Development’s Neoliberal Sexism

The movement for gender equality in the development community has neoliberalism as its ideological bedrock. Neoliberal feminism validly recognizes gender inequality but falls short in highlighting the socioeconomic and cultural structures that shape our lives. For example, over the course of former US Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton’s second presidential campaign, she continuously repeated the mantra that ‘giving women the tools to fully participate in their economies, societies and governments’ is the unfinished business of the twenty-first century. Clinton’s idea of producing equality for women focuses solely on encouraging women to participate more in the formal economy, so they can pull themselves up by the bootstraps. Unfortunately, this belief falsely assumes that we can universalize women’s needs, which goes on to diminish our particularity.