Raising Questions About Capitalist Globalization and Universalizing Views on Women A Transnational Feminist Critique of the World Development Report: Gender Equality and Development

Nursing in the United States has embraced global health primarily from a clinical perspective, with emphasis on care delivery to populations in underserved, resource-poor settings. Less attention has been devoted to developing expertise about social, economic, and political contexts that produce ill health around the world. The purpose of this article is to offer a transnational feminist critique of the World Development Report: Gender Equality and Development and to illuminate implications such reports may have in the lives of the world's most marginalized women and girls. We examine the political economy idealized in the report, raising questions about the capitalist framework underpinning its agenda. Second, we examine the assumptive language used in the report, suggesting that it discursively constructs a problematic representation of women in low-income countries. We contend that the report perpetuates a hegemonic discourse of patriarchy and inequality for women in the Global South through the use of an uncontested economic framework and universalist reasoning. We conclude the article with discussion about a transformative policy making that could be more inclusive of the wisdoms, values, and everyday experiences of women living in the Global South and about the vital role nurses can play in advancing gender equity through their active collaboration in policy critique and policy formulation.