This presentation, given at the 6th Global Symposium on Gender in Aquaculture and Fisheries (GAF6), discussed a recent paper by Elisabeth Pruegl (“Neoliberalism with a feminist face: Crafting a new hegemony at the World Bank,” Feminist Economics, 2016) on the World Bank’s approaches to gender equality. Starting in 2001, empirical attempts to establish that economic growth and gender equality (and poverty reduction) were positively correlated produced mixed results: some studies supported the correlation, others contradicted it or gave ambivalent answers. The Bank then turned to micro-level studies, e.g., of institutions such as markets that had failed women. Should women be changed or markets and other social institutions be changed? The presentations at GAF6 reflected some of the possible answers to these questions. If women are considered unequal because of their different endowments, overcoming the gender gap with interventions to help women to compete can help, as illustrated by the participatory projects described by Supaporn Anuchiracheeva in the Earth Net Foundation, Thailand, and the Myanmar agribusiness skills training described by Ram Bhujel. Many presentations also addressed giving women greater voice, rights and negotiating power. Roel Bosma concluded that mass media communication needs to be used to enhance profound changes in norms, values and attitudes of men, before gender equality can be reached. Conversely, GAF6 participants often talked about markets and the economy as absolutes, e.g., lamenting but not challenging the low prices women receive in wages, and accepting the fish price as a financial fact, rather than as a constructed negotiable factor. Pruegl concluded that the World Bank’s emerging “modified kind of neoliberalism produces substantial openings” because it starts to address also the “coercively gendered institutions” previously treated as private, such as the family and care giving. In the new approach, the actors may become more embodied, less abstract. Susana Siar’spresentations on Costa Rica cockle harvesters and Amonrat Sermwatanakul’s social media marketing of Siamese fighting fish both revealed the embodied power of women’s agency. As fisheries and aquaculture are certainly about markets, and many at GAF6 stressed the need for a fish value chain approach, making markets for fish, for labor, enterprises, etc., work for women appear as worthwhile spaces for research and action in achieving gender equality.

1. The World Bank grapples with
gender inequality: Neoliberalism
with a feminist face?
Meryl J Williams
Thinking Beyond the Framework of Gender and Fisheries
6th Global Symposium on Gender in Aquaculture and Fisheries

2. The present
• Applied gender and fisheries researchers want to make a positive
difference for women
• Focus on local and endogenous constraints and opportunities -
“Development” approach
• Understand the current, past and potential future economic and aspirational
activities of women, and how to help, e.g., secure women’s access to fish,
encourage entrepreneurs
• Focus on entry level and local conditions, tending to ignore larger forces
within and outside fisheries
• At the “big end” of the development “town, what has the World Bank
been thinking and doing on gender and development?

3. A recent feminist economics
paper takes a look at the Bank
• Neoliberalism with a feminist face:
Crafting a new hegemony at the World
Bank (Elisabeth Pruegl 2016, Feminist
Economics)

4. Neoliberalism with a
feminist face
“For many years, feminists have observed a tendency for commitments
to gender equality to “evaporate” in development bureaucracies.”
• WB seems to have 2 views of women: strategic entrepreneurs or
marginalised and vulnerable
• Traces WB’s struggle from 2001 “Engendering Development” report,
to current position.
• Textual, document and analysis of 34 WB policy docs and reports
• Pruegl argues that “the focus on gender equality in the Bank
constitutes an attempt at establishing a new consensus over the
regulation of the economy…neoliberalism that carries a feminist
face.” – openings for feminist agendas
• Vs other critiques of IMF, etc as neoliberalisation of feminism
• At the crux of the debate is the theorizing of the relationship
between gender equality, equity and economic growth

5. Neoliberalism with a
feminist face
“For many years, feminists have observed a tendency for commitments
to gender equality to “evaporate” in development bureaucracies.”
• WB seems to have 2 views of women: strategic entrepreneurs or
marginalised and vulnerable
• Traces WB’s struggle from 2001 “Engendering Development” report,
to current position.
• Textual, document and analysis of 34 WB policy docs and reports
• Pruegl argues that “the focus on gender equality in the Bank
constitutes an attempt at establishing a new consensus over the
regulation of the economy…neoliberalism that carries a feminist
face.” – openings for feminist agendas
• Vs other critiques of IMF, etc as neoliberalisation of feminism
• At the crux of the debate is the theorizing of the relationship
between gender equality, equity and economic growth

6. Neoliberalism with a feminist face
• 2007-08, WB spent $4.2m to build the business case for a positive
connection between gender equality and economic growth
• “establishing an empirical relationship between gender equality and
poverty reduction and growth at the macro level has proven to be . . .
challenging” – evidence points in multiple directions
• Ec growth vs gender equality study results: Win-win, win-lose, in between
• So macro-ec level studies didn’t work, research went down to micro-level,
but also looked at institutions – markets have failed women – change
women or change the markets and other institutions, such as patriarchy in
the family that inhibits women’s success in markets?
• Institutions focus opens up space for problematising the gendered organisation of
society

7. Neoliberalism with a feminist face
• “The market remains the pivotal organizing logic….. It demands the creation of
laws and institutions that unburden women from family responsibilities, free
them from relationships of dependency, and allow them to sell their labor power
and move around freely. The Bank’s promise is that the liberation of women from
the shackles of the patriarchal family will make it possible for markets to work for
women, allowing them to take opportunities and thus achieve equality.”
• Women unequal because of
• different endowments; overcome these thru interventions to allow women to compete
[Supaporn’s Earth Net Foundation, Ram’s Myanmar projects]
• Lacking equal rights; enhance women’s voice, agency and negotiating power
• Overcome these inequalities so that women can compete in markets equitably
• [Our papers often talk about markets and the economy as absolutes, rather than human
institutions that can be transformed, e.g., low prices women receive in wages, fish price
taken as financial facts, rather than as constructed institutional factors]

8. Neoliberalism with a feminist face
• …”to achieve equitable markets, … necessary to eliminate biases in
institutions – including….the modernization of cultural norms and of the
institutions of the family. In addition… imperative to invest in women’s
human capital, and to empower them economically and politically. Such
investment is justified because of the pay-offs it produces in terms of
economic growth and income. From a feminist perspective, this modified
kind of neoliberalism produces substantial openings, bringing into view
coercively gendered institutions traditionally considered private, such as
those regulating relations in the family and provisions of care.” –
• does away with the actors as “abstract actors and forces,” but rather sees them as
“embodied, rights bearing subjects”
• Susana’s Costa Rica paper on the cockle harvesters; Dr Noi’s social media marketing
• Importance of identity and identity formation
• ASC, OHS, - certification for markets, regulatory criteria, adherence to standards

9. So what?
• Fisheries (and aquaculture) are
certainly about markets (FVC
approaches bring in the women)
• And we want markets (fish, labor,
etc) to work for women too
• Some resonance with practical
project work we’ve heard in GAF6
• Keep developing the why’s in our
enquiries…
• …..(please discuss)

10. Women’s Labor Force Participation in the Salmon
Industry in Chiloé, Chile (Ramirez & Ruben, 2014)
• Traces salmon industry development from 1990s
• Women’s participation
• 1996: lower than national average rate (26.6% in Chiloé vs 36.6% nationally)
• 2009: a higher than national average in (48% vs 43%).
• Which women went to work in salmon industry?
• if husbands previously migrated seasonally for several months, leaving them to do productive
“men’s work,” e.g., farming, plus reproductive work, were more likely to take up paid work
than other women.
• if previous productive work was more seen as “women’s work,” e.g., shellfish and seaweed
harvesting, crafts, were less likely to take up the new paid work.
• Still a gender pay gap, after adjusting for types of work by women and men
• Coda: Chile salmon industry recently hit by algal blooms, heavy antibiotic use,
etc, resulting in large job losses, e.g., 500 jobs in one company, Apr 2016
• What is the gendered impact?

11. References
• Pruegl, E. 2016. Neoliberalism with a feminist face: Crafting a new
hegemony at the World Bank. Feminist Economics, DOI:
10:1080/13545701.2016.1198043