Hlupekile Longwe, Sara

Current NGO and development agency strategies to support women’s political empowerment are based on two assumptions: firstly, that women’s increased access to resources, especially education, will lead to their increased representation in political positions; and secondly, that governments are genuinely committed to leading national programmes of action for women’s advancement. Both of these assumptions are […]

This article is concerned with identifying the main elements in a programme of education for women’s empowerment, by contrasting such education with its opposite: schooling for subordination. It is here argued that education and training for women’s empowerment needs to reverse the values and beliefs which have been inculcated within the conventional school system. This […]

This article suggests that gender-oriented policies tend to evaporate within the bureaucracy of the typical international development agency. An agency is here represented as a ‘patriarchal cooking pot’, in which gender policies are likely to evaporate because they threaten the internal patriarchal tradition of the agency, and also because such policies would upset the cosy […]

Gender-aware policies are being undermined by self-protective, patriarchal development agencies and developing country governments. These institutions oppose the policies out of passivity or on ideological grounds. Longwe presents seven arguments they use and gives her redresses. The arguments are that women’s equality is: unnecessary, interference and Western imposition; not desired by women themselves; not a […]

The South often regards northern aid with suspicion. But gender in development issues are appealing to women in both areas. Longwe argues that NGOs and women’s organisations must break patriarchal alliances. Southern Governments, development organisations, and bilateral agencies are reinforcing Northern patriarchal systems. Technical solutions are dangerous because they disempower women by working within unequal […]