A Theory-guided Reexamination of Gender Inequality, Development, and Armed Conflict in MENA/South Asia and Beyond

• In Event: 485 - Section on Sociology of Development Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 07. Gender Inequality and Development

Abstract

The Middle East-North Africa (MENA) and much of South Asia are called the “patriarchal belt.” This region is at the bottom of many Global South gender equality indicators, especially women’s labor force participation (LFP). The primary explanation focuses on the region’s male-dominated kinship/ property system. But this isn’t the only region with such a system: it’s ubiquitous in East Asia and found in 75% of sub-Saharan Africa ethnic groups. I argue that women’s low economic position flows more from the region’s having adopted a “male farming system” (Boserup) of “dry” (non-irrigated) plow agriculture 5-6,000 years ago than from its patriarchal kin/property system. My gender theories posit women’s economic power as the most important (though not sole) variable affecting both gender stratification and gender and development. They also posit a necessary precondition for economic power: work in key subsistence/production activities. Examining pre-industrial human history, women were important producers in foraging, horticulture and irrigated (rice) agriculture; they were sidelined only in “dry” agriculture, thus lacking the precondition for economic power. Today, many there still think it’s not “natural” for women to work, and the nations with the lowest women’s LFP are from the region. Moreover, all the bottom seven LFP nations are currently engaged in armed conflict. Regionally, both petroleum and war/armed conflict create distorted male-dominated economies that feed extremist fundamentalist movements. The conclusions consider microfinance for grass-roots women and facilitating jobs for women graduates as aids to boosting female LFP and development – and possibly reducing support for violent jihadist groups.

Author

• Rae Lesser Blumberg, University of Virginia