Addressing gender inequality & Gender

Mainstreaming

By; Lemessa Assefa (MPH/RH, Assis’t Professor)

Outline
Introduction

Definition

Key aspects of mainstreaming

Mainstreaming approaches

Mainstreaming and women empowerment

OBJECTIVES
Understand the basis for/approaches to promoting gender

equality
Become familiar with the entry points for/objectives of

gender mainstreaming and strategies and tools

Practice developing mainstreaming strategies
 Introduction

 Equality of men and women has been accepted as a fundamental principle of human

rights
 Many international agreements, have highlighted the need for countries to take action

against discriminatory practices

- Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women
(1979),
- ICPD 1994
- Beijing platform of Action 1995 and
- The Millennium Development Goals (2000)

5
- Sustainable development Goals (2015) 07/25/2023
 Cont. ...
Despite many improvements in the status of women there are
still many inequalities:
Less than  40 % of countries offer girls and boys equal access to education

Only 39 % of countries have equal proportions of the sexes enrolled in

secondary education.
There are approximately 774 million illiterate adults in the world and two-

thirds of them are women.

6 07/25/2023
Cont. ...
There are approximately 123 million illiterate youths and 61% of them are

girls
 In 2013, the male employment-to-population ratio was 72.2% compared

to 47.1% are female

More than one in 10 of women experienced sexual violence in their lifetime.

(Bigelow, 2018)
 Cont. ...
Men, too, suffer from gender in equalities,

In some countries these include increasing of

 Male mortality rates, suicide rates that far surpass those of women,

 Problems related to alcohol, drugs and other substance abuse

 Sexual abuse

 A man's chance of getting cancer and to die of it is higher than women but Yet there is vastly

more money spent on cancer for women (American cancer society, 2016) 

8 07/25/2023
INTERNATIONAL FRAMEWORKS
• United Nations international human rights
declarations/covenants
“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.”

Photo: UN
RATIONALE FOR GENDER EQUALITY
Human rights rationale
Economic rationale
APPROACHES TO EQUALITY
1. Formal Equality
View: Women and men are the same so treat them the
same
Goal: To achieve equal treatment
APPROACHES TO EQUALITY
2. Protectionism
View: Women and men are different so should be treated
differently
Goal: To protect women
APPROACHES TO EQUALITY
3. Substantive equality
View: There are differences in how women and men experience
life and we should minimize negative effects of this
Goal: Promote equality of outcomes
SUBSTANTIVE EQUALITY
Corrective approach
Equal treatment can reinforce inequality
Discrimination and inequality are social constructs
Requires proactive measures
Equality of opportunity, access and results
EVOLUTION OF GENDER MAINSTREAMING

Realization that:

Men and women have different priorities/constraints and can

contribute to, and be affected differently by projects

Failure to address gender issues leads to inefficient and

unsustainable results and exacerbates inequities

EVOLUTION OF GENDER
MAINSTREAMING
• Women IN Development
Analysis focused on women only
Programs exclusively for women

Photo: NDI
 EVOLUTION OF GENDER
MAINSTREAMING
• Gender AND Development
– Analysis focuses on gender division of labor,
roles and relations
– Aim to reduce gender inequalities
 EVOLUTION OF GENDER
MAINSTREAMING
1985: Concept first introduced
1995: Further developed at UN Fourth World Conference on Women
Beijing Platform: “Promote an active and visible policy of
mainstreaming a gender perspective”
Gender integration
WHAT IS GENDER
MAINSTREAMING?
Strategy to ensure women’s and men’s concerns

and experiences are included in the design,

implementation and evaluation of policies and
programs

Goal: achieving gender equality

Cont. …
“… 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 programs in all political, economic and societal
spheres so that women and men benefit equally and inequality is not
perpetuated”

(UN , 1997)
WHAT IS GENDER
MAINSTREAMING?

Every policy and activity has a gender perspective

or implication
Gender analysis improves the effectiveness of

policies and programs

Needs and rights of all stakeholders are addressed
 Gender mainstreaming….
Traditional mode of development has marginalized women from the mainstream

development process.

 GM was identified as the most important instrument for achieving gender equality

 Initiatives and projects failed due to a missing gender perspective

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Cont. …
In gender mainstreaming “gender” implies a historically constructed

asymmetrical relation between women and men.

“special issue” to “special concern” and it encourages the development of

new policy instruments

(Moser 2005: 11) (Cook 2000)

Gender Mainstreaming is not
A Women only issue
It is not just about improving access or of balancing the statistics
About having well written statements
 About blaming anybody for the inequalities which exist
About only women taking action
About only women benefiting from it
About stopping or replacing gender specific policies and projects targeted at
either women or men
GENDER MAINSTREAMING
OBJECTIVES
Make gender more visible
Transform institutions
Ensure that power and resources are deployed equitably

Photo: NDI
GENDER MAINSTREAMING
ENTRY POINTS

Institution
Policy
Program

Photo: NDI
 Key aspects of gender mainstreaming

 Objective , gender equity rather than women as a target

 Calls for transformation in power relationships

 Enables men and women to participate fairly in development projects

 Emphasizes the empowerment of women as a mainstreaming strategy

 Includes men in the struggle for gender equity

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 Key elements for gender mainstreaming
Preparation: set up a plan for the implementation of gender mainstreaming,
- define steps,
- Assign tasks and responsibilities,
- formalize and communicate the plan.
  Resources:
- resources for awareness-raising and capacity-building initiatives.
- external expertise…..
 
Stakeholder involvement: 

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 Elements for GM…
Monitoring and evaluation:
- set in place accountability mechanisms
- ensure an adequate follow-up of implementation and progress.
- Foresee regular reporting and share results.
 
Knowledge generation:
- building up knowledge on gender equality and good practices

Gender expertise:
- Both internal and external

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Steps of Gender Mainstreaming
1. A Mainstreaming Approach to Stakeholders: Who are the Decision-Makers?
2. Mainstreaming a Gender Agenda: What is the Issue?
3. Moving Towards Gender Equality: What is the Goal?
4. Mapping the Situation: What Information do we Have?
5. Refining the Issue: Research and Analysis
6 Formulating Policy from a Gender Perspective
7. Arguing Your Case: Gender Matters!
8. Monitoring: Keeping a (Gender-Sensitive) Eye on Things
9. Evaluation: How Did We Do?
10. En-gendering Communication
 Gender Mainstreaming Cycle

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 Gender Mainstreaming Approaches

Integrationist
Vs
Transformative Gender mainstreaming

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 1. Integrationist

 Deals with gender issues in existing social cultural and political

bureaucracies

Aim is to promote women’s position within the existing policy and

cultural paradigms

34
(Walby, 2005). 07/25/2023
 2. Transformative approaches

 Involve the reorientation and complete change of the existing policy

structures
Requires change on many fronts by questioning the norms of policy

making,
(Walby, 2005).

***It seems widely accepted that only the transformative approach to

gender mainstreaming can effectively eliminate inequality.
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 Women empowerment
and
Gender mainstreaming ???

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 Women empowerment and Gender mainstreaming
 Women’s empowerment
- Actions that are targeted specifically towards women.

- Aimed at redressing the historical exclusion and power imbalance

from which women and girls have suffered

E.g.
- Support to female entrepreneurs,
- Training for female parliamentarians

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 Women empowerment and Gender mainstreaming

 Gender Mainstreaming

- Looking at all programs /actions through a “gender lens”

- Considering the differential impact of our actions, systems, processes

on men and women (boys/girls).

- Taking a gender perspective on everything from employment law to

budgeting processes to infrastructure design.
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GENDER MAINSTREAMING STRATEGIES/TOOLS
• Involve women and men in consultations

• Include sex-disaggregated data

• Formulate gender-sensitive and/or specific objectives, indicators and

activities

• Strive for gender balance in staff/experts

• Include gender in evaluations

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 GENDER ANALYSIS

• Systematic way of analyzing different roles and impacts

• Undertaken at any stage

• Asks the “who” questions

• How will this affect women and men?

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 GENDER RESPONSIVE BUDGETING

• Budgeting to account for differing needs of women and men

• Ensure that resources aren’t being spent in a discriminatory manner

• COMPENSATING FOR INEQUITIES

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COMPENSATING FOR
INEQUITIES

• Affirmative action to level the playing field

and compensate for discrimination
• Additional resources/training/access
• Gender differences may be influenced by
other structural differences
COMPENSATING FOR
INEQUITIES

Image: Iris de Caluwe

THANK YOU