Women's groups and women's subordination

An analysis of policies towards rural women in Kenya

Datos Bibliográficos

ID11904484
AutoresRayah Feldman (autor de correspondencia)
Año1983
Volumen10
Número27-28
Fecha de publicación1983-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaReview of African Political Economy (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0305-6244 • E-ISSN: 1740-1720
EditorialTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/03056248308703547
OpenAlexW2052514061
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas20
Referencias citadas4

Rural women in Kenya are burdened by heavy workloads, often being responsible not just for attending to domestic needs — including provision of food for their families — but having as well to work as casual labourers. They are further hampered by lack of access to income obtained from the sale of cash crops grown by the household, even though they often contribute labour to the cultivation of such crops. In these and other ways they suffer the impact of gender relations which place them firmly in a position of economic subordination. The Kenyan government has acknowledged that women are ‘disadvantaged’ and has made a formal commitment to alleviate their situation. Economic and political crises, however, have tended to displace attention from the needs of oppressed groups in Kenya, including women. But it would be questionable in any case that the prevailing perception of a solution based on ‘integrating women into development’ would bring about significant change. Rayah Feldman examines a set of organisations on which government policy towards women has been focused: women's groups coordinated by the Kenyan Women's Bureau. Her analysis suggests that while assisting some women to generate extra income, their impact is sparse, uneven and often of dubious value. Seldom indeed do their projects, even when successful in terms of profitability, approach the requirements for fundamentally altering the condition of subordination of rural women

Development economics · Economic growth · Economics · Gender analysis · Gender relations · Political science · Socioeconomics · Sociology · Subordination (linguistics · Gender Studies · Poverty, Education, and Child Welfare