Undercurrent-Issue-Fall-Winter-2014-3

addition to the uncertainty of market prices, cash crops using industrialized hybrid seeds need morefunding for capital inputs previously unnecessary for local subsistence crops, such as new technologyand expensive pesticides. Testimony from women in the Tumkur district contradict Finnis’ (2009) findingsfrom the Kolli Hills, saying they found that they now have less time to fulfill other responsibilities becausethere is pressure to increase individual work time to generate maximum economic gains (Rajamma,1993).Evidently, there is more to the story of agricultural development than simply a supposed increasein income for people in the Global South, and every situation is contextual; what is beneficial to womenin some areas, as seen in the Finnis (2009) study, may not confer the same advantages in other areas.Considerations of food security implications, gender workload implications, and societalappropriateness therefore need to be included in development initiatives that intend to create economicbenefit for developing countries. In order to promote new policies that seek to better a community or anation, Western feminists must be aware of the dangers of generalizing female experiences indeveloping countries by assuming knowledge of contextual gender roles. This need for diversification inunderstanding applies not only to agricultural development, but perhaps even more importantly to therealm of feminist political theory. Dismantling the ‘patriarchal state’ and its antiquated construction ofgender through inclusion of women across all social, economic and racial groups is a lofty goal, and asdetailed by analysis of feminist politics in the coming section, is not quite as close within reach as it mayseem.FEMINIST POLITICS AND REPRESENTATION IN THE DEVELOPING WORLDTrue developmental change stems from engaging people in meaningful action at all levels ofsociety, yet access to leadership positions and participation in politics continues to be an issue ofconcern for women in all countries of the world. According to recent data collected by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (2013), women lead as the head of government in only twenty countries andaccount for only 21.3 percent of parliamentarians around the world. Increasing the number of women inpositions of political power is expected to have positive effects on women’s unity and political advocacyin both developed and developing countries (Hassim, 2009). Since the United Nations Fourth WorldConference on Women in Beijing in 1995, the implementation of gender quotas has been a popularmethod for developing countries to bring a greater number of women into political leadership roles. In anideal world, “quotas encourage broader social and cultural changes, because they help to build supportfor women’s political action as well as encouraging changes in people’s perceptions about genderrelations” (Sacchet, 2008, p. 370).The question remains whether mandatory exposure to female politicians through gender quotascan really alter social norms of gender stereotypes and oppression. The other underlying assumptionmade by ardent supporters of gender quotas is that these female politicians, because of their gender,will automatically subvert patriarchal norms (Hassim, 2009). In reality, not all women are pro-feminism;many women strongly abide by androcentric and/or classist ideologies and values, or lack inclusion ofdiverse voices in their feminist approaches. In this sense, having women serve in these leadership rolescan in fact have little political implication for the betterment of girls and women. This is especiallyconcerning for the indigenous and the rural poor, who are often the most marginalized women in theircommunities and whose activism and agency is crucial for the politicization of gender issues (Sacchet,2008).The enduring political gender disparity in both developed nations and developing countrieswhere women are legally entitled vote and run for public office can be seen as a consequence of voterand party bias and attitudes that favour male candidates (Beaman, Chattopadhyay, Duflo, Pande, &Topalova, 2009). Results from a study in the West Bengal state of India, where one third of positions ineach village council and one third of chief councillor positions across the state are randomly reserved forwomen, have shown that villagers still prefer male leaders. Furthermore, voters have negatively biasedprior assumptions on the effectiveness of female leaders, sometimes solely based on their gender if they60