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Gender and Global Policy, Key Pink: Core course themes Blue:…

- - - - Gender Divisions of Labor
        An example of using gender as an analytical tool can be demonstrated by looking at the gendered division of labor: “A focus on the gender division of labour within the home and in waged work, access to and control over resources and benefits, material and social position of women and men in different contexts all form part of the GAD perspective on development,” (Visvanathan 32). While this point of analysis does not necessarily go beyond the binary of men and women in this gender and development intervention, it does go beyond gender as solely an identity category by looking at access to resources, social positions, and the gendered contexts. Furthermore, this intervention focuses on the relational dynamics between gender, work, resources, access, and social status.
        
        Selections from Visvanathan, Nalini, ed. 2011. The Women, Gender and Development Reader. 2nd ed. Palgrave Macmillan
- - - - "Muslim Women's Rights"
        The category of "Muslim women's rights" has been mobilized in problematic ways by Western bodies by relying on Islamophobia and Western feminism to justify harmful interventions. This rights-based framework evokes questions about the legitimacy of rights-based discourses based on the context they are deployed in: "it might be fruitful to examine how 'Muslim women's rights' makes and remakes the world. How, when, and where the concept is being deployed?" (Abu-Lughod 32). Competing and conflicting discourses surrounding Muslim women's rights illuminates the limitations of rights-based frameworks, as some individuals are understood to have instrinsic access to rights while others need to be granted access to these rights. This leads an important question: "whether it might be bad to argue for Muslim women's rights since, paradoxically, rights are both enabling and limiting in that they arise from, but then fix and perpetuate, injured identities?" (Abu-Lughod 2). In rights-based discourses rooted in Western origins, there are epistemological limitations embedded within human rigths that, at times, conflict with people's understandings of themselves.
        Abu-Lughod, Lila. 2010. “The Active Social Life of ‘Muslim Women’s Rights’: A Plea for Ethnography, Not Polemic, with Cases from Egypt and Palestine.” Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 6 (1): 1–45.
        
        Imposing Gender
        When you look for gender, you will find gender. A tension exists between using gender as a category of analysis, and imposing an understanding of gender on societies that view gender in a different, maybe even conflicting way: “Western ideas are imposed when non-Western social categories are assimilated into the gender framework that emerged from a specific sociohistorical and philosophical tradition,” (Oyěwùmí 452). The social construction of gender is dependent on a biological deterministic understanding of bodies, one that assumes there are two sexes and two genders. Furthermore, if this conceptual understanding becomes linked to the idea that gender is socially constructed everywhere, then it naturalizes the social construct of gender as universal rather than trying to understand societies by and on their own terms.
        This tension can be found in the example of West Africa: "In precolonial Yorúba society, body-type was not the basis for social hierarchy: males and females were not ranked according to anatomic distinction,” (Oyěwùmí 449). Rather, “The ranking of individuals depended first and foremost on seniority, which was usually defined by relative age,” (Oyěwùmí 449). In this case, gender did not become a reality until researchers imposed gender as a category of analysis. If development theoriests, researchers, and policymakers assume patriarchy, gender, and social organization looks the same everywhere, then the analysis will be skewed to represent the researcher's assumed point of intervention. Rather than looking if something exists, it is more analytically productive to learn from societies by and with their own terms.
        
        Oyěwùmí, Oyèrónkẹ́. 2013. “The Invention of Women.” In Anthropology in Theory: Issues in Epistemology, 448–54. John Wiley & Sons.
        
        How can gender be used as an analytical tool without facilitating epistemic violence?
        
        The Work of Hearing
        "When we really do the work of hearing we will hear different narratives instead of a long list of oppressions and victimisations. We will hear stories of hope, reconstruction and resourcefullness, all of which are equally authentic. These stories may or may not align with the Millenium Development Goals, may hint toward different kinds of collaborations or may even resist reduction to 'best practices'. However, that is precisely what the outcome of empathetic listensing should be." (Khoja-Moolji 760-761).
        The work of hearing could prevent epistemic violence in using a gender as a point of analysis without imposing ideas about gender onto different socio-cultural contexts.
        Khoja-Moolji, Shenila. 2016. “Doing the ‘Work of Hearing’: Girls’ Voices in Transnational Educational Development Campaigns.” Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education 46 (5): 745–63.
        
        Paradox of Human Rights
        “This is the paradox of making human rights in the vernacular: to be accepted, they have to be tailored to the local context and resonant with the local cultural framework. However, to be a part of the human rights system, they must emphasize individualism, autonomy, choice, bodily integrity, and equality — ideas embedded in the legal documents that constitute human rights law,” (Merry 49).
        The language of human rights does not always reflect the wants, needs, and desires of communities. This disconnect forces individuals to adapt, shift, and mold their declarations to the language of Western institutions, limiting the ability for effective interventions that balance global institutional frameworks with local contexts.
        Merry, Sally Engle. 2006. “Transnational Human Rights and Local Activism: Mapping the Middle.” American Anthropologist 108 (1): 38–51.
  - - - Control over women's reproductive health
      - Reproductive Gerrymandering
        Reproductive gerrymandering is the systematic manipulation of district boundaries to ensure the election of politicians who pass extreme anti-abortion laws despite widespread public opposition. This legislative manipulation to control women's access to reproductive healthcare demonstrates an example of biopolitics in our current political moment.
        Basmajian, Alyssa. 2024. “Opinion: ‘Reproductive Gerrymandering’ Will Continue If Issue 1 in Ohio Doesn’t Pass.” Akron Beacon Journal, November 4. https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/opinion/columns/guest/2024/11/04/opinion-issue-1-in-ohio-affects-gerrymandering-and-abortion/75946009007/.
    - - Geneva Consensus Declaration
        The Geneva Consensus Declaration (GCD) is a 2020 manifesto from the first Trump Administration that states “there is no international right to abortion, nor any international obligation on the part of states to finance or facilitate abortion.” Paired with the drastic aid cuts that have defunded sexual and reproductive health programs, the GCD, USAID cuts, and the Global Gag Rule demonstrate the Trump Administration's complete abandonment and disregard for reproductive health care. These cuts do not only impact reproductive health services like abortion, but have sent global shock waves to health clinics that have created deadly consequences for HIV patients, children, and women and adolescent girls.
        Choat, Isabel. 2025. “‘Trojan Horse Moment’: Anti-Rights Groups Seize Chance to Fill Void Left by US Aid Cuts.” World News. The Guardian, December 17. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/17/trojan-horse-moment-anti-rights-groups-fill-void-us-aid-cuts.
- - - - Second Economies
        In socialist economies, many men and women had thriving second economies as they needed the income to pay for their needs. This factor was used as evidence for the ineffectiveness of state socialism in comparison to capitalism, but “the necessity of multiple jobs, however, has survived the collapse of communism, as has, for some, the need to have at least one that provides official status,” (Gal 113). Modern day mompreneurs constitute second economies by engaging in wage labor and domestic labor, the latter of which is rendered invisible by society while the social status of motherhood remains highly valuable.
        Gal, Susan, and Gail Kligman. 2000. The Politics of Gender After Socialism: A Comparative-Historical Essay. Princeton University Press.
        
        Capitalism
        
        Neoliberalism
        Neoliberalism is based in capitalism and the idea of individual governance. It offers the idea that maximizing the reach, frequency, and participation in market transactions will produce social good (Solari 29). In order for neoliberalism to work, as many people as possible need to be a part of the labor fueling the economy. Thus, narratives of "investing" in women's empowerment were integrated to produce a neoliberal framework. For example, "High levels of literacy and education for women were able to confer status on previously colonized countries and allow them to appear "modern" in a hierarchical geopolitical order structured by competition and shared norms," (Solari 43). The empowerment of women is constituted by neoliberalism to produce both state power and national identity on the international stage.
        Neoliberalism exploits second economies by individualizing labor under the guise of promoting gender equality, but the structure is entrirely reliant on the subordination of women through the exploitation of unpaid domestic labor. The illusion of gender equality of mothers being able to participate in the workforce relies on the invisibility of domestic work, as women are required to engage in two forms of labor: informal (domestic) and formal (market) at the same time while the latter is valued over the former.
        Radhakrishnan, Smitha, and Cinzia Solari. 2023. The Gender Order of Neoliberalism. Polity Press.
        
        Outsourcing Domestic Labor
        Due to the lack of social services provided by the state, women bear the brunt of domestic labor along with the expectation of participation in wage work. This leads to “First world women, unable to convince their male peers to share domestic labor, [having to outsource] much of this labor to Third World migrant women, exacerbating inequalities along the vectors of race, gender, and citizenship status. In this context of privatized mothering, individualized caregiving, and the links of gendered inequality between nation-states, enterprising migrant-sending states have recognized a labor niche and moved to fill it,” (Solari 101). As women can not keep up with the demands of both domestic and market labor, domestic labor becomes outsourced to immigrants seeking work while remaining invisible under the eyes of the state.
        Radhakrishnan, Smitha, and Cinzia Solari. 2023. The Gender Order of Neoliberalism. Polity Press.
        
        Capitalism constituted by gender
        Capitalisms reliance on labor is dependent upon the gendered constructions of the labor force. Women's participation in the workforce is positioned as a reserved army that contributes to the economic growth of the economy, while the jobs available to men and women differ based on gendered assumptions, traits, and values. While “Gender of course is only one among many of these, but the history of ‘cheap labor’ makes it a highly salient one in this context. Each optic distinguishes what is possible, desirable, and legitimate from what is not, thus shaping the organization of production itself,” (Salzinger 57). Gender influences who counts as a worker and why, as some areas such as women-dominated domestic care work industries are rendered invisible while wage labor is a visible space where male breadwinners dominate.
        Salzinger, Leslie. 2004. “From Gender as Object to Gender as Verb: Rethinking How Global Restructuring Happens.” Critical Sociology 30 (1): 43–62.
        
        Maquilas
        The fluid, dynamic process between global and local areas of labor production can be found in “The circulation of women within the global arena as migrant domestic workers, factory workers for transnational corporations, and “entertainment” workers is viewed in many parts of the world as a recent challenge to the traditionally gendered configuration of space and motion,” (Freeman 1018). The constantly evolving and shifting meanings of gendered labor within interrelated global and local processes can be found “within transnational production, the creation and allocation of labor power is organized around and in terms of tropes of gendered personhood, and this has consequences for the way production works in general, above and beyond its impact on gendered selves per se,” (Salzinger 44).
        Salzinger, Leslie. 2004. “From Gender as Object to Gender as Verb: Rethinking How Global Restructuring Happens.” Critical Sociology 30 (1): 43–62.
        
        Trope of Productive Femininity
        In the context of Mexico’s largest export-processing market (maquila) in Ciudad Juárez, the gendered organization can be located in the feminization of productivity among maquila workers. Women are viewed as “cheap, docile and dexterous,” (Salzinger 45), which function as desirable qualities for productive maquila work. This trope of productive femininity in Juárez shaped the gendered expectations of maquila workers, impacted the efficiency of the industry itself, and the manager’s hiring standards. While managers attached desirable understandings of femininity to productivity, the feminine traits remained as the employment of women maquilas decreased: “Nonetheless, the narrative above suggests the crucial role of the trope of productive femininity in this context — evoking and, perhaps more crucially for this historical period, stabilizing, a particular set of pay, hiring and labor control practices, with consequences not only for workers, but for the productivity and efficiency of the industry itself,” (Salzinger 56). Even though demographically men made up half of the labor force, the trope of productive femininity continued to shape the maquila industry.
        Salzinger, Leslie. 2004. “From Gender as Object to Gender as Verb: Rethinking How Global Restructuring Happens.” Critical Sociology 30 (1): 43–62.
      - Mompreneurship
        The idea that women can have it all is concentrated in the idea that women can combine unpaid reproductive labor with wage work through mompreneurship: “Supported by the increasingly feminized world of feminized world of financial products, neoliberal feminist ideology invites women around the world to combine their roles as mothers, entrepreneurs, and financial managers of the family to relegate their time, plan for the future, and end global poverty in the process,” (Solari 64). In this feminist cover story, women are able to pursue public and private work to empower themselves, their families, and their communities through their own individual pursuits as mothers and entrepreneurs, or mompreneurs.
        Radhakrishnan, Smitha, and Cinzia Solari. 2023. The Gender Order of Neoliberalism. Polity Press.
        
        Unrealistic demand of women to participate in both domestic and wage labor
  - - - Anti-gender and anti-rights discourses fueled by men's status, power, and positions feeling threatened by women's visibility, choices, and shifting status
        
        "The Great Feminization"
        Two conservative feminist thinkers claimed that institutions have become too feminized and have therefore driven out masculine virtues while liberal feminism forces women to suppress their nature and fit into institutions made for men. In this New York Times opinion piece titled "Did Liberal Feminism Ruin the Workplace," these two conservative feminists use language surrounding gender norms, virtues, and values to make a biologically deterministic argument about men and women's "natural" state. While criticizing institutions for their patriarchal composition and the lack of support for working mothers, the crticism boomerangs back to a criticism of weak feminine virtues while placing masculine virtues on a pedestal. This critique demonstrates contemporary discourses that capture both the feminist cover story and the masculine protector story: that women can be both workers and mothers without additional support while men are the main drivers of income and staples of society.
        Douthat, Ross, and Victoria Chamberlin. 2025. “Opinion | Did Liberal Feminism Ruin the Workplace?” Opinion. The New York Times, November 6. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/06/opinion/women-workplace-feminism-conservative.html.
        
        Co-optation
        Conservative theorists, policymakers, and administrations have a history of co-opting lanuage from gender theory to demobilize resistance thinking: “Anti-rights groups, and even governments, are co-opting feminist language and co-opting feminist tactics to try to water down and dilute our organizing.”
        Nkansa, Famia, Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah, Claire Provost, and Jerry Richardson. 2025. “Until Everybody Is Free: Young Feminists Resisting the Anti Rights Tide.” https://wearepurposeful.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Until-Everybody-Is-Free-rfs.pdf
  - - - Women as investment opportunities for development interventions where their education, social participation, and labor are areas for state economic growth, liberatory solutions, and solutions to the problems sustained by neoliberal economics and ongoing colonial legacies.
- - - - Cultural constructions of gendered bodies
        The concept of cultural constructions of gendered bodies refers to the social and moral expectations prescribed to gender in different cultural contexts. Essentially, culture influences the understanding of how the body works and is connected to gendered understandings of sexed bodies. For example, “...Even when [women] are blamed for transmitting HIV to their husbands, this is not simply due to a double standard of sexual morality, but also due to cultural constructions of gendered bodies,” (Van Hollen 654). Essentially, cultural constructions of gendered bodies form particular perspectives, stigmas, and assumptions about the role of gender and the body in different contexts. These determined understandings influence relational attitudes and behaviors between individuals and communities within that particular society.
        Van Hollen, Cecilia. 2010. “HIV/AIDS and the Gendering of Stigma in Tamil Nadu, South India.” Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry 34 (4): 633–57.