Why I’m over the business case for gender equality

Graduate school was eye opening for me in many ways — meeting lifelong friends, eating far too much free pizza, and providing me with new language and framework to understand and address global injustice. I went in knowing that I wanted to focus on human rights and gender policy, and suddenly realized there was this whole world of “international development” that I did not know existed — logframes, capacity building, nexus…Before those two years, I admit that I had a very fuzzy idea of what I could actually do with a masters degree in public administration. I think about the woman I was when I applied to programs(and cringe to admit that I cited “Half the Sky” in my application), the woman I was when I graduated, and the woman I’ve become since.

In my gender and development class, we talked about the evolution of gender approaches and frameworks. One striking memory I have is when I learned about intrinsic versus instrumental approach to gender equality. Individuals/Organizations can make the case to invest in gender equality because it is a basic human right (intrinsic value), or because they believe it will lead to greater outcomes for their family, communities, and GDP (instrumental value).

For example:

• We can address violence against women because it reduces expenses on social services (health, legal, psychological, etc), or because women deserve to live free from violence.
• We can target women with economic empowerment programs because they are more likely to be responsible spenders and reinvest in their children and community, or because women deserve to have access to financial opportunities.
• We should include women on boards of companies because it yields higher returns or because women can be innovative, make important decisions, and are equally deserving of this opportunity as men.

I am not saying that these arguments are mutually exclusive — it is true that by preventing violence against women, we can increase expenditure and productivity. It is true that women have different spending patterns than men, and it is true that more diverse boards are more profitable.

However, since entering the sector, despite an insistence from various players in the field (INGOS, UN Agencies, etc) that they are committed to “rights-based” approaches, I can’t help but feel completely dismayed that the language seems to be tilted in favor of the instrumental value of women. This is seen more and more especially as corporations play a growing role in the sector (thanks, capitalism).

I recently consulted for an organization on a gender mainstreaming strategy for them across their organization and programming. I received the comment “can you talk more about the business case for investing in women?”

By investing in women, we invest in communities, we invest in the future, blah blah blah.

I see those focused explicitly on gender equality make the same statements and are steadfast that we need these claims — this type of advocacy gets buy-in from governments, from the private sector, from this and that donor.

As I hear the same “business cases” repeatedly, I cannot help but ask- at what cost? (pun intended).

The reliance on this argument perpetuates systematic oppression. Women remain tools, vehicles, and instruments to help others, to serve their communities, to yield return on investments. For some reason (hi patriarchy), we cannot seem to collectively state the fact that women are human beings. Our “outcome” for investing in women’s equality should, in fact, be equality. While the instrumental arguments may be able to “bring new stakeholders to the table,” what is the value of these stakeholders if they do not actually believe in justice for the sake of justice?

If the aid system is operating on the principle of “best bang for your buck,” — building a foundation that is not rights-based — does this risk setting our feminist agenda back even further? We tend to take the easy path rather than the righteous (albeit more difficult) one in this sector — prioritizing scalable over localized solutions, when we know this is unsustainable, ineffective, and harmful to communities. Are we risking our gains when we continue to build a case for gender equality based on instrumental reasoning?

I recently finished Kathryn Moeller’s “Capitalism, Feminism, and the Corporate Politics of Development,” who also wrote one of my favorite essays of last year- The Ghost Statistic that Haunts Women’s Empowerment. In her book, she writes “…development programs and policies target girls and women in ways that maintain traditional aspects of social reproduction that undergird capitalism while producing new, heteronormative gender norms based one economic responsibilities and obligations women are imagined to have or should obtain to catalyze future economic growth.”

Thus, I ask anyone who might come across this blog, to reconsider your motivation — personally and organizationally — for “mainstreaming gender,” how does your intent translate to impact? When 100 more girls get an education based on a program’s desired outcome to increase local or national GDP, rather than their basic human right to access an education, how truly gender-transformative is your program?