Development

Antonella Mazzone

This article seeks to contribute to ongoing debates on gender equality in energy development projects. This article adopts a feminist critical standpoint to assess initiatives on gender and energy in international development. While recognizing the benefits of applying gender analysis to map out the divergences in access and opportunities in energy, this article stresses three recurring issues in energy development studies: a dangerous return of the ‘efficiency approach’ of women in energy and development; the erroneous interchangeability of gender as a ‘women only’ issue; and the diffusion of ‘feminization of energy poverty’ discourses. This article stresses how international organizations and practitioners in energy are echoing the already critiqued concept of ‘feminization of poverty’ and how this can unintentionally undermine the efforts to achieve gender equality.