Industrial Development Programs and their Impact Upon Women
Industrial development programs have been promoted as a means of
strengthening the economies, improving the health of the undernourished, and
raising the standards of living while emphasizing the importance of modernizing
in technology. However, with the implementation of these programs, women
and their interests have been for the most part limited in many areas. As a
consequence, this has left women's social and economic security deteriorated
which has led to the contribution in the decline of women's status in areas such
as Africa.
One example of the decline of women's social and economic security as a
result of the implementation of industrial development programs is evidenced
with the use of free trade regulations in Uganda, East Africa. "Free trade
regulations, established by the largest countries of the world, (has) allowed
large corporate fishing outfits to come into Uganda and vacuum the fish from
Lake Victoria. Now as a result of free trade, women who for generations
fished to feed their families, no longer have a livelihood (there)" (Women From
Around the World Speak Out on How Free Trade Affects Them). The
women's activities of fishing Lake Victoria had great social and economic
significance, whereas the activities of the corporate fishing outfits are of pure
commercial significance. As a result, the gender roles of these women are
impacted in a negative way as well. In order to sustain themselves and their
families, the women will have to find other roles to perform or turn to illegal
fishing practices which are increasing at an alarming rate. The practice of illegal
fishing as a result, will have serious negative impacts on the resources and the
ecosystems on which these women depend in order to survive.
In East Africa, the commercialization of agriculture and the expansion of
industrialization has shifted the trend of subsistence farming to cash cropping.
This has resulted in the deprivation of women to access of land and of
productive roles in household subsistence. Development programs in
agriculture have had a tendency to limit women's ability to participate in the
new technologies and patterns of landholding "and instead relegate women to
subsistence farming, which becomes devalued in a cash-and income-oriented
economy" (Women and Men, page 224). The introduction of cash cropping
often leads to a greater concentration of landownership and to increasing
landlessness among former subsistence farmers. With shrinking plots, the
women's husbands are forced to migrate to large cities to seek work which is
paid in wages. Many of them never return. This has resulted in a rapid increase
in the number of rural households that are headed by women who will have an
even more difficult time than their husbands did, in trying to provide for their
households.
The implementation of industrial development programs has had a serious
impact upon women's social and economic security for the worse in areas such
as Africa. These programs have led to the contribution in the decline of the
women's ability to be able to support themselves and their households. More
efforts need to be in place to ensure that womens roles are remedied and that
they do not continue being repressed as they are today. Industrial development
programs must consider implementing an increase in women's control over
income and household resources, their legal and social rights, and an increase in
the social and economic choices they are able to make.
Works Cited
Bonvillain, Nancy. Women and Men: Cultural Constructs of Gender. Prentice-
Hall, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. 2001.
"Women From Around the World Speak Out on How Free Trade Affects
Them". Jan 20, 2002.
<http://gbgm-umc.org/umw/newsreleases/finance.html>.