Feminist's Approach to Population Problems : New Paradigm or Utopia?

Abstract

The 1994 International Conference on Population and Development which is now past has widely been acclaimed as a profound success for the cause of empowering women and for the future of the mankind. Apart from the fact that it gathered the largest audience of this kind and received the hottest attention from mass media of communication, it has advocated that the neglect of women's health, interest and needs cannot effectively solve the modern population problems, including rapid population growth in developing countries and a threat to environmental disruption. Up to the Cairo Conference, population policies have sought to manage these demographic changes by employing a major instrument of family planning programs through the top-down bureaucratic mechanisms. Recently, however, this macro-oriented policies have been under a heavy attack by the feminist groups and others. Increasingly, women and even men have come to realize that narrow demographic approaches in developing countries by setting up collective goals and target numbers have now become neither to be ethically sound nor effective. A hollistic approach to attaining the quality of life for the mankind by way of empowerment of women and reproductive health/rights has now been considered a more sensible, meaningful and fresh strategy to eventually achieve population stabilization. Yet, such a hollistic approach is not without reservation and criticism against. Widening the mandate in spite of recent international and national financial constraints is one thing. The past family planning programs have actually contributed greatly to a reduction of fertility in the developing world with a relatively limited funds. Why should we throw away the efficiency and efficacy of family planning? This is the second type of reservation. But a most serious criticism comes from the understanding that the Cairo program advocates the laissez-faire behavior for women's reproductivity. With this, how could the women in Sub-Saharan Africa, who have low unmet needs, attain a net replacement of fertility even if a massive provision of reproductive health could be available for them? As some population scientists have written, the most difficult challenges ahead lie in converting the rhetoric and conceptual framework of the Cairo program into programmatic reality. The present author believes that the ICPP in Cairo has made a tremendous breakthrough in population philosophy. But, there remain so many ambiguities, inconsistencies, and furthermore utopian objectives and recommendations, which should be modified and adjusted to reality, the reality of the present staggering population problems facing the humanity.