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This project investigated the enabling conditions for women’s participation in local governance and its influence on women’s empowerment. The objectives for this study were to explore the challenges faced by women councillors, how they negotiate these challenges, their own interpretation of their engagement patterns and processes, and whether new gender norms and roles are being created for women in the public domain. …

This research explored how and why women organise in religious groups and its political implications. The preliminary studies found that women's religious groups in Bangladesh are diverse in terms of composition, political objectives and interpretation of women's role in society/politics, and they have their own visions of women's empowerment. …

Representations of men as perpetrator and patriarch have profoundly shaped the terms of gender and development’s engagement with masculinities discourse and practice. Many of those working in the field have remained hesitant, tentative, often hostile to the notion that men might be potential allies in the struggle for gender justice. This work explores what role there should be for men in women's empowerment. …

This book explores the ways in which positive, pleasure-focused approaches to sexuality can empower women. Gender and development has tended to engage with sexuality only in relation to violence and ill-health. Although this has been hugely important in challenging violence against women, over-emphasising these negative aspects has dovetailed with conservative ideologies that associate women’s sexualities with danger and fear. On the other hand, the media, the pharmaceutical industry, and pornography more broadly celebrate the pleasures of sex in ways that can be just as oppressive, often implying that only certain types of people - young, heterosexual, able-bodied, HIV-negative - are eligible for sexual pleasure. …

A new review of the Real World film '30%: Women and Politics in Sierra Leone' by Animated Documentary describes its animated sequences as: …

Pathways of Women’s Empowerment invites feminist academics, policymakers, activists and all those working towards promoting the cause of gender justice within development as we move beyond the Millennium Development Goals, to join us for a conference that will draw on insights from the Pathways of Women’s Empowerment programme to look back at what has been achieved since the Beijing 4th World Women's Conference in 1995 and forward to the post-2015 agenda. Panels will be organised around the themes of work, voice and representation, sexuality, and the media. …

The Beyond 2015: Pathways to a Gender Just World conference held from 29-30 May 2014 celebrated and interrogated learning from the Pathways of Women's Empowerment programme. The meeting provided an opportunity for a group of feminist scholars, activists, and media and communication professionals to look at the trajectory the programme had taken from its initiation in 2005, to look at how research from the programme could influence the post-2015 agenda and to strategise on future directions for work on women's empowerment. …

To mark the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Beijing Platform for Action and in association with UN Women, the Pathways of Women’s Empowerment programme are planning a special issue of the IDS Bulletin. Drawing together leading international feminist scholars, advocates and practitioners, the special issue aims to reflect on progress since Beijing and create a space for reflections from people of all genders from different generations on their ideas of possible feminist futures. …

This Eldis Resource Guide features a collection of documents introducing some of the research on work (both paid and unpaid) undertaken by Pathways of Women’s Empowerment. The collection provides suggestions on how decision-makers can support mechanisms for improving women’s rights as workers, enhance their incomes and working conditions, and strengthen their ability to press for change. …

‘Women community health workers were pioneers in bringing rural women to outside formal paid work and breaking conservative norms and female seclusion’, said Simeen Mahmud, lead researcher, at a research findings seminar held for this quantitative study in Dhaka in May 2010. …

With the formulation of the first ever internationally agreed stand-alone goal on gender equality, debates around women’s empowerment are at a critical juncture. This IDS Bulletin makes a timely contribution to the understanding of how ideas around empowerment have evolved and how we can move forward to expand women’s opportunities and choices and realise women’s empowerment in a meaningful way. …

The Pathways West Africa Team took the opportunity of participating in the 51st Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association in Chicago in November 2008 to convene their annual Dialogue on Empowerment. The theme of the panel was 'Women’s Empowerment and Development Policy'. Members of the team presented on the Pathways West Africa work. The session was well-attended and provoked a lively discussion. …

In this blog for the International Association for Feminist Economics Naila Kabeer contends that although Esther Duflo addresses a question of central concern to feminists in her recent paper for the Journal of Economic Literature: 'what is the relationship between women’s empowerment and economic development?' It is not a must-read for feminist economists.  …

This new book from the Zed Pathways series on Feminisms and Development explores what women are doing to change their own personal circumstances, and provides an in-depth analysis of collective action and institutionalised mechanisms aimed at changing structural relations. …

This ground-breaking new collection edited by Mulki Al-Sharmani in the Pathways Zed Feminisms and Development series investigates the relationship between feminist activism and legal reform as a pathway to gender justice and social change. …