To what extent are women and development approaches counterproductive Essay

To what extent are women and development approaches counterproductive in addressing the problems faced by women in the global south - Essay Example According to Williams (1999), the term â€Å"development† is to be taken in its broadest meaning that encompasses not only the economic sense but also every social activity undertaken by human beings to successfully employ the gifted resources of nature towards their prosperity and well being. It has truly been authenticated in the studies by several authors that women play a dominant role in the development of a family, country, and a nation as a whole. Studies conducted by Hanson and Pratt (1995) and Kobayashi (1994) suggest that women are more industrious and do more untiring jobs than men in both rural and urban areas. In fact their roles and functions are proved to be multidimensional in every walk of life ranging from home, childcare and domestic duties to social, economic and workplace responsibilities. Gringeri (1994) states that women are increasingly setting out to do out-of-home jobs with the need of supporting their economic independency. Despite that, they seem to be dependent on men for their social and economic growth everywhere around the world. As a consequence of devastating and ruining conventional norms against women in several regions of the world most specifically the less developed ones led the thoughtful world to the evolution of several panoptical ideas and approaches relevant to women and their contribution to the economic development of country termed as â€Å"women and development† approaches. Overholt et al. (1984) illustrate that these approaches greatly contributed to project women as an economic resource that could be utilised further towards the growth of economy. The first of these was the all-famous approach called â€Å"women-in-development† that was aroused and advanced in the early 1970s that served the purpose of enlightening the world regarding the role that was and that could be played by women in the economic development of countries around