Livelihoods Response - Groft

In our readings and discussion on women’s livelihoods, empowerment through financial access was a recurring concept. Many development initiatives, human rights groups, and even health groups target women. Phrases like “Educate a girl and you educate a village” and promotions like “The Girl Effect” epitomize this. We read about proven studies in microfinance initiatives that women who receive loans spend that money to invest in their children, while men, when given similar financial opportunities, reinvest in business ventures. Which appeals to development more? Well, the women’s choices do because they spread the prospects for growth to all of their family members, expanding to include women and girls, while men limit those opportunities to themselves and their sons.

I constantly ask myself, “Why?” Why do men not support their families? And why do women tend to be so seemingly selfless? There is this tendency to attribute these differentials to women’s goodness and men’s selfishness. Feminist movements have struggled with this many a time when women argued that they deserve suffrage not because they are moral and good and men are not, but because they are equal and human just like men. I’ve felt for a long time that the reasons behind women’s apparent moral, communitarian “nature” relative to men’s apparent selfish “nature” can be broken down and understood beyond biological means, and this unit’s readings have given me a better understanding of how.

There is first and foremost an issue of maintaining the power status quo. In patriarchal societies—which most societies these days are—males have more power than females. Throughout human history, those who have power try to maintain that power; male or female, they’re not particularly anxious to give it up. Because women have been confined to the domestic sphere, their power also resides in this sphere. They must have power here if they cannot have power elsewhere. Because of this, women are targeted by development organizations because as far as development workers are concerned, the more people—male or female—who are empowered and active agents in society, the more a society can and will grow and succeed. It’s a game of numbers— more people for more power sharing and more growth sharing. And if women are empowered, they ensure their own empowerment by ensuring other women’s empowerment, including their daughters. It is not, however, in the interests of men to keep power by investing in their daughters.

When a woman receives a loan, it is in her own personal interest to invest in her family and make that financial opportunity available communally within the family. We have learned that women are often valued solely in relation to the men in their lives and solely for their ability to produce and maintain a family. Thus, if this is her role in society, she would see it to be more in her interests to invest in her “business”—which is, of course, her family. Investing solely in herself and in something that solely benefits her, as an individual, is not worth her resources if she is not valued in society as an individual. On the other hand, men can invest in themselves because they, as individuals, are valued by society. Men increase their worth by investing in themselves, whereas women increase their worth by investing in their families.

One of our readings noted that this apparent selfless tendency of women may not hold true once women are more empowered. And I think this can be seen in American society now, where women are viewed as choosing their careers over their families when they are merely doing what men have done for centuries—investing in themselves and being defined by something outside of their reproductive abilities. There’s a freedom in this, but there is also a social confinement when we expect women to be selfless beings who should want to exist for the sole reason of being a caretaker to her children or her husband. Women who choose an alternate road are villainized.

I wonder if targeting women because “if you educate a woman you educate a village, but if you educate a man, you only have an educated man” only exacerbates this problem. Yes, target women who are disempowered and disenfranchised members of society—but not because they will be such moral benefactors. Women may not invest in their families if they are given a loan, but does that mean they should not be given that loan? Men are given loans because they are human. Let women be given those loans for the same reason. If you want selfless benefactors, then be prepared for the fact that some men may be selfless. But also, be aware of the social barriers that might prevent men from being as communal minded as men. We must not neglect the men in the equation, because they are confined in their own ways. If a man is taught, explicitly or implicitly, by society that his source of power comes from his ability to exert that power over another human being, namely women, then to take that away from him is to take away his sense of manhood, his sense of identity, his sense of humanity, because he has been told that this power, this manliness is what makes him human, what makes him who he is.

An article by Villia Jefremovas entitled “Loose Women, Virtuous Wives, and Timid Virgins: Gender and the Control of Resources in Rwanda” discusses the perceptions of women with varying degrees of freedom and social acceptability in Rwanda. The article examines three different women who are financially empowered in managerial and operational duties in brick-making. Ultimately, being independent from a husband and being viewed as “loose” frees a woman to secure her own rights as an independent woman, but these rights—and her rights to the fruits of her labors—cannot be fully secured from direct and indirect ways of encroachment. On the other hand, a woman who is married—and even a widowed woman—may have control over resources but cannot have ownership, which ultimately places her at the will of her “master”. She cannot be fully independent, and even if she were, she is viewed as abnormal and even immoral within Rwandan society. (This article is extremely useful, however I need to do additional research into the modern accuracy of this article’s findings as it was published twenty years ago in 1991.)