addressing social disparities. There are many approaches but shall give considerable to WID, WAD and GAD and give their contributions to development as well as their strengths and weaknesses.

One of the most famous approaches to development was the feminist Women in development (WID). This was adopted in the 1970s in response to women movement in the west. The women in the west advocated for inclusion of women who have been excluded from development policies and programs. Baserup (1979) point out that the primary goal of WID was to include women into existing initiatives cited in Schech and Haggis (2000). Women were marginalized and excluded from the benefits of development. In so doing, the WID approach pointed out that the major problem to women’s unequal representation and participation is the male biased and patriarch cal development policies (Beneria and Sen 1982:161 c.f Schech and Haggis 2000). In short, the WID approach blamed patriarchy which did not consider women’s productive and reproductive work. In fact, women were tied to domestic work hence were almost invisible

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