Counting gender (in)equality? a feminist geographical critique of the ‘gender data revolution’

Abstract

Powerful international development institutions have called for a ‘gender data revolution.’ They posit that progress on gender equality depends upon our collective ability to close ‘the gender data gap,’ by which they mean that we know less about women’s lives than men’s in statistical terms. Some feminists within and outside the academy treat the gender data revolution with suspicion, likening it to a ‘measurement obsession’ (Liebowitz and Zwingel 2014 Liebowitz, Debra J., and Susanne Zwingel. 2014. “Gender Equality Oversimplified: Using CEDAW to Counter the Measurement Obsession.” International Studies Review 16 (3): 362–389. doi:10.1111/misr.12139.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) that is overly quantitative (Buss 2015 Buss, Doris. 2015. “Measurement Imperatives and Gender Politics: An Introduction.” Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society 22 (3): 381–389. doi:10.1093/sp/jxv030.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) and ill-fit to capture the complexities of gender subordination. In this paper, we suggest that feminist geographers as academics and scholar-activists have a unique and important contribution to make to the gender data debate, which at present is largely aspatial. Drawing on empirical examples we first illustrate how feminist geography’s conceptual and methodological contributions enrich the gender data debate; second, we reflect on the possibilities and limitations of a practical intervention that we are currently staging as co-founders of a feminist research venture that seeks to shape policymaking, critically considering the possibilities and limitations of such an endeavour.