Fighting Patriarchies and Poverty: Women and Power. J. Townsend, E.
Zapata, J. Rowlands, P. Alberti, M. Mercado. Zed Books Limited, London (UK)
and New York (USA). 1999. 200pp.

Reviewed by Bipasha Baruah

The authors of this book pursue a new definition of empowerment through a
re-
evaluation and deconstruction of the concept of power. They shed light upon
how rural Mexican women negotiate power in their day-to-day lives. By
documenting their challenges, opportunities and accomplishments, the authors
demonstrate how poor women in developing countries are exploring new social,
economic and political powers and transforming their lives in the process.
They stress that in some cases Southern women have won smaller, albeit more
meaningful victories, than their Northern counterparts.

The book begins with an exploration of self-empowerment illustrated from the
talk of Mexican rural women and Mexican academics on issues of power. The
authors also elaborate upon their own understanding of self-empowerment with
evidence from many countries. The authors go on to tell of the context in
which poor women in developing countries are facing new dimensions of
poverty
and reducing social services but also discovering new opportunities to work
in groups that sometimes take them beyond the struggle to earn money to
empowering themselves in a much more inclusive manner. The authors operate
from a much wider definition of power than many other writers and structure
the book around this understanding. While many contemporary authors define
empowerment merely as negotiating higher decision-making powers or as "power
over" other people, the authors of this book work towards a much more
comprehensive understanding of the term. They explore power from many
different perspectives including "power within" which transforms a woman
through the development of self-confidence, self-esteem, a sense of agency
and a sense of self within a wider context and "power with" which emphasizes
the power of collaboration or the capacity to achieve with others what one
could not achieve alone. The authors also describe power as the "power to
do"
which rural women express in terms of action: the power to learn and revel
in
new skills, in getting organized, designing projects, training others,
achieving change and learning to value their own work.

This book also examines the new scale and role of organizations in most
societies, from women's groups through social movements to non-governmental
or non-profit organizations. In Mexico, as in much of the rest of the world,
the state has withdrawn from many activities and areas that it previously
took responsibility for and thousands of organizations have sprouted to fill
this void and to assume new roles and responsibilities. The authors attempt
to understand the role and agency of new social movements and discover how
such groups can support women striving to empower themselves. While these
are
important questions, I would have also liked to know whether the authors
believe that civil society organizations are increasingly compensating for
the state's inefficiency, apathy and corruption in many countries. If so, I
would have liked the authors to address, even briefly, the ethical dilemmas
of allowing elected governments to fail their constituencies and renege on
election promises. The book concludes by asking how power can be put back
into empowerment. It presents different perspectives on empowerment,
including those of the World Bank, IMF, politicians, mega-corporations and
civil society organizations, but concludes with the reassertion that the
actors themselves, in this case poor women, must be central to the process
of
self-empowerment.

One of the most striking features of this book is the strong and certain
assertion that poor people need fundamental changes in power relations at
all
levels from local to the global. The authors stress that poor women also
need
a transformation of structures that hold them down. For development to be
truly empowering, poor women need changes in law, property rights and other
institutions that perpetuate men's control over them as much as they need
education, skills and credit. Through a rich interplay of theory and praxis,
the authors clearly articulate that world poverty will not be reduced unless
power and self-empowerment are at the head of the agenda.

Through their elaborate discussion of the importance of organization and
solidarity, the authors stress the importance of women's agency not only in
organizational activity but also in politics at all levels. They elaborate
that it is not enough for women to join in projects when they are restricted

by the state, by society, by economic, cultural and ethnic structures.
The "power with" which they develop in political struggle is determined by
the extent to which women's power goes beyond the project. The authors also
explore the controversial issue of outsiders and self-empowerment by
describing how academics and advisers can bring different, outsider
perspectives and sometimes experience to organizations and groups. They
stress that this can help, not through their being "right" but through
bringing new insights that may help the group see and tackle problems
differently.

I found the authors' assertion that feminist concepts of empowerment have
more to do with the transformation of the individual and society than
control
to be a cause for celebration. I was very inspired by one of the common
threads that ran through the fabric of the different authors' work: the
confirmation that dignity does not disappear even on the edge of poverty,
and
that dignity, imagination and determination are vital for women's self-
empowerment. I would recommend this book to development professionals,
activists, journalists, students and women's studies enthusiasts. It is also
an excellent basic text for theories of development and empowerment within
the WID and GAD frameworks.

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