VOX - The Student Journal of Politics, Economics and Philosophy
INVISIBLE WOMEN By Alexandra Khoo
T
HE PORTRAIT OF POVERTY IS OFTEN GIVEN A FEMALE FACE; IT
a fact that women are over-represented in poverty. Yet, women’s agency is rarely given much thought in poverty-reduction projects. It is falsely assumed that the benefits they have regaining control over their lives are equal to their male counterparts from the projects. Poverty is gendered in its experience and impact, and any projects that fail to recognise this almost inevitably have a pro-male bias. Specifically targeting women in povertyreduction efforts is a more moderate move than having an overt element of women empowerment, but it is an effective start to helping poor, disadvantaged women obtain control and attain a better future. IS
Relieving a Heavier Poverty Burden Impoverished women tend to be harder hit by poverty. Adopting a women-orientation in poverty-reduction projects would help level the playing field for women in providing them with a fairer chance of regaining control. Genderbased power relations translate into impoverished women generally experiencing poverty differently and more 20
intensely than their male counterparts (Catagay, 2001). Within the household, the ‘anti-female bias’ results in a male preference when allocating food and healthcare (Sen, 1999, p.194). Inequitable distribution of household resources extends to poor men withdrawing portions of their income from domestic collective funds for personal consumption like alcohol. This ranges from around one-third in Honduras to a half in areas like Nicaragua and Mexico. Hence, women and girls in the family usually experience sharper poverty than husbands and sons (Chant, 2003, p.20).
Women are unable to utilise opportunities presented by development as effectively to improve their welfare. In the sphere of public policy, poor women have difficulty accessing welfare benefits in their own rights and have to act as dependents of male relatives. Poverty-reduction projects ought to rectify this flaw by targeting women
Issue XII - Summer 2010
in particular and enabling direct access to resources. Additionally, women may work long hours every day in the household, but this is often ignored when the government or household members account for the respective inputs of women and men in the family’s joint prosperity (Sen, 1999). When scrutinising the labour market, poor women are shown to be economically active, and yet they form majority of the world’s poor. This is because they are often limited to jobs with little or no income (Johnsson-Latham, 2004. pp.21-28). Unless poverty alleviation projects are women-centred, it is difficult to address women’s poverty issues on equal terms with those of men. Removing Invisible Obstacles Having a female focus also better places these projects to tackle the additional obstacles women have in comparison to men in overcoming poverty. It allows poverty alleviation results to be more gender-balanced, especially in helping beneficiaries obtain greater control over the circumstances they live in. Due to a prevalent “inegalitarian social and economic order that is difficult to break down”, (Myrdal, 1997 as cited by Rai, 2002) women are unable to utilise opportunities presented by development as effectively to improve their welfare. The unjust order may manifest itself in legalised discrimination
in property rights and income-earning rights. In many countries, including Namibia and Swaziland, husbands are the permanent custodians of married women, who have no right to manage property. Even where that is not the case, husbands can limit their wives’ outside employment (Dollar & Gatti, 1999, pp.4-6). Less attention is also given to the intellectual and cognitive development of women. Poor women are thus comparatively less endowed with physical assets (e.g. land) and essential skills like literacy. A downward spiral persists as they are then often bypassed in typical poverty reduction strategies. These approaches mostly attempt to build upon existing assets to produce results (Buckland, 1998). Specifically, the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP) as prescribed by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), and Poverty Reduction Strategies (PRS) by organisations such as the United Nations Development Programme, focus on income, salaries and commodities transactions. There is a great lack of female involvement in those areas, leading to women often being omitted as aid recipients in practice (JohnssonLathnam, 2003, pp.24-30). Informal sector work, especially that of unpaid, domestic work, in which women are the primary labourers, are rarely considered in poverty discourse, despite the long hours required and their contributions to formal income-generating work. 21
VOX - The Student Journal of Politics, Economics and Philosophy
Meeting Specific Needs A gendered approach is more critical in targeting a group identified as the majority of the world’s poor: women. They make up about 70% of the world’s 1.3 billion people in poverty (DFID, 2000. p.13). ‘Gender-informed efforts’ must be applied to reduce women poverty and poverty as a whole (Whitehead, 2003). This means recognising that poor women have differentiated needs from poor men. For instance, women’s high concentration in the unstable, low-wage informal sector when compounded by gender discrimination indicates that they have more pronounced problems of inadequate social security and limited access to credit (Harris-White, 2010). Helping poor women regain control requires a prior understanding that they are also ‘time-poor’. This arises from their dual roles in ‘reproductive economy’ as primary family caretakers and in outside labour markets (Were & Kiringai, 2003). For example, water collection already takes up to 40% of a woman’s day in some rural areas of Kenya, not withstanding her other duties (World Bank, 1993 as cited by Were & Kiringai, 2003). It is clear that poor women are in acute need of labour- and energy-saving technologies and strategies catered to their context. These women-centred poverty reduction projects are betterpositioned to introduce measures to grant them greater autonomy in how 22
they spend their time. It must also be realised that women are not a homogenous block. We must ask the question: ‘which women?’ Poverty-reduction efforts must be differentiated to target different groups of women who require help in different ways. There exists a ‘geography of poverty’, in which the extent and kind of help women required depends on how the patriarchical structure in a community disadvantages them through defining gender-specific roles and powers (Kabeer, 2003). Finally, programmes must also consider individual economic positions. For instance, the poorest women are still excluded from microcredit scheme targeting women (Mayoux & Lacoste, 2005). Culprits are problems like the vicious cycle of having no initial entrepreneurial projects required to access loans that are needed to start such projects.
Issue XII - Summer 2010
Conclusion Human dignity demands that people have sufficient control over their lives to create meaningful livelihoods. Poor women, a marginalised group within a marginalised group, face much deprivation in this aspect. Poverty is harsher for them; they have weaker social mobility to overcome poverty and they have largely unmet femalespecific needs as the majority of the world’s poor. In order to redress these problems, more needs to be done in poverty-reduction efforts. Not all contexts are suitable for having an explicit element of women empowerment in aid programmes, but having more programmes that specifically target women is a good step forward. It will be helpful if governments facilitate the work of NGOs co-ordinating such
programmes by: improving women’s education; launching public campaigns to counter gender discrimination; and adopting gender-balanced policies in the public sector. Globally, concerned citizens could petition these governments or their partners in aid development such as international aid organisations and donor governments to address the issue. Making the invisible women visible paints a brighter future for them. Bibliography available online at www.voxjournal.co.uk _____________________________
Alexandra Khoo is a first year undergraduate student reading Politics, Philosophy and Economics at the University of York.
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