Third world women, just as woman in industrialized nations, are largely represented in particular occupations. The majority work in agricultural employment or jobs that are unregulated by the state, such as street vendors and small businesses. Similarly, as in industrialized nations, Third World professional women are over-represented in such professions as nursing and teaching. Divisions between women’s and men’s work have obvious economic and political implications.

Evidence of gender inequality and exploitation of women exist in most societies, yet some of the worst cases are found in the developing world. The murder of some five thousand woman annually in India by dissatisfied husbands; the enslavement of women working in Pakistan’s brick-making industry; wife beatings in Zambia and the Andes; and the sale of child brides are only a few of the many instances of women’s subservient status in many Third World countries. Less dramatic examples of gender inequality include divorce laws that favor husbands; the restricted opportunities for women’s employment in universities, the professions, and higher-paid blue collar jobs; and the double clay that woman must frequently face (coming home from a long day’s work and having to do all the housework and child care).

After years of neglect, many international agencies and government planners have begun to recognize women’s special status and needs in development projects. Scholarly literature now focuses on women’s empowerment. Throughout Latin America, for example, women have played significant roles in independent, grassroots political organizations. Elsewhere, revolutionary movements in countries such as El Salvador, Nicaragua, and China have invited opportunities for female activism and leadership that had not previously existed in traditional society. In nations as diverse as India, Haiti, the Philippines, and Bolivia, women have risen to the top of the political system. All of these aspects of women’s economic and political activity deserve our attention.

Any analysis of the conditions of women in developing nations must begin by recognizing that most official statistics reflect and underestimate the degree of participation by women in the nation’s economic activity. Women who engage in income-earning activity often work in areas that also are not officially counted. For example, in villages throughout the developing world, peasant women play a key role in agricultural production either as part of a broader family effort or as the household consumer. This sort of activity is officially overlooked. Many women in urban areas work in small-scale trade or other parts of the informal sector of the economy that escape government scrutiny and only appear in estimates of the work force.

Studies have been done to compare educational and literacy levels for men and women in selected less-developed countries and for the Third World as a whole. All figures attained in the study compare average female and make attainment in a particular region. Zimbabwe scored 82 in 1990, which means its female literacy rate is 18 percent lower than that of males. The scores tell us nothing abut what the actual female and male literacy and education rates are but only the size of the gender gap. Thus, a female literacy score of 82 in Zimbabwe does not mean that its women are more literate than Iranian women who have a score of 67- only that the literacy gender gap is narrower in Zimbabwe.

The data taken from these studies reveal how both sides of the gender gap have been in education and how much that gap has narrowed in recent decades. As of 1990, Third world women still had only slightly more than half the number of years of schooling than men. Looking at the individual countries in the study, we find that the gender gap was smallest in the most socio-economically developed countries (Chile and Jamaica)- where women had 92-97 percent as much schooling as did men- and was largest in the poorest countries (Nigeria, India and Bangladesh).

Often, Westerners associate traditional religious and cultural values with rigid social and economic systems that dictate women to an inferior rank. Thus, it has frequently been assumed that the imposition of European colonization in Africa and Asia and the subsequent spread of modernization and Western ideas offered women greater opportunities and improved social standing. While modernization theorists would have us believe that urbanization, industrialization, and the diffusion of Western values and lifestyles have an emancipating effect, many feminist scholars have produced a wealth of literature that suggests that political and economic modernization have overwhelmingly negative effects for women.

The negative effects of modernization have certainly not been limited to the agricultural sector. In her study of Ghana’s tribe, Claire Robertson found that women’s status fell when families moves to the capital city of Accra and entered a more modern, urbanized environment. Whereas economic cooperation between spouses had previously been common in rural villages, especially in fishing and farming, it was less frequent among urban immigrants. Women tended to be more dependent on their husbands and to own less of the family’s property than they had before migrating to the city.

In political systems throughout the world, women are severely underrepresented in political leadership positions. The Third World is surely no exception. During the mid-1980’s, women constituted only six percent of the national legislators in Africa and only two percent of all cabinet members. Throughout the developing world, United Nations surveys repeatedly show that even in countries where women are active professionally, their level of responsibility as policy-makers and planners is low.

Analysis reveals that the political and economic status of Third World women is anything but uniform. Their position varies considerably from region to region and country to country. Within individual countries, the condition of women differs according to their social classes or ethnicity. Three factors seem most relevant in this regard: the prevailing cultural values, a region or nation’s level of socioeconomic modernization, and the type of political regime in place.

 [Index] [Pos 145]