Gender and Women Development Initiatives in Bangladesh: A Study of Rural Mother Center

Abstract

Women-focused development initiatives have become a controversial issue connected with women's health and welfare. Previous studies indicated that development initiatives might increase women's workload, family conflict, and marital violence. This study explored the gendered characteristics of a development initiative Rural Mother Center in Bangladesh. Data incorporated policy document and interviews of social workers working with the mother centers in two northwest subdistricts. The qualitative content analysis of data emerged a general theme of expanding women's responsibility while maintaining male privilege explaining gendered design and practice of the development initiative. The theme was supported by two gendered categories related to the design: (a) essentializing women's participation; (b) maintaining traditional gender, and four categories related to the practice; (c) inadequate gender knowledge and skills; (d) reinforcing traditional gender; (e) using women for improving office performance; and (f) upholding male privilege. The study suggests that though women-focused development initiatives need to be embraced with gender-redistributive policies, the social workers should be trained for attaining gender-transformative motivation and competencies.

Sewing shirts with injured fingers and tears: exploring the experience of female garment workers health problems in Bangladesh

“…Finally, although Bangladesh is emerging as a low-middle income country, rural poverty is still a major problem and rural women lack opportunity for education, lack independence and lack access to property [21, 72, 73]. More interventions for women’s social development are needed to build skill and capacity for women so that they can advance to more rewarding positions in industrial enterprises.…”

“…However, the women who participate in unskilled work are at risk of adverse effects on their health and well-being due to the work environment and demands associated with this changing gender role [21]. Studies have found that participation in paid work increases women’s workload, family conflicts, and their vulnerability to male marital violence [22, 23].…”

Men’s Perceptions of Women’s Participation in Development Initiatives in Rural Bangladesh

“…A study also reported that 81% of all loans given to these women are controlled by their husbands ( Karim & Law, 2013 ). Previous studies further speculate that female participation in development initiatives may be limited by patriarchal gender norms in rural Bangladesh, by a lack of woman-friendly market facilities, by a view where all women are seen as necessarily to be entrepreneurs, and by a lack of transformative policies on gender ( Karim, Emmelin, Lindberg, & Wamala, 2016 ; Karim & Law, 2013 ).…”

Causes of Urban Migration in Bangladesh: Evidence from the Urban Health Survey

“…However, 98.6% of male migrants had worked in income generating activities during the previous 12 months, and among the unemployed, 67.1% had migrated for work. There is a distinctive pattern between men and women looking for work and finding it, one that is rather common in the Bangladeshi patriarchal society where men are the primary earners in the family (Parveen, 2007;Karim et al, 2016;Biswas et al, 2017).…”