Gender Mainstreaming

by Cristina Bratu
Gender relations

Refer to the sum of social norms, conventions and

practices which regulate the multifaceted relationships
between men and women in a given society at a given
time (Cagatay and Erturk, 2004: 5).
Gender analysis

A way of looking at reality that takes into account the

disparities and inequalities between women and men in
society.
Gender mainstreamimg

A strategy for integrating gender analysis into what the

organization does.
The objective of gender mainstreaming is the
achievement of gender equality goals in everything that
the organization does.
What is the goal?
Does the goal pay attention to both men and women?
If men and women have different needs, then the goal should be
to meet both the needs of women and the needs of men.
If men or women are disadvantaged in the given situation, then
the policy goal should seek to redress this imbalance.
These goals are thus “corrective”; they are about meeting the
practical needs of both men and women.
Does the goal include a broader commitment to
improving gender equality? Or balancing
“gender”?
Perhaps elements of the institutions, structures or
underlying principles that contextualize the issue
fundamentally hinder de facto equality between
men and women. If so, the goal should be
broadened to address these elements as well.
These goals are thus “transformative”; they are
about transforming institutions and structures
(social, political, economic, cultural, etc.) so that
full gender equality can be more readily achieved.
(strategic)
Health, nutrition and population

-Gender issue is clearer, however

-Planning and budget allocations often give priority to
expensive, modern urban based hospitals and health
services which are less accessible to women
(particularly rural women) than to men.
-Lack of capacity for training for women medical
professionals
-Cultural factors continue to maintain inequities in
access to and use of services and also contribute to
inequitable allocation of food within the household.
-Gender based violence also has important health, as
well as economic and political, implications.
Rural development

• Women farmers currently under-perform due to a

lack of access to credit, information, extension
services and markets and because household duties
and child-care limit the time they have available.
• Removing these constraints can significantly increase
agricultural productivity - particularly in regions
where women play an increasingly important part in
farm management and production.
Transport, energy and infrastructure

• Route planning frequently constrains women's economic

productivity by not responding to their needs to combine work
related travel with travel relating to their household
responsibilities in the fields of education, health and marketing.
• The failure to consider the gender dimensions of transport
demand imposes high monetary, physical and temporal costs on
female users. It also results in sub-optimal economic and time-
allocation decisions by the household and particularly women.
• Women's access to transportation also determines their
utilization of existing health, education and other services.
• Women's insights can also mitigate negative impacts of project
design in areas such as the impacts on child safety, access to
markets, women's time-burden etc.
• Finally, increasing women's ownership of projects can
significantly contribute to maintenance and sustainability.
Environment

• How are women and men impacted differently by the environment?

• How do men and women participate differently in environment protection
practices?
• How are men and women consulted separately on environment policies?

• By nature of the different jobs and duties (in society, in household) that
men and women do, the impact of the environment is different on them,
and men and women, if consulted separately, would have different
solutions to environment problems seen from their angles. This is more
felt at the community/household level, and to a lesser degree at the
national level. Projects that work on environment policies might want to
consider that and those that work with communities might want to
study/monitor this question.

• Here, as in elsewhere, the different gender impact and gender

participation has implications for planning efficiently (both in order not to
aggravate the situation for one or the other gender by mistake, and to use
the opportunities presented by the different approaches for a more
realistic and holistic approach.
• Both women and men have productive roles in relation to
natural resources, and the (usually different) roles of each
must be taken into account for effective programme design
in initiatives for environmental sustainability
• Unequal access to assets and resources results in insecurity
of access to land by women, with consequences for their
ability to adopt environmentally sustainable practices, which
has implications for policy on land tenure and programmes
related to agriculture
• women and men are often differently affected by
environmental degradation because of different work
patterns and tasks of women and men in both the workforce
and the household
• Degradation of the environment has specific implications for
women – negative effects on income possibilities, health and
quality of life.
• Women remain largely absent from formal policy formulation
and decision-making, even though they have taken a
leadership role in promoting an environmental ethic.
Education

• Is there a discrepancy in equal opportunity to education?

• Is there a difference in access to education, higher,
lower, urban, rural?
• What is the education occupation segregation? Who
does what?
• Is the drop-out rate a gender issue?
• What is the impact of the drop-out trends on gender
relations in the future?
• Is the enrollment rate at higher education
differentiated?
• Is there an impact on enrollment rates in higher
education on gender relations in the future?
• Studies have shown that the economic rate of return
of investing in girls education is at least as high, and
usually higher than the return on investing in boys
education.
• Social returns on girls education (improved health and
education levels of children, lower population growth
rates etc.)
• The introduction of paid education, conscription into
the army, the involvement of girls/boys into family
agriculture, etc., would probably mean that some
families might have to make choices between the
future education of their boys or their girls.
• When women don’t have job possibilities, they
continue higher education, which might explain the
higher numbers of educated women than men
• However, the spheres of education is also gender
specific. This means that some professions, in the
future, will be the domain of men or women and that
may not be good for efficiency, and the different
“wealth” (assets and incomes of men and women),
etc.
Conclusion:

In order to achieve Gender Equality set targets for

the Millennium, we need to focus more on
programmes aiming at empowering women, increase
the financial support , improve on accountability
and reporting on results as well as seek strategic
involvement of men.
Bibliography

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cach
e:iur6UzD_78wJ:un.by/pdf/GM.ppt+I.+GENDER+MAIN
STREAMING+ppt&cd=15&hl=ro&ct=clnk&gl=ro
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