Power, Gender and Social Change in AfricaRaj Bardouille, Margaret Grieco Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009 M03 26 - 359 pages Gender plays a hugely significant and too often under-considered role in predicting how accessible resources such as education, wage-based employment, physical and mental health care, adequate nutrition and housing will be to an individual or community. According to a 2001 World Bank report titled Engendering Development—Through Gender Equality in Rights, Resources, and Voice, enormous disparities exist between men and women in terms of basic rights and the power to determine the future, both in Africa and around the globe. A better understanding of the links between gender, public policy and development outcomes would allow for more effective policy formulation and implementation at many levels. This book, through its discussion of the challenges, achievements and lessons learned in efforts to attain gender equality, sheds light on these important issues. The book contains chapters from an interdisciplinary group of scholars, including sociologists, economists, political scientists, scholars of law, anthropologists, historians and others. The work includes analysis of strategic gender initiatives, case studies, research, and policies as well as conceptual and theoretical pieces. With its format of ideas, resources and recorded experiences as well as theoretical models and best practices, the book is an important contribution to academic and political discourse on the intricate links between gender, power, and social change in Africa and around the world. |
From inside the book
... society. Women activists promote new laws, lobby men in power to agree to new laws, and monitor men in enforcement positions to ensure that they respect the new laws. Limited success with the passage of laws has led to workshops to ...
... society watchdogs, questioning how government is spending scarce resources. Typically, groups of women-as-citizens work with men-as- government to analyze budgets and determine who benefits from the resource allocations. Such programs ...
... society, mixing customary and communist reglementation within communities. A comparable concept would be the “Arenas of Choice” that Robert and Ann Seidman suggest for “role occupants” expected to comply with or follow government ...
... societies—strong constructions of women as mothers, as well as wives and grandmothers and mothers-in-law, and, in many societies, strong histories of women's political leadership and mobilization as “mothers.” Can African women ...
... society had changed, women “can no longer be viewed as being chattels of their husbands,” and the provision against sex discrimination takes precedence (Dow 1995). The Dow decision referred to liberal democratic values and the changing ...