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1111
2 Gender and Development
3
41
5
6
7
8
91
10
1
2
31 Since the classic Women and Development in the Third World was
4 published over a decade ago, a new awareness of the importance of
5 gender roles in development has grown. Globalization, international
6 migration, refugees and conditions of war have brought these issues
7111 of gender and development to the public attention. At the same
8111 time, gender perspectives have become central to the many United
9 Nations meetings on development, including the Beijing Women’s
20 Conference.
1
Gender and Development focuses on these new challenges and the
2
efforts to overcome them through the empowerment of women and
3
men. Individual chapters look at reproduction and health, including
4
the HIV/AIDS epidemic; globalization and issues of production,
5
including new areas of employment such as IT; and environmental
6
topics such as gendered access to resources and ecofeminism. The
7
role of the UN and changes in development organizations’ attitudes,
8
through gender mainstreaming, are also considered.
9
30 This accessible textbook provides an introduction to the topic that is
1 based on the author’s wide field experience. Topical and up-to-date
2 information and analysis are used throughout. It contains a wealth of
3 student-friendly features, including boxed case studies drawn from
4 around the world, encompassing the transition countries of Eastern
51 and Central Europe and the Central Asian Republics, as well as
6 Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America and Asia. There are also
7 chapter learning objectives, discussion questions, annotated guides to
8 further reading and websites, diagrams and tables, and numerous
9 maps and photographs.
40
1 Janet Henshall Momsen is Professor of Geography at the University
43111 of California at Davis.
Routledge Perspectives on Development
Series Editor: Tony Binns, University of Sussex

The Perspectives on Development series will provide an invaluable, up-to-date

and refreshing approach to key development issues for academics and students
working in the field of development, in disciplines such as anthropology,
economics, geography, international relations, politics and sociology. The series
will also be of particular interest to those working in interdisciplinary fields,
such as area studies (African, Asian and Latin American Studies), development
studies, rural and urban studies.

Published: Hazel Barrett

David W. Drakakis-Smith Health and Development
Third World Cities, Second Edition
Chris Barrow
Jennifer A. Elliott Environmental Management and
An Introduction to Sustainable Development, Development
Second Edition
Alison Lewis and Martin Elliott-White
Janet Henshall Momsen
Tourism and Development
Gender and Development
Nicola Ansell
Forthcoming: Children and Development
Kenneth Lynch
Rural–Urban Interactions in the Developing John Soussan and Mathew Chadwick
World Water and Development

Tony Binns, Peter Illgner and Etienne Nel Katie Willis

Indigenous Knowledge and Development Theories of Development
1111
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31 Gender and
4
5 Development
6
7111
8111
9
Janet Henshall Momsen
20
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30
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43111
 First published 2004
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004.
© 2004 Janet Henshall Momsen
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Momsen, Janet Henshall.
Gender and development / Janet Henshall Momsen.
p. cm. – (Routledge perspectives on development)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Women in development – Developing countries.
2. Sexual division of labor – Developing countries.
3. Women – Developing countries. I. Title. II. Series.
HQ1240.5.D44M657 2004
305.3′09172′4 – dc21 2003008539

ISBN 0-203-63446-2 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-63771-2 (Adobe eReader Format)

ISBN 0–415–26689–0 (hbk)
ISBN 0–415–26690–4 (pbk)
1111
2 Contents
3
41
5
6
7
8
91
10
1
2
31
4
5
6
7111 List of plates vii
8111 List of figures ix
9
20 List of tables xi
1 List of boxes xiii
2
Acknowledgements xv
3
4
5 1 Introduction: gender is a development issue 1
6
2 The sex ratio 21
7
8 3 Reproduction 47
9
4 Gender, health and violence 75
30
1 5 Gender and environment 106
2
6 Gender in rural areas 136
3
4 7 Gender and urbanization 171
51
8 Globalization and changing patterns of economic
6
activity 191
7
8 9 How far have we come? 220
9
40
1 References 244
43111 Index 266
1111
2 Plates
3
41
5
6
7
8
91
10
1
2
31
4
5
6
7111 1.1 Egypt: Cairo market with men selling and women with
8111 children shopping 4
9 1.2 Burkina Faso: women vegetable growers 5
20 2.1 Brazil: migration to the colonization frontier 37
1 2.2 Fiji: a family of new settlers in interior of island 38
2 3.1 China: women preparing tobacco leaves for curing 67
3 3.2 Ghana: a woman collecting firewood in cassava field 69
4 3.3 Ghana: women processing cassava for gari 69
5 3.4 East Timor: young women carrying water 70
6 4.1 Thailand: a grandmother carrying child on her back 84
7 4.2 Mexico: a woman making tortillas on an open fire 91
8 5.1 India: women using a village water pump 121
9 5.2 Ghana: a group of women carrying wood for fuel 125
30 5.3 Brazil: a man collecting mangrove wood on a bicycle 126
1 5.4 Ghana: a woman cooking over an open fire 128
2 5.5 Bangladesh: a woman applying a layer of mud to
3 her house 131
4 6.1 Bangladesh: a woman stripping jute fibre from its
51 covering 138
6 6.2 China: women drying and winnowing rice 138
7 6.3 India: women planting and man ploughing in
8 paddy fields 139
9 6.4 Ghana: a group of women digging with hoes 139
40 6.5 Australia: Aborigine woman digging for roots and
1 witchetty grubs 142
43111
viii • Plates

6.6 Kashmir: a family of herders drying grain, with woman

spinning wool 143
6.7 Burkina Faso: a woman brewing sorghum beer 145
6.8 Bangladesh: a woman displaying seeds saved for
future planting 150
6.9 Sri Lanka: a woman watering vegetables 159
6.10 St Lucia, West Indies: women loading bananas
for export 161
6.11 South Korea: a woman diver on Cheju Island 164
6.12 South Korea: women divers preparing shellfish 165
6.13 Romania: a woman in her backyard greenhouse 168
7.1 India: women working as building labourers 178
7.2 Brazil: weekly market in a town in Bahia state 184
8.1 China: young women workers making electric rice
cookers for export 199
8.2 Thailand: young women weaving silk 202
8.3 Thailand: older woman backstrap weaver 202
8.4 Burkina Faso: women potters in a north-western
village 204
8.5 Guatemala: spinning cotton 205
8.6 Peru: basket making 206
8.7 Brazil: lacemaking in Ceará 207
8.8 Sri Lanka: Samurdhi microcredit group meeting 209
8.9 Sri Lanka: a woman dairy farmer 209
8.10 Sri Lanka: woman who started her shop with a loan 210
8.11 French Polynesia: women preparing flower garlands
for tourists 216
8.12 China: the ‘managed heart’ – woman offering apples
to visitors 218
9.1 East Timor: pounding corn in old shell cases 228
9.2 Sri Lanka: young daughters helping with household
chores 229
9.3 Australia: Aborigine painter 239
1111
2 Figures
3
41
5
6
7
8
91
10
1
2
31
4
5
6
7111 2.1 Sex ratio, 2002 23
8111 2.2 Gender differences in life expectancy at birth, 1970–5 24
9 2.3 Gender differences in life expectancy at birth, 2002 25
20 2.4 Sex ratio of international migrants, 1990 31
1 2.5 Montserrat, West Indies: age and sex structure, 1970
2 and 1980 32
3 3.1 Total fertility rate, 2002 50
4 3.2 Difference between infant mortality rates of girls and
5 boys, 1995–2000 57
6 3.3 Adult literacy: female rate as a percentage of male rate,
7 1999 66
8 3.4 Women’s use of time 71
9 4.1 Maternal mortality rate, any year between 1980 and
30 1998 82
1 4.2 Percentage of population with HIV/AIDS, 2001 85
2 4.3 Percentage of women in the HIV/AIDS population,
3 2001 86
4 4.4 HIV prevalence rate in young women, 2001 87
51 5.1 Ghana: problems of fuelwood collection in different
6 ecosystems 124
7 6.1 Gender-differentiated ethnobotanical knowledge in
8 eastern Indonesia (Flores) 148
9 6.2 Daily, weekly and yearly time use patterns of a farmer
40 in Nevis, West Indies 158
1 8.1 Percentage of women in the labour force, 1980 193
43111 8.2 Percentage of women in the labour force, 2000 194
x • Figures

8.3 Female and male economic activity rates over the life
course, 1980 195
9.1 Women as a proportion of national elected legislators,
2001 222
9.2 The Gender-related Development Index, 2001 225
1111
2 Tables
3
41
5
6
7
8
91
10
1
2
31
4
5
6
7111 1.1 Regional patterns of gender differences in population
8111 dynamics, education and labour force participation rates,
9 1999 17
20 2.1 Sri Lanka: expectation of life at birth in years 30
1 2.2 Maseru City, Lesotho: age of migrants at time of move,
2 by sex, 1978 34
3 2.3 Occupations of migrants to Maseru City, Lesotho,
4 1978 35
5 2.4 Gender differences in migration on small-scale farms
6 in the eastern Caribbean 42
7 3.1 Sri Lanka: gender roles in household activities 68
8 4.1 Work-related health risks for women 91
9 4.2 Types of violence 94
30 5.1 Gender and the meaning of water conservation in
1 Barbados, West Indies 115
2 6.1 Gender divisions of labour on small farms in the
3 Caribbean 146
4 6.2 The gender impact of agricultural modernization 154
51 6.3 Gender roles and time use in rural Burkina Faso 160
6 6.4 Types of entrepreneurial activity in rural western and
7 eastern Hungary, by gender 169
8 7.1 Scavenging in Port au Prince, Haiti, by type of waste
9 collected, gender and age 186
40 7.2 Gender differences in years spent scavenging in
1 Port au Prince, Haiti 187
43111
xii • Tables

7.3 Gender differences in occupational injuries among

scavengers in Haiti 187
9.1 Seasonal changes in women’s time spent on different
activities in northern Ghana, 1984 and 1991 227
1111
2 Boxes
3
41
5
6
7
8
91
10
1
2
31
4
5
6
7111 1.1 Economic crisis leads to setbacks for women in
8111 Argentina 6
9 1.2 Millennium Development Goal 3 10
20 2.1 Female infanticide in China 28
1 2.2 Sex-specific migration and its effects on Lesotho 34
2 3.1 The impact of education on fertility in Singapore,
3 Sri Lanka and the Middle East 62
4 4.1 Family violence in Tajikistan: the tale of Fotima and
5 Ahmed 95
6 4.2 Honour crimes: a conflict between modern lifestyles
7 and rural customs 97
8 4.3 Husbands trafficking in wives in Bangladesh 100
9 5.1 Water and sustainable development 117
30 5.2 Arsenic poisoning in Bangladesh 119
1 5.3 Kenya: women’s role in reafforestation 122
2 6.1 Gender on tea plantations in Sri Lanka 162
3 6.2 Rural entrepreneurship in an eastern Hungarian village:
4 a preferred or forced occupation? 166
51 7.1 Changing roles of rural–urban migrants in Bolivia 175
6 7.2 The story of an urban migrant to Dhaka, Bangladesh 180
7 8.1 Changing patterns of gendered economic activity in
8 Brazil 196
9 8.2 Negative perceptions of factory work for Muslim
40 women in Malaysia 200
1 8.3 New aspects of prostitution in Thailand 213
43111
xiv • Boxes

9.1 The gendered impact of structural adjustment on

education levels in northern Ghana 230
9.2 ICT in India: gendered impacts in the formal and
informal sectors 238
1111
2 Acknowledgements
3
41
5
6
7
8
91
10
1
2
31
4
5
6
7111 This book owes much to the encouragement and shared knowledge
8111 offered by my friends and colleagues, members of the International
9 Geographical Union’s Commission on Gender, especially during our
20 travels and conferences in many different countries. I also learned
1 valuable lessons about development policy from those who served
2 with me on the Board of the Association of Women and Human
3 Rights in Development (AWID).
4
I am grateful to my students for sharing their insights with me, both
5
in the classroom and from their research. I am also indebted to my
6
students and colleagues who gave me permission to use their
7
photographs and quote from their research in this volume. I
8
especially thank Margareta Lelea who made the maps for me and
9
tracked down innumerable references in the library. I also thank
30
my editor, Andrew Mould, and his assistants, for their patience
1
and help.
2
3 Above all I am grateful to all those people in developing countries
4 who allowed me to take up their time with questions and who taught
51 me so much. As usual, I am to blame for the mistakes which may
6 remain.
7
The author and publishers would like to thank the following for
8
granting permission to reproduce material in this work: Seela
9
Aladuwaka for Plates 8.8, 8.9 and 8.10; Michael Appel for Plate 5.5;
40
Mariamba Awumbila for Box 9.1 and Table 9.1; Jane Benton for
1
Box 7.1; Amriah Buang for Box 8.2; Vincent Dao for Plates 1.2,
43111
xvi • Acknowledgements

6.7 and 8.4; Allison Griffith for Table 5.1; Colette Harris for Box
4.1; Indra Harry for Table 6.1; Shahnaz Huq-Hussain for Box 7.2;
The International Women’s Tribute Centre for Figure 3.4; Margareta
Lelea for Plate 6.13; Janice Monk Plate 6.11; Claudel Noel for
Tables 7.1, 7.2 and 7.3; Emily Oakley for Plate 6.8; Jeanine Pfeiffer
for Figure 6.2; Vidyamali Samarasinghe for Box 6.1; Garrett Smith
for Table 6.3; Rebecca Torres for Plates 6.1 and 8.6; and Janet
Townsend for Plates 5.1, 6.3 and 7.1.
1111
2 1 Introduction: gender is a
3
41 development issue
5
6
7
8
91
10
1
2
31
4
5
6
Learning objectives
7111
8111
When you have finished reading this chapter, you should be able to:
9
20 ● understand flexible gender identities and roles
1 ● appreciate the gender impact of sudden economic change
2 ● be aware of different approaches to gender and development
3 ● be familiar with the basic spatial patterns of gender and development.
4
5
6
The development process affects women and men in different ways.
7
The after effects of colonialism, and the peripheral position of poor
8
countries of the South and those with economies in transition in
9
today’s globalizing world, exacerbate the effects of discrimination on
30
women. The penetration of capitalism, leading to the modernization
1
and restructuring of subsistence and centrally planned economies,
2
often increases the gender-based disadvantages. The modern sector
3
takes over many of the economic activities, such as food processing
4
and making of clothes, which had long been the means by which
51
women supported themselves and their families. But by relieving
6
them of these time consuming chores it gives them the freedom to
7
find other, perhaps better, sources of earned income. Yet a majority
8
of the better-paid jobs involving new technology go to men, but male
9
income is less likely to be spent on the family.
40
1 Modernization of agriculture has altered the division of labour
43111 between the sexes, increasing women’s dependent status as well as
2 • Introduction

their workload. Women often lose control over resources such as

land and are generally excluded from access to improved agricultural
methods. Male mobility is higher than female, both between places
and between jobs, and more women are being left alone to support
children. In some countries, especially in the Middle East, South
Asia and Latin America, women cannot do paid work or travel
without their husband’s or father’s written permission. Women
carry a double or even triple burden of work as they cope with
housework, childcare and subsistence food production, in addition
to an expanding involvement in paid employment. Everywhere
women work longer hours than men. The pressure on gender
relations of the changing status of women, and of rapid economic
restructuring combined with growing impoverishment at the
household level for many, is crucial to the success or failure of
development policies.
Gender (the socially acquired notions of masculinity and femininity
by which women and men are identified) is a widely used and often
misunderstood term. It is sometimes conflated with sex or used to
refer only to women. Gender identities, because they are socially
acquired and based on nurture, vary. In Polynesia gender identities
are often flexible. In families without daughters, one son is selected
when very young to be raised as a girl to fulfil the family’s needs
for someone to undertake a daughter’s roles, such as care of
siblings and housework. As adults, these individuals usually
continue to live and dress as women, and occupy female roles with
jobs as waitresses or maids in the rapidly growing tourist industry,
or even as transvestite prostitutes. Today the faafafine (trying to be
like a lady) are also found in Melanesia and are becoming more
open and in some forms more aggressive (Fairbairn-Dunlop 2002).
In Western Samoa they often work as dressmakers and school
teachers and may run drag queen contests and fund raisers for
church groups (ibid. 2002).
Gender relations (the socially constructed form of relations between
women and men) have been interrogated in terms of the way
development policies change the balance of power between women
and men. Gender roles (the household tasks and types of employment
socially assigned to women and men) are not fixed and globally
consistent and indeed become more flexible with the changes brought
about by economic development. Everywhere gender is crosscut by
differences in class, race, ethnicity, religion and age. The much-
criticized binary division between ‘Western’ women and the ‘Other’,
 Introduction • 3

1111 between white and non-white and between colonizer and colonized
2 is both patronizing and simplistic (Mohanty 1984). Feminists have
3 often seen women as socially constituted as a homogeneous group on
41 the basis of shared oppression. But in order to understand these
5 gender relations we must interpret them within specific societies and
6 on the basis of historical and political practice, not a priori on
7 gender. Different places and societies have different practices and it
8 is necessary to be cognizant of this heterogeneity within a certain
91 global homogeneity of gender roles. At the same time we need to be
10 aware of different voices and to give them agency. The subaltern
1 voice is hard to hear but by presenting experiences from fieldwork I
2 have tried to incorporate it. The voices of educated women and men
31 of the South can interpret postcoloniality but because they write in
4 the colonizers’ languages their voices have to be listened to on
5 several levels. By combining an appreciation of different places and
6 different voices we can arrive at an understanding of how the process
7111 of economic change in the South and in the post-communist
8111 countries is impacting people and communities (Kinnaird and
9 Momsen 1993).
20
1 Clearly, the roles of men and women in different places show great
2 variation: most clerks in Martinique are women but this is not so in
3 Madras, just as women make up the vast majority of domestic
4 servants in Lima but not in Lagos. Nearly 90 per cent of sales
5 workers in Accra are women but in Algeria they are almost all men
6 (Plates 1.1 and 1.2). In every country the jobs done predominantly
7 by women are the least well paid and have the lowest status. In the
8 countries of Eastern and Central Europe, Russia and China, where
9 most jobs were open to men and women under communism, the
30 transition to capitalism has led to increased unemployment,
1 especially for women, except in Hungary, where the particular
2 character of gendered education and employment resulted in more
3 men’s jobs being lost. In most parts of the world the gender gap in
4 political representation has become smaller but in the former USSR
51 and its satellite countries in Eastern and Central Europe there has
6 been a rapid decline in average female representation in parliament
7 from 27 per cent in 1987 under communism, to 7 per cent in 1994
8 (United Nations 1995b). This has been most marked in Romania,
9 where the figures were 34 per cent in 1987 and 4 per cent in 1994
40 (United Nations 1995b) rising to 5.6 per cent in 2000 (Elson 2000).
1 The relationship between development and the spatial patterns of the
43111 gender gap provides the main theme of this book.
4 • Introduction

Plate 1.1 Egypt: Cairo

market with men selling
fresh vegetables and
lemons and women with
children shopping. The
women are covered from
head to toe in this public
space.
Source: author

At the beginning of the third millennium most of the world’s

population is living more comfortably than it was a century ago.
Women as a group now have a greater voice in both their public and
private lives. The spread of education and literacy has opened up
new opportunities for many people and the time–space compression
associated with globalization is making possible the increasingly
rapid and widespread distribution of information and scientific
knowledge. Improvements in communications, however, also make
us aware that economic development is not always unidirectional and
benefits are not equally available. For the Afghan women living
under the Taliban regime, forced to be enshrouded in burkas and
refused the right to work or go to school, it was hard. ‘We were like
 Introduction • 5

1111
2
3
41
5
6
7
8
91
10
1
2
31
4
5
6
7111
8111
9
20
Plate 1.2 Burkina Faso: women vegetable growers accompanied by small children, selling
1 their produce in the market in the town of Ouahigouya. Buyers come from as far away as
2 Togo to this market.
3 Source: Vincent Dao, University of California, Davis
4
5
in prison. We had no life, nothing for us to do. We were not people’,
6
according to a hairdresser reopening her beauty salon after the fall of
7
Kabul in November 2001 (Gannon 2001: 27). Unfortunately, outside
8
Kabul not much has changed – Afghan women still wear burkas and
9
few girls are able to attend school, although 20 years ago
30
Afghanistan had a very cultured society with many highly educated
1
women and men. In those days few women were veiled and most
2
had considerable freedom of movement.
3
4 Women’s organizations, and the various United Nations international
51 women’s conferences in Mexico City, Copenhagen, Nairobi and
6 Beijing over the last three decades, have put gender issues firmly on
7 the development agenda but economic growth and modernization is
8 not gender neutral. The experiences of different states and regions
9 show that economic prosperity helps gender equality but some
40 gender gaps are resistant to change. Rapid growth, as in the East
1 Asian countries, has led to a narrowing of the gender differences in
43111 wages and education but inequality in political representation
6 • Introduction

Box 1.1

Economic crisis leads to setbacks for women in

Argentina
One out of five couples in Argentina experiences domestic violence, 400,000
illegal abortions are performed annually, accounting for 29 per cent of
maternal deaths, and women earn 40 per cent less than men with similar
educational levels, according to a new report presented to CEDAW. The
report, drawn up by seven women’s and human rights groups, says that the
country’s severe economic crisis at the start of the new millennium has
aggravated problems like domestic violence, teen pregnancy and
health care.

Signatories to CEDAW are required to implement policies aimed at

enforcing the rights of women and must provide information to CEDAW
every four years so that progress, setbacks and compliance with policies can
be assessed. The report by the seven civil society organizations is intended
to complement the official information provided by the Argentinian
government. It points out that virtually none of the CEDAW committee’s
recommendations to the Argentine state in 1997 have been met.

An impact of the Argentinian economic crisis has been the decline of

influence of the National Women’s Council, which was ‘demoted’ to a mere
programme with consequent loss of funding in January 2002. Despite
CEDAW’s criticism in 1997 that the state was not doing enough to address
the growing phenomenon of prostitution and sexual exploitation of girls,
nothing has been done to tackle the problem. In fact, the 2002 civil society
report notes that the economic crisis has triggered a significant rise in
prostitution among women and girls due to the tremendous impoverishment
of families, and networks trafficking in women and girls have expanded.
Access to health services has been severely curtailed and availability of
contraceptives has declined. Consequently, women are being forced
increasingly to turn for family planning to abortion, which is illegal in
Argentina and so often dangerous. The economic crisis has led to the sexual
exploitation of younger and younger girls so that, for the first time,
pregnancy-related deaths of girls under the age of 15 are occurring. Overall,
the report to CEDAW notes that women and children are the main victims of
the growing poverty in Argentina, which now affects 51.4 per cent of the
population.

Source: adapted from InterPress Service, 6 August 2002.

Available e-mail: [email protected] (17 August 2002).
 Introduction • 7

1111 remains. Sudden, economic change, such as structural adjustment

2 programmes or the post-cold war transition in Eastern Europe,
3 creates new gender differences in which women are generally the
41 losers (Box 1.1).
5
6
7 Authorial positionality
8
91 As a Western white woman feminist writing about women and men
10 in the developing and transitional countries there is clearly a huge
1 gap between observer and observed. As a dual national (British and
2 Canadian) currently teaching in the USA, who has lived and taught
31 in the Caribbean, Costa Rica, Brazil and Nigeria, and carried out
4 fieldwork in such disparate areas as the mountains of southern China
5 among minority Yi people, with Mayans in Mexico and in Hungarian
6 villages, over 40 years’ experience has taught me a lot. I have also
7111 benefited enormously from working with wise colleagues and
8111 graduate students from developing countries including Bangladesh,
9 Barbados, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Hungary, India, Jamaica,
20 Lesotho, Libya, Nigeria, Singapore, Sri Lanka, St Kitts-Nevis,
1 Trinidad and Western Samoa, and with fellow members of the Board
2 of the Association of Women and Human Rights in Development
3 (AWID). Above all, the award of the position of an honorary Queen
4 Mother, with the title of Nana Ama Sekiybea, by the Chief of an
5 Akuapem village in southern Ghana was especially meaningful.
6
7
8 Development
9
30 After the Second World War, the United States and its allies
1 recognized the need for a programme that would spread the benefits
2 of scientific and industrial progress. In this way two-thirds of the
3 world was defined as underdeveloped, foreign aid became an
4 accepted but declining part of national budgets and development
51 agencies began to proliferate. Gradually foreign aid, including food
6 aid and military aid, became a political tool used by the superpowers
7 of the USA and the USSR in a cold war competition to influence the
8 ex-colonial and non-aligned nations of the so-called ‘Third World’.
9 With the collapse of the state socialist model in the USSR and
40 Eastern Europe in 1989, the American model of neoliberal capitalism
1 became dominant. Although some countries, such as Cuba, China
43111 and North Korea, continued with centrally planned state socialism in
8 • Introduction

some form, they either instituted market-oriented reforms, or were so

damaged by the loss of financial support from Russia and the
overwhelming political and economic power of the USA, that they
no longer offered a viable alternative development model. Some
people saw this as marking the end of development and that
development had failed. Others saw it as an opportunity for
rethinking and broadening the idea of development.
For many people the last few decades have brought about better
living conditions, health and well-being (United Nations 1995b and
2000). Today the focus is less on increasing gross domestic product
and spreading modernization, and more on emphasizing debt relief,
reducing corruption, recognizing the importance of social as well as
human capital and the overall reduction of poverty and disease.
These development goals will be considered in terms of gender
differences.
Gender equality does not necessarily mean equal numbers of men
and women or girls and boys in all activities, nor does it mean
treating them in the same way. It means equality of opportunity and
a society in which women and men are able to lead equally fulfilling
lives. The aim of gender equality recognizes that men and women
often have different needs and priorities, face different constraints
and have different aspirations. Above all, the absence of gender
equality means a huge loss of human potential and has costs for both
men and women and also for development.
Over half a century ago, in 1946, the United Nations set up the
Commission on the Status of Women. It was to have two basic
functions: to ‘prepare recommendations and reports to the Economic
and Social Council on promoting women’s rights in political,
economic, civil, social and educational fields’; and to make
recommendations on ‘urgent problems requiring immediate attention
in the field of women’s rights’ (United Nations 1996: 13). The remit
of the Commission remained essentially the same until 1987 when it
was expanded to include advocacy for equality, development and
peace and monitoring of the implementation of measures for the
advancement of women at regional, sectoral, national and global
levels (United Nations 1996). Today it is clear that progress towards
gender equality in most parts of the world is considerably less than
that which was hoped for. However, disparities between women in
different countries are greater than those between men and women in
any one country. At the beginning of the new millennium life
 Introduction • 9

1111 expectancy at birth for women varies from 82 years in Hong Kong
2 to 38 in Zambia, while male life expectancy is lower, ranging from
3 37 years in Angola and Zambia to 77 in Hong Kong, the same as
41 in Sweden (PRB 2002). Globally, only 69 per cent of women but
5 83 per cent of men over 15 years of age are literate (PRB 2002). The
6 proportion of illiterates in the female population varies from 92 per
7 cent in Niger to less than 1 per cent in Barbados and Tajikistan, but
8 in some countries, such as Lesotho, Jamaica, Uruguay, Qatar and the
91 United Arab Emirates, a higher proportion of women than men are
10 literate (PRB 2002). Even within individual countries women are not
1 a homogeneous group but can be differentiated by class, race,
2 ethnicity, religion and life stage. The elite and the young are more
31 likely to be educated everywhere, increasing the generational gap.
4 The range on most socio-economic measures is wider for women
5 than for men and is greatest among the countries of the South.
6
As we enter the new millennium the development focus is on
7111
alleviating world poverty. The empowerment of women and the
8111
promotion of gender equality is one of the eight internationally
9
agreed Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) designed to achieve
20
this (Box 1.2). There is a great deal of evidence drawn from
1
comparisons at the national and sub-national scale that societies that
2
discriminate on the basis of gender pay a price in more poverty,
3
slower growth and a lower quality of life, while gender equality
4
enhances development. For example it has been estimated that
5
increasing the education and access to inputs of female farmers
6
relative to male farmers in Kenya would raise yields by as much as
7
one-fifth. Literate mothers have better-fed children who are more
8
likely to attend school. Yet in no country in the developing world do
9
women enjoy equality with men in terms of political, legal, social
30
and economic rights. In general, women in Eastern Europe have the
1
greatest equality of rights, but this has declined in the last decade.
2
The lowest equality of rights is found in South Asia, sub-Saharan
3
Africa, the Middle East and North Africa. There are no global
4
comparative data on rights more recent than 1990 but there is some
51
evidence that equality of rights has improved since the 1995 Fourth
6
World Conference on Women held in Beijing. The Convention on
7
the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination against Women
8
(CEDAW) was established in 1979 and came into force in 1981 after
9
it had been ratified by 20 countries (Elson 2000). By 1996, 152
40
countries had become party to the Convention but in 2002 the United
1
States had still not ratified it. Unfortunately, ratification of CEDAW
43111
10 • Introduction

Box 1.2

Millennium Development Goal 3

Goal: to promote gender equality and empower women
Target: to eliminate gender disparities in primary and secondary education, preferably by
2005 and in all levels of education no later than 2015.
Indicators:

• Ratio of girls to boys in primary, secondary and tertiary education.

• Ratio of literate females to males of 15–24 years of age.
• Share of women in paid employment in the non-agricultural sector.
• Proportion of seats held by women in national parliaments.

Studies in many countries have shown that education for girls is the single most effective
way of reducing poverty, although by itself not sufficient. In this context, the elimination
of gender disparities in education has been selected as the key target to demonstrate
progress towards Millennium Goal 3. However, progress towards gender equality in
education is dependent on success in tackling inequalities in wider aspects of economic,
political, social and cultural life and this is reflected in the indicators listed above. As in
Development Goal 3, each Millennium Goal involves several indicators on which success
or failure can be measured.
Adapted from Derbyshire (2002: 7).

does not necessarily lead to an immediate reduction in gender

discrimination but it does enforce regular reporting on progress
(Box 1.1).
By the turn of the century there had been three United Nations
Development Decades, while the Decade for Women (1976–85)
culminated in a conference in Nairobi in 1985. At the conclusion
of the first two Development Decades it was found that the
extent of poverty, disease, illiteracy and unemployment in the South
had increased. During the 1980s we witnessed unprecedented growth
of developing country debt and acute famine in Africa. Similarly
the Decade for Women saw only very limited changes in patriarchal
attitudes, that is institutionalized male dominance, and few areas
where modernization was associated with a reversal of the
overwhelming subordination of women.
 Introduction • 11

1111 Yet despite the apparent lack of change, the United Nations Decade
2 for Women achieved a new awareness of the need to consider
3 women when planning for development. In the United States the
41 Percy Amendment of 1973 ensured that women had to be
5 specifically included in all projects of the Agency for International
6 Development. The British Commonwealth established a Woman
7 and Development programme in 1980 supported by all member
8 countries. In many parts of the South, women’s organizations and
91 networks at the community and national level have come to play an
10 increasingly important role in the initiation and implementation of
1 development projects. Above all, the Decade for Women brought
2 about a realization that data collection and research were needed in
31 order to document the situation of women throughout the world.
4 The consequent outpouring of information has made this book
5 possible.
6
7111
Women and development
8111
9
Prior to 1970, when Esther Boserup published her landmark book on
20
women and development, it was thought that the development
1
process affected men and women in the same way. Productivity was
2
equated with the cash economy and so most of women’s work was
3
ignored. When it became apparent that economic development did
4
not automatically eradicate poverty through trickle-down effects,
5
the problems of distribution and equality of benefits to the various
6
segments of the population became of major importance in
7
development theory. Research on women in developing countries
8
challenged the most fundamental assumptions of international
9
development, added a gender dimension to the study of the
30
development process and demanded a new theoretical approach.
1
2 The early 1970s’ approach of ‘integration’, based on the belief
3 that women could be brought into existing modes of benevolent
4 development without a major restructuring of the process
51 of development, has been the object of much feminist critique.
6 The alternative vision put forward, of development with women,
7 demanded not just a bigger piece of someone else’s pie, but a whole
8 new dish, prepared, baked and distributed equally. It soon became
9 clear that a focus on women alone was inadequate and that a
40 gendered view was needed. Women and men are affected differently
1 by economic change and development and thus an active public
43111 policy is needed to intervene in order to close gender gaps. In the
12 • Introduction

mission statement of the Beijing Fourth World Conference on

Women, held in 1995, it was said that ‘[a] transformed partnership
based on equality between women and men is a condition for people-
centred sustainable development’ (United Nations 1996: 652).
The focus on gender in development policies came first from the
major national and international aid agencies, and governments in
the South quickly learned that they needed to build a gender aspect
into their requests for assistance. Thus at the beginning it was the
North that largely imposed the agenda. As non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) began to play an increasingly important role
in grassroots delivery of aid, their gender policies began to
influence local action. In a Ghanaian village the men had had a
reafforestation project for a decade at some distance from the
village. The chief told me that he decided to set up a women’s
agroforestry project, under the leadership of his sister, because he
knew, from radio reports of the current interests of NGOs, that it
would be easier to get outside assistance for such a project than for
one involving men. In this case the agenda set at the top was
manipulated from the grassroots.

Approaches to women, gender and development

By the end of the twentieth century all approaches to development

involving a focus on women had been amalgamated into a gender
and development (GAD) approach. Kate Young argues that this bears
little similarity to the original formulation of GAD and that the term
gender is often used as a mere synonym for women/woman (Young
2002). The study of masculinities and of men as the missing half of
GAD is now on the agenda, but is provoking much ambivalence
since it has a number of important implications for GAD policies and
practice, especially in terms of undermining efforts to help women,
as gender equality is still far from being achieved (Cornwall and
White 2000).

Chronology of approaches
1 The welfare approach Until the early 1970s development
policies were directed at women only in the context of their roles as
wives and mothers, with a focus on mother and child health and on
reducing fertility. It was assumed that the benefits of macroeconomic
strategies for growth would automatically trickle down to the poor,
 Introduction • 13

1111 and that poor women would benefit as the economic position of their
2 husbands improved.
3
Boserup (1970) challenged these assumptions, showing that women
41
did not always benefit as the household head’s income increased and
5
that women were increasingly being associated with the backward
6
and traditional and were losing status.
7
8
2 The WID approach The rise of the women’s movement in
91
Western Europe and North America, the 1975 UN International Year
10
for Women and the International Women’s Decade (1976–85) led to
1
the establishment of women’s ministries in many countries and the
2
institutionalization of Women in Development (WID) policies in
31
governments, donor agencies and NGOs. The aim of WID was to
4
integrate women into economic development by focusing on income
5
generation projects for women.
6
7111 This anti-poverty approach failed on its own terms as most of its
8111 income-generation projects were only marginally successful, often
9 because they were set up on the basis of a belief that women of the
20 South had spare time available to undertake these projects. It left
1 women out of the mainstream of development and treated women
2 identically. It also ghettoized the WID group within development
3 agencies.
4
By the 1980s WID advocates shifted from exposing the negative
5
effects of development on women to showing that development
6
efforts were losing out by ignoring women’s actual or potential
7
contribution.
8
9
3 Gender and Development (GAD) This approach originated in
30
academic criticism starting in the mid 1970s in the UK (Young 2002:
1
322). Based on the concept of gender (the socially acquired ideas of
2
masculinity and femininity) and gender relations (the socially
3
constructed pattern of relations between men and women) they
4
analysed how development reshapes these power relations. Drawing
51
on feminist political activism, gender analysts explicitly see women
6
as agents of change. They also criticize the WID approach for
7
treating women as a homogeneous category and they emphasize the
8
important influence of differences of class, age, marital status,
9
religion and ethnicity or race on development outcomes.
40
1 Proponents distinguished between ‘practical’ gender needs, that is
43111 items that would improve women’s lives within their existing roles,
14 • Introduction

and ‘strategic’ gender needs that seek to increase women’s ability to

take on new roles and to empower them (Molyneux 1985; Moser
1993). Gender analysts demanded a commitment to change in the
structures of power in national and international agencies (Derbyshire
2002).

4 Women and Development (WAD) At the 1975 UN Women’s

World Conference in Mexico City the feminist approaches of
predominantly white women from the North aimed at gender equality
were rejected by many women in the South who argued that the
development model itself lacked the perspective of developing
countries. They saw overcoming poverty and the effects of
colonialism as more important than equality. Out of this grew the
DAWN Network, based in the South, which aimed to make the
view of developing countries more widely known and influential
(Sen and Grown 1987).
By 1990 WID, GAD and WAD views had largely converged
(Rathgeber 1990) but different approaches to gender and
development continued to evolve.

5 The efficiency approach The strategy under this approach was to

argue that, in the context of structural adjustment programmes
(SAPs), gender analysis made good economic sense. It was
recognized that understanding men’s and women’s roles and
responsibilities as part of the planning of development interventions
improved project effectiveness. The efficiency approach was
criticized for focusing on what women could do for development
rather than on what development could do for women.

6 The empowerment approach In the 1980s, empowerment was

regarded as a weapon for the weak, best wielded through grassroots
and participatory activities (Parpart 2002). However, empowerment
has many meanings and by the mid 1990s some mainstream
development agencies had begun to adopt the term. For the most
part these institutions see empowerment as a means for enhancing
efficiency and productivity without changing the status quo. The
alternative development literature, on the other hand, looks to
empowerment as a method of social transformation and achieving
gender equality. Jo Rowlands (1997) sees empowerment as a broad
development process that enables people to gain self-confidence and
self-esteem, so allowing both men and women to actively participate
 Introduction • 15

1111 in development decision-making. The empowerment approach was

2 also linked to the rise of participatory approaches to development
3 and often meant working with women at the community level
41 building organizational skills.
5
6 7 Gender and the Environment (GED) This approach was based
7 on ecofeminist views, especially those of Vandana Shiva (1989),
8 which made an essentialist link between women and the
91 environment and encouraged environmental programmes to focus
10 on women’s roles.
1
2 8 Mainstreaming gender equality The term ‘gender
31 mainstreaming’ came into widespread use with the adoption of the
4 Platform for Action at the 1995 UN Fourth World Conference on
5 women held in Beijing. The 189 governments represented in
6 Beijing unanimously affirmed that the advancement of women and
7111 the achievement of equality with men are matters of fundamental
8111 human rights and therefore a prerequisite for social justice. Gender
9 mainstreaming attempts to combine the strengths of the efficiency
20 and empowerment approaches with the context of mainstream
1 development. Mainstreaming gender equality tries to ensure that
2 women’s as well as men’s concerns and experiences are integral to
3 the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of all
4 projects so that gender inequality is not perpetuated. It attempts to
5 overcome the common problem of ‘policy evaporation’ as the
6 implementation and impact of development projects fail to reflect
7 policy commitments (Derbyshire 2002). It also helps to overcome
8 the problems of male backlash against women when women-only
9 projects are successful (Momsen 2001). In the late 1990s donor-
30 supported development shifted away from discrete project
1 interventions to general poverty elimination, which potentially
2 provides an ideal context for gender mainstreaming. Attention is
3 only just beginning to be paid to the gender dimensions of poverty
4 alleviation (Narayan and Petesch 2002).
51
6
7 The Millennium Declaration signed at the United Nations Millennium
8 Summit in 2000 sets out the United Nations’ goals for the next decade
9 (Box 1.2). These goals come from the resolutions of the various world
40 conferences organized by the United Nations during the 1990s.
1 Reaching these goals will not be easy but they do set standards which
43111 can be monitored (UNDP 2003). There are eight goals:
16 • Introduction

1 Halve the proportion of people living in extreme poverty

between 1990 and 2015.
2 Enrol all children in primary school by 2015.
3 Empower women by eliminating gender disparities in primary
and secondary education by 2005.
4 Reduce infant and child mortality rates by two-thirds between
1990 and 2015.
5 Reduce maternal mortality rates by three-quarters between 1990
and 2015.
6 Provide access to all who need reproductive health services by
2015.
7 Implement national strategies for sustainable development by
2005 so as to reverse the loss of environmental resources by
2015.
8 Develop a global partnership for development.

The principal themes

Three fundamental themes have emerged from the literature on

gender and development. The first is the realization that all societies
have established a clear-cut division of labour by sex, although what
is considered a male or female task varies cross-culturally, implying
that there is no natural and fixed gender division of labour. Second,
research has shown that, in order to comprehend gender roles in
production, we also need to understand gender roles within the
household. The integration of women’s reproductive and productive
work within the private sphere of the home and in the public sphere
outside must be considered if we are to appreciate the dynamics of
women’s role in development. The third fundamental finding is that
economic development has been shown to have a differential impact
on men and women and the impact on women has, with few
exceptions, generally been negative. These three themes will be
examined in the chapters that follow.
Women have three roles in most parts of the world: reproduction,
production and community management. Today women are choosing
to undertake these roles in new ways, to opt out of some, to employ
paid assistance or to seek help from husbands or other family mem-
bers. Planners have often used a gender roles framework but this has
been criticized for ignoring political and economic differences within
a community and for assuming that any new resource will be good
for all women (Porter and Judd 1999). Participatory and community
1
9
8
7
6
4
3
2
1
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
9
6
5
4
2
1
8
7
6
5
3
2

40
51
30
20
31
10
91
41

8111
7111
1111

43111
Table 1.1 Regional patterns of gender differences in population dynamics, education and labour force participation rates, 1999

Female Female/male Total Female/male Female/ Labour force

proportion life expectancy fertility HIV prevalence, male adult participation,
of population in years rate % aged illiteracy female/male
15–24 years (%) ratio

World Bank Group

World 49.6 69/65 2.7 0.7/1.1 – 0.7
Low-income 49.4 60/58 3.7 1.1/2.0 48/29 0.6
Middle-income 49.5 72/67 2.2 0.5/0.6 20/5 0.7
Lower middle-income 49.3 72/67 2.1 0.2/0.2 22/9 0.8
Upper middle-income 50.5 73/66 2.4 1.5/2.2 11/9 0.6
High-income 50.4 81/75 1.7 0.3/0.1 – 0.8

World region
Latin America & 50.5 73/67 2.6 0.7/0.3 13/11 0.5
Caribbean
Middle East & 49.3 69/67 3.5 –/– 47/25 0.4
North Africa
South Asia 48.5 63/62 3.4 0.3/0.5 58/34 0.5
Sub-Saharan Africa 50.5 48/46 5.3 4.5/9.2 47/31 0.7
East Asia & Pacific 48.9 71/67 2.1 0.2/0.2 22/8 0.8
Europe & Central Asia 51.9 73/64 1.6 0.4/– 5/2 0.9

Source: World Bank (2001).

18 • Introduction

development models are often gender-blind and may just reinforce

local patriarchal and elite control. They often also assume a homo-
geneity of gender interests at the community level. To rely on such
methods may well be to give official approval to the subordination of
women’s rights of access to a new project and to assume, unwisely,
equal benefits for all community members (Momsen 2002c).

The overall framework of the book is provided by spatial patterns of

gender (Seager 1997). Gender may be derived, to a greater or lesser
degree, from the interaction of material culture with the biological
differences between the sexes. Since gender is created by society its
meaning will vary from society to society and will change over time.
Yet for all societies the common denominator of gender is female
subordination, although relations of power between men and women
may be experienced and expressed in quite different ways in different
places and at different times. Spatial variations in the construction of
gender are considered at several scales of analysis, from continental
patterns, through national and regional variations, to the interplay of
power between men and women at the household level.

Table 1.1 provides a macro-scale view of women’s position on

various indicators for countries grouped according both to income
level and to location. Low-income countries are characterized by
populations in which women form a minority. These women bear
many children and are usually anaemic while pregnant. They are
poorly educated and have a low life expectancy. In most cases, as
national income increases, the sex ratio becomes more balanced, life
expectancy increases and women have fewer children, are healthier
and better educated and participate more in the labour force.

On a continental scale, Latin America and the Caribbean have high

levels of female literacy but low levels of participation by women in
the formal workforce. Women in Africa, south of the Sahara, have
the highest fertility rates and the lowest life expectancy, now
exacerbated by the rapid spread of AIDS. In the countries of Eastern
Europe and Central Asia currently in transition from socialism to
capitalism, literacy rates and life expectancy are high, and so is
participation in the labour force, while fertility is very low. South
Asia is almost a mirror image of the transition countries as it is
distinguished by the lowest proportion of women in the population
and in the labour force, the lowest literacy levels and the highest
levels of anaemia in pregnancy. The interrelationships between
these indicators will be examined in the following chapters.
 Introduction • 19

1111 Regional trends can also be seen over time (United Nations 1995b).
2 In Latin America and the Caribbean fertility and maternal mortality
3 have declined but cities are growing rapidly, straining housing and
41 infrastructure. At the secondary and tertiary levels of education
5 girls outnumber boys, but women’s labour force participation rate is
6 lower in Latin America than in the Caribbean. Sub-Saharan Africa
7 is the only region where the women’s labour force participation rate
8 has fallen since the 1970s, fertility is still high, literacy is low and
91 life expectancy declined during the 1990s because of HIV/AIDS
10 and civil strife. North Africa and West Asia have seen increased
1 female literacy and increases in women in the labour force but both
2 these measures are low relative to other parts of the world. In South
31 Asia there is less gender equality in life expectancy and rates of
4 early marriage and maternal mortality remain high.
5 While considering the context-specific issues of particular regions we
6 also need to move beyond the generalized patterns of gender and
7111 development over time and space to an understanding of the realities
8111 of lives embedded in distinct localities. Broad statistical
9 generalizations are insufficient for constructive conceptualization but
20 the addition of oral histories and empirical field data allows us to
1 link the local and the global through the voices of individuals. An
2 emphasis on location and position highlights a concern with the
3 relationships between different identities and brings a new
4 understanding to gender and development.
5
6
7 Learning outcomes
8
9 ● Gender roles and identities vary widely in different cultures.

30 ● Gender equity often suffers during periods of economic stress.

1 ● Development policies have changed over time from a focus on women

2 only to one based on gender, sometimes including environmental

3 aspects, and most recently to an interest in masculinities.
4 ● On many variables there are regional similarities in the position of
51 women relative to that of men.
6
7 Discussion questions
8
9 1 Discuss spatial variations in gender divisions of labour.
40 2 To what extent has economic development tended to make the
1 lives of the majority of women in the developing world more
43111 difficult?
20 • Introduction

3 Explain why the universal validity both of gender-neutral

development theory and of feminist concepts that are derived
from white, Western middle-class women’s experience is being
questioned.
4 Why do measures describing the role and status of women
display distinct regional patterns?

Further reading
Boserup, E. (1970) Women’s Role in Economic Development, New York: St
Martin’s Press. This was the first book on the topic and was the stimulus for all
the later work reported on here.
Cornwall, Andrea and Sarah C. White (2000) ‘Introduction. Men, masculinities and
development: politics, policies and practice’, IDS Bulletin 31 (2): 1–6. Provides a
review of the work done on development and masculinities.
Desai, Vandana and Robert B. Potter (eds) (2002) The Companion to Development
Studies, London: Arnold. Contains several short articles on various aspects of
gender and development by many of the leading protagonists.
Momsen, Janet H. (2001) ‘Backlash: or how to snatch failure from the jaws of
success in gender and development’, Progress in Development Studies 1 (1):
51–6. Shows how a focus in development projects on women only, can lead to
disaster.
Seager, Joni (1997) The State of Women in the World Atlas, new 2nd edition, London:
Penguin Books. A very useful collection of coloured maps illustrating many
aspects of gender inequality throughout the world. Includes statistics up to 1996.

Websites and e-mail

[email protected] (e-mail) Address of the Association for Women’s Rights in
Development (AWID). Access is free to members and people with low incomes.
The Resource Net Friday File comes out weekly with articles and news items on
women/gender and development.
www.genderstats.worldbank.org World Bank database with gender indicators and
sex-disaggregated data for all countries in the world in five areas: basic
demographic data, population dynamics, labour force structure, education and
health.
www.undp.org/hdr UNDP Human Development Report (various years).
www.un.org/depts/unsd Women’s Indicators and Statistics Database (Wistat).
produced by the United Nations Statistical Division.
www.worldbank.org/gender GenderNet website which has resources by sector and
by region and links to other sources.
1111
2 2 The sex ratio
3
41
5
6
7
8
91
10
1
2
31
4
5
6 Learning objectives
7111
8111 When you have finished reading this chapter, you should be able to:
9
● identify the main reasons for the differences in the proportions of men
20
and women in national and regional populations
1
● appreciate changes in gender differences in life expectancy
2
● understand the underlying reasons for gendered patterns of
3
migration.
4
5
6
It might be expected that the sex ratio, or the proportion of women
7
and men in the population, would be roughly equal everywhere.
8
Figure 2.1 shows that this is not so and that there is quite marked
9
variation between countries. Explanations of these spatial patterns
30
reveal differences both in the relative status accorded to women and
1
men and in the quality of life they enjoy. Thus the sex ratio is often
2
the first indication of gender inequality.
3
4 Figure 2.1 reveals that the lowest ratios of women to men are found in
51 the oil-rich economies of the Middle East, such as the United Arab
6 Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait, where there are high levels of male
7 foreign workers. Other areas with low proportions of women are
8 South Asia and China, where there is marked discrimination against
9 women. The highest ratios of women to men are in Russia, the Baltic
40 countries of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, and the transition countries
1 of Belarus, Hungary, Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine, where male
43111 death rates are higher than those of women. The small states of Cape
22 • The sex ratio

Verde Islands and Djibouti also have high proportions of women,

114 and 112 respectively, per 100 men, probably because of high male
out-migration (PRB 2002).
More males than females are conceived, but women tend to live
longer than men for hormonal reasons. Boys are more vulnerable
than girls both before and after birth. The better the conditions
during gestation, the more boys are likely to survive and the more
likely it is that the sex ratio at birth will be masculine. However, if
basic nutrition and health care is available to the whole population,
age-specific death rates favour women. In the industrial market
economies these factors have resulted in ratios of about 95 to 97
males per 100 females in the general population. Sex-specific
migration or warfare may distort the normal demographic pattern.
Typically, however, in the absence of such factors, a female-to-male
ratio significantly below 100 reflects the effects of discrimination
against women. In the world as a whole there are some 20 million
more men than women because of masculine sex ratios in the Middle
East and North Africa, and the very marked imbalance in the huge
populations of China and India. Between 1970 and 1995 the global
proportion of women per 100 men fell from 99.6 to 98.6, although it
increased in Latin America, South-east Asia, West Asia and Oceania
but fell in Africa, the Caribbean and Europe (United Nations 1995b).
The United Arab Emirates fell from 60 in 1970 to 52 women per
100 men in 2000. Many South Pacific islands had low female sex
ratios of below 95 women per 100 men in both 1970 and 1995 but
most showed slight improvements in the 1990s, although the Cook
Islands, French Polynesia and Samoa had fewer women per 100 men
in 1995 than in 1970, reflecting gender differentiated migration
patterns (United Nations 1995b). In this chapter we examine the
reasons for these differences.

Survival

Life expectancy at birth is the most useful single indicator of general

well-being in poor countries. For the world as a whole, life
expectancy is 69 for women and 65 for men and in the less
developed countries 66 for women and 63 for men (PRB 2002). In
the more developed world, excluding the transition countries, average
female and male life expectancy at birth varies only between 84 and
77 years in Japan and 79 and 72 respectively in Portugal (ibid.), but
in the developing world the range is greater, extending from 82 and
 The sex ratio • 23

1111
2
3
41
5
6
7
8
91
10
1
2
31
4
5 Figure 2.1 Sex ratio, 2002.
6 Sources: Sass and Ashford (2002: 4–11) and (for Iceland only) Statistics Iceland (2002: 4)
7111
8111
9 77 years for the women and men of Hong Kong to 38 and 37 in
20 Zambia (ibid.).
1
Women have the shortest lives in the countries of tropical Africa and
2
South Asia. Countries such as Burkina Faso, Tajikistan and Nepal,
3
with similar per capita gross national incomes to those of Laos,
4
where female life expectancy is 54 years, of approximately US$300
5
per year, have female life expectancies of 47, 56 and 71 years
6
respectively (World Bank 2001; PRB 2002). These figures
7
demonstrate that even poor countries can improve the general well-
8
being of their women citizens by adopting a basic needs approach
9
and ensuring that food, health care and education are accessible to
30
all. However, within countries marked regional, class and ethnic
1
differences may exist.
2
3 Between 1970 and 2000 life expectancy in the developing world
4 increased, with the greatest increase being that for women (Figures
51 2.2 and 2.3). Women’s life expectancy increased by about 20 per
6 cent, one to two years more than the increases among men.
7 Globally, at the beginning of the new millennium life expectancy
8 for women averaged 69 years and that for men 65, but in low
9 income countries the figures were 60 and 58, and in middle income
40 countries 72 and 67 (World Bank 2001). Major explanatory factors
1 included greater access to family planning and reproductive health
43111 care, improved nutrition and reduction in infectious and parasitic
24 • The sex ratio

Figure 2.2 Gender differences in life expectancy at birth, 1970–5.

Source: United Nations (1995: 84–8)

diseases through widespread delivery of childhood vaccinations and

safe drinking water. All things being equal, women live longer than
men but in some countries, such as Afghanistan, discrimination
against women is so severe that their average life expectancy is less
than that of men. In the early 1970s men lived longer than women
mainly in South Asia (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives,
Nepal and Pakistan) and in Afghanistan, Iran and Papua New Guinea
(see Figure 2.2). By the end of the century women’s life expectancy
was equal to or greater than that of men in all these countries except
in the Maldives, Nepal and Pakistan, although there was no recent
data available on Afghanistan (UNDP 2002). However, progress has
been reversed in Africa. At the beginning of the new millennium the
worst reversals for women were in Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi,
Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe, where poverty and AIDS have
increased and women now have a shorter life expectancy than men
(UNDP 2002; World Bank 2001).
On the other hand, life expectancy for men has fallen precipitously
since 1990 in many of the transition countries. This has led to the
greatest gender differences in life expectancy in the Ukraine, Belarus
and Russia, where women live 11, 12 and 13 years longer than men
respectively (Figure 2.3).
These gender differences in life expectancy have been linked to the
identification of a situation of ‘missing’ women. Because until
 The sex ratio • 25

1111
2
3
41
5
6
7
8
91
10
1
2
31
4
5 Figure 2.3 Gender differences in life expectancy at birth, 2002.
6 Sources: Sass and Ashford (2002: 4–11) and (for Iceland only) UNDP (2001: 210)
7111
8111
9
recently the greatest differences in life expectancy were found among
20
the large populations of South Asia, China, West Asia and North
1
Africa, it was calculated that global excess female mortality resulted
2
in 100 million missing women (Sen 1990). More recent census data
3
indicate that, although the absolute number of missing women has
4
risen to between 65 and 110 million, the global sex ratio has begun
5
to improve since 1995 (Klasen and Wink 2002). Rising female
6
education and access to employment opportunities are associated
7
with declines in female mortality, but this has been counterbalanced
8
by the increased use of sex-selective induced abortion, especially in
9
China and India, resulting in a higher sex ratio with an excess of
30
boys at birth (ibid.).
1
2 Male and female survival chances vary at different points in their life
3 cycle. In the first year of life boys are more vulnerable than girls to
4 diseases of infancy and in old age women tend to live longer as they
51 are less likely to suffer from heart disease. Any deviations from these
6 norms indicate location and culture-specific factors. This can be
7 illustrated by reference to sex ratios at different ages for Libya, a
8 relatively rich country with an economy based on the export of
9 petroleum. At every age there is a masculine sex ratio. Poor
40 maternity care is revealed in higher death rates for women in the
1 early and late years of childbearing when risk to the mother is
43111 greatest. This contributes to an unusual pattern of an increase in the
26 • The sex ratio

proportion of men in the population with age. This increase is also

explained by under-reporting of the female population and by the
repatriation of Libyan males.

The sex ratio in South Asia

In South Asia, masculine sex ratios have become more extreme

over time, with the ratio for India increasing in masculinity from
97 females per 100 males in 1901 to 94 in 2001. Spatial contrasts
are very marked and have remained stable for a long period. With
the exception of the small populations of the hill states, the sex
ratio is most masculine in the north and the west of the region,
while the south and east have more balanced or feminine ratios.
Urban sex ratios are more unequal than rural, with an urban rate
of 88 females per 100 males and a rural rate of 96 females per 100
males in 1995 (United Nations 1995b). The tendency for there to
be fewer girls born in urban areas is related to the availability of
methods of detecting the sex of the foetus and aborting those that
are female. Such use of technology is now illegal in India but the
relatively wealthier urban population is still able to access these
methods. Masculine sex ratios are also associated with high
mortality rates for young girls and for women during the
childbearing years. It has been calculated that if the African sex
ratio existed in India there would have been nearly 30 million
more women in India than actually live today. This situation in
South Asia has been linked to the general economic
undervaluation and low social status of women in the region.
Globally, the lowest proportions of women to men are in the rich
oil-producing Muslim states of the United Arab Emirates (52),
Qatar (56), Kuwait (72) and Bahrain (74), where immigrant
workers are mostly male and women have low status
(Figure 2.1).
In patrilineal systems, where mothers lack decision-making power,
infant mortality may be high (Box 2.1). Highly stratified gender
systems, where daughters are devalued, as in northern India, Korea
and China, may result in high levels of mortality among girls under
the age of five years. Croll (2000) indicates that son preference is
both economically and culturally based in ideas of gender identity
and that daughter discrimination has increased under the pressure to
have smaller families. She also found that there are no clear
 The sex ratio • 27

1111 correlations with parental characteristics and that, although college-

2 educated mothers tend to have more daughters, more important were
3 birth order and the gender composition of surviving children (ibid.:
41 26). Prenatal foeticide of female foetuses and postnatal infanticide
5 and neglect of young girls may reduce the pressure to practise birth
6 limitation. In India prenatal sex-determination tests were banned in
7 1994 but now methods to aid sex selection before conception are
8 being advertised, which, while technically legal, are almost always
91 aimed at avoiding the birth of a girl (Dugger 2001). Such failure to
10 enforce laws protecting women is found in many countries as Huda
1 (1994, 1997, 1998) has shown for divorce, child marriage, custody
2 and inheritance laws in Bangladesh. The Indian Supreme Court in
31 2001 ordered the government to enforce laws against sex-
4 determination tests and sex-selective abortions more aggressively.
5 This decision was taken in light of the results of the 2001 Census of
6 India, which showed that the ratio of girls to boys in the richest
7111 states of north-western India had fallen sharply over the previous
8111 decade due to the rising use of ultrasound tests to determine the sex
9 of the foetus, resulting in sex-specific abortion. In the Punjab, for
20 example, the ratio of girls to boys, six years old and under, has
1 declined to 793 girls per 1,000 boys in 2001 from 875 in 1991, while
2 in Kerala the sex ratio is in balance. The detailed regional patterns
3 can be seen in the Atlas of Women and Men in India, based on 1991
4 census data (Raju et al. 1999). This situation is already having social
5 consequences, with young men unable to find wives. In Haryana, a
6 fairly wealthy state in north-western India, desperate fathers of sons
7 are no longer demanding dowries from the families of eligible girls
8 and may even offer a bride price (Lancaster 2002). At the same time
9 the families of girls are becoming more choosy and allowing their
30 daughters some say in the selection of husbands.
1
If they fall ill men are more likely than women to receive medical
2
assistance. Illness in young girls and women is often fatalistically
3
accepted by family members. Female infanticide has long been a
4
tradition in many states in northern India. Indeed it has been
51
suggested that, in some poor families, mothers feel that their
6
daughters are better off dying as children than growing up to
7
suffer as they themselves have. Overworked, undernourished and
8
anaemic women tend to produce smaller babies and to be more
9
vulnerable to the dangers of childbirth. Maternal death rates are
40
exacerbated by the dominance of traditional medicine in obstetrics
1
and gynaecology in many parts of the region.
43111
28 • The sex ratio

Box 2.1

Female infanticide in China

In the early 1990s I was in the mountains of northern Yunnan studying rural poverty
among ethnic minorities. I was a member of an international group of researchers visiting
several villages. In one village, on a chilly wet day, we walked through the muddy paths
and visited the school and several homes. Then most of the group, including all the men
and our official translators, decided to walk to the apple orchards planted on the edge of
the village. A few of us women outsiders plus one elite Yi minority woman who was at
that time studying for a Ph.D. at a United States university and so could translate for us,
decided to stay and talk to a village woman. For the first time we were without our
official ‘minders’. As we squatted around the three-stone fire in the centre of the mud-
floored hut, lit only by the flickering flames from the fire, with the woman and her two
young daughters we asked her about her family. She then told us that her husband
wanted a son so he paid to be allowed to have a third child. When the baby was due she
went to the clinic a few miles away. The baby was born safely and healthy but it was
another girl. As she walked home through the fields carrying her newborn daughter, she
demonstrated how she had gathered the folds of the long, thick, handwoven cotton skirt
she wore and stuffed it into the mouth of her baby, suffocating her. When she got home
she told her husband that the baby had been stillborn. She explained that if she had
returned home with a third daughter her husband would have divorced her, blaming the
sex of the baby on his wife. If that had happened, she pointed out, there would have been
no one to support her other daughters, so in order to protect her older daughters she
sacrificed the baby. What could we say! We held hands and mothers from three
continents wept together.
Source: fieldwork, Yunnan, China, 1991.

Economic status
Urban employment opportunities for women in industry, trade and
commerce are contracting and in rural areas technological change is
reducing their role in agriculture, especially in the processing of
crops. This decline in the economic role of women can be linked to
increased discrimination against them. However, the relationship
between women’s role in production and the sex ratio is neither
simple nor universal.
Another explanation of regional differences in the sex ratio of the
Indian population is based on north–south contrasts in the transfer
of property on marriage and at death. In the north, where the sex
ratio is most masculine, not only are women excluded from holding
 The sex ratio • 29

1111 property, but they also require dowries on marriage and so are costly
2 liabilities. Sons, on the other hand, contribute to agricultural
3 production, carry the family name and property, attract dowries into
41 the household and take care of parents in their old age.
5
In the south women may inherit property and their parents may
6
sometimes demand a brideprice from the husband’s family, although
7
dowries are becoming more common than in the past. Generally, in
8
southern India women play a greater economic role in the family, the
91
sex ratio is more balanced, fewer small girls die and female social
10
status is higher than in the north. The position of women is most
1
favourable in the south-western state of Kerala, where a traditional
2
matriarchal society allowed women greater autonomy in marriage,
31
and a long history of activity by Christian missionaries has helped to
4
ensure that women are less discriminated against in access to
5
education than elsewhere in India. The women of Kerala, with the
6
help of women doctors, took family planning into their own hands
7111
and very quickly reduced the birth rate without government
8111
interference.
9
20 Regional patterns of sex ratios in South Asia are highly complex and
1 vary with caste and culture. Most women have little autonomy or
2 access to power or authority. They are faced by discrimination and
3 exclusion and also by oppressive practices such as widow burning,
4 known as suttee, which appears to be on the increase. These social
5 constraints owe their origin to the need to protect the family lineage
6 through the male line by controlling the supply of women. Their
7 effect is most severe at those times in a woman’s life when she is
8 particularly physiologically vulnerable, that is below the age of five
9 and during the childbearing years.
30
1
2 Sri Lanka
3 However, it should be noted that in one country in South Asia
4 women do normally live four years longer than men. Sri Lanka’s
51 development process has included far-reaching social welfare
6 programmes, especially free education and health care, for the last
7 four decades and the benefits can clearly be seen in the improvement
8 in life expectancy (Table 2.1). By 1967 female life expectancy,
9 which had been two years less than that of men 20 years earlier, had
40 surpassed male life expectancy by two years. Twenty years on Sri
1 Lankans of both sexes have the highest life expectancy in South Asia
43111 and the additional years women may expect to live have in the last
30 • The sex ratio

Table 2.1 Sri Lanka: expectation of life at birth in years

1920–2 1946 1953 1963 1967 1981 1987 1999 2001

Male 33 44 59 62 65 69 68 71 70
Female 31 42 58 61 67 72 73 76 74

Source: Department of Census and Statistics, Sri Lanka, for the period 1920 to 1981; World Bank (1989) for 1987
data; World Bank (2001) for 1999 data; Population Reference Bureau (2002) for 2001 data.

two decades suddenly increased from two to five, although the most
recent figures suggest that life expectancy has fallen, reflecting high
mortality levels in the recent civil disturbances. Yet Sri Lanka still
has a masculine sex ratio, with only 49.2 per cent of the population
being female in 1999, despite the huge improvement in female life
expectancy. It is also one of the few countries where chronic
malnutrition is worse for girls under five years of age than for boys
(United Nations 1995b). Clearly patterns of sex ratios and life
expectancy are complex and unstable.

Migration

Sex-specific migration also affects sex ratios (Figure 2.4). In Libya,

during the 1970s and 1980s, a booming economy suffering from a
labour shortage attracted many foreign workers and by 1983 these
foreigners made up 48 per cent of the workforce. About three-
quarters of the foreign residents were male because the Libyan
Government perceived men as most suitable for the type of work
and the living conditions available. Thus the overall sex ratio of
Libya in 1985, even after declining fortunes in the oil industry
had led to the departure of many foreign workers, was 111.4 males
per 100 females, compared to a ratio of 104.2 per 100 for the
citizen population. In 2000 the gender ratio among foreign-born
residents in Libya was 227 men to 100 women, indicating a
continuing dominance of single male migrants (United Nations
2000).
Migration is a phenomenon associated with spatial differences in
employment opportunities. Migrant workers, worldwide, come
predominantly from countries which cannot find jobs for all their
workforce at home. Examples of such ‘labour reserves’ are Botswana
and Lesotho in southern Africa, and the West Indies. These areas
have feminine sex ratios, with 91 men per 100 women recorded for
 The sex ratio • 31

1111
2
3
41
5
6
7
8
91
10
1
2
31
4
5 Figure 2.4 Sex ratio of international migrants, 1990.
6 Source: United Nations (2000: 17–21)
7111
8111
9
20
Botswana, and 93 for Lesotho (see Box 2.2) and Montserrat, a
1
British colony in the Caribbean where men have migrated out for
2
decades. Among in-migrants the sex ratio is mostly masculine in
3
Yemen, Sierra Leone, Qatar, Bahrain and Lebanon, while countries
4
with more women in-migrants, including refugees, are Nepal, the
5
Czech Republic, Romania, Mozambique, Haiti, the Balkans and Italy
6
(Figure 2.4).
7
8 Many people left the tiny Caribbean island of Montserrat in the
9 1950s and 1960s to work in Britain. The 1960 census recorded only
30 78 men for every 100 women. For the age cohort over 70 years there
1 were fewer than 40 men per 100 women, although the sex ratio was
2 masculine for the under-15s. Thus Montserrat society became
3 predominantly one of grandmothers and children, with very few men
4 of working age left behind on the island. After 1962 migration
51 became more difficult because of legal barriers introduced by the
6 governments of the main receiving countries. Gradually Montserrat’s
7 prosperity improved as foreign residents and businesses were
8 attracted by the stability offered by the island’s colonial status. Many
9 former migrants, having either reached retirement age or lost jobs
40 because of recession overseas, decided to return to the land of their
1 birth, and the island’s population began to increase after a long
43111 period of decline.
32 • The sex ratio

Age Age
Groups 1970 Groups 1980

65+ 65+
60–64 60–64
55–59 Male Female 55–59 Male Female
50–54 50–54
45–49 45–49
40–44 40–44
35–39 35–39
30–34 30–34
25–29 25–29
20–24 20–24
15–19 15–19
10–14 10–14
5–9 5–9
0–4 0–4

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Per cent Per cent

Figure 2.5 Montserrat, West Indies: age and sex structure, 1970 and 1980.

Figure 2.5 shows the narrow-waisted population pyramid produced

by these fluctuations in migration patterns. Birth rates were affected
by the absence of people of reproductive age and fell from 29.5 per
1,000 people in 1960 to a low of 17.7 in 1976 and then recovered to
22.3 in 1982. Mortality rates in the first year of life fell from 114.2
per 1,000 live births in 1960 to only 7.7 in 1982. The island still had
a high proportion of elderly females, now added to by return
migrants, often as pensioners, and foreign retirees. Severe hurricanes
in the late 1980s discouraged further return migration and caused
considerable damage but the eruption of the Soufriere Hills volcano
in 1995, after almost four centuries of dormancy, was the final blow.
Many islanders fled as refugees to neighbouring islands and to
Britain. The foreign second-home owners left, never to return. By
late 2002, as signs of a new eruption became more persistent, the
population of the island had fallen from 11,000 to 4,000.
Montserrat had a sex ratio of 94.9 men per 100 women in 1988, the
most masculine ratio recorded in any census since 1871, when it was
84.4, falling as low as 72.5 in 1921. The long history of female
numerical dominance on this island has contributed to women’s
economic importance and independence. In 1972 women operated
44 per cent of small farms on Montserrat, but this had fallen to
only 23 per cent in 1983, as male return migrants replaced female
farmers and women took advantage of better-paid employment
elsewhere in the economy. At the same time, women managed to
retain their dominance of the prestigious jobs in the civil service
 The sex ratio • 33

1111 and local financial sector into which they had moved during the
2 period of mainly male out-migration. Montserratian men explain this
3 by relying on the now fallacious argument that there are more
41 women than men of working age on the island. Women were also
5 able to continue to take advantage of the universal, free childcare
6 which the government had been forced to introduce when there were
7 few men available for the workforce.
8
Both men and women migrate but the reasons for the migration, the
91
type of destination and the length of time spent at the destination are
10
often gender specific. In so far as any general patterns can be
1
identified, men are more likely than women to migrate in order to
2
gain educational qualifications, while women are more likely to
31
migrate to marry or to rejoin a migrant spouse, but autonomous
4
female migration is increasing in importance, especially among
5
younger women (see Box 2.2). Migrant women may also be flouting
6
traditional patriarchal restrictions and norms. They may be avoiding
7111
arranged marriages, leaving a marriage that is unhappy or has not
8111
produced children, or escaping from low economic and social status.
9
In the transition countries, international migration has only become
20
legally possible since 1989 and much of the current movement
1
involves trafficking in women for sexual purposes from the poorest
2
parts of the region, such as the Ukraine, to Western Europe.
3
4 Migration for both men and women may be short-term or circular
5 rather than permanent and this temporal pattern will affect both the
6 source region as well as the adaptation of the migrant to the
7 receiving area. Remittances to family left behind are most consistent
8 from transnational migrants intending to return, and regular visits by
9 migrants bring new ideas into traditional rural areas. Teenage Indian
30 women from the highlands of Peru are often sent to the cities to
1 work as servants but are expected to return to their villages to marry.
2 In Indonesia both men and women move between rural and urban
3 areas in a circular manner, responding to gender-specific labour
4 demands in the countryside during the agricultural year.
51
Rural-to-urban migration involves the largest number of people but
6
movement may also be from rural to rural areas or across
7
international boundaries (see Plates 2.1 and 2.2). Three factors affect
8
female rural to urban mobility: female participation in agriculture,
9
availability of economic opportunities for women in the cities and
40
socio-cultural restrictions on the independent mobility of women.
1
Internal migration from rural to urban areas is dominated by women
43111
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 Il y a bien de l’apparence que le Feu agit toujours sur les corps dans une raison
composée de ces deux raisons, sçavoir, la densité de ses parties, & la force qu’elles
acquerent dans leur approximation.
La premiere de ces raisons, c’est-à-dire, la quantité des parties du Feu, tombe
presque sous nos sens, au lieu qu’il a fallu d’aussi grandes différences que celles des
effets des verres brûlans, pour nous faire appercevoir que quelqu’autre cause que la
quantité des rayons qu’ils rassemblent contribuoit à les produire.
Les effervescences nous démontrent que la plûpart des particules de la matiere,
sont l’une pour l’autre comme de petits Aimans, & qu’elles ont un côté attirant & un
côté repoussant. La tendance que les particules des corps ont à rester ensemble par
leur cohésion, & l’effort que le Feu retenu dans leurs pores, fait sans cesse pour les
séparer, sont sans doute la cause de ces Phénomenes, & c’est le combat de ces deux
pouvoirs antagonistes qui cause les effervescences, & peut-être la plûpart des
miracles de la Chimie.
Les fermentations qui se font dans l’air, & qui causent les Tonnerres, les Vents, &c.
nous prouvent encore que les corps se repoussent & s’attirent, & que ce combat
augmente dans l’approchement.
Cette nouvelle force que les particules de Feu acquerent dans l’approchement, ne
peut être qu’une augmentation de mouvement, & c’est par ce mouvement augmenté,
qu’ils détruisent avec tant de facilité les corps les plus solides dans le foyer du Miroir
ardent.
Je ne veux point dissimuler les Phénomenes qui paroissent Objections
contraires à l’opinion que je propose: les difficultés affermissent la contre cette
verité, ce sont autant de fanaux mis sur la route, pour nous opinion, &
empêcher de nous égarer. réponses.

Je vais examiner quelques-unes de celles que j’imagine qu’on peut faire contre
cette proprieté des rayons.
1o. Toute action est d’autant plus forte, qu’elle est plus perpendiculaire; & cette
action mutuelle des rayons l’un sur l’autre, ne pourroit être que latérale.
Il me semble que cette objection, qui paroît d’abord spécieuse, est aisée à détruire;
car, quel est l’effet du Feu sur les corps, au foyer du verre ardent? n’est-ce pas de les
fondre, de les vitrifier, de les dissiper, de les séparer enfin jusques dans leurs parties
élémentaires? Or une force qui n’agiroit que dans une seule direction, ne pourroit
jamais produire ces effets; il faut donc que le Feu agisse sur les particules de ces
corps, selon toutes sortes de directions, pour les séparer à ce point: Donc cette
action latérale, loin de diminuer la force des rayons, est précisément ce en quoi elle
consiste.
 2o. Les rayons de la Lune, quoique très-rapprochés dans le foyer d’un verre ardent,
ne paroissent point augmenter leur force, car ils ne font aucun effet sur les corps
qu’on leur expose: Donc, peut-on objecter, les rayons n’ont pas cette force que vous
leur supposez dans leur approchement, puisque des rayons très-rapprochés en sont
privés.
Mais si on concluoit de ce raisonnement que les rayons n’acquerent pas dans leur
approchement la force que je leur suppose, il faudrait en conclure aussi qu’ils n’ont
pas la vertu de brûler, parce que les rayons de la Lune sont privés de cette proprieté.
3o. On peut dire encore que deux mêches dilatent moins une lamine de métal dans
le Pyrometre, font moins d’effet sur elle qu’une mêche, trois en font moins que deux,
& ainsi de suite; or cependant les rayons sont plus rapprochés quand il y a deux
mêches, que quand il n’y en a qu’une; l’effet du Feu devroit donc être plus grand
alors, mais il est plus petit: Donc cette expérience que j’ai citée ci-dessus pour
prouver mon opinion, lui paroîtroit contraire. Je répons à cette objection.
Premierement, que cette force que les rayons acquerent dans l’approchement, n’est
pas assez augmentée dans l’expérience dont il s’agit; ainsi dans ce cas l’effet n’est
pas proportionné seulement à l’approximation des parties du Feu, mais il dépend de
cette approximation, & de la résistance qu’on lui oppose.
Secondement, lorsque ces deux mêches sont éloignées, la dilatation est moindre
que lorsqu’elles sont rapprochées. Ainsi la force que le Feu acquert par
l’approximation de ses parties, se manifeste même alors dans un effet
presqu’insensible.

Conjecture sur Cette augmentation de la force du Feu, par l’approximation de ses

l’action du Feu parties est peut-être une des voyes dont le Créateur s’est servi pour
dans Saturne & suppléer à l’éloignement où Saturne & les Cometes sont du Soleil.
dans les Peut-être les rayons agissent-ils dans ces Globes, en raison du cube
Cometes.
des approchemens, & alors une très-petite quantité de rayons peut
suffire pour les échauffer & pour les éclairer.
 XII.
Du Refroidissement des corps.

Les corps les 1o. Plus un corps reçoit difficilement le Feu dans ses pores, & plus
plus solides sont il l’y conserve long-tems, car ce corps résiste par sa masse & par la
ceux qui se cohérence de ses parties, à l’effort que fait le Feu pour
refroidissent le l’abandonner; ainsi plus un corps est solide, plus il se refroidit
plus lentement.
lentement.
2o. Les corps légers au contraire cédant aisément à l’action du Feu, s’échauffent
plus promptement, & se refroidissent de même; ainsi le Feu échauffe davantage les
plus grands, & plus long-tems les plus massifs, car il se distribuë selon les espaces &
non selon les masses.
3o. Deux globes de Fer également échauffés, conservent leur chaleur en raison
directe de leur diametre; car plus leur diametre est grand, moins ils ont de surface
par rapport à leur masse, & moins le Feu trouve d’issuë pour s’échapper de leurs
pores; & de plus, l’air extérieur qui les environne les touchant en moins de points,
prend moins de leur chaleur.
Par la même raison, la figure sphérique est la plus propre à Conjecture sur la
conserver long-tems la chaleur, car c’est de toutes les figures celle forme du Soleil.
qui a le moins de surface, par rapport à sa masse, & le Feu ne
trouve dans un globe aucun endroit qu’il puisse abandonner plus aisément qu’un
autre, car ils lui opposent tous une résistance égale.
Cette raison pourroit faire croire que le Soleil & les Etoiles fixes, sont des corps
parfaitement sphériques (en faisant abstraction de l’effet de leur force centrifuge.)
4o. Les corps qui prennent le plus de la chaleur des autres corps, sont réputés les
plus froids; c’est pourquoi le Marbre nous paroît plus froid que la Soye, car les corps
les plus denses, sont ceux qui prennent le plus de notre chaleur, parce qu’ils nous
touchent en plus de points, & le Marbre étant spécifiquement plus dense que la Soye,
doit nous paroître plus froid.

En quelle raison 5o. Un cube de Fer chaud étant mis entre deux cubes froids, l’un
les corps de Marbre, & l’autre de Bois, ce Fer se refroidira plus par le contact
communiquent du Marbre, mais il échauffera davantage le Bois dans un même
leur chaleur. tems, car le Marbre s’échauffe plus difficilement que le Bois, à peu
près en raison de la pésanteur spécifique de ces deux corps.
Mais si on laisse ces trois cubes assez long-tems dans un même lieu, la chaleur du
cube de fer se distribuera aux deux autres, & à l’air qui les entoure; de façon qu’au
bout de quelque tems, ils seront tous trois de la même température que l’air dans
lequel ils sont.
6o. Les différentes liqueurs se refroidissent dans un tems Du
proportionnel à peu près, à leur masse, & à la glutinité de leurs refroidissement
parties. des fluides.

7o. La chaleur des corps qui se refroidissent, est plus forte au centre, car le Feu
abandonne toujours la superficie la premiere.
8o. L’eau qui éteint le Feu, conserve le Phosphore d’urine, car ce Phosphore, tant
qu’il ne brûle pas, est comme un Feu éteint, ainsi l’eau l’éteint en un sens en le
conservant; c’est une espece de créature qu’on lui confie, & qu’elle rend dès qu’on la
lui redemande.
Toutes ces regles, selon lesquelles le Feu abandonne les corps, sont sujettes à des
exceptions, de même que celles selon lesquelles il les pénetre, mais le détail en seroit
infini.
Le Pyrometre qui nous a appris la marche de la dilatation des corps, nous marque
aussi celle de leur contraction: en général, les corps se contractent d’autant plus
lentement qu’ils se sont moins dilatés par un même Feu, & vice versâ, le Feu
abandonne les corps plus lentement qu’il ne les pénetre, &c. Mais les bornes que je
me suis prescrites, ne me permettent pas d’entrer dans le détail de ces expériences.
 XIII.
Des causes de la Congélation de l’Eau.

Il y a trois sortes de froids.

Le premier est celui qui dépend de la disposition de nos organes, car nos sens nous
font souvent juger qu’un corps est plus froid qu’un autre, quoiqu’ils soient tous deux
de la même température; c’est par cette illusion que le Marbre nous paroît plus froid
que la Laine, que le Peuple croit les Caves plus chaudes en Hiver qu’en Eté, &c.
Le second est celui des corps qui se refroidissent réellement, & que le Feu
abandonne; cette sorte de froid n’est autre chose que la diminution du Feu, & c’est
d’elle dont j’ai parlé dans l’article précedent. C’est ainsi que toute la Nature se
refroidit & se contracte l’Hiver, par l’absence du Soleil, & par l’obliquité de ses rayons.
Le troisiéme est la congélation.
Il semble par toutes les circonstances qui accompagnent cette L’absence du
troisiéme espece de froid, qu’il ne peut être attribué à la seule Feu n’est pas la
absence du Feu; & qu’il faut en chercher une autre cause dans la seule cause de la
Nature. congélation.

1o. Le Feu raréfie tous les corps qu’il pénetre, & augmente par Preuves.
conséquent leur volume: Donc si la glace n’étoit causée que par
l’absence du Feu, elle seroit de l’eau contractée, & elle devroit être spécifiquement
plus pésante que l’eau; mais il arrive tout le contraire, l’eau augmente son volume par
la congélation, environ dans la proportion de 8 à 9, & elle l’augmente d’autant plus
que le froid est plus grand, & qu’elle devroit être plus contractée: Donc la glace n’est
pas causée par l’absence du Feu seulement.
2o. Cette augmentation de volume de l’eau glacée, ne peut être attribuée aux
bulles que l’air qui s’échappe de ses pores, éleve dans sa substance; car de l’eau
purgée d’air, avec tout le soin possible, se gele sans faire paroître aucune de ces
bulles, & cependant son volume augmente.
3o. Le Feu étant le principe du mouvement interne des corps, moins un corps
contient de Feu, plus ses parties doivent être en repos; ainsi si la glace n’étoit causée
que par l’absence du Feu, elle devroit être privée de tout mouvement sensible, mais
cependant il se fait une fermentation très-violente dans sa substance, cette
fermentation va même jusqu’à lui faire rompre les vases qui la contiennent, quelque
solides qu’ils soient; on sçait qu’elle fit peter un canon de Fusil que M. Huguens
exposa sur sa fenêtre pendant l’Hiver, après l’avoir rempli d’eau: Donc l’absence du
Feu n’est pas la seule cause de la congélation.
 4o. Ce mouvement dans lequel les parties de la glace se trouvent continuellement,
se prouve encore par les exhalaisons qu’elle rend, elles sont si considérables, que son
poids en diminuë sensiblement. M. Hals a observé que si une surface d’eau s’évapore
de 1/21e. de pouce en 9 heures, à l’ombre, pendant l’Hiver, la même surface de
glace, mise dans le même endroit, s’évapore pendant le même tems, de 1/31e; c’est
cette transpiration qui fait que la neige qui est sur la terre, diminuë, même par le plus
grand froid.
Enfin, dans les Etangs pendant la gelée on entend le bruit causé par cette
effervescence, ainsi la cessation du mouvement n’est pas plus la cause de la
congélation, que le mouvement n’est la cause du Feu.
5o. Si la glace n’étoit que la privation du Feu, il devroit toujours dégeler dès que le
Thermometre monte à 33 degrés au-dessus de la congélation; mais le Thermometre
monte souvent jusqu’à 36 & même jusqu’à 41, sans qu’il dégele; & au contraire, il
dégele quelquefois lorsque le Thermometre est au-dessous de 32 degrés: Donc
l’absence du Feu n’est pas la seule cause de la congélation.
6o. Si le Feu en se retirant des pores de l’eau, étoit la seule cause de la
congélation, on ne pourroit attribuer cet effet qu’à l’absence du Soleil, qui fait seul la
différence du plus ou du moins de Feu répandu dans l’Atmosphere, pendant l’Hiver &
l’Eté.
Or M. Amontons, qui nous a si fort éclairés sur toutes ces matieres, a trouvé par
ses observations sur le Thermometre, que le froid de l’Hiver ne différe du chaud de
l’Eté, que comme 7 differe de 8: or comment une si petite différence dans la chaleur
pourroit-elle suffire pour changer les fluides en solides, & pour faire périr quelquefois
une partie des germes de la Nature?
Si la congélation ne peut être attribuée à la seule absence du Feu, il faut donc en
chercher quelque autre cause dans la Nature; les circonstances qui l’accompagnent,
sont ce qui peut nous servir le plus à découvrir cette cause, ainsi il faut les examiner
avec soin.

Il se mêle des Nous voyons que les parties de la glace sont dans un grand
parties mouvement, il faut donc qu’il se mêle à l’eau, lorsqu’elle se gele, des
hétérogenes à parties hétérogênes, qui soient cause de cette effervescence
l’eau, lesquelles continuelle; car aucun fluide ne fait effervescence, s’il ne se joint à
sont la cause de
sa congélation.
lui quelque corps hétérogêne avec lequel il fermente.
L’existence de ces parties qui se mêlent à l’eau, & qui produisent
sa congélation, paroît prouvée par une foule d’expériences.
1o. L’eau de la glace fonduë s’échauffe bien plus difficilement que l’autre; elle n’est
plus propre à faire ni Caffé ni Thé, & ceux qui ont le palais délicat, la distinguent
facilement au goût: il faut donc qu’il se soit mêlé des parties hétérogênes à cette eau,
puisque sa saveur & sa qualité sont changées. Ces parties hétérogênes donnent des
goitres & des maux de gorge continuels aux habitans des Alpes qui boivent de l’eau
de neige.
2o. L’eau exposée à l’air se gele beaucoup plus vîte que l’eau enfermée
hermétiquement dans une bouteille de verre, & cependant ces deux eaux contiennent
également de particules de Feu; & les particules de Feu passent à travers le verre
avec facilité: Donc si l’absence du Feu faisoit la congélation, il ne devroit pas y avoir
une si grande différence dans la vîtesse de la congélation de ces deux eaux: Donc
puisqu’elle s’opere si inégalement, c’est une marque certaine que des particules
hétérogênes se mêlent à l’eau dans le tems de la congélation, & que ces particules
passent plus facilement dans cette eau, lorsqu’elle est en plein air, que lorsqu’elle est
enfermée dans une bouteille.
3o. L’épaisseur de la glace n’augmente pas à proportion du froid qu’il fait, plus la
glace est épaisse le premier jour de la gelée, moins son épaisseur augmente le
second, & ainsi de suite; marque certaine qu’il s’est introduit dans sa substance, des
particules hétérogênes qui ont bouché ses pores & ses interstices, & en ont rendu
par-là, l’accès plus difficile à celles qui veulent y pénétrer; mais les particules de Feu
qui pénétrent les pores d’un Diamant, devroient sortir de cette eau glacée avec la
même facilité, quelle que soit son épaisseur: il faut donc qu’il se fiche dans les
particules de l’eau qui se gele, des particules roides qui remplissent ses pores, & qui
sont cause de sa congélation.

Expérience 4o. Il est rapporté dans les expériences de l’Académie de Florence,

singuliere faite que 500 livres de glace ayant été exposées à un Miroir concave, les
par l’Académie de parties frigérifiques firent baisser sensiblement un Thermometre
Florence, qui qu’on avoit placé à son foyer, les Philosophes qui firent cette
prouve cette
opinion.
expérience craignant que ce ne fût l’effet direct de cette masse de
glace sur le Thermometre, qui l’eût fait baisser, couvrirent le Miroir, &
alors le Thermometre haussa, quoique les 500 livres de glace n’eussent pas changé
de place: Donc ce Miroir réfléchissoit réellement des rayons glacés: Donc il falloit qu’il
y eût dans cette glace des particules frigérifiques; car si la seule privation du Feu
faisoit la congélation, le Miroir n’auroit pû rassembler, réfléchir le froid; une privation
ne pouvant être ni réfléchie, ni rapprochée.
Mais quelles sont ces particules frigérifiques? c’est ce qui nous reste à examiner.
Les Hommes ont inventé un art qui peut servir également à leur Les eaux glacées
instruction & à leurs plaisirs; la façon dont on fait ce qu’on appelle que nous faisons,
des eaux glacées, peut nous servir d’indice pour découvrir la nous font
maniere dont les congélations naturelles s’operent. connoître quelles
sont les parties
Tout le monde sçait que de l’eau contenuë dans un vase que l’on frigérifiques qui
causent la glace.
entoure de sel & de neige, se glace, quelque chaud que soit
l’Atmosphere, dès que le Sel commence à fondre la neige; mais si au lieu de sel on
met de l’Esprit de Nitre avec la Neige, le froid qui se produit alors, fait baisser le
Thermometre à 72 degrés au-dessous de la congélation: c’est Faheinrheit qui fit le
premier cette expérience, & elle nous prouve invinciblement qu’il y a encore
beaucoup de Feu dans la glace naturelle, puisqu’on peut produire une sorte de froid,
qui surpasse de 72 degrés celui qui fait geler l’eau sur la terre. Et qui osera mettre
des bornes à cette puissance d’exciter le froid! Ainsi cette expérience nous fait voir
que nous ne connoissons pas plus les bornes de la congélation, que celles de la
chaleur.

Ces particules Il y a grande apparence que les congélations naturelles s’operent

de la même maniere que nos congélations artificielles, & que les
sont les Sels & les
Nitres dont l’air particules de Sel & de Nitre, que le Soleil éleve dans l’air, & qui
est chargé. retombent ensuite sur la terre, s’insinuent dans l’eau, bouchent ses
pores, & se fichant comme autant de cloux entre ses interstices, en
chassent les particules de Feu, & font enfin que cette eau passe de l’état de fluide, à
celui de solide: ainsi l’absence du Feu est une des causes de la congélation, mais elle
n’en est pas la seule cause, car quoiqu’il soit vrai que dans toute congélation les
particules de Feu s’envolent d’entre les pores de l’eau, cependant sans les particules
roides qui s’y insinuent, l’absence seule du Feu ne suffiroit pas pour la réduire en
glace: c’est ce qui paroît encore dans les liqueurs spiritueuses, comme l’Eau forte,
l’Esprit de Vin, &c. qui ne gelent point, quoique, dans le froid, il se retire beaucoup de
particules de Feu de leur pores.
Ces liqueurs qui ne gelent jamais dans nos climats reçoivent à la Pourquoi l’Esprit
verité des parties frigérifiques comme celles qui se gelent, mais de vin & d’autres
vraisemblablement ces particules frigérifiques ne fermentent point liqueurs ne gelent
avec ces liqueurs comme elles font avec l’eau; ce qui fait qu’elles ne point.
se gelent point, & que l’eau gele.
Plus on examine les congélations, plus on se persuade que les particules de Sel &
de Nitre qui s’introduisent dans l’eau, en sont la cause.
1o. Les lieux qui abondent en glace & en neige, sont tous remplis de Sel & de Nitre;
ainsi il y a des pays où il gele la nuit du jour le plus chaud: telle est la partie
septentrionale de la Perse & de l’Armenie. M. de Tournefort, que l’amour des Sciences
entraîna jusques dans ces pays, a remarqué qu’ils abondent en Nitre & en Sel; le
Soleil qui y est très-chaud, éleve le jour, par sa chaleur, ces particules nitreuses, &
elles retombent la nuit sur la terre où elles s’insinuent dans l’eau, & la gelent malgré
les particules de Feu qui ont pénétré dans cette eau pendant le jour, par la présence
du Soleil.
2o. Lorsqu’un pays abonde en ces sortes de particules nitreuses & salines, la
chaleur du Soleil doit les élever de la terre pendant l’Eté, plus que pendant l’Hiver, car
elle est beaucoup plus forte; ainsi il doit geler l’Eté dans ces pays, & c’est ce qui
arrive en plusieurs endroits de l’Italie, de la Suisse & de l’Allemagne où il y a des
Lacs, & même un Fleuve dans l’Evêché de Bâle, qui, au rapport de Scheuchserus, ne
gele que dans l’Eté.
 On connoît la sçavante Description que M. de Boze a faite des Grottes de
Besançon, & l’on sçait que ces Grottes dans le plus fort de l’Eté, sont pleines de
glace, & que plus il fait chaud, plus cette glace est épaisse; il sort de ces Grottes
pendant l’Hiver, une espece de fumée, laquelle annonce la liquéfaction de cette glace,
& un ruisseau qui est dans le milieu de la Grotte, gele l’Eté, & coule l’Hiver. M. de
Billerez a examiné la terre qui couvre & entoure ces Grottes, & il l’a trouvée pleine de
Nitre, & de Sel ammoniac; le Soleil fond ces Sels bien plus facilement l’Eté que l’Hiver,
ces Sels coulent dans ces Grottes par des fentes, & l’eau qu’elles contiennent, se
glace d’autant plus, que l’Eté étant plus chaud, le Soleil fait fondre une plus grande
quantité de ces Sels: or que la glace de ces Grottes en contienne beaucoup, cela est
certain, car lorsqu’on la fait fondre & évaporer, il reste dans le fond, une terre qui a le
même goût à peu-près que les Yeux d’Ecrevisses.
3o. Si l’on met de la Neige & du Sel autour d’un vase plein d’eau, Pourquoi de
& que l’on mette le tout sur le Feu, l’eau qui est dans le vase se l’eau entourée de
gelera d’autant plus vîte que le Feu sera plus grand, & que la Neige glace & de Sel,
sera plutôt fonduë, ce qui ne peut venir que de ce que le Feu chasse gele sur le Feu.
d’entre les pores de la Neige, les parties roides qu’elle contenoit, &
que ces particules s’insinuent dans l’eau & la gelent; car on ne dira pas, je crois, que
le Feu prive l’eau du vase, des particules de Feu qu’elle contenoit, ni qu’il diminuë
leur mouvement; c’est de la même maniere que la Neige & le Sel font geler l’eau sans
être dessus le Feu, car le Feu ne fait qu’accélérer sa congélation.
Il n’y a point de pays dont la terre ne contienne de ces particules salines &
nitreuses, que j’appelle parties frigérifiques, mais les régions qui en contiennent le
moins, sont, toutes choses d’ailleurs égales, beaucoup moins froides que les autres.
Je dis, toutes choses d’ailleurs égales, car il y a des vents qui apportent ces sortes
de particules avec eux, c’est ce dont on ne peut douter, si on fait attention aux effets
qu’ils produisent.

De certains 1o. Au mois de Juin, dans le milieu de l’Eté, & par un tems très-
vents apportent serein, l’irruption inopinée d’un vent d’Est vient geler la pointe des
avec eux le Sel & herbes, les vignes, les fosses qui contiennent une eau dormante, &
le Nitre, qui changer entierement la température de l’air: or si ce vent n’apportoit
causent la glace.
avec lui ces particules nitreuses qui font la congélation, il ne pourroit
réfroidir à ce point les herbes & l’eau échauffées depuis long-tems par le Soleil.
Or pourquoi le vent d’Est, qui vient d’un pays très-chaud, fait-il plutôt cet effet que
le vent du Nord, qui vient du Pole, si ce n’est parce qu’il apporte avec lui ces
particules de Sel & de Nitre, dont le Soleil éleve une plus grande quantité dans ces
contrées chaudes, que sous le Pole? Donc ce n’est pas seulement parce que le vent
s’applique successivement aux corps qu’il les réfroidit.
2o. Il gele quelquefois aux deux côtés, & non au milieu, dans un endroit, & non
dans un autre qui lui est contigu; ces effets ne peuvent être assurément attribués à
l’absence du Feu, car ces deux endroits en contiennent également; mais on voit avec
évidence qu’un vent d’Est qui souffle dans un endroit, & non pas dans un autre dont
quelque Montagne lui défend l’entrée, doit répandre dans cet endroit ou il souffle, les
particules nitreuses dont il est chargé, ce qui cause la congélation.
3o. Une preuve que le vent par lui-même ne réfroidit point l’air, & qu’il faut que
ceux qui causent le froid, apportent avec eux des particules frigérifiques ou de la
glace, c’est qu’en soufflant avec un soufflet sur un Thermometre, on ne le fait jamais
baisser.
4o. Il gele rarement l’Eté, dans les climats qui n’abondent pas Pourquoi il gele
dans ces parties frigérifiques, parce que les particules de Sel & de rarement l’Eté
Nitre étant plus divisées, plus petites, par l’agitation que la chaleur dans nos climats.
du Soleil cause dans toute la Nature, elles se soutiennent dans
l’Atmosphere lorsque le Soleil les éleve de la terre, & ne retombent point sur la terre
comme en Hiver; & de plus, les parties de l’eau étant dans un grand mouvement, le
peu qui retombe de ces particules sur la terre, ne peut suffire pour la geler.
L’air ne gele point, apparemment à cause de la rareté de ses parties, & de leur
prodigieux ressort. Il me semble qu’on peut considérer l’air extrêmement comprimé,
comme une espece d’air gelé, & apparemment qu’il n’est pas susceptible par sa
nature, d’une autre sorte de congélation.
Ces particules salines & nitreuses, qui s’introduisent dans l’eau, & qui devroient la
rendre plus pésante lorsqu’elle est gelée, n’empêche pas cependant que sa pésanteur
spécifique ne diminüe, l’augmentation de son volume & les exhalaisons qui en
sortent, empêchant qu’on ne s’apperçoive du poids de ces corpuscules, qui sont
d’ailleurs très-déliés, & il se peut très-bien faire que leur poids soit insensible à la
grossiereté de nos balances, de même que celui des corpuscules du Musc, de
l’Ambre, & de toutes les odeurs.
Je ne crois pas, après toutes ces raisons, qu’on puisse s’empêcher de reconnoître
que ces particules (dont tous les Phénomenes de la Nature, & toutes nos opérations
sur la glace, nous démontrent l’existence) sont absolument nécessaires à la
congélation de l’eau, & que sans elles on n’en pouvoit assigner aucune cause.
 XIV.
De la Nature du Soleil.

On n’a communément qu’une idée vague de la nature du Soleil, on voit que ses
rayons nous échauffent, & qu’ils brillent; & on en conclut que le Soleil doit être un
globe de Feu immense, qui nous envoye sans cesse la matiere lumineuse dont il est
composé.
Mais qu’entend-on par un globe de Feu? Si l’on entend un globe Le Soleil ne peut
entier de particules ignées, de feu élémentaire, j’ose dire que cette être un globe de
idée est insoutenable. Feu.

En voici les raisons.

1o. Le Feu qui fond l’Or & les Pierres au foyer d’un Verre ardent, disparoît en un
instant, si on couvre ce Miroir d’un voile; & il ne reste aucun vestige de ce Feu, qui un
Il faut qu’il soit moment auparavant faisoit des effets si puissans: Donc si le Soleil
solide, puisqu’il étoit un globe de feu, s’il n’étoit pas un corps solide, un seul instant
ne se dissipe pas. d’émanation suffiroit pour le détruire, & il auroit été dissipé dès le
premier moment qu’il a commencé d’exister.
2o. La chaleur & la lumiere ne disparoissent ainsi au foyer du Verre ardent, que par
la proprieté que le Feu a de se répandre également de tous côtés, lorsqu’aucun
obstacle ne s’oppose à sa propagation quaquaversum. Donc si le Soleil étoit un globe
de feu, le Feu ne pourroit avoir cette tendance quaquaversum sans que le Soleil fût
détruit en un instant: Donc puisqu’il est certain par les expériences, que cette
proprieté est séparable du Feu, le Soleil ne peut être composé seulement de
particules ignées.
3o. On ne peut dire que le Soleil ne se dissipe pas par l’émanation, parce que
l’Atmosphere qui l’entoure, repousse sans cesse vers lui les particules lumineuses qui
émanent de sa substance; car si cet Atmosphere les repoussoit vers lui, elles ne
viendroient pas à nous: Donc en supposant l’émission de la lumiere cet Atmosphere
ne pourroit empêcher que le Soleil & les Etoiles fixes, ne le dissipassent par
l’émanation s’ils n’étoient des corps solides.
Quelques Philosophes pour trancher apparemment toutes ces difficultés, avoient
imaginé que les rayons que le Soleil nous envoye, retournoient ensuite à cet Astre.
5o. Le Soleil est au centre de notre systême planétaire, tous les Philosophes en
conviennent: cependant s’il est un globe de Feu, il paroît qu’il ne peut occuper cette
place; car, ou bien le Feu est pesant & déterminé vers un centre, ou bien il ne pese
pas, & ne tend vers aucun point, plûtôt que vers un autre: Or dans le premier cas,
tous les corpuscules de Feu qui composent le corps du Soleil, tendroient vers le
centre de cet Astre, & alors la propagation de la lumiere seroit impossible; car
comment le Soleil par sa rotation sur son axe, pourroit-il faire acquerir aux particules
de Feu qui le composent, une force centrifuge assez grande pour les Si le Soleil étoit
Si le Feu étoit obliger à fuir avec tant de force, le centre de un globe de Feu,
pesant, il ne gravité auquel elles tendent, & pour leur faire il ne pourroit être
pourroit émaner parcourir par cette seule force centrifuge, 33 au centre du
du Soleil. monde.
millions de lieuës en 7 ou 8 minutes?
Si au contraire, le Feu n’est pas pesant, s’il n’est déterminé vers aucun point, quel
pouvoir le retiendra au centre de l’Univers, & s’opposera à l’effort de la force
centrifuge que les particules de Feu qui le composent doivent acquerir par la rotation
du Soleil, qui l’empêchera enfin de se dissiper? Il faut donc que le Soleil soit un corps
solide, puisqu’il ne se dissipe pas, & qu’il est au centre de notre monde: & il faut que
le Feu ne soit pas pesant, puisqu’il émane du Soleil.
Qu’il me soit permis de supposer un moment, l’attraction Newtonienne; le Soleil
dans ce systême, est au centre de notre monde planétaire, & cette place lui est
assignée par les loix de la gravitation, parce qu’ayant plus de masse que les autres
globes, il les force à tourner autour de lui: or si le Feu ne pese point (comme je crois
l’avoir prouvé) comment le Soleil peut-il être un corps de Feu, c’est-à-dire, un corps
non pesant, & attirer cependant tous les corps célestes vers lui, en Il faut
raison de sa plus grande masse? Il est donc nécessaire dans le absolument que
systême de l’attraction, ou que le Soleil soit un corps solide; ou que le Soleil soit un
le Feu pese, & qu’il tende vers un centre; mais si le Feu du Soleil corps solide dans
le systême de M.
tend vers son centre, par quelle puissance s’éloignera-t-il toujours de Newton.
ce centre. Aussi M. Newton croyoit-il le Soleil un corps solide.
Il paroît presque démontré par toutes ces raisons, que le Soleil n’est pas un globe
de Feu, & qu’il est un corps solide, mais de quoi ce corps est-il composé? D’où lui
vient cette quantité presque infinie de particules ignées qu’il paroît projetter à tout
moment, sans s’épuiser?
Ceux qui soutiennent l’émanation de la lumiere pourroient répondre à ces
difficultés, qu’il est très-possible que le Soleil soit un corps extrêmement solide, que
ce corps solide contienne dans sa substance le Feu qu’il nous envoye sans cesse, &
que ce Feu en émane par de grands volcans; ce globe retiendra par sa solidité une
partie de ce Feu, & les particules ignées pourront en émaner sans cesse.
Mais cette émanation de la lumiere est sujette à de bien plus grandes difficultés, &
paroît impossible à admettre malgré les observations modernes qui semblent la
favoriser; des observations certaines suffisent pour détruire une superstition
lorsqu’elles lui paroissent contraires, mais elles ne suffisent pas pour l’établir, &
l’émanation de la lumiere a contr’elle des difficultés Physiques & Métaphysiques qui
paroissent si insurmontables, qu’il n’y a point d’observations qui puissent la faire
admettre jusqu’à ce qu’on les ait détruites; mais ce n’est pas ici le lieu de les discuter.
 La lumiere du Soleil paroît tirer sur le jaune. Ainsi il faut que le Soleil projecte par
sa nature plus de rayons jaunes que d’autres, car M. Newton a prouvé dans son
optique page 216, que la lumiere du Soleil abonde en cette sorte de rayons.
Il est très-possible que dans d’autres systêmes, il y ait des Soleils qui projectant
plus de rayons rouges, verds, &c. que les couleurs primitives des Soleils que nous ne
voyons point soient différentes des nôtres, & qu’il y ait enfin dans la Nature d’autres
couleurs que celles que nous connoissons dans notre monde.
 XV.
Du Feu Central.

Tout le Feu ne vient pas du Soleil, deux cailloux frappés l’un contre Tout le Feu ne
l’autre, suffisent pour nous convaincre de cette vérité; chaque corps vient pas du
& chaque point de l’espace a reçû du Créateur une portion de Feu Soleil.
en raison de son volume; ce Feu renfermé dans le sein de tous les Le Createur a
corps, les vivifie, les anime, les féconde, entretient le mouvement donné une
entre leurs parties, & les empêche de se condenser entierement. portion de Feu à
chaque partie de
Le Soleil paroît destiné à nous éclairer, & à mettre en action ce la matiere.
Feu interne que tous les corps contiennent, & c’est par-là & par le
Feu qu’il répand, qu’il est la cause de la végétation, & qu’il donne la vie à la Nature.
Mais son action ne pénétre pas beaucoup au de-là de la premiere La chaleur du
surface de la terre; on sçait que les Caves de l’Observatoire, qui Soleil ne pénetre
n’ont environ que 84 pieds de profondeur, sont d’une température pas fort avant
égale dans le plus grand froid & dans le plus grand chaud. Donc le dans la terre.
Soleil n’a aucune influence à cette profondeur.
Le Feu étant également répandu par-tout, & la chaleur du Soleil ne pénétrant point
à 84 pieds de profondeur, le froid devroit augmenter à mesure que la profondeur
augmente, puisque le Soleil échauffe continuellement la superficie, & n’envoye
aucune chaleur à 84 pieds.

La chaleur Mais le froid, loin d’augmenter avec la profondeur, diminuë au

augmente en contraire avec elle lorsqu’elle passe de certaines bornes; c’est ce que
approchant du M. Mariotte a éprouvé en mettant le même Thermometre
centre de la terre. consécutivement dans deux Caves, l’une de 30 pieds de profondeur,
& l’autre de 84; le Thermometre ne passa pas 51 degrés 1/2 dans la
premiere, mais il monta à 53 degrés 1/2 dans la seconde: Donc puisque la chaleur
étoit plus grande à 84 pieds qu’à 30, il faut qu’un Feu renfermé dans les entrailles de
la terre, soit la cause de cette chaleur, qui augmente lorsqu’elle devroit diminuer.
Les Volcans & les Sources d’eau chaude, qui sortent du sein de la Les Volcans &
terre, les Métaux & les Minéraux qui végétent dans ses entrailles, les sources d’eau
&c. nous démontrent ce Feu central que Dieu a vraisemblablement chaude
placé au milieu de chaque globe, comme l’ame qui doit l’animer. démontrent le feu
Central.
M. de Mairan a fait voir que la chaleur du Soleil au Solstice d’Eté
La chaleur de
est à celle de cet Astre au Solstice d’Hiver, comme 66 à 1, toute l’Eté en est
déduction faite: or si toute la chaleur venoit du Soleil, l’Eté seroit 66 encore une
fois plus chaud que l’Hiver, & cependant il est prouvé par les preuve.
expériences que M. Amontons a faites au Thermometre, que la chaleur de l’Eté de
nos climats ne differe du froid qui fait geler l’eau, que comme 8 differe de 7. Il faut
donc qu’il y ait dans notre terre un fonds de chaleur indépendante de celle du Soleil.
Puisque le Feu est également répandu par-tout, il faut que ce fonds de chaleur ait
été mis par le Créateur dans le centre de la terre, d’où il se distribuë également à la
même distance dans tous les corps qui la composent, en sorte que s’il n’y avoit point
de Soleil, tous les climats de la terre seroient également chauds, ou plûtôt également
froids à sa superficie; mais la chaleur augmenteroit, comme elle augmente
réellement, à mesure que l’on approcheroit du centre de la terre.
Ainsi le Feu central paroît prouvé par les Phénomenes de la Nature, & il n’est
nullement nécessaire, pour l’expliquer, de recourir, comme un Philosophe de nos
jours, à une tendance du Feu en bas, tendance démentie par les expériences les plus
communes, comme par les plus fines. Il suffit pour l’existence de ce Feu, de la
volonté du Créateur, & pour sa conservation, de la loi qui fait que le Feu se retire plus
lentement des corps, à mesure qu’ils sont plus denses; car le Feu, au centre de la
terre, doit être retenu par un poids dont il ne peut vaincre la résistance.
Lorsque ce Feu trouve quelqu’issuë, il sort avec furie de cette fournaise
souterraine, & c’est ce qui fait les Volcants, les Vents sulphureux, &c. mais il ne peut
jamais s’échapper qu’une très-petite partie de ce Feu renfermé dans les entrailles de
la terre.
La chaleur de ce Feu souterrain augmente à mesure que l’on approche du centre
de la terre, car puisque la pesanteur de l’Atmosphere retarde l’ébullition de l’eau,
c’est-à-dire, le point auquel ses pores laissent passer les particules de Feu, le Feu doit
être d’autant plus puissamment retenu dans les entrailles de la terre, que le poids
dont il est surchargé augmente; or ce poids augmente avec la profondeur: Donc le
Feu central doit se conserver, & être d’autant plus ardent que l’on approche plus du
centre de la terre.
La chaleur du Soleil augmente d’autant plus qu’on approche plus La chaleur du
de la surface de la terre, à cause de l’Atmosphere dont les vibrations Feu central
continuelles excitent sa puissance; mais la chaleur du Feu central, au diminuë vers la
contraire, diminue à mesure qu’on approche de cette surface, car le surface de la
Terre, & celle du
poids dont il est chargé est d’autant plus fort, & l’empêche plus Feu du Soleil
puissamment de s’échapper. augmente près
de cette surface.
Le Feu nous éclaire dès qu’il peut être transmis en ligne droite
jusqu’à nos yeux, mais il ne nous échauffe qu’à proportion de la résistance que les
corps lui opposent, & c’est-là une des plus grandes marques de la Providence du
Créateur; car si le Feu brûloit aussi aisément qu’il éclaire, nous serions exposés à tout
C’est un effet de moment à en être consumés, & s’il avoit besoin de la résistance des
la Providence du corps pour éclairer, nous serions souvent dans les ténébres; mais
Créateur, que le dès qu’il frappe nos yeux, il nous donne une lumiere très-vive, & il
Feu brûle plus ne nous échauffe jamais assez pour nous incommoder à moins que
difficilement, qu’il nous n’excitions sa puissance, la plus grande chaleur de l’Eté étant
n’éclaire.
environ trois fois moindre que celle de l’eau bouillante.

Il y a grande Le Feu qui est dans tous les corps, indépendamment du Soleil, &
apparence que la ce Feu central qu’on peut, avec bien de la vraisemblance, supposer
quantité du Feu dans tous les globes, peut faire croire que la quantité du Feu dans
dans les corps les Planetes, est proportionnée à leur éloignement du Soleil: ainsi
célestes, est
proportionnelle à
Venus qui en est plus près, en aura moins, Saturne & les Cometes
leur éloignement qui en sont très-éloignées, en auront davantage, chacune selon leur
du Soleil. distance. Cette compensation est d’autant plus nécessaire, que la
rareté de la matiere de Saturne, par exemple, ne peut seule
suppléer à son éloignement, car étant dix fois plus loin du Soleil que nous, il en reçoit
cent fois moins de rayons, & la matiere dont il est composé n’est qu’environ six fois &
deux tiers plus rare que celle de notre terre: Donc tout y seroit dans une inaction &
une condensation qui s’opposeroit à toute végétation, s’il n’avoit un fonds de chaleur
capable de suppléer à son éloignement du Soleil.
La matiere des Cometes doit être très-dense, puisqu’elles vont si près du Soleil,
sans se dissoudre par sa chaleur: Donc il faut que Dieu ait pourvû par la quantité du
Feu central, ou bien par le Feu qu’il a répandu dans les corps qui composent ces
globes à leur éloignement du Soleil, & peut-être aussi a-t-il compensé cette distance,
en augmentant la raison dans laquelle le Feu y agit, de même qu’il a pourvû à
l’illumination de Saturne & de Jupiter, par la quantité de leurs Lunes: ainsi il est inutile
de supposer une hétérogénéité de matiere dans les globes placés à différentes
distances du Soleil, mais seulement une quantité de Feu plus ou moins grande, ou
une augmentation dans la raison selon laquelle les raions agissent sur les corps.

Le Feu central Le Feu conserve toutes ses proprietés dans le centre de la terre, il
conserve toutes y tend à l’équilibre, ses parties cherchent à se répandre de tous
les propriétés que côtés, &c. mais il ne les exerce qu’en partie, car il ne peut surmonter
nous connoissons entierement la force qui s’oppose à son action.
au Feu, mais il ne
peut les déployer. C’est ce Feu central qui fait que les Puits très-profonds ne se
gelent point, que la Neige qui touche immédiatement la terre, fond
plutôt que celle qui est sur du chaume, ou sur d’autres supports; enfin c’est lui qui
est cause en partie du dégel, qui fait que pendant la gelée la plus forte, l’eau fume
sous la glace, &c. Je n’aurois pas sitôt fini, si je voulois entrer dans le détail de tous
ses effets.
Mais je n’ai déja que trop abusé de la patience du Corps respectable à qui j’ose
présenter ce foible Essai, j’espere que mon amour pour la vérité me tiendra lieu de
talens, & que le désir sincere que j’ai de contribuer à sa connoissance, me fera
pardonner mes fautes.
 Conclusion de la seconde Partie.
Je conclus de tout ce qui a été dit dans cette seconde Partie.
1o. Que le Feu est également distribué dans tous les corps inanimés.
2o. Que les créatures animées contiennent plus de Feu dans leur substance que les
autres.
3o. Que l’attrition est le moyen le plus puissant pour exciter le Feu renfermé entre
les Parties des corps.
4o. Que la masse des Corps, leur élasticité & la rapidité du mouvement qu’on leur
imprime, augmentent infiniment l’activité du Feu qu’ils contiennent, & que l’attrition
excite.
5o. Que le Feu raréfie tous les Corps, & les étend dans toutes leurs dimensions.
6o. Que les corps s’enflamment plus ou moins vîte selon leur couleur, toutes choses
d’ailleurs égales, & que les plus réflexibles sont ceux qui s’enflamment les derniers.
7o. Que les liquides n’acquerent aucune chaleur par le plus grand Feu, passé
l’ébullition.
8o. Que l’aliment du Feu, n’est pas du Feu, que ce sont les parties les plus tenuës
des corps que le Feu enleve, & qu’elles ne se changent point en Feu.
9o. Que le Feu détruit l’élasticité des corps loin d’en être la cause.

10o. Que le Feu paroît être la cause de l’électricité.

11o. Que le Feu n’agit pas sur les corps seulement en raison de sa quantité.
12o. Que les rayons acquerent une activité dans leur approximation qui augmente
infiniment les effets du Feu.
13o. Que le tems dans lequel les différens corps se refroidissent est à peu près le
même que celui dans lequel ils s’échauffent.
14o. Que l’absence du Feu n’est pas la seule cause de la congellation, mais qu’il s’y
mêle des parties frigérifiques.
15o. Que ces parties frigérifiques sont des particules de Sel & de Nitre.

16o. Que le Soleil est un corps solide.

17o. Que tout le Feu d’ici-bas ne nous vient pas du Soleil, mais que chaque corps
en contient une certaine quantité.
18o. Qu’il y a dans la Terre un Feu central qui est la cause des végétations qui se
font dans son sein.
 FIN.

L’Approbation & le Privilege se trouvent aux Mémoires de l’Académie des Sciences.

 NOTES

[1] Je me sers ici indifféremment des mots de modes & de proprieté, pour
éviter le retour trop fréquent du même mot, car en rigueur, puisque le feu n’est
pas toujours chaud & lumineux, la chaleur & la lumiere sont des modes & non
pas des proprietés de l’être que nous appellons Feu.
[2] On sent aisément qu’on suppose ici les principes de la Philosophie
Leibnitiene.
[3] Le Lecteur comprendra sans doute que j’entens par rayon coloré le rayon
qui a le pouvoir d’exciter en nous la sensation de telle couleur.
[4]Les expériences ont fait voir que les différens corps acquerent un certain
degré de chaleur déterminé, passé lequel le Feu le plus violent ne peut plus les
échauffer.
[5] Les degrés de froid & de chaud dont je parle, ont été pris au Thermometre
de Faheinrheit.
[6] On sçait qu’il y a deux sortes d’électricités, la résineuse, & la vitrée. Voyez
sur cela les Mémoires de M. du Fey dans l’Histoire de l’Académie des Sciences.
 Au lecteur

Cette version numérisée reproduit dans son intégralité la version

originale. Les erreurs manifestes de typographie ont été corrigées. La
ponctuation a pu faire l’objet de quelques corrections mineures.
La version originale pouvant être difficile à déchiffrer, nous avons
remplacé les ſ par des s.
La couverture est illustrée par un portrait de Madame du Chastellet de
Quentin de la Tour, à partir d'une image généreusement mise à disposition
par Wikipedia. Elle appartient au domaine public.

Livre de madame du Châtelet dans le Projet Gutenbeg:

Elémens de la philosophie de Neuton: Mis à la portée de
tout le monde.
Madame du Châtelet a traduit le texte de Newton mais n’a pas
été citée nommément dans le livre.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DISSERTATION SUR LA NATURE ET
LA PROPAGATION DU FEU ***

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