This study is primarily about women and how development planners relate to them. The discriminatory impact of Western culture and poverty on poor women in the Third World in the development process is assessed. The first part of the study discusses Western male ideology about gender distinctions and the division of labour, and how interpretations of other societies are used to bolster myths about women's 'natural' place in society. The second part analyzes the planning process itself: discrimination against women in development agencies, the distortions involved in the research and data collection on which development planning is based, and the relegation of Third World women to special projects in the 'domestic' ghetto. Finally, the discriminatory impact of the planning process is realized in terms of subsistence agriculture, the sector in which most Third World women are concentrated. The failure of development planners to aim incentives at the women who are in reality doing most of the work is an important factor in the disappointing record of so many development programmes and projects. The decline of staple food production in many countries is also closely related to the discrimination against women who are of such overwhelming importance to that sector.