Gender Mainstreaming & Other Development Fantasies

Yeva Avakyan (), Krista Bywater, Andrew Gleason, Christina Gordon and Sandra Johansson

A chapter in Gender and Development: Perspectives from Australia and the Pacific, 2026, pp 303-327 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract This chapter critically examines how Gender and Development (GAD) has drifted from its feminist political roots into a technocratic, depoliticised framework. Once grounded in structural critiques of patriarchy, GAD has increasingly been shaped by donor imperatives, bureaucratic compliance, and institutional containment. We trace the rise of ‘smart economics’, the individualisation of empowerment, and the reduction of feminist tools into bureaucratic instruments—changes that have rendered gender justice more visible but less transformative. As anti-gender backlash intensifies globally, GAD’s institutionalised forms have proven ill-equipped to defend hard-won gains or challenge power. Drawing on feminist scholarship, intersectional critique, and practitioner experience, we argue that reclaiming GAD as a political project demands more than better tools—it requires resourcing feminist movements, confronting systemic oppression, and moving from managerialism to cross-movement solidarity. Feminist organising, not technical fixes, is the most effective driver of gender justice. In an era of political repression, climate crisis, and shrinking civic space, it is time to reassert GAD’s radical origins and turn the power back on.

Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:gdechp:978-981-95-4842-2_14

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DOI: 10.1007/978-981-95-4842-2_14

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