Kathryn Moeller - The Gender Effect

The Gender Effect

The publisher and the University of California Press Foundation gratefully acknowledge the generous support of the Barbara S. Isgur Endowment Fund in Public Affairs.

The Gender Effect

CAPITALISM, FEMINISM,

AND THE CORPORATE POLITICS

OF DEVELOPMENT

Kathryn Moeller

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu.

University of California Press

Oakland, California

2018 by the Regents of the University of California

An earlier version of chapter 4 was previously published as Searching for Adolescent Girls in Brazil: The Transnational Politics of Poverty in The Girl Effect, Feminist Studies 40, no. 3 (2014): 575601. An earlier version of chapter 5 was previously published as Proving The Girl Effect: Corporate Knowledge Production and Educational Intervention, International Journal of Educational Development 33, no. 6 (2013): 61221.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Moeller, Kathryn, author.

Title: The gender effect : capitalism, feminism, and the corporate politics of development / Kathryn Moeller.

Description: Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index. |

Identifiers: LCCN 2017027256 (print) | LCCN 2017033180 (ebook) | ISBN 9780520961623 (ebook) | ISBN 9780520286382 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780520286399 (pbk : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: CorporationsCharitable contributionsCase studies. | Girl Effect (Organization) | Nike (Firm) | Corporate imageManagement. | Young womenServices forDeveloping countries. | Poor girlsServices forDeveloping countries.

Classification: LCC HG4028.C6 (ebook) | LCC HG4028.C6 M64 2018 (print) | DDC 362.5/5765082091724dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017027256

Manufactured in the United States of America

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For all the young women in this story and for those I will never know

For Miguel and Sebastin

1.The Girl Effect as Apparatus

2.The Historical Rise of the Girl Effect

3.The Spectacle of Empowering Girls and Women

4.Searching for Third World Potential

5.Proving the Girl Effect

6.Negotiating Corporatized Development

FIGURES

1.View of the proliferation of transnational networks of corporatized development focused on girls and women.

2.Timeline of Nike, Inc. and Nike Foundation history and public response.

3.Nike Foundation banner, The End of Poverty Starts with a Girl.

4.Kenyan artist Eric Muthogas Girl Knight image.

5.World Bank building during the week leading up to the 2011 World Bank/IMF annual meeting.

6.Adolescent Girl Initiative launch at the World Bank headquarters.

7.Family PlanningThe Girl Effect Dividend.

8.Entrance to the 2009 Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting at the Sheraton Hotel, New York City.

9.Nike Foundations poster, Is 12 the beginning of the rest of a girls life or the end of it?

10.The primary classroom at AFD in Rio de Janeiro.

11.Stick figure depicting a pregnant body on the wall of a school outside of Rio de Janeiro.

TABLE

1.Nike Inc. Revenue and Nike Foundation Asset Value, Contributions, and Disbursements for Charitable Purposes, 20012015.

A white dot appears and slowly begins flashing. A piano tune and gently ringing bells follow. Words in all caps and bold-facedPOVERTY, AIDS, HUNGER, and WARflash across the screen at a dizzying speed. A question appears, What if there was an unexpected solution that could turn this sinking ship around? Would you even know it if you saw it? Thick white lines dramatically cross out INTERNET, SCIENCE, THE GOVERNMENT, and MONEY. The music pauses. The white dot reappears. Over a series of screen breaks, Its (dramatic pause) a girl. The word flies circles the bright orange, bold faced, capitalized word GIRL. The word BABY falls to its feet. The word HUSBAND crushes it. The words HUNGER and HIV rise up and surround it. They begin to fall away as SCHOOL, UNIFORM, LOAN, COW, and PROFIT appear. The question, Are you following what is happening here?, is followed by Girl school cows $ business clean water social change stronger economy better world. Its called the girl effect. Multiply that by 600 million girls in the developing world. A black dot appears and multiplies until the page is solid black. And youve just changed the course of history scrolls across the screen. A G is drawn on the screen. It reads, Invest in a girl and she will do the rest. The white dot reappears, flashes, and then disappears. Its no big deal. Just the future of humanity.

Description of the Girl Effect video

Smart businesses appreciate that increased support for girls and women is integral to fostering successful markets for the future. Innovative programs are already producing remarkable results, and far-seeing countries and organizations are finding that reaching out to girls and women deepens confidence, creates opportunity, and raises profits.

2009 annual meeting, CGI, Investing in Girls and Women plenary description

As dusk arrived on International Womens Day, March 8, 2005, I received a press release from Nike, Inc. announcing that it was transforming the Nike Foundation, its philanthropic arm, to focus on adolescent girls in the Global South. The press release lingered in my mind for days. Why would Nike, Inc. dedicate its foundation to the very population that it had been accused of exploiting in its contract factories around the world in the late 1990s and early 2000s? How was the corporation planning to improve girls lives, well-being, and futures, and what qualified it to do so?

The announcement linked the philanthropic investments in adolescent girls human capital to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on poverty alleviation and gender equality. On such a day, it seemed fitting to think about these interrelated goals. International Womens Day is historically rooted in womens struggles for labor rights, which are, of course, intimately related to ending poverty and achieving gender equity. The day was first instituted in 1909 by the Socialist Party of America to honor female garment workers protesting unfair labor conditions in New York City. The following year it was established as an international day by Socialist International to support womens rights and universal suffrage. While the 2005 press release was deeply connected in this historical genealogy, it did not refer to the radical history of these interrelated struggles. In contrast, it built directly upon a present-day, de-politicized logic that separates ending poverty and achieving gender equality from the ongoing struggles of girls and women for a fair and just global economy. Nevertheless, while labor was not addressed in the press release, it was the silent milieu behind the corporations announcement.

As I began to research Nike, Inc.s focus on adolescent girls, I soon discovered that it was part of a broader movement of corporations and corporate foundations that had begun to prioritize poor, mostly Black and Brown girls and women through their corporate social responsibility (CSR), philanthropic, and business policies and practices in the new millennium. At the time, General Electric, Johnson & Johnson, Starbucks, and H&M, among others, all had similar programs. Their focus built on an idea promoted in the early 1990s by economists, such as T. Paul Schultz, Lawrence Summers, and Elizabeth King, that investing in girls and womens education is the most efficient way to end poverty and promote development. Since then, the worlds most powerful development institutions, including the World Bank, United Nations organizations, UKs Department for International Development (DFID), and United States Aid for International Development (USAID), have created programs and policies focused on educating girls and women throughout Asia, Africa, and Latin America.