Gender-Based Violence, Identity, and Development: Initial Explorations

Gender, or the socially constructed roles and responsibilities of men and women, defines the power relations between the two sexes in terms of access to economic, social and political power. The power imbalance between men and women circumscribes the opportunities, voice, and agency of women. Further the power relations are reinforced through gender conflict, or gender based violence which women experience as a daily reality in their lives. Development discourse is increasingly cognisant of the critical role of gender inequality in achieving and sustaining development outcomes including increased income, decreased social exclusion, and democratic governance. There is a divergence of opinion whether gender inequality actually facilitates or retards economic growth. Several studies of the experience of the South-east Asia tiger economies conclude that gender inequality, particularly in terms of gender wage gap, indeed facilitated economic growth (for example Seguino, 2000). On the other hand, the negative impact of gender inequality on growth is a widely accepted conclusion of numerous studies that have focused on gender inequality in education (Klasen, 1999). Other recent evidence indicates that economic growth, on the whole, is good for women, especially in terms of educational attainment and participation in political processes (see Forsthye et. al. 2000) However, the impact on employment opportunities is more debatable as the impact to gender wage gap is not conclusive. Apart from economic growth what influences the increase in secondary school education or women’s economic participation? Cross section analysis of countries by GDP indicates a correlation between a measure of gender inequality and level of income. However there are outliers such as Saudi Arabia – high GDP but low gender equality and Sri Lanka- low per capita GDP and high gender equality. So the question is what, apart from economic growth