Friday 27 April 2012

KNOTS blogger

KNOTS blogger


Measuring women’s empowerment: A retrograde step?

Posted: 27 Apr 2012 03:28 AM PDT

The Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index has just been launched with great fanfare. It intends to serve as a tool for measuring and monitoring women's roles and their engagement in agriculture with the aim of closing identified "gender empowerment gaps".  But does the WEA Index fall into the same trap of previous attempts, essentializing women's roles and failing to get to grips with the social relations at the heart of gender dynamics in agriculture?