gender and development

Gender and

DevelopmentBy: Joshua P. Magpantay

Learning Objective

At the end of the chapter, you should be able to:

1.Describe gender equality and inequality and how they affect development.

2.Explain the relationship between gender and power

3.Discuss significant gains that have been made in women’s education as a result of global advocacy

Theories of Gender Development

Social learning theory

Believe that parents, as the distributor of reinforcement, reinforce appropriate gender role behaviors. If the parents have a good relationships with their children, they become model for their children to imitate, encouraging them to acquire Gender-related behavior.

Developmental theory Is the series of age-related changes that happen over the course of a life span. Several famous psychologists, including Sigmund Freud, Erik Erikson,Jean Piaget, and Lawrence Kohlberg, describe development as a series of stages. A stage is a period in development in which people exhibit typical behavior patterns and establish particular capacities.

The various stage theories share three assumptions:

1. People pass through stages in a specific

order, with each stage building on capacities developed in the previous stage.2. Stages are related to age.3. Development is discontinuous, with qualitatively different capacities emerging in each stage.

Gender Schema theory

A schema is a metal blueprint for organizing information, and children develop and formulate an appropriate gender. Such a schema helps child to develop gender identity and formulate an appropriate gender role.

What Is Gender

Stereotyping?

Gender Stereotypingis defined as the beliefs human hold about the characteristics associated with males and females.

Gender stereotypes

Are simplistic generalizations about the gender attributes, differences, and roles of individuals and/or groups. Stereotypes can be positive or negative, but they rarely communicate accurate information about others

Several problem exist with this process:1.When the characteristics associated with a particular gender have a negative image

2. When a unique individual is assumed to have all the characteristics associated with his or her gender.

Attitudes toward men’s and women’s roles have been referred to as gender ideologies

A traditional gender ideology maintains that men’s sphere is work and women’s sphere is the home.An egalitarian gender ideology maintain that power is distributed equally between men and women and that each group identifies equally with the same spheres (Helgeson, 2002)

A third gender ideology, the transitional. A typical transitional attitudes toward gender roles is that it is acceptable for women to devote energy to both work and family domains but women should hold proportionally more responsibility for the home and men should focus propotionally more their energy on work.

Gender and Equality

Gender Equality between women and man is a worthy goal that is central to progress in human development

Gender equality gives women and men entitlement to all aspect of human development, including economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights, the same level of respect, the same opportunities of these choices.

Women’s empowerment is particularly important for determining a country’s demographic trends, trends that in turn affect its economic success and environmental sustainability.

WHY?

The Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo said“that advancing gender equality and equity and the empowerment of women, and the elimination of all kinds of violence against women and ensuring women’s ability to control their own fertility, are

cornerstones of population and development”

“Strong evidence from around the world confirms that gender equality accelerate overall economic growth, strengths democratic governance and reduce poverty and security.” (Kemal Davis UNDP Administrator 6 Sept. 2005)

General Inequality

Four themes characterize feminist theorizing of gender inequality

First men and women are suited in society not only differently but also

unequally

Second, this inequality result from the organization of society, not from any significant biological or

personality differences

Third, Although individual human being may vary somewhat from each other in their profile of potentials and traits, no significant pattern of natural variation distinguishes and sexes

Fourth, all inequality theories assume that both men and women and men will respond fairly easily and naturally to more egalitarian social structures and situation

Gender and Power

What is Power?

Power becomes abusive and exploitative only when independence and individuality of one person or group of people becomes so dominant that freedom for other is compromised.

The greater physical strengths that men tend to have creates the imbalance of power between men and women resulting from social structure and historical practices in regard to finances, education, roles of authority and decision making:

1.The abuse of power by men and the failure of cultural pressure to prevent such abuse

2.And a distorted view of sexuality and the objectification of the female

Max Weber define “power as likelihood a person may achieve personal ends despite possible responsible resistance form other. Since this definition views power can be achieve through justice”.

What is Gender?

Gender refers to the different ways men and women play in society, and to the relative power they weild.

By virtue of male’s greater ascribed status in society, men have more legitimate power (based on rank or position) than do women.