Aside from the reality of male household members controlling the direction of loans taken out by women, I have the following objections to microcredit:
1. By its very definition, 'micro' credit means that the Grameen bank (and other similar institutions) have gendered the definition of how much money women are capable of handling. Generally very small businesses never grow into large businesses, so this is a way of isolating women into low capital, small return businesses.
2. I fail to see the difference between many of the businesses started with micro loans and piece-rate-in-the-home or outwork as widely practiced in the nineteenth century, and practiced to a lesser degree in the twentieth century. Microcredit businesses tend to be: pot making, sewing garmets, making tourist sale items, hand crafted goods, etc. The maker must buy materials but can frequently not buy them in enough bulk to save costs over retail. Further, the equipment purchased is usually rudimentary at best, and not technologically advanced enough for division of labor type production. The maker must bear the capital costs of housing, utilities and receives no work benefits (health, retirement, etc.). Finally, the distributors of the product tend to buy cheap from the maker and sell dear in the market, with the bulk of profits going to the wholesale distributors not the creator of the product. A look at nineteenth century outwork in New England in the USA (as only one example -- i am sure others can provide their own) shows that this is exactly the same pattern -- workers (mainly women) paid for the materials they worked up in the home, paid for capital costs of the place to work, received whatever wages the outwork distributor wanted to pay (merchant), was subject to fines, and generally did not make a living wage.
maggie coleman mscoleman at aol.com