WID, WAD, GAD or What?
Exploring where women fit into development theory and practice
**Trigger Warning: This article contains mention of sexual violence, misogyny etc.
There are currently 1.4 billion people living in extreme poverty in the world, and two thirds of these people are women.
In the Global South, 80% of employment opportunities for women are in the informal sector.
Of the 110 million children who do not have access to education, two thirds of them are girls.
What is critical about these statistics? They exemplify the pervasive sexism, misogyny and exclusion that women around the world experience today. These statistics show the reality of living as a woman in the Majority World.
So why has there been so little genuine effort to address these inequalities within the context of development? There are a lot of broadly termed “women’s issues” campaigns, but these are merely projects — they have start dates and budgets and end dates. “We managed to get 1,000 girls in Malawi into primary school,” the organizations tout. But what does this mean to those girls?
I get to go to school.
I get to go to school and feel guilt for leaving my mother to work all day.
I get to go to school and risk being raped by my teacher.
I get to go to school and I am afraid to walk home by myself.
I get to go to school but I do not believe I will find a job.
I get to go to school but I will be married next year.
It isn’t as simple as sending a girl to school. The complexities, pressures and risks that women experience when attempting to access education frequently leave women in vulnerable circumstances. More needs to be done about this. Much more. It is not adequate to approach these issues as “women’s issues” or projects; long-term systemic change needs to be prioritized in order to address these inequalities and abuses directly. So why isn’ this happening within the field of development?
One reason is that there seems to be no clear consensus on how to involve women in the conversation about the provision and security of rights and freedoms in the majority world. This discussion of the place of women in development brings with it ample debate.
Rathgeber (1990) provides a useful breakdown of some of the major vocabulary used in development discourse to explain the involvement of women’s rights and issues in the field. Rathgeber’s analysis is helpful in isolating the nuances of these discourses. As Rathgeber notes, there have been three notable phases in the lingo, including Women in Development (WID), Women and Development (WAD) and Gender and Development (GAD) (p.489).
WID: Women in Development
The WID approach was introduced primarily by “American liberal feminists” and focuses on egalitarianism, especially in terms of economic participation and access (Rathgeber, 1990, p.490). This economic focus led WID activists to address the disparity of employment opportunities between men and women in the majority world. The WID model did not question modernization, and placed the onus of development and growth on women’s economic capacity (T. Ulicki, personal communication, January 15).
What is most striking about the WID model is that it does not deal with the disparities and power relations between men and women. In my opinion, the roots of inequality are the most critical thing to address when discussing women and poverty. However, the WID model is known as being the “non-confrontational approach” as it does not confront these issues (Rathgeber, 1990, p.491).
WAD: Women and Development
The WAD approach is not as frequently discussed, however it was an important bridge between WID and GAD. WAD is a “neo-Marxist feminist approach” and it grew out of the “limitations of modernization theory” that was foundational in the WID approach (Rathgeber, 1990, p.492). The WAD approach comes from the perspective that equality will be essential to improving women’s positions, but still frames change in terms of providing women access to the productive sector (p.493). WAD, while perhaps more critical than WID, also fails to dig deeper into the systemic problems associated with the relationship between men and women (p.493).
GAD: Gender and Development
The GAD approach, which was developed in the 1980s, stepped away from both WID and WAD and was founded in socialist-feminist ideology (Rathgeber, 1990, p.493). The GAD approach holds that the oppression of women stems largely from a neoliberal focus on improving women’s reproductive and productive capacities (p.494). According to Rathgeber, the focus of GAD has been to examine “why women systematically have been assigned to inferior and/or secondary roles” and also to confront questions of power and agency (p.494). The GAD approach is exceptionally difficult for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to implement, as it seeks to confront the root causes of gender inequality, rather than implement short-term augmentations to the existing system.
An interesting shift that happened between WID/WAD and GAD was the change in language from dealing with ‘women’ in the context of development, to ‘gender’. Nighat Said Khan, founder of the Women’s Action Forum, argues that this shift to a focus on gender rather than women became “counter-productive” because the discussion shifted from “women, to women and men and, finally, back to men” (as cited in Baden & Goetz, 1997, p.6).
Action and Inaction
Where is an organization to go from here? Smythe (2007) argues that for the past 30 years, organizations have made a significant shift from considering “gender issues” as a minor part of their agendas to a large aspect of their campaign advertisements — this is also known as “gender mainstreaming” (p.582). I have seen endless campaigns from NGOs that claim to place women at the centre of their campaigns or projects; I tend to question whether these organizations are just grazing the surface of the problem of oppression and inequality, or if they attempting to create lasting systemic change.
The campaign visuals that these organizations utilize is striking. It tends to characterize women in the majority world as being:
Full of potential
Economic assets
Responsible for solving poverty in their communities
In need of empowerment
An investment in the future of men
A perfect example of this is The Girl Effect video — what does this say about women?
Rhetoric such as this, and the majority of campaigns that follow, fit cleanly into the WID model that has limited the potential for fundamental change for decades. What strikes me about this video is the extent to which women’s lives in the majority world are so easily simplified. This way of communicating the struggles women experience reduces the complexities of inequality to a simple fix that merely requires resources.
Most organizations know that this is not the case, and that those involved in crafting these campaigns understand the difficulty of ‘solving’ the injustice that women and girls face. So why don’t organizations step outside of this model and attempt to address the root causes of inequality that the GAD model suggests is critical?
Scholars such as Smythe (2007) argue the NGOs are afraid to dive into GAD theory and practice because it is too polarizing. Smythe argues that the use the word ‘feminism’ is a part of the GAD model and is unappealing because it is perceived as too extreme by the general (read: donating) public. I agree with Smythe, and from my own personal experience working as a fundraiser for NGOs, I know the degree to which programs and objectives are simplified in order to reach the widest number of potential donors. I worked for the Because I Am A Girl campaign as a fundraising supervisor for six months and know what it is like to have to change one’s language in order to accommodate the ideological positions of potential donors.
Organizations are afraid of the ideological confrontation that may occur if projects are framed in terms of pursuing feminist ideals or activism. While I know this is true, I also find it deeply disturbing. Why is it that our society is so opposed to the word feminism, even after three waves of feminist theory and action?
A conversation I recently had with my brother made me consider how we conceptualize feminism and feminists:
Brother: Devon, are you a feminist?
Me: Yes, of course I am a feminist, aren’t you?
Brother: No.
Me: What makes you say that?
Brother: I just don’t believe in what feminists want the world to be like, it’s crazy.
Me: Let me ask you a question, do you believe that men and women should have equal protection, rights, opportunities and voices in the world and in their day to day lives?
Brother: Yes, of course.
Me: Congrats, you are a feminist.
So is this all a big misunderstanding? I know that this is idealistic, but perhaps we need to reframe the way we talk about feminism, and work to mainstream the idea of equality and gender justice, in a way that does not undermine the issues. Is it possible to move towards a more GAD-centred model that aims to confront the complexities of women’s lived experiences by addressing all areas of inequality? I wonder if men can be a constructive part of this process. NGOs may never adequately address the gender gap without addressing their “fear of feminism” (Smythe, 2007, p. 582).
Ultimately, I am always left with far more questions than answers.
References
Baden, S., & Goetz, A. M. (1998). Who needs [sex] when you can have [gender]. Feminist visions of development: gender analysis and policy, 19–38.
Rathgeber, E. M. (1990). WID, WAD, GAD: Trends in research and practice.The Journal of Developing Areas, 489–502.
Smyth, I. (2007). Talking of gender: words and meanings in development organisations. Development in Practice, 17(4–5), 582–588.
