Affirmations and ambiguities: some thoughts on women and agency.

• Author: Obiora, L. Amede
• Position: Globalization and Comparative Family Law: A Discussion of Pluralism, Universality and Markets

I hope my remarks will essentially constitute an invitation to interrogate a certain incongruity between interventions to stimulate the wealth of nations and the avalanche of women into poverty. As the consciousness about the implications of globalized market-oriented and political apparatuses heighten, (1) the obligation that societies owe to their citizens as a matter of justice, and the arrangement of social institutions to fulfill those obligations, are resonant concerns. (2) Critical considerations of what constitutes justice and how governments attempt to secure it reveal that with ever-increasing urgency, this age has tied the fate of justice to the economy. (3) By the same token, competing propositions to improve the efficiency of statecraft have come to exert considerable influence on the social policy agenda. Of particular interest for our immediate purposes is the triumph of initiatives for the revitalization of civil society, the private franchising of public goods, and emphasis on the individual as alternative sources of welfare.

The popular ideal of the Third Way articulates the value of human agency and its pivotal role in the enhancement of social welfare. Within its framework, individual agency appears to be the linchpin for human flourishing. However, a reexamination of this formulation and its concomitants suggests a failure to engage empirically verifiable substantive considerations about the contingency on social conditions. The abiding challenge is to do justice to the promise of the Third Way, (4) while avoiding the absurdities of its politicization.

I revisit the thrust of the debate about the Third Way as a backdrop to discuss a best practice that catalyzes the agency of women and signals the importance of what I consider the full belly quotient for the gender equity paradigm. (5) This will provide a springboard for my critique of a perennial tension that inheres in the emerging trend as well as the significant dilemma that retreating state frontiers and shifting the onus for welfare poses from the perspective of women's agency. I will conclude by exploring the bare outline of a conversation about how a concept of law can be serviceable in the livelihood mobilization struggles of women.

My remarks in this essay are an installment in a broader conversation. The remarks are informed by an intriguing paradox which is that, while global markets and eruptions of technological genius generate material conditions and moral conundrums that transcend particular boundaries and belonging, the resources necessary to contain and respond to these forces remain reposed in particular practices, identities, and moralities. (6) The take-off point for my remarks is that the minimum required to make the market economy more inclusive is to guarantee equal access to the opportunities it provides, and that this cannot be done where much of the population lacks the basic wherewithal to participate. (7)

This is not a radical premise considering that "empowering the poor" is well-worn territory in the development arena. (8) However, there is ample ambiguity regarding what empowerment entails. (9) I would argue that any serious attempt to humanize global capitalism is not just a matter of market reform, but that it requires tackling the interlocking structures of social, economic, and political power that exclude particular groups of people. By the same token, there is a risk that the rhetoric of inclusion is appropriated as a normalization...