I. Gender, Colonialism, and Economic Development

A. Taussig's contribution

1. Concrete changes wrought by colonialism
2. Symbolic use of devil to critique capitalism
3. Doesn't help us to understand differences within categories of peasant and proletarian

B. Differential impact of colonialism and economic development

1. Peasants differ in age, gender, wealth, race, and ethnicity
2. Wealthy versus poor peasants
3. Aihwa Ong: gender, female workers in a Japanese-owned electronics factory in Malaysia

 

II. Ester Boserup's Woman's Role in Economic Development (1970)

A. Boserup: economist, compare gendered divisions of labor throughout developing world
B. Central argument: economic development harms women

1. Economic development = labor specialization
2. Production moves from household to broader society
3. Increasing hierarchy
4. Relations of gender interdependence in household are shattered

a. Men benefit from changes
b. Women suffer

i. lack education
ii. get lowest paid jobs in modern sector
iii. remain in traditional sector, agriculture or handicrafts

C. Boserup's critique of modernization theory

1. Neglects history: precolonial economic systems and colonialism

a. Example: Female farming in West Africa

i. Shifting cultivation: men felled the trees and cleared the fields, women performed most other tasks
ii. Men and women had different crops
iii. Colonial extension agents have gender bias, target only men
iv. Women raise subsistence crops, men raise cash crops
v. Men : women :: modern : traditional continues after colonialism
vi. Men go to cities for employment, women stay behind
vii. Men have privileged access to new farming technologies
viii. In context of development, female farming ==> feminization of rural poverty
ix. Urban families lose women's free subsistence labor, experience rise in wage income, but decline in standard of living

b. Other parts of the world: women stay at home, produce goods or process foods for trade
c. Bazaar economy as intermediate stage between subsistence and market economies
d. Cultural factors (lack of education and training, conceptions of wage labor as male activity) limit women's employment

2. Standard theories of economic development ignore women's productive activities ==> skewed picture of rising income and living standards
3. Urbanization perpetuates urban and rural poverty

a. Women's declining productivity in traditional sector is net decline in a family's economic status
b. Economic development slows because of gendered dimension of urban-rural links

D. Boserup's proposed solutions

1. Cultural and economic strategies to prevent men (particularly literate/educated) from migrating to urban areas
2. Educate women for employment in modern sector
3. Increase women's participation in rural non-agricultural activities
4. Develop rural technology
5. Results: men stay interested in farming, male and female productivity in rural and urban areas increases, food is supplied to cities

 

III. The Impact of Boserup's Work

A. Created field of gender and development studies
B. Understand how social and cultural construction of men and women's work, ways that traditional ideas interact with processes of economic development
C. Female farming model
D. Limitations to Boserup

1. Doesn't question linear model of economic development
2. Overstates traditional/modern distinction, ignores implications that the modern might create and need the traditional (similar to Wallerstein)
3. Romanticizes pre-colonial household, ignores extra-household relationships during development

 

IV. Women Move from Farm to Factory

A. Studies of effects of economic development on women support Boserup

1. decline in women's incomes
2. inequities in distribution of and access to household resources
3. feminization of poverty
4. lack of economic power, social prestige, or autonomous identities attributed to women's productive activities
5. Discourse of economic development is gender-neutral, but effects are gender-specific

B. Boserup was wrong about women staying in traditional sector

1. Textile and electronics assembly industries in Asia: workers are young, female, relatively uneducated
2. Women workers described as docile, unintelligent, cheap, nimble fingered
3. Aihwa Ong: Factory work doesn't increase women's autonomy or status because family, factory owners, and government conspire to keep them subordinate