ABSTRACT
Postcolonial feminist critics argue that theorists of adaptive preference (AP) depict women in the
global South in ways that are inaccurate and morally objectionable. According to the critics, AP
theorists represent women from the global South as ‘dupes of patriarchy’ (Narayan 2002) or
suggest that ‘the West is best for women’ (Jaggar 2005, 61). These criticisms offer insights
about development practice, and not only about the politics of representation – or so I will
attempt to show here. The critics’ allege that AP theorists default to colonial stereotypes
when they attempt to explain what appears to be deprivation-perpetuating behavior by
women from the global South. On the stereotypical account, Southern women perpetuate
their deprivation because they have internalized the extremely distorted normative worldviews
promoted by their cultures. This account fails to challenge widespread depictions of Southern
women as ultra-oppressed, as unthinking victims of especially patriarchal cultures. Development
practitioners who employ these stereotypes may misperceive the lives they are trying to trans-
form – and thus recommend objectionable and/or ineffective interventions.
