CID certificate course

1
CID certificate course
Critical approaches to gender and development
Some theoretical and practical tools for NGOs

• Facilitators
• Dr. Rebecca Miller Fleur Roberts

2
What is the difference between sex and gender?
3
Sex vs. Gender the difference

• Gender

• Sex

• Refers to socially constructed roles and
  responsibilities of women and men, and includes
  expectations held about characteristics and
  likely behaviours of both men and women.

• Refers to the biological that categorise someone
  as either female or male

4
Why is gender important? And how can we achieve
the goal of gender equality and empowerment of
women?
5
Why is gender important?
What is gender equality and how can we achieve
it?

• Why? Development process affects men and women in
  different ways.
• Gender inequality is deeply rooted in entrenched
  attitudes, societal institutions, and market
  forces.
• What? Means equality of opportunity and a society
  in which women and men are able to lead equally
  fulfilling live
• Gender equality is not sameness. Men and women
  often have different needs and priorities, face
  different constraints, and have different
  aspirations

Source Millennium Project, 2005.
6
Why is gender important?

• What is gender equality and how can we achieve
  it?

• How? Means figuring out how men and women can
  achieve their full human potential without being
  restricted by hierarchy of sex/gender.
• Gender equality and the empowerment of women
  requires fundamental transformation in the
  distribution of power, opportunities, and
  outcomes for both men and women.
• Genuine equality means more than parity in
  numbers!!
• Commitment at all levels grassroots right up to
  the highest international and national levels.

Source Millennium Project, 2005.
7
Why is gender important?
What is gender equality and how can we achieve
it?

• Where are we at? Decades of innovation,
  experience, and activism have shown that
  achieving the goal of greater gender equality and
  womens empowerment is possible.
• Before the UN Millennium Summit in 2000 nearly
  every country had ratified the CEDAW and the
  Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)
• Yet it is clear today that progress towards
  gender equality in most parts of the world is
  considerably less than which we had hoped for.
•  

Source Millennium Project, 2005.
8
How is gender relevant to men?Why must we be
careful not to exclude men? How do we ensure
spaces for women while not ostracising men?
9
How is gender relevant to men?

• Gender is not shorthand for women achieving
  gender equality requires change from both men and
  women.
• The term gender is about the socially
  acceptable ideas of what it is to be female or
  male, and concerns how these ideas impact on the
  power relations between women and men at all
  levels in society.
• Given that it is women that tend to be excluded
  or disadvantaged in these relations, efforts to
  redress the balance have more often focused on
  women.
• Earlier approaches to development cooperation
  focused on women exclusively, rather than on the
  social relationships in which they are embedded.
• Frustration with the lack of progress of such an
  approach in changing womens lives and
  influencing the broader development agenda,
  brought the focus onto both women and men in
  relation to each other.

Source Bridge, IDS, 2000
10
How is gender relevant to men?

• Although women have primarily taken the lead in
  fighting for gender to be placed at the heart,
  rather than in the margins, of development
  thinking and practice men have also played a
  role in this process.
• E.g. mens organisations that advocate womens
  rights and gender equality, and male gender
  advocates within development agencies. It is
  necessary to broaden the support and
  participation of men in order to strengthen this
  process.
• The pursuit of gender equality is in everyones
  interest and is both womens and mens
  responsibility.
• A gender perspective recognises that cultural
  ideas of gender identity can also constrain men -
  and that specific initiatives may have to focus
  on mens problems, which have failed to be
  addressed, such as reproductive and sexual health
  needs.

Source Bridge, IDS, 2000
11
Reasons to pay attention to men in development

• Gender equality and social justice
• Not all men benefit from development. Policies
  and practices that focus on gender equality and
  social justice need to promote human dignity
  and rights in ways that free women and men from
  the negative effects of gender stereotypes and
  oppressive structures.
• Gendered vulnerabilities
• While women generally encounter greater
  disadvantages than men socially and economically,
  men are not always the winners. Men are
  particularly vulnerable in certain areas of
  health (especially suicide, exposure to dangerous
  chemicals, HIV/AIDS etc). Assumptions about mens
  strength or toughness may expose men to more
  health risks than women.

Source CID, 2007
12
Reasons to pay attention to men in development

• The crisis of masculinity
• The effects of global changes in the economy,
  social structures and household composition are
  causing crises of masculinity (fundamental
  questioning of identity).
• Negotiated gender roles and relations
• Increasingly, research is showing that while
  women and men may reinforce quite stereotypical
  gender roles and relations in public, in private
  there tends to be more negotiation and
  flexibility. Understanding these more subtle
  power relations is needed if development projects
  are to be effective and sustainable.
• Strategic gender partnerships
• More effective and sustainable development can be
  achieved when women and men work together in
  strategic gender partnerships.

Source CID, 2007
13
Group activity

• In pairs, consider the following
• Part 1 What are the risks of ignoring gender in
  development?
• Part 2 How might the following development
  issues impact women and men differently and why?

14
Changing Perspectives on Women, Gender and
Development
Historical approaches to gender

• Women in Development (WID)
• Women and Development (WAD)
• Gender and Development (GAD)

15
Women in Development (WID)

• Main assumptions

• Ester Boserup introduced the approach in her
  book, Women's Role in Economic Development.
• She argued that modernization in agrarian
  societies resulted in a gendered division of
  labour which relegated women to carrying-out
  subsistence tasks. Boserup found that a shift
  from subsistence agriculture to machine- based
  economics, did not liberate women, instead it
  often intensified their oppression.

16
WID continued

• Theoretical underpinnings

• Based on liberal feminism, which generally treats
  women as a homogeneous group and assumes that
  gender roles will change as women gain an equal
  role to men in the development of education,
  employment, and health services.
• Approach is also closely linked to modernization
  theory which is associated with improved
  technology, an increase in divisions of labour
  and literacy, growth of commercial facilities,
  urbanization, and the decline in traditional
  authority.
• Modernization theory dominated mainstream
  thinking in the international development
  agencies from the 1950s to the 1970s. It was
  assumed that higher standards of living would
  benefit the entire population and reach the
  grassroots through a trickle- down effect. For
  women, however, this did not occur.

17
WID continued

• Main shortcomings

• It does not question the existing social
  structures or explore the nature and sources of
  women's oppression.
• Nor does it take into account the effects of
  colonialism, capitalism and imperialism on
  women's lives.
• WID sees women merely as a unit of analysis, and
  fails to consider the implications race, class
  and gender have on women's oppression.
• Yet, the Women in Development approach is still
  commonly used by international organizations
  including the World Bank and the United Nations.

18
Women and Development (WAD)

• Theoretical underpinnings

• WAD is primarily a neo-Marxist, feminist approach
  with a strong emphasis on the importance of
  social class and the exploitation of the "Third
  World". This approach emerged in the second half
  of the 1970s in response to the limitations of
  modernization.
• WAD gets some of its theoretical base from
  dependency theory, whose main thesis is that, at
  the global level, developed regions became
  developed through the exploitation of other
  regions.

19
WAD continued

• Main assumptions

• The WAD approach assumes that women have always
  been active participants in development.
• Advocates of this approach say that both the paid
  and unpaid labour of women is essential to
  development.
• In contrast to WID, the WAD approach believes
  that under global capitalism, women's oppression
  cannot end.

20
WAD continued

• Main shortcomings

• Fails to undertake a full-scale analysis of the
  relationship between patriarchy and women's
  subordination.
• It implicitly assumes that women's participation
  will improve if institutional structures change.
  
• Although work, which women do inside and outside
  homes is central to development, WAD preoccupies
  itself with the productive aspect at the expense
  of the reproductive side of women's work and
  lives.

21
Gender and Development (GAD)

• Theoretical underpinnings

• Gender and Development (GAD) emphasises the need
  to move away from a focus on womens roles in
  development (common in WID approaches), towards
  an analysis of gendered relations of power
  including access to, and control over, resources
  and decision-making by women and men.
• Influenced by socialist feminist thinking, it
  seeks to transform unequal gender relations to
  enable long-term sustainable development for both
  women and men.

22
GAD continued

• Main assumptions

• GAD acknowledges the need to work simultaneously
  at a number of levels from the national and
  international networking and lobbying associated
  with institutional policies and legal
  conventions, to the grass experiences and
  realities of womens and mens lives and
  relationships.
• GAD also recognises and seeks to embrace the
  diversity of womens and mens lives and
  experiences in development.
• As such, GAD means that in some cases it may be
  necessary to work with men to achieve a
  transformation in unequal gender relations,
  and/or work with girls alone rather than older
  women and men.

23
GAD continued

• Some critiques

• Challenged on the grounds that the new focus on
  gender, including the notion of gender
  mainstreaming, bypasses earlier concerns about
  womens specific needs.
• By focusing on gender and presumably bringing
  men in, the GAD focus on gender might lead to
  less, rather than more, attention to womens
  specific needs and disadvantages to a dismissal
  of funding for women-oriented activities and
  projects.
• The insistence on differences among women may
  actually constitute an obstacle for the
  recognition of their commonalities.

Source Gentile, 2008.
24
Importance of WID, WAD, GAD

• Enable us to interrogate the development
  processes as gendered processes.
• Analytical focus is on the male bias and gendered
  relations of development and the inequality of
  those relations that require transformation.
• Provide gender analysis on development policies
  of states as well as international development
  and financial institutions, such as IMF, World
  Bank, and the UN.
• Criticise the measures of economic development
  such as GNP which ignore the contribution of
  women to social and economic production.
• Advocate for the creation of gender sensitive
  development programs.

25
Why is gender analysis important?
26
Case Study

• Water buffaloes of Nepal

• A project that was implemented in Nepal to
  improve the level of health of the inhabitants of
  a small rural village in Nepal and increase their
  self-sufficiency.
• 20 water buffaloes were brought to the village
  one buffalo for every four households

Source Global Finland, 2004.
27
Project water buffalo

• Assumed following results would be achieved

• After fours years of implementation

• An outside evaluation team arrived at the village
  to assess the impact of the project.
• The results were a surprise.
• The childrens state of chronic under-nourishment
  was not improved at all.
• School enrollment among girls had not increased
  either.

• Water buffaloes milk would improve the poor
  nutritional status of the village children
• Because of the income from sales of surplus milk,
  there would be less need for the children to work
  and most of them would attend school
• Income from the sale of surplus milk could be
  used to raise the standard of living of the
  village

28
Project water buffalo

• What happened?

• In the village, it was the role of women to raise
  and milk the buffaloes. The project increased
  the workload of the already overburdened women.
• The village men had taken part in the project by
  selling the buffalo milk at the market. They
  kept the sales income. They were also not aware
  of the nutritional value the milk would have for
  the children.
• Instead, having noticed a good profit could be
  made from selling the milk, the men sold more and
  more of it. The village was left with smaller
  quantities for the families own use.
• Most of the income from the milk sales went to
  sending the village boys to better schools
  because the girls had to stay at home to help
  their mothers with the housework since taking
  care of the buffaloes took more of their time.

29
Project water buffalo

• Concluding thoughts

• The projects expectations were not fulfilled
  because it was planned and designed without an
  understanding of the different roles between
  women and men.
• Key questions
• Who does what with what resources?
• Who has access to resources, benefits, and
  opportunities?
• Who controls the resources, benefits, and
  opportunities?
• What would you have done differently at the
  project planning stage?
• What would you have done differently at the
  implementation stage?

30
Working through a gender lens

• Gender analysis

• Tools frameworks

31
What is Gender Analysis?

• Gender analysis refers to the variety of
  approaches and methods used to assess and
  understand the differences in the lives of women
  and men, girls and boys and the relationships
  between and amongst them including their access
  to resources and opportunities, their activities,
  and the constraints they face relative to each
  other.
• It is a process that identifies the varied and
  different roles and responsibilities that women,
  men, girls and boys have in the family, the
  community, and in economic, legal, political, and
  social structures.

Source NZAID Tools, 2007.
32
Gender analysis makes visible

• Different needs, priorities, capacities,
  experiences, interests, and views of women
  and men.
• Who has access to and/or control of resources,
  opportunities power.
• Who does what, why, and when.
• Gender differences in social relations.
• Different patterns and levels of involvement that
  women and men have in economic, political,
  social, and legal structures.
• Womens and mens lives are not all the same and
  often vary depending on factors other than their
  sex, such as age, ethnicity, race,and economic
  status, but also on assumptions based on our own
  realities, sex, and gender roles.
• Who is likely to benefit and/or lose from
  development initiatives.

Source NZAID Tools, 2007.
33
Why use gender analysis in our work?

• To understand better the gender dimensions of
  our work and the places in which we work.
• To promote gender equality through the
  articulated outcomes of our work.
• To expose the barriers to womens and mens full
  participation and economic development.
• To help find the best strategies and solutions
  to address the different needs and dynamics of
  men and women.
• Can you think of other reasons why we should do
  gender analysis?

34
When do you use gender analysis?

• Gender analysis is used throughout the entire
  development process.
• throughout research, to problem definition,
  planning, implementation, and monitoring
  evaluation.
• By examining basic assumptions each step of the
  way, the interrelationships between social
  context and economic factors can be understood
  and initiatives that respond to those needs can
  be designed.

Source CIDA, 2009.
35
Group activity

• Analysis of the Bulolakaw case using Womens
  Empowerment Framework

36
Definitions

• Control Defined as womens control over the
  decision making process through conscientisation
  and mobilisation to achieve equality of control
  over the factors of production and the
  distribution of benefits.
• Participation Defined as womens equal
  participation in the decision making process, in
  policymaking, planning and administration.
• Conscientisation The process of becoming aware
  of the extent to which problems arise not so much
  from an individuals inadequacies, but rather
  from systematic discrimination.
• Access Defined as womens access to the factors
  of production (land, labour, credit, training,
  marketing facilities, and all public services and
  benefits).
• Welfare Defined as the level of womens material
  welfare relative to men. Do women have equal
  access to resources such as food supply, income
  and medical care?

37
Working through a gender lens

• Gender mainstreaming

• Tools frameworks

38
Gender mainstreaming

• Origins formal definition

• Economic and Social Council defines it as
  follows
• Mainstreaming a gender perspective is the
  process of assessing the implications for women
  and men of any planned action, including
  legislation, policies or programmes, in all areas
  and at all levels.
• It is a strategy for making womens as well as
  mens concerns and experiences an integral
  dimension of the design, implementation,
  monitoring and evaluation of policies and
  programmes in all political, economic and
  societal spheres so that women and men benefit
  equally and inequality is not perpetuated. The
  ultimate goal is to achieve gender equality.
• Gender mainstreaming is a key method of
  reinforcing efforts to achieve gender equality.

39
Gender mainstreaming

• What does it mean?

• Attention is paid to the points of view,
  experiences, and needs of both men and women in
  all activities and in all areas of the community.
• The political, economic, and social processes in
  the community are developed and evaluated in such
  ways that the parties and factors, involved in
  different areas, work to promote gender equality
  and reinforce the measures that eliminate
  observed inequalities.
• This helps to ensure that women and men benefit
  equally as a result of activities in different
  fields of society.

Source Global Finland, 2004.
40
Video clip Whos Counting?

• Marilyn Waring on Sex, Lies, and Global Economics

41
Some group discussion questions

• How far have we come since the 1995 Beijing
  Platform for Action?
• Is gender mainstreaming a reflection of WID
  strategies of integration, which incorporates
  women in to the existing framework or
  institutions and policies without changing them?
  
• OR
• Is gender mainstreaming a reflection of the GAD
  paradigm, which is to transform the broader
  social and institutional context that produces
  gender injustice and unequal outcomes?
• Have we addressed the political and attitudinal
  changes required for altering the status quo?
• Should we reform or replace gender mainstreaming?

42
Gender mainstreaming your organisation
43
Group activity

• In pairs, discuss a few of the following questions

• Describe the extent gender is mainstreamed in
  your organisation
• Describe what an ideal gender mainstreamed
  organisation looks like?
• What are you doing to achieve this ideal
  organisation?
• Are you creating or corroding an ideal culture?
• How much faster might you achieve it if you
  started behaving as if the ideal culture
  currently existed?

44

• Gender politics

45
Gender politics

• Explores how constructions of masculinity and
  femininity shape and are shaped by interacting
  economic, political, and ideological practices.

46
Gender politics

• By examining politics as gendered, we illustrate
  how

• The personal is political.
• We participate individually and collectively in
  the production, reproduction, and legitimation of
  power relations (social hierarchies).
• Social hierarchies (of race, gender, class,
  ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc.) are
  interrelated.
• Reflective, critical analyses are essential for
  achieving non-hierarchical social relations.
• Social transformation occurs, is impeded, and
  promoted.

47
Concluding questions

• What do you personally think is the main
  challenge when doing gender?
• What was the most important learning of the day
  for you?
• How will you apply the workshop learnings in your
  day to day work?

48
References

• BRIDGE. (2000). Gender and development
  Frequently asked questions. Retrieved from
  www.bridge.ids.ac.uk/reports/re57.pdf
• CID. (2007). Council for International
  Development resource kit. Retrieved from
  www.cid.org.nz/training/GAD_2007.pdf
• CIDA. (2009). Gender analysis. Retrieved from
  www.acdi- cida.gc.ca/CIDAWEB/acdicida.nsf/En/JUD-3
  1194519- KBD
• Gentile, F. (2008). Gender and international
  development. In A. Lind S. Brzuzy (Eds.),
  Battleground Women, gender, and sexuality.
  Westport, Conn Greenwood Press.

49
References

• Global Finland. (2004). Gender training manual.
  Retrieved from http//global.finland.fi/gender/n
  go/english/index.htm
• NZAID Tools. (2007). Gender analysis. Retrieved
  from http//nzaidtools.nzaid.govt.nz/gender-analy
  sis/what- why-when-gender-analysis
• UN Millennium Project (2005). Taking action
  Achieving gender equality and empowering women.
  Retrieved from www.unmillenniumproject.
  org/documents/ Gender-complete.pdf