Avoiding pitfalls in development projects that aspire to empower women: a review of the Asian Fisheries Society Gender and Fisheries Symposium Papers

Choo Poh Sze, . and Williams Meryl J., . Avoiding pitfalls in development projects that aspire to empower women: a review of the Asian Fisheries Society Gender and Fisheries Symposium Papers. pp. 15-31. ISSN 0116-6514

Many papers from the five Asian Fisheries Society (AFS) women/gender symposia reported on efforts to empower women but not on the underlying empowerment premises. To better understand womens empowerment we chose to define the root word power� based on feminist development literature. We then used the Longwe Womens Empowerment Framework to assess how each project from the 20 papers selected from the AFS women/gender symposia has contributed to the process of womens empowerment. This framework proposes five levels of empowerment - welfare access conscientisation mobilisation and control. Our results showed that most of the projects described in the selected papers achieved empowerment at the welfare or welfare to access levels and in some cases the achievement at a fragile access level had reverted back to the welfare level. Our findings thus showed that women are still far from being able to define their own needs and priorities and to control resources which may help them to challenge their subordinate positions. In the fishery sector feminist concepts of empowerment which should have a place at the core of womens empowerment efforts have been avoided. Unless women in the fisheries sector are able to construct a collective self to define and defend their gender needs the control level of empowerment will remain far beyond their reach.

Full text available from: Official URL: https://www.asianfisheriessociety.org/publication/...

Abstract

Many papers from the five Asian Fisheries Society (AFS) women/gender symposia reported on efforts to empower women but not on the underlying empowerment premises. To better understand womens empowerment we chose to define the root word power� based on feminist development literature. We then used the Longwe Womens Empowerment Framework to assess how each project from the 20 papers selected from the AFS women/gender symposia has contributed to the process of womens empowerment. This framework proposes five levels of empowerment - welfare access conscientisation mobilisation and control. Our results showed that most of the projects described in the selected papers achieved empowerment at the welfare or welfare to access levels and in some cases the achievement at a fragile access level had reverted back to the welfare level. Our findings thus showed that women are still far from being able to define their own needs and priorities and to control resources which may help them to challenge their subordinate positions. In the fishery sector feminist concepts of empowerment which should have a place at the core of womens empowerment efforts have been avoided. Unless women in the fisheries sector are able to construct a collective self to define and defend their gender needs the control level of empowerment will remain far beyond their reach.

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Item Type:	Article
AGROVOC Term:	Fisheries
AGROVOC Term:	society
AGROVOC Term:	Gender analysis
AGROVOC Term:	Empowerment
AGROVOC Term:	Role of women
AGROVOC Term:	Participation of women
AGROVOC Term:	Social welfare
AGROVOC Term:	Right of access
AGROVOC Term:	Decision making
Depositing User:	Ms. Suzila Mohamad Kasim
Last Modified:	24 Apr 2025 06:28
URI:	http://webagris.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/23665

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