Feminist Theories of Development
as Sen and Grown's (1987) as universalizing the Western sexual division of labor and employing categories like "labor" and "production" rooted in the culture of capitalist modernity that were inadequate for describing "other" societies. Such concepts were abstracted from the historical experience of the European man, who repressed not just women but also "other" people (although this criticism seems to neglect the Third World woman's perspective adopted by Sen and Grown). Feminists using the Marxist paradigm had not overcome its limitations. Extending this paradigm repressed, distorted, and obscured many aspects of women's existence. Additionally, Sen and Grown were said to represent poor Third World women as too much in the thrall of feminism's own narcissistic self-image. Instead of patronizing "poor Third World women," we were best advised to learn from them, which meant appreciating the immense heterogeneity of the field. Poststructural critics also believed that First World feminists should learn to stop feeling privileged as women (Spivak 1988: 135-136). In this light, Sen and Grown's "alternative visions" were said to be mired in androcentric Western thinking in that they failed to provide a genuine alternative to mainstream development (Hirschman 1995).