Women's Voices: Intersectionality and the Empowerment of Rural Arkansas Women

• 1. Adele N. Norris
  Doctoral Candidate
  Public Policy
  University of Arkansas
  Womens Voices: Intersectionality and the Empowerment of Rural Women
  Future Research Directions
  

2. Rural Poverty
Over the years it has been noted that poverty is not a random occurrence but it is more acute among population subgroups defined by race (minority groups), gender (women), and age (elderly and children).
Only recently have poverty scholars recognized that severe and persistent poverty is highly correlated with the accumulation of subordinate social identities.
Although poverty rates in the rural U.S. have been persistently high, poverty is experienced differently among individuals living in the same communities due to varying social locations.
The solutions to ameliorate povertylargely depend on how the poor are perceivedby policy makers.These perceptions are shaped by what is reflected in academic research.
3. Example: Experiences of Poverty by Population Sub-groupsR, E, G & A depicted as separate entities?
(Henslin, 2006)
4. Future Policy Research Directions
Consequently, the development of more appropriate policies benefiting poor rural women located at the intersection of multiple discriminations necessitate:
1) The development of initiatives beyond the practical approaches to
incorporate strategic approaches;
2) That academic research captures how the simultaneity of race/ethnicity,
gender, and/or class hinders effective policy approaches; and
3) That the standpoints of diverse social groups are captured, particularly the
voices of women who have been historically locked out of mainstream
discourse.
5. Extant ResearchU.S. Microenterprise Research
Currently, the emerging U.S. microenterprise research primarily focuses on:
Its effectiveness as an anti-poverty strategy;
Its capabilities to create jobs and businesses especially from the perspective of barriers to entrepreneurship in the U.S. vs. the developing world;
Its ability to revitalize low-income communities; and
Its function as an alternative to welfare.
6. Absent from U.S. Microenterprise Literature
A careful deliberation of whether the U.S. microenterprise programs work the same for different stakeholder/beneficiaries, and
Do they, in fact, function as a means to increase womens empowerment?
These deficiencies are of particular importance given that a central goal of microenterprise programs is to target small loans toward individuals facing higher levels of adversity.
7. Womens Empowerment Scholarship
Most of the literature examining womens empowerment initiatives, including microfinance programs, has emerged out of third world feminist scholarship and grass roots efforts.
However, some scholars emphasize that poor U.S. women share some important commonalities with their third world counterparts.
Ex. Seitz (1995) examines the needs of marginalized U.S. Appalachia women employing Mosers 1989 gender planning conceptual framework whereby she advances the historically silenced voices of women from this marginalized region.
8. EmpowermentMultiple Understandings/Measurements within the context of Microfinance
Monetary
perceive an increase income or savings as a sufficient indication
satisfies only the primary objective of the program of poverty alleviation
Non-Monetary
socioeconomic definitions consider the social milieu whereby women operate at three levels the individual, household, and the macro
decision-making
obtaining power (and control over resources) as opposed to decision-making
9. Future Direction#1
10. Empowerment Defined
Employing a definition formulated from Mosers (1993) gender planning framework, womens empowerment is defined according to the capacity policies and programs have to meet strategic gender needs, which includes the increase of self-reliance and decision-making power that contribute to gender equality, directly and/or indirectly through bottom-up mobilization around practical gender needs.
11. Diversity of Womens ExperiencesFuture Direction #2
Given the complexity of womens location at the intersection of gender, race, and class relations, the alternative development framework must acknowledge diversity of womens experiences and integrate voices marginalized by the existence of multiple inequalities.
12. Critiques of Extant Race, Gender and Class Research
A plethora of race, gender and class research exits carving out an established niche within sociology
It is within this context of viewing them as operating independently of one another that intersectionality has emerged as a way to understand their interactive nature.
Moreover, the tendency to treat the categories race, gender and class as separate, fixed, and/or descriptive categories engenders profound implications.
13. Intersectionality: Key Assumptions

• The notion of simultaneity purports to explain that the social inequalities based on race, gender, class, & age do not function independently of each other; instead they operate as interlocking structures of hierarchal power relations

14. Intersecting oppression constructing and influencing a particular social location can be seen as historically and context specific 15. Any one of the categories, race, gender and class may be more significant, salient or experienced differently in a given situation that can only be discerned via empirical research