Gender Mainstreaming and Equality Concepts, Theories and Practices

Ms. Jagriti ShankarGender and KM Officer

Asian Institute of Technology, ThailandJagriti@ait.asia

Date: December 7, 2010

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Training Program ‘Gender Mainstreaming and Equality with focus on MDGs’

Gender Concepts

Gender vs. Sex

Gender Discrimination

Gender Roles and Needs

Equality vs. Equity

Women Empowerment

WID vs. GAD

Gender Mainstreaming

Gender Planning

Gender Analysis

Gender Responsive Budgeting2

Gender Vs. Sex

Sex identifies biological differences between menand women. E.g. Women can give birth and menprovide sperm. Sex is universal (every nation,throughout history)

Gender identifies social relations between men andwomen. Gender is socially constructed. Butgender roles are dynamic and change over time.

Then ,What is the problem?

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• Of the 1.3 billion people living in poverty around the world, 70% are women. (Source: World Revolution)

• Women do about 66% of the world's work in return for less than 5% of its income. (Source: Women's International Network)

• In the least developed countries nearly twice as many women over age 15 are illiterate compared to men. (Source: UNFPA)

• Two-thirds of children denied primary education are girls, and 75% of the world’s 876 million illiterate adults are women. (Source: AskWoman)

• Women work two-thirds of the world's working hours, produce half of the world's food, and yet earn only 10% of the world's income and own less than 1% of the world's property. (Source :World Development Indicators, 1997, Womankind Worldwide)

Source: http://www.endpoverty2015.org/en/goals/gender-equity

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What is the Problem?

Gender Discrimination-1

Social construct• Partriarchy positions men at superior postion and

status

• Men’s superiority at household reflects in public sphere and influence position and distribution of resources

Gender division of labour• Men and women have different roles in society. Men’s

roles are considered productive and more important, while traditionally women’s roles are considered passive and less important

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Gender Discrimination - Access and control over resources

Access to resources: opportunity to make use of resourceControl over resources: ability to define resource’s use for

others. Women remain disadvantaged with less access to

resources, benefits, information and decision making

Economic resources : land or equipmentPolitical resources: representation, leadership, legal

structuresSocial: child care, family planning, educationTime: a scarce resource for women

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Gender RolesProductive roles : Activities carried out by men and women in order to produce goods

and services, for sale, exchange, or to meet the subsistence needs of the family. Reproductive roles: Activities needed to ensure the reproduction of society's labor

force. This includes child bearing, rearing, and care for family members such as children, elderly and workers. These tasks are done mostly by women.

Community Managing role: Activities undertaken primarily by women at the community level, to ensure the provision and maintenance of scarce resources of collective consumption such as water, health care and education. This is voluntary unpaid work undertaken in ‘free’ time.

Community politics role Activities undertaken primarily by men at the community level, organizing at the formal political level, often within the framework of national politics. This work is usually undertaken by men and may be paid directly or result in increased power and status.

Triple role: The term refers to the fact that women tend to work longer and more than men as they are usually involved in three different gender roles —reproductive, productive and community work.

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Gender Needs -1

Practical Gender Needs (PGN) • PGNs are the immediate needs identified by

women to assist their survival in their sociallyaccepted roles within existing power structures insociety.

• PGNs do not challenge existing power structuresor gender divisions of labor

• PGNs are related to inadequacies in women’sliving conditions, health care, safe water,sanitation, income earning opportunities etc.

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Gender Needs -2

Strategic Gender Needs (SGN)• SGNs are the needs women identify to change their

status and position in society in relation to men.

• SGNs challenge male dominance and privilege.

• Related to inequalities in gender division of labour,ownership and control of resources, structuraldiscriminations, etc. It may include issues such aslegal rights, domestic violence, equal wages etc.

• Collective organizing around PGNs are a more favoredentry point for women organizations and NGOs due toSGN’s political nature.

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Gender Equality vs. Gender Equity

Gender Equality • Gender equality is based on the idea of equality of

opportunities.

Gender Equity • Gender equity denotes equivalence of life

outcomes of women and men

• Gender equity recognizes women and men have different needs, preferences and interests and may require different treatment of men and women.

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The Story of the Fox and the Crane

(Equal treatment does not mean the sametreatment)(From UNDP learning & Information Pack, 2001)

The Fox invited the Crane to dinner. He served the food on a large flat dish. The Crane with her long, narrow beak could not eat.

The Crane invited the Fox to dinner. She served the food in a deep vase, and so the Fox with his short, wide face could not eat.

Both friends had an equal opportunity for nourishment, but each time one of them could not take advantage of this opportunity.

The development challenge in every case is to identify barriers to the opportunities that exist, and custom design the adjusted interventions that will lead to equality of outcome.

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Women Empowerment

• Empowerment of women concerns women gaining power and control over their lives.

• It involves awareness raising, building self confidence, increased access and control over resources and transforming structures and institutions which reinforce gender discrimination and inequality

• Empowerment cannot be achieved in vacuum; men must be brought along in the process of change.

• It doesn’t refer to power over, rather it is power to, power with and power within.

• It is a bottom up approach instead of a top down strategy

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Shift in development approach: WID vs. GADCriteria Women in Development

(WID) Gender and Development (GAD

The Approach An approach which views women’s lack of participation as the problem

An approach to people centered development

Focus Women Relations between women and men

The Problem The exclusion of women (half of the productive resource) from the development process

Unequal relations (between women and men, rich and poor) that prevents equitable development and women’s full participation

The Goal More efficient, effective development

Equitable, sustainable development with men and women sharing decision-making and power.

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Shift in development approach: WID vs. GAD-2Criteria Women in Development

(WID) Gender and Development (GAD

The Solution Integrate women into existing structures

Empower the disadvantaged and women Transform unequal relations and structures

The Strategies Women only projects • Women’s component integrated projects • Increase women’s productivity • Increase women’s income • Increase women’s ability to manage the household

Identify/address practical needs determined by women and men to improve their condition • At the same time address strategic gender needs of women and men • Address strategic needs of the poor through people centered development

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Shift from WID to GAD is theoretical

• Not a complete shift so far

• It is political

• Changing gendered attitude takes time

• It costs

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Gender Mainstreaming

It is a strategy for making women’s as well as men’s concerns and experiences an integral dimension of the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes in all political, economic and social spheres so that women and men benefit equally and inequality is not perpetuated. The ultimate goal is to achieve gender equality. UN-ECOSOC Definition (1997)

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Gender mainstreaming -1

• Gender mainstreaming discourse started in the80´s as opposed to Women´s only discourse of70’s.

• Beijing platform for action (1995) also stressedgender mainstreaming as key to women’sempowerment

• Instead of women only activities, inclusion ofgender perspective is central to all policy making,research, advocacy, development,implementation and monitoring exercises.

• Women targetted activities will still be required

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Gender Mainstreaming -2

• A process, not an end in itself

• The objective of gender mainstreaming is topromote gender equality or theempowerment of women (MDG 3)

• How to proceed depends on the level ofanalysis and action (e.g., National law orpolicy reform? Sector policy? Organizationalchange? Program or project design?)

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Steps to Gender Mainstreaming

Step 1: Assessment of linkages between gender equality and issue or sector worked on

Step 2: Identify entry points/opportunities for introducing gender perspectives

Step 3: Identify approach or methodology for incorporating gender perspective in these works

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GM: Key Ingredients (for organizations)

• Political commitment for change

• Technical capacity to implement change

• Supportive institutional structures and procedures

• Adequate financial resources

• Accountability and monitoring systems

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GM in Programs and Projects: General Principles

• Based on understanding that men’s and women’s needs,interests and constraints often differ; these factors need tobe taken into account for development interventions to beeffective and sustainable

• Differences among groups of men and women also need tobe recognized(e.g., based on income level, caste/ethnicity,religion, age, urban/rural location, etc)

• Gender concerns need to be addressed at each stage of theprogram/project cycle

• Monitoring of gender-related impacts of theprogram/project (through collection of sex-disaggregateddata and tracking of gender-relevant indicators –should bereflected in the design & monitoring framework)

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Gender Mainstreaming Myths

Myth: “Good intentions [e.g., to involve women in project activities] are enough”Reality: Specific design and monitoring features are needed

to translate good intentions into reality, and to monitor results

Myth: “Education, health and microfinance projects always benefit women/girls, so they automatically mainstream gender”Reality: Specific measures are usually needed to ensure that

women/girls actually use these services and that the project contributes to narrowing gender gaps, and empowering women/girls

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GM Myths, continued

Myth: “Women are 50% of road users, so any road project automatically mainstreams gender”Reality: did the road link women to market? Ensure that a

development activity actually narrows gender gaps or empowers women/girls (it’s not enough to simply “add women and stir”)

Myth: “Gender mainstreaming is only possible in community-based projects”Reality: International organizations are now trying to

mainstreaming gender concerns in macro economic policies, trade, value chain, policies etc.

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Gender aware planning

• Gender aware planning should be stressed during all phases of project cycles, right from identification of project.

• Relevant data on gender should be collected, baseline research on gender issues should be conducted

• Balanced distribution of project staff should be maintained

• Training of both male and female project staff is necessary to ensure participation of both sexes.

• Women and women’s organization should be represented in all committees related to development planning

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Gender Analysis

• Gender analysis is descriptive and diagnostic tool for development planners and crucial to gender mainstreaming efforts.

• GA is the first step towards gender sensitive planning.

• GA focuses on describing women’s and men’s roles and their relative access to and control over resources. Analysis aims to anticipate the impacts of projects on both productive and reproductive roles.

• GA analysis entails, first and foremost collecting sex-disaggregated data and gender sensitive information about population concerned.

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Gender-responsive budget

• GRB refers to the statement of actual government expenditure and revenue on women and girls as compared to men and boys.

• A gender budget is not a separate budget for women

• It provides a way to hold governments accountable for their commitments to gender equality and women’s human rights.

• If budgets fail to be sensitive to the needs and demands of the poor and of women, resources will not be adequately directed to gender-sensitive programmes and to the achievement of equality goals.

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Thank you!

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