ABSTRACT
In 2015, the launch of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) saw gender equality enshrined in a stand-alone goal (Goal 5), and as an underpinning goal of all other 16 goals. Considering it was only in the 1970s that development policies started to explicitly engage with gender inequality, this reflects the significant successes of feminist movements within development ( Sen 2019 ). However, much remains to be achieved in pursuing gender equity. Four key domains that have become central – and contested – for how to change the status of women and produce gender equality more broadly are: education, employment, political representation, and gender-based violence. In this chapter, we show that while these policies and pathways have been important in changing girls’ and women’s experiences and life chances, many continue to be inadequate in changing the power structures that (re)produce gender inequality. We suggest that changing power structures of gender inequality requires taking seriously relationality, context, and the multidimensionality of gender. We then conclude by reflecting on our pedagogical practices in two universities in the Global South which attempt to apply these insights.
