What will happen to gender equality as the world develops? While modernization theory stresses the emergence of increasingly cosmopolitan gender values, work on the cultural roots of gender roles finds that measures of historical patriarchy exert a persistent influence on contemporary attitudes toward and outcomes for women. Motivated by this disparity, I develop a simple model illustrating the interplay between economic development, sexist social norms, and women's labor supply. The model predicts that women's labor supply will follow a U-shaped relationship, and that female labor supply will be lower, fall over a greater income range, and then rise more slowly for countries with a more patriarchal history. I investigate and confirm these predictions in a broad sample of countries employing six different measures of patriarchal history reflecting agricultural history, religious traditions, rainfall patterns, and linguistic structures as well as a composite measure of patriarchal history. These findings suggest that gender inequality will diverge as countries develop, reflecting the ability of richer countries to more fully realize their sexist values.

Theoretical Perspectives on Gender and Development demytsifies the theory of gender and development and shows how it plays an important role in everyday life. It explores the evolution of gender and development theory, introduces competing theoretical frameworks, and examines new and emerging debates. The focus is on the implications of theory for policy and practice, and the need to theorize gender and development to create a more egalitarian society. This book is intended for classroom and workshop use in the fields ofdevelopment studies, development theory, gender and development, and women's studies. Its clear and straightforward prose will be appreciated by undergraduate and seasoned professional, alike. Classroom exercises, study questions, activities, and case studies are included. It is designed for use in both formal and nonformal educational settings.

DIVCollection of essays on issues of women and development, attempting to bridge theory and practice in the post-9/11 era to reflect debates in various realms, from the environment, land rights, and identity to information technology, employment, and poverty/div

This volume explores the causes and consequences of family inequality in the United States, Europe, and Latin America.

A major new work of feminism on the history and persistence of patriarchal hierarchies from the MacArthur Award-winning economist In this groundbreaking new work, Nancy Folbre builds on a critique and reformulation of Marxian political economy, drawing on a larger body of scientific research, including neoclassical economics, sociology, psychology, and evolutionary biology, to answer the defining question of feminist political economy: why is gender inequality so pervasive? In part, because of the contradictory effects of capitalist development: on the one hand, rapid technological change has improved living standards and increased the scope for individual choice for women; on the other, increased inequality and the weakening of families and communities have reconfigured gender inequalities, leaving caregivers particularly vulnerable. The Rise and Decline of Patriarchal Systems examines why care work is generally unrewarded in a market economy, calling attention to the non-market processes of childbearing, childrearing and the care of other dependents, the inheritance of assets, and the use of force and violence to appropriate both physical and human resources. Exploring intersecting inequalities based on class, gender, age, race/ethnicity, and citizenship, and their implications for political coalitions, it sets a new feminist agenda for the twenty-first century.

We are witnessing today women being elected as presidents or prime ministers, women that have been awarded Nobel prizes, that perform exceedingly in sports winning Olympic medals, women that excel in art, that have defended the rights of the oppressed, that have gone to space, that are active in politics and are CEOs of businesses and corporations. Women today are found in the most difficult jobs such as urgency paramedics, workers in heavy machinery factories, and in the construction of skyscrapers; they are in research laboratories or as members of toxic materials management teams. This was not the scenario 175 years ago. On the contrary, women since the cave times until the dawn of the twentieth century have been oppressed by the fact they were born as women. Social, cultural, economic, and political roles defined by men in those times obliged women to stay at home raising children, without being allowed to aspire to play a significant role in the construction of human history. The explosion of women participating today in the social, political, and economic arenas of the advanced countries might give the impression that this was their situation in the past. Not true. This modern movement of women engaged in a tenacious struggle for equality with men has given them unquestionable victories and a powerful consciousness of their role in the development of the history of humanity. Their victories were not given to them by men. On the contrary, it has been a slow process that has demanded extraordinary effort from women all over the world. We are just beginning to be witnesses of the potential that women have and can foresee the brilliant future they are going to create for humanity. Appreciating, defending, and promoting this evolution is the invitation to participate in such a noble journey.

Examines patriarchal hegemonies from a variety of theoretical and methodological perspectives. This book challenges the Anglo-American bias of much gender and language research to date by including new data and insights from scholars working in countries such as Colombia, Liberia, Kenya, Vietnam, Japan, Greece, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and more.

The twentieth century gave rise to profound changes in traditional sex roles. However, the force of this 'rising tide' has varied among rich and poor societies around the globe, as well as among younger and older generations. Rising Tide sets out to understand how modernization has changed cultural attitudes towards gender equality and to analyze the political consequences of this process. The core argument suggests that women and men's lives have been altered in a two-stage modernization process consisting of (i) the shift from agrarian to industrialized societies and (ii) the move from industrial towards post industrial societies. This book is the first to systematically compare attitudes towards gender equality worldwide, comparing almost 70 nations that run the gamut from rich to poor, agrarian to postindustrial. Rising Tide is essential reading for those interested in understanding issues of comparative politics, public opinion, political behavior, political development, and political sociology.

In the fall of 2016 those promoting patriarchal ideals saw their champion Donald Trump elected president of the United States and showed us how powerful patriarchy still is in American society and culture. Darkness Now Visible: Patriarchy's Resurgence and Feminist Resistance explains how patriarchy and its embrace of misogyny, racism, xenophobia, homophobia, and violence are starkly visible and must be recognized and resisted. Carol Gilligan and David A. J. Richards offer a bold and original thesis: that gender is the linchpin that holds in place the structures of unjust oppression through the codes of masculinity and femininity that subvert the capacity to resist injustice. Feminism is not an issue of women only, or a battle of women versus men - it is the key ethical movement of our age.