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The Imperative of Male Inclusion: How Institutional Context Influences the Policy Preferences of World Bank Gender Staff

Bedford, Kate (2007) The Imperative of Male Inclusion: How Institutional Context Influences the Policy Preferences of World Bank Gender Staff. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 9 (3). pp. 289-311. ISSN 1461-6742. (doi:10.1080/14616740701438200) (KAR id:1688)

Abstract

This paper examines the role of institutional context in shaping policy agendas through a case study of the World’s Bank’s gender lending in Ecuador. Using interviews with employees and analysis of policy texts I explore the complex institutional location of Bank gender policymakers, identifying two key constraints on their policy output: 1. the pressure to frame gender policy using appeals to productivity and efficiency, and 2. the pressure to frame gender policy as producing complementary sharing between men and women. Given that the efficiency constraint has been much debated in feminist Bank scholarship I explicate the complementarity constraint in more detail. Specifically, I argue that the institutional pressure to define gender policy through a complementary focus on couples led poor men to become hyper-visible as irresponsible partners, and as the crux of the gender policy problem. In turn Bank gender policy was focused on efforts to change them, by encouraging their loving attachment to family and willingness to do domestic labor. I see cause for concern at the dominance of these policy solutions, and I consider how to facilitate their contestation in closing.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1080/14616740701438200
Uncontrolled keywords: World Bank, gender and development, Ecuador, masculinity, sexuality.
Subjects: K Law
Divisions: Divisions > Division for the Study of Law, Society and Social Justice > Kent Law School
Depositing User: A. Davies
Date Deposited: 19 Dec 2007 19:09 UTC
Last Modified: 16 Nov 2021 09:40 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/1688 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

University of Kent Author Information

Bedford, Kate.

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