Young women

Gender myths – including essentialist and instrumentalist framings – can inspire action, but they can also perpetuate stereotypes and reinforce gender roles and norms. In this paper, I use Gayatri Spivak’s concept of strategic essentialism to explore how women’s organisations in Vanuatu navigate the advantages and risks of using essentialist and instrumentalist framings in their […]

Recently the ‘demographic dividend’ has attracted attention from policymakers because of the promise it delivers for development. But it has attracted criticism for taking an instrumental approach to young people rather than focusing on equality and rights. A similar critique has come from feminists evaluating livelihoods programming focusing on women’s ‘economic empowerment’. In this article, […]

In mid-2015, a team of 15 Congolese ‘girl researchers’ were recruited, trained, and mentored by the UK’s Department for International Development-funded La Pépinière programme. They conducted peer-to-peer research to explore the experiences, perceptions, and aspirations of adolescent girls and young women in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, in relation to their economic and social empowerment. […]

This article traces the implementation of a programme with young urban women living in poverty in the Indian cities of Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Chennai. The programme aims to increase their economic independence and control over their bodies. It begins from an intersectional analysis of women’s access to decent work, their unpaid care work responsibilities, and […]