Men, masculinity and 'gender in development'

The author argues that development programs concerned with gender have made gender synonymous with women, rather than focusing on men and women's separate associations, opportunities and constraints of their gender. Males have gender issues as well, and cannot always be seen as the problem. Focusing only on women does not enhance the goals of equity and empowerment that many gender in development programs seek. Furthermore, creating static categories of analysis of men and women does not accurately reflect the many roles and identities that contribute to forming a gender identity, nor does it account for cultural variations on the praised qualities associated with masculinity or femininity. Thus, the author concludes that theory and practice need to join together to create programs that reflect the complexity of gender, rather than positioning men in one corner and women in the other. In order for development programs to be successful, men and women must both be included and traditional feminist theories must be moved past to accurately understand gender as a whole.