Mothers, household managers, and productive workers: The International Labor Organization and Women in Development

Abstract

Focused on the International Labor Organization (ILO), this article historicizes the concept of ‘women in developing countries’ by looking at its own development through use by women researchers and others within the ILO context. It traces the construction of ‘women in developing countries’ as a distinct category of woman worker. In doing so, it advances the understanding of the very terms of policy that we take for granted, contextualizing a category that has managed to both justify first-world non-governmental organization (NGO) intervention and reflect the aspirations of women in the Global South for better lives. In capturing this tension, it suggests that we must complicate our analysis of global policymaking for, about, and by women. I begin to redirect attention from trends in the literature that either celebrate the generation who developed the Women in Development (WID) approach or critique their projects as hopelessly modernist. My goal is to underscore the institutional settings in which the contested terms of ‘women’ and ‘development’ became linked. What began as a definition of otherness, an objectification of a group defined by policymakers, turned into a subject position through which women activists within the ILO and on the ground in ‘Third-World’ nations demanded resources – and, as would become evident in conventions on home-based work, gained recognition as workers.