A Brief Theoretical Discussion

Social transformation entails changes in social relations which include changes in the relations between men and women, and their gender roles and experiences at various levels and in different spheres of a society. Depending on the forms of organization and relations within that society as well as the nature of the social transformation, social changes bear specific impact and consequences on gender relations and the position of women. Across societies and cultures, such changes bear striking similarities in some aspects and vast differences in others. But whatever these may be, it has been consistently shown that in most cases, women's position and status in societies undergoing social changes become or continue to be subordinate to those of men.

Our understanding of the position and subordination of women can benefit from the many studies of social changes taking place in various parts of the world which are undergoing profound social transformation. These studies have been mainly carried out within the framework of either modernization or capital accumulation. They offer valuable empirical and analytical insights into social changes in general and those related to gender relations and women's position in particular.

The modernization approach perceives changes as occurring in a unilinear movement along a scale from simple traditionalism to complex, specialized structures. In the case of women, it is argued that their static nature, passivity or resistance to change accounts for their backwardness and confinement in the traditional sectors. Other obstacles within the modern development planning processes, such as the male biases of planning officials, further reinforce the women's exclusion from modernization's benefits (Rogers 1980).

Perceiving social changes in the context of capitalist accumulation offers an analytically different understanding of the phenomena. It rejects the notion that all societies move along similar stages of development and instead, allows for historical and social specificities in the dynamic interplay of social relations and forces internal and external to a society. Gender relations and women's position are set within such a context of social change.