Comment

Comment by AKW on February 10, 2012 at 12:52am

The posts are really getting interesting!

Amelia, I completely understand your frustration in the field with regard to some boys and their treatment. As you say though, this is probably more a child protection issue rather than something that can be addressed through gender programming, because boy's poor treatment isn't (usually?) the result of gendered discrimination. Gender programming exists to try to redress gender-based issues rather than to help all genders - which I know you know, but I feel compelled to say it because it sounds heartless to say we're not going to help small boys!  Regardless, I'm sure your comments are more than welcome in this thread, even if they may not be strictly gendered issues.

Sarah, your post is really interesting and I would love to discuss your thoughts more in an interview with you. I'd also really like to interview you Amelia if you are available. I'll contact you separately about this though.

Comment by Lady Amelia Emerson II on February 9, 2012 at 9:20pm

Sarah, I really enjoyed your comment below, somehow basing things in lived experience makes it so much easier to 'see' what you are trying to say. I wanted to 'like' it a la facebook. 

As I've thought about this twice since reading the discussions I figured I felt strongly enough to return a little to the gender - women issue. Just to say that whilst I fully sign up to the concept that women's rights and girls rights are still a huge issue on the table, I still feel that gender in the kind of mainstream development use of the word should expose gender based violence/treatment etcetera and not obscure it. And I have become really upset by the way the situation of young men and boys is 'lost' in development or relief programming analysis as people rush to 'find out what's happening to the girls'. So many little boys exposed to so much sexual abuse and violence and -sorry - ignored because aid workers join in the general assumption of the culture that 'boys must be alright because they are male'. I hasten to add that I realise that none of the people below are suggesting that, and indeed I can see the level of debate and understanding is highly sophisticated. The trouble is, that when you try to filter that down to a more field level I think labels get 'sold' to field staff (many of whom don't even have an equivalent word in their language - loving the 'french and gender' comment in the other discussion stream by the way) and therefore get a lot of the complication filtered out. 

Sorry, perhaps this is another discussion thread rather than about 'gender' it's about how do you turn analytical tools and methods into something that real people in the field can use in their daily working life without promoting more discrimination or just simplifying an intensely complex reality into a series of tick boxes in the proposal format. ... 

Anyway, whatever the thread, I think the insights are great

Comment by Sarah Davitt on February 9, 2012 at 7:22am

Ok, because the theory gets wacky, I'll tell a story.  

So I've got a hard core liberal activism experience base.  Like, "8th Wave" kind of radical.  Buy me a soda and I'll tell you more about that... But the things I was fighting for, in the deepest corners of issues about consent, power, gender, agency and identity -- heck some friends were key players the Boobie Liberation Front about being able to run around topless as a gender equalizer, and to make a point.    

Fast forward to a visit to some NGOs in Turkey, and my time now in India, and its become clear to me, that running around topless is not even remotely on the agenda in either of these countries.  They want jobs, lives without violence, property, not the freedom to wear short skirts, drink, smoke, drive or sleep around.  They want their version of power - not the one that I was fighting for (10 years ago).  So the metrics measuring success and the culture created around that success need to be on that metric.

A second correlation here was talking to a Turkish graduate student about her paper on gay rights... if you chart out the histories of that revolution in both countries, you find very different goals... For example in the US 60's it was sexual, the 70s it was political, the 80s was a fight for your life (a catalyst, really, to have that much tragedy on your side) and now its all about marriage -- its lost a bit of that 'human rights' aspect and is imho focusing on the trimmings.  In Turkey its about having a family/getting married... its not and will likely not ever be about the sex -- because that's how they (seem to) roll.

Does it mean that its not revolutionary to have a movement that is at its core about the same idea (feminism), but not with the same trophies (shoulderpads/sex/jobs/rockandroll) and maybe not in the same order. 

Is this recreating history?  Not so much, as I think it is more of a parallel reality -- I only have my reality to explain it so I think it feels like recreating history.

As for if can we skip that middle part.  Sure - why not - if they have a magic wand and a flexible culture and an army of men who are supportive in the cause.  But I'm not incharge of all those revolutions.  And if folks want a "middle part" a chance to take baby steps (even really fast, tiny steps)  then that's what they should have, and if it means that I wear a scarf and not see my own cleavage until next Christmas... then so be it... I'm in a county where my revolution is irrelevant, and even possibly destructive.

(ps: AKW, looking at the topic of your research - we should probably talk -- :-)

Comment by AidSource on February 9, 2012 at 6:10am

Please note a new discussion related specifically to Sarah's comment below.

http://aidsource.ning.com/group/ngos-gender-pretty-on-paper/forum/t...

Comment by AKW on February 8, 2012 at 11:58pm

Hi Sarah

I completely agree with the following:

On another hand we've got all this energy flowing into equality and what happens is that we end up modeling a wealthier/middleclassier model of the same system many of us are working against. 

And I am really interested in your comment:

In some respects, however, we may be modeling a middle step (a sort of second wave, 1980s feminism, which *feels* to us liberated folks to be a bit of step back, like we are failures - when in some cases, the liberation we are used to might not be the liberation we are fighting for.

I hadn't thought about it that way. Sorry to make you labour the point but I'd be interested to hear more about why you think that. In what ways are we modelling a middle-point? And why would we need to go to a middle point rather go straight to where we are now (or should be)?

Interesting post, thanks.

Comment by Sarah Davitt on February 8, 2012 at 9:27pm

I think its an important shorthand - for now - because as I see it, yes, we are addressing the women and girls issues (all the rage, these days) the term does leave a gap for shifting the view of gender as a more inclusive term.   I think the pendulum will swing towards paying more attention to boys as part of women/girls empowerment -- and they won't have to rewrite the mission statement to get the funding.    So yes.  Totally agree --  I also see the pragmatism in the shorthand.

As for the original comments about operating with a sense of equality in our in-house management operations -- yeah, that's an interesting issue. 

I feel that we often become products of the countries we settle/work in/adapt to, and sometimes that comes with those pragmatic - leaning right moments, mixed with lack of resources for internal training and development work (organizational operations just aren't as sexy). 

On another hand we've got all this energy flowing into equality and what happens is that we end up modeling a wealthier/middleclassier model of the same system many of us are working against.  

In some respects, however, we may be modeling a middle step (a sort of second wave, 1980s feminism, which *feels* to us liberated folks to be a bit of step back, like we are failures - when in some cases, the liberation we are used to might not be the liberation we are fighting for.

Comment by AKW on February 8, 2012 at 11:18am

I think the reason we often address issues related to women when we are considering gender is that gender is really a short-hand for gender based discrimination or gender-based issues (like violence). And the gender that is overwhelmingly discriminated against and marginalised is women. I don't know of anywhere in the world where men are subject to the same systematic, overarching marginalisation that women are in almost every society. Men might be treated badly or unfairly at times but this is not part of a larger dynamic that ultimately serves to advantage one gender over the/an other. Women are disproportionately overrepresented in statistics on violence, sexual violence and poverty and under-represented in positions of power, authority, wealth and decision-making. This is why programs addressing gender issues focus mainly on the situation of women and how we can best change a system that serves to mainly disadvantage women and advantage men. 

If we compare this with black civil rights in America or the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, or indeed with efforts to address 'racial' discrimination in general, we would not devote resources to addressing discrimination of white people. Because it doesn't happen that much - and if it does it is negligible. Certainly some white people are treated poorly or unfairly, in fact in some instances they may not have the same access to certain resources (for example positive discrimination in reserved university places). However in the current situation white people are generally advantaged - wealthier, more powerful, better access to resources etc, while black people are disadvantaged. The same way men are generally advantaged and women disadvantaged with regard to gender.

I hope I haven't confused the issue by introducing a comparison with 'racial' discrimination but I think it can sometimes help put the argument in context.

Comment by Lady Amelia Emerson II on February 8, 2012 at 9:54am

Just to say I agree with Mary Anne above. 

Firstly, it does upset me when the term gender (which was a semi-useful analytical tool) is used to mean women/girls and women's rights. If you are fighting for women's rights, that's great but then just say so!

This is particularly upsetting for me when working on child rights/child protection - my thing. It leads to people cheerfully assuming that boys are 'fine', when in many cultures boys are kicked out on to the street, because they are boys and they are 'fine'. As someone said above, that 'gender box' tends to get filled in with the depth of thought of about... um, five minutes!

Regarding the equally good points on gender and NGO employment I would just like to say that when I was a young 'un in NGO work, I was a touch naive and thought that of course there weren't really gender barriers in the work place. I figured that if I worked hard people would just acknowledge that, and the 'glass ceiling'? I thought perhaps women were just exaggerating. 

I then finally got into a senior enough job to realise that the reason I was getting positive treatment from male colleagues was because up until that point I hadn't been much of a threat. 

I hastily point out that it's not 'all' men, nor indeed were all my female colleagues sweetness and light, and probably I was at fault myself. But I did notice distinctly gendered criticisms that always centred around when I chose to raise an issue. 

'Emotional' 'over sensitive'... when I got angry because my reasoned views were overlooked, or more irritatingly when I held someone accountable for their part of a job that was done badly. Why is it when a man is 'assertive' that this is a good thing, and when a women is it's quickly put down to being over emotional? The reason I found out this treatment was gender driven? Because so many other women had the same experience, women with extremely different personalities from my own, but with exactly the same language used to them. I can accept that I might be emotional - but everyone with a double XX chromosome? That seems a bit judgemental. 

Oh, and by the way - I think that people should have a reasonable amount of emotion when discussing people's rights, or escape from poverty, it's a fairly emotive topic, unlike discussing mobile phones for example. 

Perhaps this hasn't added much to the debate (typical female, focusing on the personal!). However, the type of language used about women in leadership is very exhausting, and I have seen many young female interns/trainees be shocked, disappointed, and subtly discouraged over time by it. I have also found a lot of men who once alerted to it, tend to get quite irritated by it as well, and end up equally discriminated against for 'being over emotional about gender equality'. 

Anyway, bravo for starting the discussion

Comment by Shotgun Shack on February 1, 2012 at 3:12am

thanks Maggie! do you want to re-post on the member's blog? would be great to post/link there and generate some broader discussion!

Comment by Margaret (Maggie) Janes-Lucas on January 30, 2012 at 9:48pm

Hi all, I think this should actually be posted in a more open forum, but wanted to share this video from Davos with Sheryl Sandberg "...Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook Inc., discusses the global "ambition gap" for women. She spoke Jan. 27 on a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum..." http://http://www.bloomberg.com/video/85189956/

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