Conventional gender analysis of development policy does not adequately explain the slow progress towards gender equality. Our research analyses the gender discourses embedded in agricultural and rural development policies in Myanmar and Nepal. We find that both countries focus on increasing women’s participation in development activities as a core gender equality policy objective. This creates a binary categorisation of participating versus non-participating women and identifies women as responsible for improving their position. At the same time, gender (in)equality is defined exclusively as a women’s concern. Such discourses, as constitutive practices, produce specific knowledge about rural women and new subjectivities that prescribe and govern them solely as subjects of development. Our research suggests that such a limited discursive practice invisiblises gendered power relations and structural and institutional issues, ultimately slowing progress towards gender equality. We demonstrate the importance of studying policy as discourse, beyond the effectiveness of policies or mainstreaming tools, and call for empirical evidence on the impact of these discourses on women’s subjectivities and lived experiences.

对发展政策的传统性别分析并不能充分解释性别平等进展缓慢的原因。我们的研究分析了缅甸和尼泊尔农业和农村发展政策中嵌入的性别话语。我们发现，两国都将增加妇女参与发展活动作为核心性别平等政策目标。这就形成了参与与不参与女性的二元分类，并确定女性有责任提高自己的地位。与此同时，性别（不）平等被明确定义为女性关心的问题。这些话语作为构成性实践，产生了关于农村妇女的具体知识和新的主体性，将她们仅仅作为发展的主体来规定和管理。我们的研究表明，这种有限的话语实践无形中掩盖了性别权力关系以及结构和制度问题，最终减缓了性别平等的进展。我们证明了研究政策作为话语的重要性，超越了政策或主流化工具的有效性，并呼吁提供关于这些话语对妇女主体性和生活经历影响的经验证据。