World System and Dependency Theory

World System Theory

• A global economy exists with a division of labor across the world system.
• Countries are organized into a three-tiered hierarchy: core, semi-periphery, and periphery.
• Core countries dominate and exploit periphery nations for labor and resources.
• Semi-periphery countries share characteristics of both core and periphery nations.
• Periphery countries depend on core nations for capital.
• The terms "first world," "second world," and "third world" have historical origins.

Dependency Theory

• Development of the underdeveloped is linked to the metropolis/satellite relationship.
• The "West" is a historical construct and ideology, a system of representation and discourse.
• The West constructs itself against "the Rest" using strict binaries like civilized/uncivilized.
• Discourse represents particular knowledge about a topic, constructed as inherent.
• Foucault outlined three ways discourse operates: produced by discursive practice, produces knowledge and truth, and implicated in power.
• Said's Orientalism explains how European culture managed and produced "the Orient."
• "The Orient" is a form of othering, which essentializes the East to show the West's superiority.
• Ethnocentrism considers one's own culture superior and uses its values to compare others.
• Post-development theory critiques Western development approaches as ethnocentric, universalist, and unsustainable.
• Western development treats people as numbers/statistics and focuses only on economics.

Merging Gender and Development

• USAID was created in 1961.
• The Percy Amendment in 1973 addressed women's roles in development, requiring US bilateral assistance programs to enhance women's integration into national economies.
• The State Department was instructed to consider progress on women's issues when deciding funding for international organizations.
• A 2025 executive order froze funding for foreign assistance, shutting down USAID.
• Gendered spaces are typically divided into public (masculine) and private (feminine) spheres.
• The public sphere is associated with paid labor, male dominance, and workplace discrimination against women, while men act as breadwinners.
• The private sphere is associated with domestic life, unpaid labor by women, and gender-based violence, while men devalue domestic labor..
• Women have a triple role: productive (wage labor), reproductive (unpaid care and domestic labor), and community work (care work).
• The welfare approach assumed improving men's economic well-being would benefit their wives, seeing women as passive recipients and focusing on their roles as mothers and wives.
• The WID (Women in Development) approach recognizes women's role in economic development and emphasizes their integration.
• The WID approach led to hiring women officers and creating separate women's units in development agencies, plus women's projects focused on income generation.
• Critiques of WID include:
• Lack of attention to gender inequalities in societal relations
• Ghettoization of women's projects
• Failure to recognize women's triple role
• Politically neutral approach
• Homogenous view of women
• The GAD (Gender and Development) approach emerged in the late 1980s due to WID's ineffectiveness and insensitivity to women's diversity.
• It has a more strategic needs approach (long-term, focus on legal rights, ending GBV, equal wages).
• GAD challenges existing gender norms rather than addressing immediate practical needs.
• Gender mainstreaming integrates gender issues into all policies and issues, not just separate departments or projects.
• Gender equality means rights, responsibilities, and opportunities do not depend on gender.
• Gender equity means fairness in treatment for men and women according to their needs.
• The 1995 Beijing Women's Conference was a major event, bringing together 189 governments and 5,000+ NGOs.
• States agreed gender mainstreaming was crucial for gender-sensitive policies and programs.
• CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women) is an international treaty adopted in 1979 and ratified by 189 states.
• CEDAW is known as the women’s bill of rights.
• The Committee on CEDAW has 23 experts on women's rights who monitor its implementation.
• Despite President Carter signing CEDAW, the US has not ratified it due to opposition from conservative politicians.

Gender and Development: Indicators and Institutions

• The UN was established in 1945 with three pillars: peace and security, human rights, and development.
• The UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) was established in 1965 with focus areas like sustainable development, democratic governance, and climate/disaster resilience.
• The UN Office for the Promotion of Gender Equality was established after the Beijing Conference, later merged into UN Women.
• UN Women leads, promotes, and coordinates accountability for gender equality and the empowerment of women.
• UNSC Resolution 1325 (2000) recognized women's right to protection and role in maintaining peace and security.
• Resolution 1325 calls for increased representation of women in decision-making and better protection of women under international HR law.
• This resolution provided women leverage to claim the right to participate in peace negotiations and post-conflict decision making.
• UNSC Resolution 1820 (2008) condemns sexual violence as a tool of war.
• Declares that rape can constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide.
• Gender-sensitive indicators measure gender-related changes over time using binary, ordinal, or interval scales.
• Single indicators include GDP, while composite indicators include multiple measures like HDI.
• The UNDP's Gender Development Index (GDI) (1995) measures gender gaps in human development achievements.
• The Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) (1995) measures whether men and women actively participate in economic and political life.
• The Gender Inequality Index (GII) (2010) addresses GEM issues by reflecting gender-based disadvantages in reproductive health, empowerment, and the labor market.
• Limitations of UNDP gender indicators include captured at national level, incomplete data, and bias toward formal productive work.

Gender “Empowerment”: A Post-Development Perspective

• "Empowerment" for women was introduced by feminists from the global south and popularized after the 1996 Beijing Conference.
• Issues with "empowerment" discourse include implying someone is not already empowered.
• Also includes providing power, assuming economic power is best, depoliticizing, and prioritizing Western ideologies.
• Instead of power, women get livelihood; instead of conscientization, skills training; instead of agency, choices like raising chickens or cows.
• The white savior industrial complex involves neocolonialism, using capitalism, globalization, and cultural forces to control a country.
• This emerged from the West's belief it was saving the rest, echoing "the white man's burden" mentality.
• Development donors and elites prioritize rights, silencing Maasai women's needs (e.g., banning FGM).
• Maasai women face triple marginalization from international women's rights movements, indigenous rights movements, and indigenous women's rights movements.

Decolonizing Essentialist Categories

• The debate between universalism and cultural relativism is presented as a false dichotomy with no alternatives.
• Essentializing language includes phrases like, do muslim women really need saving?.

Complicating Notions of Gender and Development

• Changes in the economy and social structures can result in a crisis of masculinity, leading to increased violence.
• Hegemonic masculinity is a power discourse that creates a dominant way of being, devaluing others.
• A GAD approach includes everyone, because patriarchy affects men too. Including everyone is important for real change.
• Multiple masculinities recognize differences in masculinity using multiple intersections.
• Men need to be included in HIV/AIDS programming because they have authority to create change and strong men did not negotiate with women.
• A 2011 presidential memorandum promoted LGBTQ rights in US foreign policy.
• An order was made in 2025 establishing language and policies in line with 2 set biological sexes, removing LGBTQ information and resources.
• Transnational actors (US churches) influenced the Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Act, spreading anti-LGBTQ rhetoric.

Global-Local: Reproductive Rights, Lost in Translation?

• UNFPA addresses population and development issues, emphasizing reproductive health and gender equality.
• Family planning was proclaimed a human right at the 1968 International Conference on Human Rights.
• Family planning is framed as financially responsible through media and propaganda.
• The US Mexico City Policy (1984) requires NGOs refrain from performing/endorsing abortion if they want US funding.
• The US Mexico City Policy affects INGOs' services and changes every 4-8 years based on the presidential administration.
• In 2017, the policy expanded, applying to recipients of any US global health funding and removing abortion as a right to family planning.
• More exposure of MCP, the more likely of having an abortion because there are less organizations that can help educate women on contraception, pre natal pills, HIV/AIDs medication.