James - Response Paper - Societal Role of Women

Carly James

Societal Roles of Women in the Developing World (Weeks 1-3

Throughout the course of the past couple weeks, I have been consistently challenged into lifting my own assumptions regarding the societal roles of women in the developing world. Many questions were raised, some of them readily answerable, some of them incredibly enigmatic. For instance, in our discussion about poverty, we raised the question of how exactly to define poverty. Should poverty be defined in economic terms alone? How do social mores contribute to poverty? We went on to discuss how social stigmas surrounding poverty can be internalized. Does a rural Ugandan woman who lives on less than a $1 a day, for instance, consider herself “poor,” even by her own standards? Does labeling someone as “poor” mean that they come to expect change? We also explored the concept of gender and how men and women are often inextricably linked in terms of societal roles. Should the societal role of men be included in the dialogue on improving the condition of women in the developing world? How can women’s conditions be understood in the context of their own cultural system? While these questions rarely yielded a consensus or a conclusion in response, they allowed us to broach important topics that have laid the foundation for the semester ahead.

Across the developing world, it is clear that women’s social status is consistently expressed in relation to men, which unfortunately often implies inferiority—in almost every way. Beyond social disenfranchisement, women are also vastly disadvantaged with regard to political and legal rights, financial freedom, and educational opportunities. While Nicholas Kristof and wife Sheryl WuDunn helped us explore certain grave issues such as honor killings and rape as a weapon of war in Half the Sky, academic and news articles allowed us to discuss more day-to-day topics concerning women such as household chores/daily work, social stigmas surrounding marriage/divorce, and the health conditions of women in the developing world. The most prominent mental obstacle for me over the past couple of weeks has been to decipher between my worldview (primed with Western notions of natural rights and the ideal of equality) and the worldview of the women we have been discussing. For instance, our discussion of Islam helped me realize just how incorrect many my conceptions of The Qu’ran and Islam at-large were. According to Pinar Ilkkaracan, Islam is founded on the concept of gender equality and opportunity for both men and women. Our understanding of modern Islam as a religion which fundamentally oppresses women is largely due to the patriarchal social context of most Muslim countries. In this way, I have come to put myself in the place of many of the women we are focusing on so as not to make a quick value judgment of their plight but rather to better understand their condition.

I found our discussion of women’s work to be especially enlightening, as I came to use it as a reference point for many of the other discussions we had. For instance, the article “Half the World is Women” brought to our attention the fact that women’s work in the developing world is often intimately linked with agricultural practices and/or water. Women often engage in planting/harvesting, collecting/storing water, caring for livestock, and tending to children. The nature of these jobs enforces a standard in which women are typically at a high risk for disease because of their close daily contact with water and various plants and animals. Thus, a host of health issues arise due to the nature of women’s daily activities. As most of women’s work revolves around household/family chores, women go largely unpaid. Without pay, their jobs go unrecognized in formal measures of a country’s economic status. Furthermore, these tasks are generally not socially esteemed, so women are seen as inferior as a result of the stigmatized work they do. We saw how these social disadvantages can both reflect and lead to codified legal/political disadvantages as well.

Contrary to my preconceived notions of women’s societal roles in the developing world, women are typically not solely disenfranchised due to residual colonial or traditional practices/institutions, but also are largely underserved in the contemporary systems of globalization and privatization. In her article on “The Impact of Women’s Social Position on Fertility in Developing Countries,” Dr. Karen Oppenheim Mason challenges the reader to examine the social factors contributing to fertility. Dr. Mason explains that while there are cultural practices and social mores in place which influence fertility among women, there is also the matter of individual socioeconomic status which is a significant determinant of the decision to bear children. Thus, in the face of important personal decisions, women experience pressure not only from external forces (e.g. stigmatization, cultural practices, reputation), but also from within (e.g. individual financial standing).

During our discussion on the societal role of Muslim women, I found the concept of competition between men and women to be very interesting. Kristof recounts Bill Gates’s trip to Saudi Arabia in which he boldly recognized the fact that Saudi women were not being provided the same opportunities as men, and that if this were to be so, Saudi Arabia would be so much more well-off economically (and likely in many other ways). What if women entered the formal economy in the developing world? What if women were educated to the extent that men are? Would the competition between men and women encourage economic growth? Would it lead to full social equality between men and women?

For my research paper, I will be focusing on the Francophone West African country of Senegal. In my opinion, Senegal is uniquely positioned with regard to the topic of women because the country is influenced by a predominantly Muslim population which maintains strict gender roles. Though this is true, women are often financially empowered because of their prominence in the informal sector. Overall, violence against women is prevalent, most commonly in the form of domestic abuse. Rape is considered a very serious crime and is punished accordingly. Female genital mutilation is rather commonly practiced based on traditional rites. As we discussed in class, violence against women in Senegal is not a series of isolated crimes but rather a cultural norm that is considered more or less acceptable in society. Urban women generally are more active in the public sector, while rural Senegalese women tend to confine themselves to duties related to the household. Still, it is clear that the societal role of Senegalese women is heavily linked to that of Senegalese men, which is important to keep in mind when discussing the true nature of their condition.