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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Sociology

Theses/Dissertations

2017

Development

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Poverty Ends With A 12 Year Old Girl: Empowerment And The Contradictions Of International Development, Meghan Elizabeth Bellerose May 2017

Poverty Ends With A 12 Year Old Girl: Empowerment And The Contradictions Of International Development, Meghan Elizabeth Bellerose

Honors Projects

This thesis argues that international development programs focused on adolescent girls reproduce problematic and contradictory depictions of girls in the global South. Using Girl Effect marketing materials and interviews with INGO staff, I demonstrate that present-day international aid programs center on the neoliberal notion that an empowered adolescent girl holds the unique potential to end global poverty. Through empowerment programs, girls are encouraged to recognize their agency and take personal responsibility for improving the wellbeing of their communities. However, I argue that even as development leaders claim that an empowered adolescent girl is a source of indefatigable strength who can …


Gender Empowerment In The Development Economics Literature: The Language Of Choice, Preferences And Agency, Pranay Panday Jan 2017

Gender Empowerment In The Development Economics Literature: The Language Of Choice, Preferences And Agency, Pranay Panday

Senior Projects Spring 2017

In my project, I try to trace how our present understanding of gender empowerment is formed, and how mainstream economics literature has accommodated feminist contributions to the concept. I look at neoclassical household models, feminist critiques of the same models, foundational ideas on gender empowerment, and finally the current development economics literature on empowerment. I find that the concept of choices and preferences, and in particular the formation of preferences, is central to understanding gender empowerment. I deduce that a) empowerment is both a process and an outcome, b) that the end goal of empowerment is the access to resources …