WASH and Gender: a critical review of the literature and implications for gender-transformative WASH research

The connections between gender and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) are profound, and the sector is beginning to explore the integration of gender-transformative principles into WASH programming and research. Gender-transformative approaches challenge inequalities and move beyond an instrumentalist approach to gender in development interventions. Through a critical review of academic empirical studies, this paper explores the last decade of WASH-gender literature (2008–2018). Trends were visualised using an alluvial diagram. The reviewed literature was underpinned by a diversity of disciplines, yet was dominated by women-focused, water-focused studies. Although the studies addressed many important gender considerations, few studies engaged with transformational aspects of gender equality. The majority of the studies were based in rural sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, indicating opportunity to explore contextual dynamics in other areas of the global south. Lastly, the studies primarily focus on women of productive age; only a few studies touched on gender dynamics relevant for a diversity of women, and men and boys were mostly absent. Insights from this analysis can inform future studies at the intersection of WASH and gender. Researchers and practitioners are encouraged to include a diversity of voices, reflect on the strengths and limitations of research disciplines, and incorporate gender-transformative concepts.

Women's Property Rights, Asset Ownership, and Wealth in Latin America

In the 1970s and 1980s, feminist historians began focusing attention on a much-neglected topic in social and economic history and the history of the family in Latin America—women’s property rights and their evolution. Single women and widows have always had almost the same property rights as men; up until the last quarter of the 20th century, it was married women’s property rights that differed from men’s, largely to women’s disadvantage. The extent of this disadvantage has been widely debated, with much of the literature demonstrating that married women had considerable economic agency, certainly a role not strictly confined to the private sphere. The first part of this essay focuses on women’s property rights, how the legal frameworks differed in colonial Spanish and Portuguese America, and the extent to which these may have varied in practice across the Spanish Empire. This variation becomes more visible as the different countries enacted their own civil codes in the 19th century, and then embarked on a process of reform toward legal gender equality in the 20th century. The emergence of the interdisciplinary field of women/gender in development in the 1970s and 1980s also drew social scientists from across disciplines to the study of gender inequality in the ownership of assets and wealth. Much of this literature focuses on specific assets, such as land or businesses or financial assets, and on how gender inequality in their ownership might condition other outcomes for women. This focus on women’s economic empowerment became more explicit in the 1990s with the development of household bargaining power models, which drew attention to how women’s access to resources, such as assets or income, conditioned their agency or role in household decision-making, and in turn, their capabilities. Hence, in the second part of this essay we turn to the literature—both quantitative and qualitative, historical and contemporary—on women’s ownership of specific assets, their relative wealth, and why it matters.

Bureaucratic Tools in (Gendered) Organizations: Performance Metrics and Gender Advisors in International Development

This article contributes to a growing conversation about the role of numbers in promoting gendered agendas in potentially contradictory ways. Drawing from interviews with gender advisors—the professionals tasked with mainstreaming gender in development projects—in an East African country, I begin from the paradox that gender advisors articulate a strong preference for qualitative data to best capture the lives of the women they aim to assist while voicing a need for quantitative metrics. I demonstrate that (women) gender advisors come to imagine metrics as expeditious bureaucratic tools able to inspire cooperation from otherwise reluctant (men) coworkers. I argue that development organizations are gendered in ways—acutely seen in how advisors struggle, are sidelined, and attempt to advance their goals with numbers—that lead to the utility of valuing quantitative metrics over qualitative ones. I establish two theoretical contributions: (1) Gendered organizations theory is essential to understanding the adoption and globalization of performance metrics, and (2) in an age of evidence-based decision making, the utility of quantified data to garner resources is heightened, rewarding those who adopt quantified knowledge production. I coin the term “the paradox of quantified utility” to describe how these material advantages encourage even skeptics to value quantitative metrics.

GENDER DALAM DAKWAH UNTUK PEMBANGUNAN (Potret Keterlibatan Perempuan dalam Politik)

<p><em>Gender issues are an issue that demands social and cultural construction justice between men and women. In the demands of this construction, the balance of functions, status, and nature of the sexes is expected to be realized. Instead, da’wa and development is a construction of the changes that take place in society from certain socio-cultural conditions toward something that is considered more valuable. In addition it can also be interpreted as an effort to alleviate backwardness. Therefore, all, gender, da’wa and development are a reciprocal correlation between one another. The emergence of gender injustice issues or gender discrimination due to social construction process in society. Yet Islam and the Constitution of 45 countries have guaranteed equality of access for women and men. Therefore, enhancing the role of women and men in gendered development as an integral part of national development has significance in the effort to achieve harmonious harmony between men and women or to achieve gender equality and justice in various areas of life and development. The results of this study, trying to reveal da’wa gender in development should not be the same role between men and women, there are areas of their own that can be done by men and women in da’wa and development process.</em></p><p align="center"><strong> </strong></p><p align="center"><strong>****</strong></p>Isu gender merupakan suatu isu yang menuntut keadilan konstruksi sosial maupun kultural antara kaum laki-laki dengan perempuan. Dalam tuntutan konstruksi ini, keseimbangan fungsi, status, dan hakekat antar jenis kelamin diharapkan dapat direalisasikan. Sebaliknya, dakwah dan pembangunan merupakan suatu konstruksi perubahan yang terjadi di masyarakat dari kondisi sosio-kultural tertentu menuju ke arah sesuatu yang dianggap lebih bernilai. Selain itu dapat juga diartikan sebagai usaha pengentasan keterbelakangan. Oleh karena itu semua, gender dan pembangunan adalah suatu korelasi timbal balik antara satu dengan yang lain. Munculnya isu ketidakadilan gender atau diskriminasi gender akibat adanya proses kontruksi sosial di dalam masyarakat. Padahal Islam dan UUD 45 negara telah menjamin kesetaraan akses perempuan dan laki-laki. Oleh karena itu, peningkatan peranan perempuan dan laki-laki dalam dakwah dan pembangunan yang berwawasan gender sebagai bagian integral dari pembangunan nasional, mempunyai arti penting dalam upaya untuk mewujudkan kemitrasejajaran yang harmonis antara laki-laki dengan perempuan atau mewujudkan kesetaraan dan keadilan gender dalam berbagai bidang kehidupan dan pembangunan. Hasil penelitian ini, berusaha menampakkan gender dalam dakwah dan pembangunan tidak harus sama peran antara laki-laki dan perempuan, ada wilayah-wilayah sendiri yang bisa dilakukan laki-laki dan perempuan dalam pelaksanaan dakwah dan pembangunan.

Introduction

The Introduction lays the groundwork for thinking through the connections between population growth, climate change, and advocacy in the 21st century. It explores the construction of an idealized development subject that I refer to as the sexual steward: a woman who engages in reproductive self management as a form of embodied environmental responsibility. Tracing through the literatures in political ecology, women and gender in development, and international development, the chapter grounds sexual stewardship in longstanding Malthusian narratives, and argues that the redeployment of these narratives threatens to restrict the possibilities of justice-based advocacy today.

GENDER AND POLITICS: Keterlibatan Perempuan dalam Pembangunan Politik

<p class="IIABSTRAK333">Gender issues are an issue that demands social and cultural construction justice between men and women. In the demands of this construction, the balance of functions, status, and nature of the sexes is expected to be realized. Instead, development is a construction of the changes that take place in society from certain socio-cultural conditions toward something that is considered more valuable. In addition it can also be interpreted as an effort to alleviate backwardness. Therefore, all, gender and development are a reciprocal correlation between one another. The emergence of gender injustice issues or gender discrimination due to social construction process in society. Yet Islam and the Constitution of 45 countries have guaranteed equality of access for women and men. Therefore, enhancing the role of women and men in gendered development as an integral part of national development has significance in the effort to achieve harmonious harmony between men and women or to achieve gender equality and justice in various areas of life and development. The results of this study, trying to reveal gender in development should not be the same role between men and women, there are areas of their own that can be done by men and women.</p><p class="IIABSTRAK333">_________________________________________________________</p>Isu gender merupakan suatu isu yang menuntut keadilan konstruksi sosial maupun kultural antara kaum laki-laki dengan perempuan. Dalam tuntutan konstruksi ini, keseimbangan fungsi, status, dan hakekat antar jenis kelamin diharapkan dapat direalisasikan. Sebaliknya, pembangunan merupakan suatu konstruksi perubahan yang terjadi di masyarakat dari kondisi sosio-kultural tertentu menuju ke arah sesuatu yang dianggap lebih bernilai. Selain itu dapat juga diartikan sebagai usaha pengentasan keterbelakangan. Oleh karena itu semua, gender dan pembangunan adalah suatu korelasi timbal balik antara satu dengan yang lain. Munculnya isu ketidakadilan gender atau diskriminasi gender akibat adanya proses konstruksi sosial di dalam masyarakat. Padahal Islam dan UUD 45 negara telah menjamin kesetaraan akses perempuan dan laki-laki. Oleh karena itu, peningkatan peranan perempuan dan laki-laki dalam pembangunan yang berwawasan gender sebagai bagian inte­gral dari pembangunan nasional, mempunyai arti penting dalam upaya untuk mewujudkan kemitrasejajaran yang harmonis antara laki-laki dengan perempuan atau mewujudkan kesetaraan dan keadilan gender dalam berbagai bidang kehidupan dan pem­bangunan. Hasil penelitian ini, berusaha menampakkan gender dalam pembangunan tidak harus sama peran antara laki-laki dan perempuan, ada wilayah-wilayah sendiri yang bisa dilakukan laki-laki dan perempuan.

Women and Development

Economic development gained prominence as a field of economics after World War II in relation to the prospects of what came to be called underdeveloped, decolonizing, developing, or Third World countries. The period between the 1950s and 1980s saw the emergence of various theories of economic development and policy strategies, and the growth of “development studies” reflected cross-disciplinary interest in the subject. In the early decades, women received little or no attention. If women were discussed at all in policy circles, it was in relation to their role as mothers, an approach that came to be known as the welfare or motherhood approach. The field of women in development (WID) emerged in the 1970s. Since the 1990s, women’s participation and gender dynamics have evolved as central issues in the discourse and policies of international development. Along with changes in theories and policies of economic development, WID developed with distinct or overlapping fields known as women and development (WAD), gender and development (GAD), the efficiency approach, and the empowerment approach. Several basic themes can be identified from the literature on women and gender in development, including: all societies exhibit a division of labor by sex; economic development has had a differential impact on men and women, although the impact on women has tended to be conditioned by class and ethnicity; economic policy making and institutions have a gendered nature, and the ways in which macroeconomics and the social relations of gender influence each other.