Women and Politics in the Third World

WOMEN AND THE STATE IN THE THIRD WORLD 31
state, an emerging techno-managerial system pursuing non-secular policies,
and at the international level being independent and dependent at the same
time…[indicate the complexity of its] state process.
(Mohanty 1990: 151)
While traditional elites were being co-opted into the new state networks, with
the ‘weakness’ of the post-colonial state towards these elites ensuring political
stability, tensions also emerged from the clash of expectations released by the
rhetoric of change and the reality of compromise. One of these tensions has
emerged from the clash of the rhetoric of gender equality and the reality of a
patriarchal political power system. ‘Weak’ state, without adequate infrastructural
power, could only look to the exercise of ‘despotic power’ which further put
back the goal of rapid, focused economic development. What we have then in
most countries of the Third world is a complex state situation.
While it is clear from the above discussion that some of the Western feminist
debates do not take into account the different types of state formation, it is also
obvious that much of the literature on the developmental and postcolonial state is
at best gender-blind (see Elson 1992). A serious problem with the developmental
model of state formation—the distinction between ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ state—is
that it does not allow for an uncovering of the patriarchal power that is an
essential part of both types of states. So, for example, it cannot explain the
compromise of a ‘strong’ state like the People’s Republic of China with
patriarchal forces in the interests of political stability and economic growth (see
Evans 1992; Rai 1992). There is, however, a growing literature by Third World
feminists challenging both these perspectives.
Third World feminist perspectives
In the writings of Third World feminists, however, we find a different approach
to the question of the state. The state (especially the post-colonial state) is
regarded as of critical importance in women’s lives both public and private.
Mernissi (1991), for example, even speaks of the ‘feminisation’ of the male in the
post-colonial state (her own being Morocco) as the traditional role of the economic
provider is no longer the exclusive concern of the man in the family, and as the
modernising state draws women into the public arena through both law and
public provision such as education. Similarly, in India we find a considerable
emphasis placed upon the power (or lack) of the state to formulate men and
women (see e.g. Kapur and Cossman 1993). Many women’s groups have, for
example, been involved in the drawing up of the National Perspective Plan for
Women 1988–2000 (Ministry of Human Resource Development 1988)
‘recommends certain special interventions for women as transitory measures to
ensure that they catch up with the mainstream by 2000 A.D.’ (ibid.: ii). There is
thus an implicit setting up of a binary opposition between the state and patriarchal
forces in society (Mehdid 1993: 9).