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have identical hypothetical political performance as a male leader (Beaman et al., 2009). However, forcedreservations of positions for women makes male villagers associate women with leadership even if theyare not necessarily more sympathetic to the idea of female politicians as a whole, and “by giving voters achance to learn about the effectiveness of women leaders, they have effectively improved women’saccess to political office” (Beaman et al., 2009, p. 1533). This mandatory exposure to female leaders canhave positive impacts on the second generation of female politicians running for office; women are morelikely to stand for and win elected positions in councils where there has been a female councillor inprevious elections, and negative stereotypes of female roles in the public and domestic spheres can beweakened (Beaman et al., 2009). Something to bear in mind is that gender discrimination in West Bengalis considered less extreme than in some other Indian states; these results could be interpreted as amoderate success for women in the country as a whole but does not consider the experiences ofwomen in other states and their access to political office.Cultural and social outcomes of gender quotas in politics are rarely taken into account whenevaluating their effectiveness; often Western feminists and development theorists dangerously assumethat more women in politics automatically means progress toward greater gender equality (Hassim,2009). This means that the influence of a greater number of female leaders in developing countries isoften not actually being evaluated in terms of their impact on the rest of the diverse female populationcrossing both class and race lines (Sacchet, 2008). One aspect of this dilemma is elite capture, thephenomenon that women of higher social class most often hold positions of political power, leaving outvoices of lower class or indigenous women. Supporters of political gender quotas cite the concept ofcritical mass as a motivator; this concept advocates that even though discrimination and oppressionmay undermine the confidence of women to assert themselves, with greater numbers comes a greatercollective voice (Sacchet, 2008). However, the women who hold positions within local political groupsmay not be the best representatives for the majority of the female population in the developing world.Sacchet (2008) states both male and female politicians must be aware of gender inequalities and willingto take them on board in their advocacy and legislative efforts in order to truly provide a space forwomen to discuss gender issues as well as connect their experiences to other areas of oppression.Overall, these examples of political access and representation can be tied back to the initial argumentmotivating this paper; without a proper understanding of local context for women within communities indeveloping countries, their supposed ‘inclusion’ in the fight for gender equality may be founded innothing more than the assumption that one female voice can inclusively speak for all women.POST-COLONIAL FEMINISM AND INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENTThe silencing of certain voices in the contemporary feminism movement, extending beyond thepolitical domain discussed in the previous section, can be encapsulated in one thought-provoking quotefrom bell hooks, the notable black feminist:All too frequently in the women’s movement it was assumed one could be free of sexist thinkingby simply adopting the appropriate feminist rhetoric; it was further assumed that identifyingoneself as oppressed freed one from being an oppressor. (1984, p. 8 – 9)Western schools of thought have traditionally dominated gender discourse, contributing to a historicalmistrust of white women and their actions in development projects in communities of women of colour.In terms of intersections of racial oppression in development studies, white women often assume thatthey have the knowledge and obligation to aid ‘other’ women, whether these women need and want it ornot (Syed & Ali, 2011). The inherent racial privilege of white feminists, regardless of other types ofoppression they may experience, can lead to the negation of voices of women of colour in feministdiscourse if this privilege is not acknowledged and an effort is not made to understand and subvert thisdynamic. Even women of colour in positions of political power in the developing world, some areinstructed in or influenced by the dominant Western feminist dialogue, thereby perpetuating this racialand classist oppression.61