A GENDER APPROACH TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF WOMEN

Lorraine Corner
Regional Program Adviser
UNIFEM East & Southeast Asia, BANKOK

SEX, GENDER AND DEVELOPMENT

SEX

Refers to biological differences between males and females. These differences are fixed
at birth and (apart from abnormalities) do not vary among human populations. The most
significant sex differences in humans relate to menstruation, pregnancy and breastfeeding
in females and the production of sperm in males.

Other sex differences are observed at a population level but not at the individual level: for
example, although on average males are physically larger and stronger than females;
individual females may be larger and stronger than individual males.

Sex and Development

Women, defined by their sex, are a major target group for development policy and
planning because sex-disaggregated data show that women and men have different levels
of participation in development and are affected differently by development programs
and policies. However, most of these differences are the result of the effect of gender
rather than sex.

GENDER

Refers to differences in the social roles and responsibilities of women and men, to the
social behaviours and characteristics considered to be appropriate for women and men
and to ideas about how these various activities should be valued and rewarded. Gender
refers to the relations between women and men and to socially sanctioned roles that are
acceptable for each sex. Gender is a scientific term derived from anthropology that refers
to group norms rather than to individual realities.

Gender roles differ among societies or even among groups within a particular society
and often change over time in one society. They represent agreed ideas in the particular
society and culture about what is appropriate and “usual” for a particular sex and group
and society. However, individual women and men may actually occupy gender roles that
are typical of the opposite sex. For example, a woman may act as the head of her
household even although this is considered a male gender role in the society in which she
lives.
Gender roles: are the socially and culturally determined activities, occupations and roles
that are considered “usual” or “appropriate” for each sex, but which are actually capable
of being done by the opposite sex. For example, many people would consider that
occupations such as engineers, miners and astronauts are only appropriate for men.
However, there are women engineers, miners and astronauts. Men can be full-time
caregivers for infants or kindergarten teachers, although these are generally considered
more appropriate for women. Gender roles may be contrasted with sex roles such as
breastfeeding or giving birth, which are possible for women only.

Gender roles for both women and men have been classified into three main types –
reproductive (domestic/family), productive and community roles.

Reproductive Productive Community

Women Primary role Often assumed to Community
Mother have none or as management or
Housewife supplementary voluntary service –
producer/earner extension of
only reproductive role,
and often informal,
usually unpaid
Men Father Primary role: Leadership
Breadwinner Politics
Defence –often
formalized and paid

The gender roles considered appropriate for women and men differ among societies. For
example, in some societies, all trading is considered to be a man’s role, but in Cambodia
and in many North African countries trading, especially small scale, is considered to be a
woman’s role.

Gender roles can also change over time in response to economic and social change. Ms
Gro Bruntland noted that when she first became leader of her country many Norwegians
were shocked that a woman could be Prime Minister. In 1995, after she had been in
office for fifteen years, children would ask in surprise “Could a man be Prime Minister?”

Because the activities performed by women and men change more rapidly than societal
norms, norms about gender roles often differ widely from reality. It is still widely
assumed that most married women in Asia-pacific are full-time wives and mothers not
engaged in economic activity. Research shows that many women, especially poor
women, are engaged in economic activity.

Gender is not an absolute characteristic of a particular individual, who will typically have
some masculine and some feminine roles. For example, an individual woman may be a
mother, housewife, investor and company director. Some of these roles (investor,
company director) are commonly considered to be male gender roles.

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Women’s primary gender role: In almost all societies, women’s primary gender roles
are those of mother and wife/housewife. These are the roles by which womanhood is
defined and individual women are typically judged (and often evaluate themselves) by
how successfully they perform these roles. Thus, they incur a double burden of domestic
and market work.

Men’s primary gender role: is that of the main economic provider or breadwinner in the
household. Men are usually judged (and judge themselves) by their success in this role,
which is why in the current Asian crisis unemployment is such a devastating experience
for many men.

Women’s multiple roles tend to be simultaneous: Because women’s primary role,

particularly that of mother, is a 24 hour per day role, women’s typically perform more
than one role at a time. Thus, although they may work in the paid workforce alongside
men, women continue to bear the responsibility for their wife and mother roles. If a child
falls ill, or there is domestic problem at home, the working woman will still be expected
to deal with it.

Men’s multiple roles tend to be sequential: By contrast, although this is slowly

changing in some societies and in particular social strata, most men can leave such
matters to their wives. Except in serious emergencies, when men are at work (in their
primary role? They are “too busy” and the role is “too important” to be interrupted by
their concerns as husbands or fathers.

Gender roles affect needs: Women and men experience development and modernization
differently because of their specific roles. For example, because it is women who are the
primary caregivers for children, women have particular needs for easy access to schools
and health care. As housewives, women need access to water and as mothers need access
to clean drinking water to protect their families’ health. By contrast, men are likely to
place higher priority on access to markets and facilities related to their primary income-
earning role.

This distinction has been found useful because it emphasizes an important difference
between short-and long-term strategies, as well as the fundamental inequity of existing
gender roles or are designed to change them.

Practical gender needs refer to women’s needs in terms of their current gender roles.
Meeting such needs is usually relatively non-controversial because it does not challenge
the status quo in relations between women and men. Many conventional programmes
targeted specifically towards meeting women’s needs as mothers and housewives for
such things as clean water or health care are thus designed to meet practical gender needs.

Strategic gender interests acknowledge the longer-term need to change gender roles so
that women and men share more equally both the responsibility for domestic and
reproductive work and the benefits of economic activity. Strategic interests can only be

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defined in a comparative perspective in relation to men. Strategies to meet women’s
strategic interests are designed to raise the status of women relative to that of men.

Which are most important? For women, both practical gender needs and strategic
gender interests are important. For many women, especially the poor and those in the
least developed countries, practical gender needs are the basic priority. Women will not
be able to consider strategic actions to improve their status compared with men as long as
their children are dying and their families go hungry! However, without meeting
women’s strategic gender interests, improvements in meeting women’s practical gender
needs can always be taken away and may therefore not be sustainable.

The characteristics usually associated with women and men are often stereotyped into an
expectation that all men should possess masculine characteristics and all women feminine
characteristics. For example, in many cultures men are stereotyped as strong, aggressive,
forceful, decisive, etc. while women are stereotyped as weak, passive, submissive,
indecisive, etc. Those who display the stereotyped characteristics of the opposite sex are
likely to face criticism or ridicule.

Gender stereotypes for men often refer to occupationally-valued characteristics. As a

result, women working in male-dominated environments are often particularly
disadvantaged. Characteristics such as decisiveness, forcefulness etc that, in a man, will
be valued will be viewed negatively in a women as “bossy”, “pushy” etc.

Gender stereotypes also affect expectations, both our own and those that others hold
about us. Women tend to be negatively affected by expectations of both kinds. They are
typically socialized from childhood to believe that the “can’t do”-that is, are not capable
of-certain things. Such beliefs may relate to quite minor things, such as speaking in
public or traveling alone, or they may relate to certain occupations or operating
machinery. Both kinds of beliefs deprive women of self-confidence and restrict their
choices. Other people’s similar stereotyped beliefs reinforce the impact.
In addition, expectations based on stereotypes tend to make women invisible even when
they are engaged in non-traditional activities or occupations. For example, although data
show that many farmers are women, department of agriculture officials continue to
assume that their programmes and services are targeting men. Many policy-makers
continue to assume that the majority of women are “just” housewives and mothers,
although statistics show that a high and increasing proportion are also in the labour force.
Similar expectations cause development agencies continue to assume that poor women
will have time to participate in new programmes such as income generation projects
despite the fact that time allocation surveys show that poor women are already
overburdened with work.

Role Conflict: occurs when individuals find it impossible to fulfill two roles at the same
time. It most affects women because their primary roles as wives and mothers take up 24
hours of the day and are not discretionary. That is, they are not something that can be
easily set aside because you are “too busy”. Even where women have domestic or family
assistance with child care and house work, they typically remain responsible for the

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management of the assistance. When there is a problem with the arrangement, the wife
or other is immediately expected to solve it. This means that other activities need to be
compatible with women’s primary roles. By contrast, men’s primary role of breadwinner
typically starts and ends at specific hours – 9:00 to 5:00 for an officer work, sunrise to
sunset for a farmer. A man may experience role conflict if he is expected to perform
some other activity (such as taking a sick child to hospital) during those hours, but is
generally free outside those times.

Role conflict affects women’s participation in development activities in relation to both

the time and place of the activities. For example, men will find it much easier to attend
training courses or take further education outside of working hours than women because
many working women have to hurry home to take care of their children and the
housework. Women will also be handicapped when activities take place far from the
home, where most of their childcare and house work responsibilities are located. For
example, many rural women may not be able to attend a training course for an income
generation project that is to be held in a nearby town unless provision has been made for
childcare.

WID, GAD AND MAINSTREAMING

WID – WOMEN IN DEVEOPMENT:

Historically, the WID or Women in Development approach or strategy was the first
approach adopted to promote the advancement of women. It dates from the period around
the UN Decade for Women and focused on specific projects for women. The general
assumption was that women’s exclusion from the development mainstream could be
addressed through activities and projects that only targeted women.

Most of the WID initiatives focused on meeting women’s practical needs for health care,
nutrition, family planning, clean water and income generation. The role of men and the
relationship between women and men were largely ignored. When the lack of data on
women’s roles and status was recognized, it was addressed through the collection of
statistics on women, rather than on statistical comparisons between women and men.

One of the positive achievements of the WID strategy was the establishment in many
countries of national machineries in government to deal with women’s affairs. However,
these departments or units tended to be very marginalized. Most were located in a social
sector, particularly social welfare or health, and were expected to deal with all of the
issues and problems related to women. With women more than half of most populations,
this was clearly an impossible task.

What made it even more impossible were the extremely limited resources provided to
support the WID strategy. In most cases, this never amounted to even one percent of the
budget of a single department or agency.

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Gender and development strategies for the advancement of women were gradually
introduced as it was realized that the essence of the problem was the differences between
women and men in their participation in development as actors and beneficiaries.
Gender relationships between women and men also came to be seen as a primary cause of
women’s exclusion from development.

GAD strategies and approaches began to compare the situations of women and men and
to focus on gender relations between women and men. It was soon realized that what
was needed was an increase in the status of women vis a vis men.

GAD approaches place more emphasis on promoting women’s strategic interests through
role change for both women and men by, for example, enhancing women’s economic and
political roles and empowerment and increasing men’s share of domestic responsibilities.
GAD strategies are more radical than WID strategies because they seek to change
existing gender relations and to increase the status of women compared to men.

Both WID and GAD approaches have the same objective: the advancement of women,
which will lead to the benefit of all, women, men and children. What is different is the
means adopted to achieve this objective.

MAINSTREAMING WOMEN

Mainstreaming women: Mainstreaming involves two separate but interlinked processes.

The first is essentially “political” – mainstreaming women by ensuring their
representation and active participation, particularly in decision making. Women’s
participation is essential because, due to their different gender roles, women have
different needs and priorities from those of men.

However, in the short term it may be difficult to fully mainstream women in all areas of
activity aNd decision making. Due to past exclusion from many areas of activity, the
numbers of women with appropriate qualifications and experience may still be limited,
particularly at the most senior levels.

It may also be difficult to increase women’s participation in some areas because the
prevailing culture and arrangements are not adapted to women’s needs and priorities.

In the long term, mainstreaming requires the equal participation of women and men in all
aspects of decision-making. This would require roughly equal numbers f women and
men at all levels of decision-making in the private and public sectors and n politics. In
the short term, mainstreaming is sought through the implementation of gender responsive
development policies, plans and programmes.

Thus, mainstreaming involves two components: mainstreaming gender and

mainstreaming women.

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MAINSTREAMING GENDER

In order to achieve greater participation by women, the environment within which

activities take place and decisions are made may need to be adapted – madE gender –
responsive – by:

Mainstreaming gender. The second aspect of mainstreaming is essentially technical –

mainstreaming gender by explicitly identifying and taking into account the specific
impact of all activities, projects, programmes and policies on women and men separately
and adapting arrangements where it is clear that women are disadvantaged. That is, by
making them “gender responsive”. This simply means taking gender roles into account
by:

1. adapting programmes to existing gender roles – meeting practical gender

needs such as providing child care; or
2. seeking to change gender roles – addressing strategic gender interests by for
example, enabling more women to enter higher or technical education, thereby
opening up a wider range of employment and higher-paid jobs to women.

Traditional development policies, programmes and approaches tend to be based on

assumptions that reflect the gender roles of men because men have been (and still are) the
key decision-makers. In this context, gender-responsive strategies will be those that
recognize and are adapted to the different gender roles of women and to the effect of
gender stereotypes on women’s participation.

GENDER MAINSTREAMING TOOLS

Gender mainstreaming can be achieved through gender analysis and the use of gender
statistics.

Gender Analysis: Gender analysis refers to a systematic way of examining the different
impact of development on women and men. It involves identifying the specific gender
roles and activities of women and men in the particular situation and exploring how these
might be affected by the project, either directly or indirectly. Since time is a major
constraint, particularly for women because of their multiple and simultaneous gender
roles, the analysis of time use (sometimes called time allocation) is an important aspect of
gender analysis.

Gender statistics involve:

1. disaggregation by sex of all statistics relating to individuals. Disaggregation by sex is

relatively simple, since in most cases data on sex is collected on individuals, although it
is often not tabulated, analyzed or disseminated.

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[Note that it is incorrect to refer to “disaggregation of data by gender” because gender
is not a standard statistical category. Data on individuals is collected in terms of
whether they are male or female – i.e. their sex – not on whether the are masculine or
feminine – i.e. gender. Gender would be a very confusing statistical category, since male
persons may have some roles or attributes (caring for children or long hair) that are
commonly considered to be feminine, while female persons may have some gender roles
or attributes (main income earner or wearing overalls) that are conventionally regarded
as masculine.]

2. the collection, collation, analysis and dissemination of statistics that address specific
gender issues. This is more difficult because data have not usually been collected for a
number of important gender issues. These include the counting and valuation of unpaid
work, statistics on violence against women and children, statistics on access to and the
use of credit, ownership of property etc.

EXAMPLES OF GENDER-RESPONSIVE STRATEGIES

Gender sensitive programme

Implementation considers

 Timing of activities
 Location of activities
 Women’s access to & control over resources
 Women’s participation in decision making

The following examples, both positive and negative, show how a gender-responsive
approach can be achieved even in areas where it might be assumed that gender is not
relevant.

Strategies addressing women’s strategic gender interests

Many strategies seek to raise the status of women. For example, by providing access to
skills and knowledge, strategies that seek to improve women’s access to education and
training and thus to knowledge, better employment and higher income will raise their
status in relation to men. By enhancing access to and control over economic resources,
successful income-generating and anti-poverty strategies also raise the status of women.

Some strategies explicitly challenge gender stereotypes. Examples include vocational,

technical and professional education and training for women in non-traditional fields (for
example, training women as electricians, plumbers or engineers) and programmes to
eliminate gender stereotypes in educational materials and the media.

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A gender-unresponsive bridge

It might be assumed that gender is irrelevant to a project to build a bridge. A footbridge

over a freeway that cut through rural villages on the outskirts of Jakarta shows the error
of this view.

In designing the bridge, the engineers had to consider the needs of particular users. Based
on their expectations, which almost inevitably reflect gender stereotypes, they considered
the needs of men ad young single women, most of whom worked in factories in Jakarta,
and school children who needed to cross the freeway to catch buses to and from the city.
They apparently assumed that everyone else – that is, the married woman –stayed at
home in the villages or also only needed to catch buses for shopping etc.

Thus, the engineers designed and built a footbridge with stairs for pedestrian access. In
fact, the married women in the surrounding villages grew vegetables for market and
needed to transport their produce to market in large containers carried on their bicycles.
They were unable to negotiate the steep steps onto the bridge with their heavily-laden
bicycles. As a result, the gender-insensitive footbridge failed to meet their needs and
seriously handicapped women in providing an important source of income for their
families.

It is noteworthy that in the heart of Jakarta where it is obvious that many traders (men!)
need to wheel their mobile stalls across similar footbridges, the bridges are provided with
a ramp in the center of the steps so that wheeled vehicles can pass by easily.

A gender-unresponsive irrigation channel

The construction of the tertiary irrigation channel in the Philippines again shows the
negative consequences for women of a lack of attention to gender. When an existing
tertiary canal was upgraded, steep concrete walls replaced the former earthen banks. The
old banks had been breached in many places by villagers in order to provide access to the
water for domestic use and a place for the women to do the daily laundry. However, the
new steep concrete walls denied women easy access to the water. This caused
considerable inconvenience and added extra hours to the women’s domestc work load as
they had to walk further to an alternative water source. The problem could have been
avoided by some gender-sensitive observation on the part of the engineers or a
participatory process that consulted women as to their needs.

Gender-sensitive development for women in home-based fish processing

Women in a small village in Vietnam were trained under a UNIFEM project in the use of
more modern technology to produce fish sauce. After discussion with the women, the
fish technologist (a woman) arranged for the training to be conducted only in the
morning. The women explained that they needed to be free in the afternoons for their
domestic work.

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Staff from the local Marine Research Institute who were to provide technology support to
the project also participated in gender training. During the training, the women explained
how they needed to combine their fish processing industry with their family and child
care responsibilities. As a result, the technology staff realized they needed to consider
the new technology in relation to the safety of children playing in the house compounds
where processing took place. They also realized that time-saving was a high priority for
the women because of the demands of their domestic work.

Gender responsive urban development in Italy

Planners in a large provincial city in Italy consulted women about an urban renewal
project. AS a result, lighting was upgraded to improve visibility, security and safety for
women. But stops and car parks were also located where they were convenient and with a
view to minimizing the need for women to walk in unlit or isolated areas.

Gender-responsive public transport in Canada

A major public transport network undertook a survey of users. The data, disaggregated
by sex, showed quite different patterns of use for women and men and revealed concerns
of women, such as personal security and access for children and women carrying
shopping, that had not formerly been considered. They also revealed that women needed
to travel on the buses at different times from men. As a result of the survey, the authority
was able to develop services that better met the needs of both women and men.

Other examples of gender-responsive programmes:

Maternal and child health services that:

Operate at times that are convenient for women [rather than for health staff] by
taking into account both women’s domestic responsibilities and their economic
roles, for example, as farmers or traders.

Child health care programmes that:

Recognize that fathers or grandparents [rather than only mothers] may be the
principle caregivers for some children and adapt service provision accordingly;
encourage responsibility by and an active role for, fathers and other male
caregivers.

Family planning programmes that:

Encourage men to share responsibility for family planning.

Village water supply programmes that:

Consult women as to the location and type of facility provided;
Train women, who are the main users of water, to maintain and repair equipment
such as water pumps or wells.

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Housing and urban development programmes that:
Consult women to ascertain their needs and priorities for housing design (e.g. type
and location of cooking and washing facilities to make it easy for women to
supervise children while doing household work), safety (e.g. for young children)
and security (well-lit access paths and bus stops not in isolated areas), access
(ramps for strollers and bicycles rather than steep stairs) etc.

Employment or training programmes that:

Provide women with training and access to employment in non-traditional fields;
provide training at times and in locations that enable women with young children
to participate; ensure that adequate toilet facilities are available for women
participants (a very basic but sometimes overlooked requirement).

Training and technology transfer programmes that:

Provide women with training and access to high [rather than low] technologies;
consider women when selecting candidates for training for supervisory positions.

Training programmes:
Where women are equally represented with men as trainers [thus acting as role
models], as well as among the trainees.

Development programmes that:

Require women to be equally represented with men as consultants; ensure that all
consultants, both women and men,are aware of and responsive to gender issues;
include a specific requirement that gender issues be identified and addressed in all
consultancies; explicitly incorporate sex as a category in all data, programme
targets and programme indicators relating to persons [for example, identifying all
consultants, trainers, trainees, extension workers, extension clients, farmers,
fisherfolk, health workers, health volunteers, persons in poverty, children,
workers, “human resources”, employees, employers, entrepreneurs etc as male or
female].

Development programmes and government services that:

Recognize that some households may be female-headed; recognize that the male
head may not be resident even in male-headed households [for example, the
households of seamen]: and take this into consideration in the delivery of
extension and other services.

Disaster-relief programmes that:

Adapt relief distribution to take into account women’s roles.

For example:

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  in the Pacific providing food relief and credit that is meant to be utilized
for food production directly to women, who are primarily responsible for
food, rather than to men.
 Consult women’s groups on the design and layout of cyclone shelters or
cyclone-proof housing

Macro-economic policies that:

Explicitly examine the impact of monetary and market-related policies on the

non-market, subsistence and household sectors and recognize the gendered nature
of market-household boundary.

For example:

 By recognizing the cuts in governments spending in areas such as health

care or welfare services may move responsibility for services from the
paid government sector to the household sector;
 Recognizing that this is likely, on average, to transfer the responsibilities
from paid men (or educated and younger women) to unpaid women/older,
less educated women;
 Recognizing the impact of cuts in public services on women’s domestic
work and the possible consequences of this for children [will girls be
withdrawn from school to assist adult women?], the elderly and other
members of the household.

Trade policies that:

Recognize and examine their potential impact on women through sex-segregation
in occupations (service occupations, retail sales, financial services) and/or
industries (tourism, the export sector, home-based work and the informal sector).

 Since women constitute over 80 per cent of workers in the export sector in
Thailand, tariff, credit or other policies that particularly affect the export
sector have a major impact on women’s access to employment.
 In many areas in Thailand and Bali, policies that affect the tourist industry
may have a major impact on the access of young women with some
education to better-paid wage employment.
 In Southeast Asia, the Asian economic crisis significantly reduced
employment opportunities for women, particularly the educated, due to the
loss of jobs in feminized occupations in the banking and financial sectors
and in retail sales.
 Similarly, the Asian economic crisis greatly affected homeworkers, the
majority of whom are women. It forced many former women wage
workers into homework, and reduced piece rates and/or increased the
intensity of work in the sector as manufacturers switched to subcontracting
in an effort to reduce costs.

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