Gender analysis of Maharashtra's Employment Guarantee Scheme has focused on the "women-friendly" nature of the scheme as it attracted a large number of women workers. This paper argues that it is not the presence of a large number of women as EGS workers that makes the scheme women-friendly, but that this presence makes possible their mobilisation by organisations that have leftist and feminist ideologies. Through this mobilisation, not only "women-friendly" provisions - such as equal wages, provision of crèches, shelter, maternity benefits and close proximity of EGS works - get implemented, but women raise new concerns, which critique gender discrimination.
