“Show me a good man and I will show you a vegetarian wolf” – a feminist activist’s struggle with engaging men…

As a feminist activist I hoped this module would fulfil its promise of pushing the envelope with difficult academic concepts and the insane promise of understanding Butler. The challenge of understanding Butler is still there, but that’s ok understanding Butler is a lifelong goal.

The majority of the module confirmed and affirmed my understanding of gender. I recognise the values, ideas and frameworks that I have worked with. I recognised my experience with diverse groups of people whose lived experiences were things that were being talked about in these theories.

So far so good, lots of interesting confirmations and affirmations – but what has challenged and changed my views? Well it’s that most challenged and frustrating group – men. For me, the inward groan has been prompted by the discussions of masculinities and the “need” to involve men and “engage” with them. When I started the module I felt strongly that when the term “engagement”
and “men” is used what they really mean is “accommodating” men. Simply engaging with men isn’t (for me) enough. I think we need to get to a place where men don’t just understand that gender inequality is wrong but they feel it too and because they feel it they create change in their own behaviours. This requires men to challenge what masculinity and patriarchy means to them, and realise that they too can benefit from a new way of thinking about their roles and their actions.

Yet, when when I try to articulate this vision I am labelled and dismissed as a “feminist activist”. So I have asked myself what is wrong with my approach because surely we all want to achieve real, meaningful and lasting equality, rather than just “accommodating” men?

Cornwall (2014)[i] states that that within development work men and women were portrayed in generalised terms – women as victims and men as perpetrators and as violent.

While that’s right, my first thought was a lot of men are perpetrators, given that 1 in 3 women experience violence in their lifetime.[ii] I recall my first feminist mentors often joked “show me a good man and I will show you a vegetarian wolf”. Observing programs that “engaged men” often increased my disdain for them (men and the programs) – I remember sitting at a conference and the Program Manager of a project[iii] began his presentation with “we work with men because they are the head of the household”. This is just one of the many examples of how such projects re-enforce stereotypes instead of challenging them.

So has the module changed or perhaps softened my views? Well, I make no apologies for being a “feminist activist”. However, as I reflect I notice a softening of my views in the way I look at the issue of how to engage men to create real change.

Cornwall (2011)[iv] argues that it is problematic to think and talk about women as victims and men as a problem – as powerful and powerless. This binary thinking – whether its thinking of sex binary/gender binary and binaries that stereotype individuals is not a way to create transformative change. Cornwall argues that there is a need to challenge this binary thinking and address “gender myths”.

I realise I have adjusted my own lens. But this readjustment doesn’t mean “giving men a break” it means renewing or redoubling our efforts to challenge men and masculinity to change themselves or itself. It means challenging stereotypes and binary thinking, it means presenting compelling arguments to men that patriarchy isn’t good for them either.

It also means understanding and learning from how male feminists (yes they are real) are challenging prevalent forms of masculinities. In my view Edstrom (2014)[v] argues that those working with gender and men need to think about masculinities more politically and in structural-yet-dynamic terms. He goes on to argue that those working in the area also need to engage with feminist thought and issues of power and privilege. Edstrom frames his argument as “disrobing patriarchy” and that it’s “not enough to see men in diverse and complex terms recognising their vulnerability” but then what? It’s more we all (men particularly) need to challenge their own privilege and power. That’s my opinion anyway, and it’s also my opinion that this will be better for men too.

A good example of an organisation that is doing this is the Sonke Gender Justice Network. I found their approach mirrored feminist principles of challenging power and inequality. And I feel this is one way men themselves are working on creating transformative change.

So transformative change means that we all (including me) have to address thinking along binaries. I recognise that to work in gender and development working with men and masculinities is key, but this means to analyse and challenge the predominant forms of masculinities. Only through this challenge are we going to find those vegetarian wolves, and who knows perhaps being vegetarian is better for them anyway.

[i] Cornwall, A. (2014) From “Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment” to Global Justice: Reclaiming a Transformative Agenda for Gender and Development. Forthcoming in Third World Quarterly, February 2015.

[ii] http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/jun/20/one-in-three-women-suffers-violence

[iii] In was an International Development agency’s program on working on reproductive health – “Men as partners”

[iv] Armas, H., Botha, M. and Cornwall, A. Women’s Empowerment: What do men have to do with it? in Men and Development: Politicizing Masculinities. London; Zed Books.

[v] Edstrom, J. The Male Order Development Encounter. in IDS Bulletin 45.1: 111-122

Gender 101: All relationships are gendered…so is ours with the environment

What is the link between Gender and the environment? The environment can sometimes seem a bit abstract and science based and far removed from the gender issues that I am familiar with. Then we (the MA Gender and Development class) had a session called the “Great Debate” as part of our Gender Space.

Gender and Development rockstars Andrea Cornwall and Melissa Leach participated. They spoke about “Where gender was going in global development policy?” Melissa Leach explained how the achievement of gender equality and sustainable development are interlocked and interlinked. She explained how unsustainable development practices in many ways increased gender inequalities. Suddenly the environment was not just about science, because women will bear the brunt of the negative consequences of environmental degradation.

It is important to note that feminists added the concerns of women into the discourse related to environment conservation and sustainable development. From the 1970s onwards feminist academics and activists began raising questions of how environmental degradation was experienced differently by women. The argument was that women had different experiences because of their socially ascribed roles in society.

Eco-feminists may sometimes be seen as the tree-huggers of the feminisms but they are the people who draw our attention to the issue. So why should we listen to them? Would women do it differently or find a different way?

Mary Daly and Andree Collard argue that women are closer to nature due to their biology and therefore better placed to advocate for the environment. [i] Others argue (Vandana Shiva and Maria Mies) that women hold ancient wisdom about nature such as knowledge of plants and are kind of keepers of ancient natural wisdom[ii]. Social eco-feminists such as Shiva argue that women and nature have a shared experience of oppression by the men and the Western world.

These theories are shaped by some women’s realities and experience.

The Chipko Movement is often presented as an example of ecofeminism. The group originated in India, they resisted industrial forestry and logging in rural India. “Local women physically put their bodies between the machinery and the forest that provided their livelihood–literally hugging the trees”.
Source: http://womenjusticeecology.wordpress.com/2009/07/04/dr-vandana-shiva-and-feminist-theory/

However feminists have criticised eco-feminism for this emphasis on women’s biological role. Gillian Rose, Val Plumwood and Cecile Jackson are some feminists who have called this essentialism and idealising women.[iii]

Despite the damage that we are doing to the environment, I agree that eco-feminism has glaring gaps that are perhaps brought about by oversimplification. I also agree that eco feminism homogenises women into gender stereotypes such as “nurturers” and “carers” of all things including the natural environment. But the simple fact remains if, as the evidence suggests, women are the ones that rely most on the environment for their work and to feed their families then they are the most vulnerable to environmental change and degradation. This is particularly true where there is subsistence agriculture, for example – see video:

In the late 1990s a new framework around gender and environment started surfacing and this was called feminist political ecology. A book titled ‘Feminist political ecology: global issues and local experiences” authored by Dianne Rocheleau, Barbara Thomas-Slayter and Esther Wangari is referred when people talk about the beginnings of this conceptual framework. Rocheleau et al raise “gender as a critical variable in shaping access and control of resources”.[iv] They also include that other identities held by women as influencing women’s access and control – identities such as class, race, and culture.

This framework pulls together into one framework a feminist perspective combined with analysis of ecological, economic and political power relations.[v] The authors go on to argue that the framework “builds on analyses of identity and difference and of pluralities of meanings in relation to the multiplicity of sites of environmental struggle and change”.[vi]

Cecile Jackson (1998) in applying the framework to access to water resources states that the when applied the framework analyse the degradation of water resources by “emphasising a context specific analysis of women and water rather than universal generalisations … rooted in livelihood realities of particular groups of women and differentiated by age, ethnicity, class or other relevant social divisions”.[vii]

Feminist academics and activists are using this political ecology framework in advocating for gender equality and raising issues of gender within discourse on sustainable development and climate change.

The Development Alternatives of Women of a New Era (DAWN), which is a network of Southern feminist scholar activists, has participated in policy advocacy space since the 1980s. Through their work in the Global South the network has identified the issues such as “food security and desertification for women in Africa; in Asia women identified poverty as a result of loss of biodiversity and natural disasters; Pacific women saw nuclear testing and in Latin America women highlighted the increasing absence of clean air, safe water and sanitation.[viii] Recently in the build up to the Sustainable Development Goals, DAWN argues that there is a need to also look at how “economic system pressures can lead governments to destroy or sell out on natural capital.[ix]

These feminist voices remain critical in bringing in the voices and experiences of women into environmental/development discourses and discussions.

Feminist NGO – linking climate change and women’s sexual and reproductive health issues
– check out this resource http://arrow.org.my/publications/AFC/V15n1.pdf

The issue of gender equality is (as stated by IDS Director Melissa Leach) interlocked with that of sustainable development. One cannot be achieved without the other.

References 

[i] Buckingham-Hatfield, S. (2000). Gender and Environment. London: Routledge.

[ii] Ibid

[iii] Ibid

[iv] Rochealeau,D., Thomas-Slayter, B. and Wangari, E. (1996). Feminist Political Ecology: Global issues and local experiences. London: Routledge.

[v] Ibid: 287

[vi] ibid

[vii] ibid

[viii] Sen, G and Durano, M. (eds) (2014) The Remaking of Social Contracts: Feminists in a Fierce New World. London: Zed books (pp 114)

[ix] Gita Sen speech – can be accessed online – http://www.dawnnet.org/feminist-resources/content/gita-sens-speech-inaugural-meeting-high-level-political-forum-sustainable-development?tid=4

Culture and Human Rights – the tension – Feminisms ride to the rescue!

In the Pacific “Culture”, kastom, traditions are often used as a reason (or perhaps an excuse) for gender inequality or to defend and not seek to change beliefs and practices that discriminate against women. This argument surfaces when groups talk about promoting and adopting human rights/women’s rights. Cultural beliefs are something feminist activists have had to grapple with when working on promoting gender equality in the Pacific.

There is often a tension between the adoption of a system of universal human rights, which may seem to require cultural change, and culture which may seem to be resistant to change.  Tension exists at local and national levels and in the international global policy discourse spaces.

I was intrigued by the argument presented in “Culture and Rights: Anthropological Perspectives. [i]  In particular it was interesting to see the four conjunctions in which culture and rights have been “conjoined in recent debates”– 1) rights versus culture 2) ‘rights to culture’ 3) rights as culture and 4) culture as analytic to rights.

I address the first “conjunction” because the conjunction “rights versus culture” is the one I identify with the most. I have personally struggled with this conjunction in my work and personally. My specific issue is where rights are portrayed as being in opposition/incompatible to culture. Culture may be seen as a hindrance to the realisation of peoples’ human rights. This binary (and in my view flawed) argument has been frequently used in human rights discourse in the Pacific.

Cowan et al argue that if we see the two concepts in oppositional terms it ‘may lead to making a choice between the two – universalism and cultural relativism’[ii]. In practice this can allow groups to cite a perceived fear or threat to their “culture” as resisting the introduction of universal rights. Cultural relativists argue that that human rights are culturally specific to Western norms and values, excluding the norms and values of non-Western cultures.”[iii]

The basis for this binary choice is an assumption that both culture and human rights hardly change. However, what Cowan et al propose is rather than looking at the two as stagnant or absolute concepts both concepts can be viewed as changing over time.[iv]

Most social scientists agree that culture and how it is defined is fluid and ever changing, and cultural practices and values are defined differently even amongst the same cultural groups.

A young Fijian’s depiction of culture

Cowan et al also propose that universal principles, being legal principles, like culture, are not stagnant. Legal frameworks also change through legislative reform which usually occurs after potential gaps, redundancies, and limitations are determined to exist in those legal frameworks which mean that they no longer suit the society that they were created for.

It is useful to view contestation or tension not as a problem but as “continuous process of ever-changing and interrelated global and local norms”.[v]

While I agree with this argument and the hope that it provides that one day things may change into some sort of natural alignment it just remains discourse. So the question remains how do we move the two concepts into alignment or how do we find proposals or a strategy to bridge or navigate the gap between the two concepts? How do we bring about cultural change while remaining sensitive to culture?

Perhaps feminists can kick-start the movement towards alignment. A feminist approach would provide a way to change both concepts and reshape them into something that would align and not be in conflict. This is because (some) feminists do not ascribe to a binary approach to the concepts of human rights nor of culture (in the sense of the argument of cultural relativism). On the one hand feminists understand that human rights law is not value-free as its agenda is both political and gendered[vi] and on the other hand feminists understand that cultural relativism provides a ways in which male oppression is justified and reinforced by using the argument of cultural beliefs and practices.

Arguments proposed by such as Christine Bell and Elshtain[vii] propose a potential solution that perhaps feminism itself can serve as a compromise between universalism and cultural relativism”. The argument put forward is “that a global feminist consciousness can create feminisms which are unique to regions and develop from within women’s existing culture, thus making feminism appropriate to the particular needs of women in various regions and cultures. The argument also adds today feminisms are originating from all over the world reflecting the diversity that exists, and these feminisms “can serve to build bridges between dissimilar regions and cultures, without imposing one version of feminism on all women”.

Perhaps the complete answer is not feminism, but the approach put forward of feminisms (especially Intersectional feminisms) that seeks change in law and culture. Like Cowan et al this approach takes a longer term view, rejects a binary choice and recognises both human rights and culture are not stagnant.

From WID, to GAD: Where did it all go BAD?

One thing that keeps cropping up in discussions and lectures within IDS is the concept of gender equality and what happens to this concept within the wider international development framework where it gets diluted and depoliticised.

Women’s concerns or gender equality concerns started featuring on the international development scene in the 1970s as Women in Development (WID). Naila Kabeer explains that this engagement started by talking about women mainly in discussions or interventions on nutrition and family planning.[1]

From the 1980’s the discourse shifted to GAD, Gender and Development. The WID framework was criticised for overlooking the importance of social and political structures within which women lived.[2]

With many commitments and the incorporation of gender equality into international frameworks. The 1980s and 1990s were the heyday for gender and it looked like things would change, but it didn’t result in gender equality. So how did GAD go bad? Though GAD has its origins in socialist feminism – the representation of gender equality within development discourse was labelled by many feminists as ‘diluted’, ‘denatured’ or ‘depoliticised’. The concept of gender in policy spaces was presented as ‘tools’, ‘frameworks’ and ‘mechanisms’.[3]

“What’s wrong if it is depoliticised, isn’t that a good thing, that means lots of other stakeholders will take it up and incorporate it into their work?” The question was a good one. It was a posed by one of the members of my seminar group, after the lecture on Gender in the Ideas in Development class (she is undertaking a MA in Development Studies).

To me this question was a reflection of what has happened to gender in development discourse, because the question suggests that there would be positive outcomes if gender becomes depoliticised. Again to me this seemed to be reflective of the development industry or development bureaucracy, which doesn’t have (in my view) a political agenda or drive at its core.

Feminists have also criticised the development industry of male bias and the development machinery and bureaucracies as unsuitable to delivering the goal of gender equality.

Mukhopadhyay raises a valid argument explaining why the ‘political element’ of gender equality is rejected in development discourse and she says it is because ‘the language of women’s rights involves separating out women as citizens from their identities as daughters, mothers, wives. She notes further that the concept “is threatening for communities and families who stand to lose when male prerogatives to rights and resources are in jeopardy’[4]. 

At this point I think its also important to reflect on the point its not only the ‘development agencies and organisations’ who are guilty of oversimplifications or depoliticisation of gender equality issues, we activists and those in the field have also been guilty of over-simplifying issues and not approaching issues in politicised ways. Whether by not accounting for diverse and complex terrains or by having our own blind spots about how things should be done. As Judith Butler puts it “feminism should remain self-critical with respect to the totalizing gestures of feminism”. [5] So within feminist critique we should also catch ourselves when we make broad claims and slogans that are just fit for purpose. Or we become closed off from diversity of voices and experiences.

But back to the international development discourse – why do feminists continue to work to influence international development policy discourse when sometimes it seems like the odds are against us? An interesting debate and discussion to follow has been the MDGs[6]post 2015 or the SDGs[7] agenda. I won’t go into the shortcomings of the MDGs but the good news is that gender equality is prioritised in the targets that will succeed the MDGs.

Does this mean there are exciting times ahead because there is a stand alone and prominent goal on gender equality? Perhaps not, we are still working with the same systems and same actors. Feminist organisations like the dynamic and awesome Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD) challenge the validity of the goals, calling for development and economic justice. They rightfully argue that to have truly transformative change, there needs to be development justice – a reduction of inequalities within and between countries, among women and men and among different social groups.[8]

This change requires a critical look at the global economic structures and a drive to change these structures. This clip provides an important insight into how development justice can be approached.

I think for GAD to not end up being just another FAD or for it to not simply go BAD, the answer to the question is “No” it is not a good thing to depoliticise gender. On the contrary we need to fight for a politicised core and belief in gender equality. This means feminists and others working for global justice need to engage more politically with the current global political, cultural and economic structures to bring about transformative change and move away from the easy and flawed reliance on ‘tools’, ‘frameworks’ and ‘mechanisms’.

[1] Kabeer, N. (1994) Reversed Realities: gender hierarchies in development thought. London: Verso.

[2] Rai, M.S. The history of International development concepts and contexts. In Visvanathan, N, Duggan,L., Wiegersma, N and Nisonoff, L. (eds). (2001). The Women, Gender and Development Reader. London: Zed Books.

[3] Cornwall, A., Harrison, E. and Whitehead, A. (2007) Feminisms in Development: Contestations, Contradictions and Challenges, London: Zed Books.

[4] Mukhhopadhyay,M. Mainstreaming gender or ‘streaming’ gender away: feminists marooned in the development business. in Cornwall, A., Harrison, E. and Whitehead, A. (2007) Feminisms in Development: Contestations, Contradictions and Challenges, London: Zed Books.

[5] Butler, J. (1999) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Routledge; London.

[6] Millennium Development Goals

[7] Sustainable Development Goals

[8] http://apwld.org/advancing-peoples-agenda-for-development-justice/)

The ‘G’ Word

I have 10 years of experience working in feminist organisations and then this blog question brought home to me that fact that I have never formally studied gender theory. The question: “What you understand by ‘gender’?” So the big “G’. After lots of thinking, reading different articles and hours in the library, I decided for this to make sense to me and I had to relate this back to my personal experience and for it to make sense to “us gang” at home.

My understanding of gender is primarily from work. Following graduation I spent 10 years working in two leading feminist NGOs in the Pacific. First, I worked at the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (FWCC).

At FWCC, we worked with the most extreme result of gender inequality – violence against women. I engaged with the term gender within a feminist framework, through in-house trainings, retreats, and discussions with colleagues and simply through the experience of working there. I saw that gender is a socially constructed notion of femininity and masculinity. These notions and belief systems placed men or males as superior to females/women.

When we talked about gender we discussed how ‘gender’ was central to unequal power relations and how violence against women (or gender-based violence) stemmed from these unequal power relations. I began to understand that gender was relational – it related to women’s identities stemming from the gender, ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, ability and so on. That no one woman’s experience was the same, her experiences stems from the multiple identities she has.

My journey continued when I joined the Fiji Women’s Rights Movement (FWRM). FWRM also has a vibrant group of activists and I had the opportunity to rub shoulders with and learn from queer/trans/gay activists, who questioned my (and FWRM’s) “hetero-normative” notions of the sex/gender binary questioning our work on gender equality, of how the work was not truly inclusive of the LGBTQI folk. I then began to understand that there wasn’t just my understanding and experience of ‘gender’ – things were not neatly packed in boxes, there were males, females, gay, straight, transgender, transsexual, intersex, questioning and everything else that is in-between. That gender identities like sexual orientation was on a ‘spectrum’, the rainbow.

My experience of gender, and what it means has been enhanced by my engagement with the academic texts. Friedman argues that the concept of sex like gender is also socially constructed. Judith Butler, amongst other things, argued that sex itself is gendered. Butler explains that sex is already an expression of gender. Together the argument is that sex is not innate or biological but is also a social construct.

Friedman argues that political and strategic reasons meant the feminist movement adopted a sex/gender binary, which treated “sex” as fixed and biological and this binary approach led to many “Unintended Consequences” for the feminist agenda that include ignoring the voices and experiences of those whose “sex” is not aligned with social norms.

This analysis that rejects the sex/gender binary implies that activists and those working on gender equality have adopted and engage with the terminology of gender as described in BRIDGE publication (I think this publication captures some great ways of defining gender – see graphic apologies its a little blurry but so is the concept!)

“to argue against biology is destiny– and how sex is biological and gender is socially constructed

*all answers are gender

I acknowledge that as feminist activists we can (and sometimes have to) adopt narrow definitions (even when we know that gender and issues of inequality are more complex). We do it to get the job done within political, religious, cultural and social constraints. When FWRM was working on reforming family law legislation there had to be compromises to get the legislation through. It was regrettably necessary to compromise on de facto relationships (and therefore same sex relationships) in the face of political cultural pushback.

However, this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t work to ‘push the envelope’ to find an effective way to include the complexities and everyone’s voices. I agree with Friedman’s proposal that to move away from the sex/gender binary we need an “alternate conceptual framework”. In my experience committed feminists are constantly pushing the envelope.

I chose this Masters to push the envelope, and to understand the complexities better, so I can find better ways to engage with sex and gender. So begins my journey with engaging with theory and arguing against binaries. To end with something light …. Judith Butler explained with cats.

References:

1. Esplen, E. and Jolly, S. (2006). Gender and Sex: A Sample of definitions. BRIDGE, IDS, Brighton.
2. Friedman, A. (2006) ‘Unintended Consequences of the Feminist Sex/Gender Distinction’, in Genders (online journal), Issue 43
3. binarythis.com