The Universal Woman of SDG 5: Intersectional Silences in Global Gender Policy Discourse

Abstract

Feminist scholarship has long criticised the construction of “women” as a homogeneous category in development discourse. Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG 5) commits the international community to “achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls” within an agenda pledged to leave no one behind.This article examines how the framing texts of SDG 5 construct the category of women, how far they differentiate among women, and which forms of difference they recognise or leave unnamed.The study is a qualitative critical document analysis of the Open Working Group report (A/68/970), the Secretary-General’s synthesis report (A/69/700) and the 2030 Agenda (A/RES/70/1), with the global indicator framework (A/RES/71/313) as contextual material. Following Fairclough’s three-dimensional model of Critical Discourse Analysis, 214 segments were coded with deductive codes derived from intersectionality, queer theory and postcolonial feminist theory and with inductive codes developed during reading. Sixty-eight were analysed in depth, and absence was established through systematic negative search. The texts construct a universal subject, “all women and girls”, whose internal differentiation is acknowledged in aspirational passages but not carried into operative targets and indicators. Of eleven dimensions of difference examined, eight are named in the Agenda’s principles, but only two (sex and age) are reflected in the Goal 5 targets and three (sex, age and location) in its indicators. Caste is named in no register, and gender identity, sexual orientation and gender-diverse persons are not named. The category is bounded by a binary and aggregated within it.The article proposes the concept of a register split: within the same texts, difference is promised in aspirational registers and under-specified in operative ones. It argues that aggregation within the category and silence at its boundary are two operations of a single construction. These are claims about the texts, not about the intentions of drafters or outcomes for particular populations.The dimensions of difference already named in the Agenda’s principles would need to be specified in operative targets and indicators, with safeguards for data collection, if SDG 5 monitoring is to register those furthest behind.