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Gender and Energy in International Development: Is There a Return of the ‘Feminization’ of Poverty Discourse?

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Abstract

This article seeks to contribute to ongoing debates on gender equality in energy development projects. This article adopts a feminist critical standpoint to assess initiatives on gender and energy in international development. While recognizing the benefits of applying gender analysis to map out the divergences in access and opportunities in energy, this article stresses three recurring issues in energy development studies: a dangerous return of the ‘efficiency approach’ of women in energy and development; the erroneous interchangeability of gender as a ‘women only’ issue; and the diffusion of ‘feminization of energy poverty’ discourses. This article stresses how international organizations and practitioners in energy are echoing the already critiqued concept of ‘feminization of poverty’ and how this can unintentionally undermine the efforts to achieve gender equality.

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Notes

  1. https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/5_Why-It-Matters-2020.pdf.

  2. Term coined by Pierce in 1978.

  3. There are two reasons I italicized the word sacrificing: a) it is a preferred and recurrent term used in energy-gender literature; b) the word ‘sacrificing’ has an implicit subjective value, hence it should be used only when people affected by energy poverty feel they’re sacrificing something based on their systems of value.

  4. Gender roles are defined regarding the division of labour and tasks amongst men and women. The three identified gender roles are: reproductive, productive and community tasks. The first involves all tasks regarding bringing up the next generation and includes childbearing and rearing, feeding the family, caring for the sick and elderly, and teaching acceptable behaviour. The second refers to the work completed for payment in cash or in kind and includes the production of goods and services for subsistence or market purposes. The community tasks role involves the tasks not completed for individual family gain, but for the greater wellbeing of the community or society, such as charitable work, self-help communal construction of village facilities, sitting on village committees, involvement in religious activities and visiting friends who needs help (Moser 1993; Clancy and Roehr 2003).

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Correspondence to Antonella Mazzone.

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Mazzone, A. Gender and Energy in International Development: Is There a Return of the ‘Feminization’ of Poverty Discourse?. Development 65, 17–28 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41301-022-00330-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41301-022-00330-7

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