The following is a summary of the article entitled ‘Women and work – the capabilities approach’ by Martha Nussbaum

Martha Nussbaum’s article entitled ‘Women and work – the capabilities approach’ provides an alternative view to development theory approaches that focus on issues like a nation’s resources (it’s GNP per capita) and those persons’ satisfaction with what they do as factors that are indicative of a culture’s norms and goals. Nussbaum argues that the capabilities approach takes into account what a person is in fact able to do and to be. She emphasises women’s ability to choose as the central theme of the capabilities approach. This is the most important aspect, in my opinion, of the capabilities approach. She uses two examples of Indian women as a model for the capabilities approach, showing how these examples are representative of not only other Indian women, but of a host of other women in similar circumstances in developing countries. This is perhaps slightly optimistic in the sense that women cannot be bundled into universal categories, but need to be treated as individuals. However, the cases provide useful insight into the lives of women in developing countries so as to allow one to draw tentative comparisons between other nations with similar, albeit not completely identical, issues of women’s development, thus promoting cross-cultural understanding. Martha Nussbaum explores the argument from culture, the argument from the good of diversity and the argument from paternalism as society’s means of exploiting women. She explores how society, by prescribing often-oppressive norms and values for women, is responsible for women’s diminished sense of self-worth and their lack of dignity as free beings, as women are made to adhere to these norms and values regardless of the oppressive effects they have on women’s well-being. According to Martha Nussbaum, the revised list of ten elements necessary for truly human functioning includes:

1. Being able to live one’s life without threat of it being ended prematurely.
2. Being allowed access to all the requirements for bodily health, including food, water and shelter.
3. Being allowed bodily integrity which provides protection against bodily harm.
4. Being allowed the freedom of expression to use one’s senses, imagination and thought in a ‘truly human way’.
5. Having the ability to express one’s emotions.
6. Being able to use practical reason to conceptualise good and bad in planning one’s life.
7. Being able to live with and for others in our affiliation with them, by both showing empathy for others and being able to identify our own equality of self-worth.
8. Being able to live with concern for other species.
9. Being able to play.
10. Having control over one’s environment, both politically and materially.

These elements are separate, but yet inextricably inter-related so that not one can operate in isolation from the others, and so that not one can demand priority over another without impacting on our ability to behave in a truly human way. Nussbaum argues that we are born with the potential to develop basic human capabilities into high-level capabilities provided that these are nurtured with appropriate educational and material support. She does not suggest replacing the language of rights with the capabilities approach, but suggests that the two discourses can operate at the same time. I admit that in thinking philosophically about a ‘discourse of rights’ as compared to a ‘language of capabilities’, rights discourse is quite complex and not particularly clear to me. Perhaps this use of unsophisticated, un-philosophical language is precisely what makes the capabilities approach so accessible to those most interested in understanding women in the developing world – women themselves.