OverviewThe end of the Second World War and the emer-
gence of the United Nations system and the official
international intergovernmental organizations (IGOs)
ushered in a new era in the women’s movement and
women’s rights along with the expansion of human
rights ideology. Added impetus to the concept of
development came later, mainly through the United
Nations Decade for Women (1976–85), which
brought women, particularly those of the develop-
ing countries, into the limelight of development dis-
course. Meanwhile, in the 1970s, the work of
Esther Boserup brought about a paradigm shift in
demonstrating the skewed relationship of women
to men. She showed that the underrepresentation
of women in agricultural statistics led to a male-
biased development. She maintained that twenti-
eth-century modernization produced a dichotomy
in which men work in a sector of enhanced pro-
ductivity, either in farming for the market or in
migrant urban and industrial labor, while women
remain in an untransformed sector in which they
use traditional and low-productivity technology to
farm for subsistence (Boserup 1970). The historical
dominance of men over women was attributed to
two prime factors. Women lag behind men because
of the reproductive behaviors of women followed
by the formation of rational behavior emanating
from the protection of their offspring (Rubin
1975). Such understanding of the skewed relation-
ship between men and women influenced gender
planning to correct the situation for women through
the interrelationship between gender and develop-
ment, the formulation of gender policy, and the
implementation of gender planning practice (Moser
1993), with particular emphasis on the identifica-
tion of women’s strategic gender needs and practi-
cal gender needs (Moser 1989). The understanding
of gender planning opened a floodgate for the pro-
motion of particular gender norms as manifested
in Women in Development (WID), Woman and
Development (WAD), Gender, Environment and
Development (GED), Gender and Development
(GAD), and the like.
International Organizations
Gender, international
organizations, and Muslim
societies
The question that needs to be addressed is: what
happens when gender programs and projects are
implemented at the level of organizations and soci-
eties in Islamic developing countries? In the first
place there is a need to develop an understanding of
the nature of Muslim societies. Muslim societies, in
general, include a hierarchy of social structures and
relations that start with the ideology of the Muslim
umma, institutionalized Islam, and family laws.
The Muslim ummalays emphasis on a community
within which all – women and men – are equal in
their relationship to Allah. The notion of umma
has, at least theoretically, curtailed the power of
men over women and allows women to enjoy their
rights. The Qu±ràn provides many rights for women
and women’s rights over men (Doi 1993). While the
notion of ummaemphasizes the balanced nature
of gender relations, the historical process of the
formation of Islamic societies has systematically
excluded women from the power structures of
institutionalized Islam. The problem of representa-
tion of women in power structures is that when dif-
ferent Islamic schools of thought interpreted the
Qur±àn, the interpretation appeared to be gender
blind. The male theologians have historically mis-
interpreted the equal Qur±ànic rights of women in
order to produce a male biased system of Islamic
laws and interpretations (Hassan 1991a, 1991b,
1994). Islamic laws are concerned with inheritance,
marriage, and simliar issues, and these constitute a
social system that encourages the reproduction of
extended family groupings (Rippin 1993, 115–16).
The ideology of reproduction of family places pres-
sure particularly on women to undertake all types
of household tasks and duties, and to bear and raise
children. A contradiction in present Muslim society
is that while the ideology of Islamic ummaempha-
sizes gender equality in all spheres of life, Muslim
men create obstacles to equitable participation of
women in the traditional institutions. The organi-
zations of Islamist women, which are rapidly grow-
ing, are relentlessly working to rectify the incorrect
view of women so long promoted by male Islamic
scholars.