This article assesses feminist accounts of co-optation and appropriation in gender and development policy. Today women and girls are the public faces of anti-poverty policy and occupy an important position in the development discourse; however, the ambiguities of the neoliberal gender agenda have provoked an ongoing debate about the extent to which feminist aims and language have been and de-politicized by mainstream institutions. Have feminist aims been co-opted to legitimize anti-feminist policy goals, or does the current visibility of gender issues reflect the success of particular strands of (neo)liberal feminism? I explore these conflicting accounts by examining the current 'gender equality as Smart economics' policy agenda, exploring its major themes and institutional form through a focus on two transnational business initiatives. The article concludes that, although accounts of feminism's cooptation are flawed in their misrepresentation of a diverse and dynamic movement, the transformations wrought by neoliberal-compatible feminisms present troubling challenges for feminists concerned with intersectionality and the links between gender and economic justice.

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The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.

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