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Gender in the 21st Century

Edited by Caroline Sweetman TUV'r

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Oxfam Focus on Gender The books in Oxfam's Focus on Gender series were originally published as single issues of the journal Gender and Development, which is published by Oxfam three times a year. It is the only British journal to focus specifically on gender and development issues internationally, to explore the links between gender and development initiatives, and to make the links between theoretical and practical work in this field. For information about subscription rates, please apply to Carfax Publishing, Taylor and Francis Ltd, Customer Service Department, Rankine Road, Basingstoke, Hants RG24 8PR UK; Fax: +44 (0) 1256 330 245. In North America, please apply to Carfax Publishing Company, Taylor and Francis Ltd, Customer Service Department, 47 Runway Road, Suite G, Levittown, PA 19057-4700, USA; Fax: (+1) 800 821 8312. In Australia, please apply to Carfax Publishing Company, PO Box 352, Cammeray, NSW 2062, Australia; Fax: +61 (0) 299582376. You can also e-mail [email protected] or visit their website at http: //www.tandf.co.uk

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Front cover: Araba Derow taking photographs in Wajir, Kenya. Photo: Geoff Sayer 1993

© Oxfam GB 2000 Published by Oxfam GB, 274 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 7DZ, UK.

Oxfam is a registered charity No. 202918 Oxfam GB is a member of Oxfam International ISBN 085598 427 9

This book converted to digital file in 2010 Contents

Editorial 2 Caroline Sweetman Moving the goalposts: Gender and globalisation in the twenty-first century 10 Ruth Pearson Gender, globalisation, and democracy 20 Sylvia Walby Globalisation and gender training for the media: Challenges and lessons learned 29 Patricia A. Made Women's labour and economic globalisation: A participatory workshop created by Alternative Women in Development 35 Carol Barton and Elmira Nazombe 'We are forgotten on earth': International development targets, poverty, and gender in Ethiopia 45 Fra von Massow Rethinking gender and development practice for the twenty-first century 55 Judy El-Bushra 'Put your money where your mouth is!': The need for public investment in women's organisations 63 Siobhan Riordan Culture as a barrier to rural women's entrepreneurship: Experience from Zimbabwe 71 Colletah Chitsike 'Queering' development: Exploring the links between same-sex sexualities, gender, and development 78 Susie jolly Challenging machismo: Promoting sexual and reproductive health with Nicaraguan men 89 Peter Sternberg Women's health and HIV: Experience from a sex workers' project in Calcutta 100 Madhu Bala Nath Resources 109 Compiled by Erin Murphy Graham Publications 109 Organisations 115 Web resources 118 E-mail lists 119 Video 119 Editorial

his collection of articles aims to around the world? How can development identify a few of the many issues that workers understand social marginalisation Tare critical for women — and men — in the context of world cities where today, and that look likely to remain so for McDonald's outlets are located beside the next ten or 20 years. It recalls why the shanty towns, and trafficked sex workers project of promoting gender-equitable and international financiers increasingly development continues to be critical in the coexist within a few metres of each other? twenty-first century; identifies some key The concepts of difference and diversity challenges which face those working on — of individual identity, experience, and gender and development in this rapidly attitude — invite us to narrow our focus to changing field; and takes a brief look at the particular, in order to understand the some examples of innovative work. world at the start of the twenty-first century. People all experience poverty differently. The key themes in this collection are Over the past two decades, this simple fact globalisation and diversity. Globalisation is has become more recognised in develop- an issue for gender and development work ment debates, and many of the concepts and because of its sheer scale, and the far- assumptions that were common currency in reaching implications it has for the lives of the twentieth-century context of colonialism women and men living in poverty. It offers and its aftermath have been called into a challenge to development researchers and question. In a globalised world, crude workers who seek to analyse, address, and models of Northern/ Western, rich, ultimately eradicate human poverty and industrialised countries on the one hand, marginalisation. How can they respond to and Southern, poor, 'developing' countries poverty in a world where financial deals are on the other, must finally be laid to rest. made in seconds on the internet, where This vigorous questioning of stereotypes of governments are powerless in the face of poverty and marginalisation is familiar to international trade flows and economic gender and development (GAD) workers, policies, and where transnational corpo- who have seen similar challenges mounted rations can move their operations freely by Southern activists and researchers Editorial against racist caricatures of 'poor Southern How can gender and development women' and assumptions that a strong researchers, practitioners, and policy- women's movement is led from the makers respond to women's and men's North/West (Mohanty 1988). poverty and marginalisation, now and in Globalisation has been associated with the future? A second group of articles human exploitation and environmental invites us to revisit the basic concepts and degradation, as well as the creation of new terminology used in gender and develop- opportunities. This collection begins with a ment work, and to enrich them by taking on group of articles examining economic, insights from academic research, as well as political, and social changes associated with feedback from practitioners. We must re- globalisation, and analysing their positive evaluate our analytical tools and concepts of and negative impacts on different women gender analysis and our professional and men. In a globalised economy, with its practice, in order to develop the mature concomitant political and social change, understanding of development, poverty, development policy-makers and prac- and marginalisation that we need. How can titioners need more urgently than ever to our tools be sharpened, so that they take understand the very different impact of into account the widely varying experiences international macroeconomic policies on of different women — and men — living in individual women and men within the the same global context? Failure to ask these household, community, region, and state. questions may lead us to misunderstand The current processes of globalisation need how to address gender inequality. We need to be seen in the context of earlier global to recognise that gender discrimination is processes of wealth-creation and impov- interlinked with other factors of social erishment, including colonialism. It is these differentiation, and that men's lives, like processes which have led to the current women's, are shaped by gender issues. gender- and race-biased patterns of Finally, where do we look for new ways marginalisation and poverty throughout forward? The third group of articles in this the world, and which are a significant collection offers innovative, interesting case factor in people's ability to respond to studies of current gender-sensitive global change today. development work. Writers focus on topical The articles here trace the ways in which issues, including acknowledging sexuality specific aspects of globalisation affect as a development issue, critiquing the gender relations, and shape women's and assumption of entrepreneurship as gender- men's choices and chances. In particular, neutral, and asserting the need for writers highlight the failure of governments mainstream institutions, including govern- and development agencies to challenge ment and development funders, to work fully the false assumptions about the nature with women's organisations. Here, too, of women's and men's roles in society upon diversity is a key concern. which global economic activity is based. They have yet to move beyond verbal acknowledgements of the worth of unpaid What is globalisation? reproductive work, or to develop policies Globalisation was defined in 1996 as 'a that enable women to share the burden of process whereby producers and investors caring with men and the state (Folbre 1994). increasingly behave as if the world Until this happens, women face structural economy consisted of a single market and and cultural barriers to taking advantage of production area with regional or national the economic and political changes sub-sectors, rather than a set of national associated with globalisation. economies linked by trade and investment flows' (UN 1996, 6). While transnational non-market activities so critical for human corporations and international financial development. Because of a fiscal squeeze, the institutions have stressed the benefits of public provision of social services is being globalisation for human development, constrained. Because of a time squeeze, the others see the process as an enforced personal provision of (unpaid) caring opening-up of fragile developing country services is being reduced' (UNDP 1999, 84). markets for the benefit of the post- As a result of this continuing and wilful industrial world: 'the integration of the blindness to the 'structural constraints' on powerless marginal third world into the women caring for dependents (Folbre 1994), agenda set by the West' (Afshar and women's inclusion in paid employment is Barrientos 1999, 2, citing Dijaba 1997). not likely to be on terms of their choosing: In her article, Ruth Pearson discusses the they will earn less than men for similar jobs; implications of economic globalisation for jobs considered 'women's work' will be in the daily lives, and the status, of women, markets where pay is lower; and their tracing the ways in which this process has conditions of employment may be affected the relationship between women exploitative on many counts. and men positioned in different locations. Colletah Chitsike points out in her article 'The markets in today's global system are that — despite nearly three decades of creating wonderful opportunities, but 'mainstreaming' gender into development distributing them unevenly' (UNDP 1999, — planners still disregard these structural 84). As Pearson stresses, the ability to grasp constraints on women producers, and also the best opportunities is determined by fail to recognise cultural sanctions against women's and men's different degrees of them. Her article presents a critique of the freedom to take on waged employment, current vogue for projects promoting and of skills and training, including women's entrepreneurship, which are being literacy. Women (and men) who have transferred to diverse communities across responsibilities for unpaid reproductive the world, in post-industrial, developing, work fail on the first of these criteria; in and post-communist countries. In much of developing countries, women are also this work, the basic insights of gender disproportionately likely to be uneducated analysis are forgotten. and illiterate. These barriers result in the Looking at the global level and feminisation of poverty. discussing the opportunities open to some in In their article, Carol Barton and Elmira a globalised world should not lead to Nazombe present anecdotes of women's amnesia or apathy about absolute poverty. lives in developing and post-industrial In her article, Fra von Massow discusses countries which illustrate the common roots health and education research initiated by of women's ostensibly different problems in Oxfam in Ethiopia, the world's third a globalised economy. Women in post- poorest country (UNDP 1999). Von industrialised, industrialising and non- Massow's article provides a 'reality check' industrial settings are obliged to take on for anyone who may have forgotten that in most of the work of reproducing the human 2000, there are communities so acutely poor race. This work is unrecognised in a global and marginalised by resource-providers economic system which is based on that not a single woman has access to assumptions of paid work as the only work trained health-care attendants when giving with economic value, perpetuating the birth. This 0 per cent access rate in Ethiopia fatigue of women condemned to work a must be seen against a background of double day. As the UNDP points out, environmental degradation, chronic 'markets can go too far and squeeze the malnutrition, a government which spends Editorial money on a war that it cannot afford, and is true, in many situations, that the power relative to a growing sense among the of transnational corporations (TNCs) and communities that, as one Ethiopian woman foreign investors to determine employment describes it, they are 'forgotten on earth' levels and working conditions now exceeds (von Massow, this issue). In a population that of national governments. However, already facing acute poverty, women are national governments — even democratic marginalised from decision-making; ones — have a patchy record of including expected to marry young; and to leave their women in governance, or progressing their reproductive destiny to fate. The aim of rights through policy. Both Walby and health for all by 2015 has no reality in such Pearson assert that globalisation can offer a context. women and other marginalised groups Worldwide, there are many thousands of unprecedented opportunities to transcend women and men like those speaking in von national politics and create pressure Massow's research: excluded from the groups that will ultimately transform them. potential benefits of globalisation, living in In particular, global communications remote, usually rural, areas with few forms technologies have enabled the dynamic of communication (be they roads and and hugely influential international transport, or access to the internet). However women's movement to pioneer an isolated they may seem, though, the impact innovative and very successful global of global policies — for example, on debt advocacy campaign, targeting, but also repayment, the environment, and political going beyond, the series of UN conferences stability — has a direct and devastating in the 1990s. effect on these communities' lives. Challenges to political systems posed by economic globalisation are matched by its Women's empowerment, challenge to the distinct social and cultural democracy, and governance life of different parts of the world, as The process of globalisation of the economy globalised production depends on — now advanced to the extent that some stimulating global demand for consumer refer to it as a condition (Panos 1999) — has goods. The role of the media is central in clear implications for the role of promoting stereotyped views of women governments in states and regional political simultaneously as sex objects and home- and economic federations. Globalisation is makers, to promote the sale of newspapers often characterised as undermining and raise viewing figures for television governments' powers to legislate to protect programmes, as well as seemingly endless their populations' welfare. Two articles in arrays of related consumer disposables. this collection address this point, in very The Fourth UN Women's Conference in different ways. Beijing in 1995 called on the media to reform In her article on the complex linkages themselves as a step towards promoting a between globalisation, democracy, and global culture in which women are women's empowerment, Sylvia Walby recognised as full human beings, and their states, 'Globalisation has often been economic, political, and social rights enforced represented as a process which is hostile to (http: / / www.un.org / womenwatch / daw / democracy, yet globalisation and beijing/platform). Pat Made, a journalist democratisation have been taking place at from Zimbabwe, discusses the efforts of her the same time ... sometimes feminist organisation to respond to this call by pessimism about contemporary develop- introducing gender-awareness training for ments can go too far' (Walby, this issue). It its journalists throughout the world. Balancing local and global family, have hampered policy-makers realities seeking to promote women's reproductive rights and to prevent the spread of HIV and In the first of a group of articles exploring other sexually transmitted diseases. Judy possible responses to global change on the El-Bushra argues that, in future, GAD part of gender and development policy- researchers and workers will have to makers and practitioners, Judy El-Bushra consider how to adapt our understanding invites us to sharpen the basic conceptual of gender as a concept to take in new tools we use in GAD, to ensure that they insights about sex, sexuality, and gender, serve us well in understanding the cross- from scientific and social research. cutting factors of disadvantage — including Anthropologists, natural scientists, and gender, race, class, and caste — which social scientists are currently questioning together cause poverty and social exclusion. the clear concepts of sex and gender Drawing on her experience of gender and (Oakley 1972) on which we have based our development work in various African gender training and planning for more than contexts, she highlights issues which will be 20 years. This requires us to engage with familiar to many. The reality of poverty and ideas which are often alien, and sometimes marginalisation faced by individual women threatening to the world-view which we (and men) is very different according to the have been brought up to consider the norm. context, and local realities may deviate However, since those of us involved in enormously from the picture painted by gender work daily ask men and women to global statistics. Over the past decade, there recognise the social origin of much they has been a move away from blanket previously viewed as natural, we should acceptance that women, as a category, surely be prepared to question our own always have it worse than men, to a assumptions. realisation that factors including class, The first development planners to caste, and race are as important as gender consider the centrality of sexuality to human in determining social differentiation, and development worked on the issue of the way women and men see themselves. population, but by the 1980s, many had We know from the history of twentieth- rejected population control policies in century national liberation struggles in favour of promoting women's empower- various countries (including South Africa, ment to accept contraception, through a Nicaragua, and Eritrea) that at various focus on female education and employment points in their lives, individuals will see a (Bown 1990). In 1994, at the UN Conference particular part of their identity as the on Population and Development in Cairo, determining one, and that these perceptions the women's movement argued that most alter over the course of a lifetime. women are not free to determine who their sexual partners are, or when, where, and how they have sex. Recognising sexuality as central to development In her article on sex workers' responses to HIV prevention in Calcutta, Madhu Bala In general, human sexuality has been Nath discusses a highly participatory a challenging area for development intervention run by sex workers for sex organisations. In particular, stereotypical workers, which is based on peer education: views of female sexuality as powerless and not only about the mechanics of disease passive, and a lack of awareness of the prevention, but about the structural nature ways in which sexuality is linked to of women's subordination, which in many economic concerns in the institution of the situations renders them powerless to Editorial negotiate about sex or make decisions about this, they may be extremely useful to child-bearing. Women who resist male humanity. Certainly, it is clear that control risk violent reprisals. The Calcutta attaining equality for women needs sex workers have since become involved in attention to resistance on the part of the national and international groups which 'other half (White 1994, 98); it is also clear assert women's right to earn a living in any that individual men may find that the cost way they choose, which reject double of being a man in their context may be standards that demonise sex workers and higher than the 'patriarchal dividend'1 that eulogise marriage (the site of subordination all men can draw on. However, in the for many women), and which understand absence of any commitment to changing sex work as a dignified and resourceful gender relations, interventions which focus response to overcoming poverty. A key on promoting men's decision-making in lesson from Madhu Bala Nath's article is that reproductive matters are essentially alliances can be built between unlikely retrogressive, reinforcing rather than groups of people if the need to do so is challenging oppressive gender relations. overwhelming. Sex workers in Calcutta have Over the next five years, it will be worked in a pragmatic manner to gain the fascinating to see whether development support of regular clients, the police, and organisations, including NGOs, will be even some pimps, for the use of condoms. faster to embrace the ideas of the men's movement than they have been in the past three decades to build alliances with the Building alliances women's movement. Those of us in In his article, Peter Sternberg makes a case mainstream development-funding agencies for gender and development work with know that, at best, strong alliances between men as a target group, as a key to repro- mainstream organisations and the women's ductive health. He discusses the experience movement have eventually been forged, of the Centro de Information y Servicios de leading to joint projects which transform Asesoria en Salud (CISAS), a Nicaraguan gender relations and eradicate poverty. At NGO, in health promotion with men. worst, women's organisations are rejected Through action-research workshops that as partners, caricatured variously as encourage men to consider their views on extremist and therefore too threatening to parenting, sexuality, and machismo, CISAS work with, or as elitist and out of touch aims to help men take responsibility for with the 'grassroots women' with whom their actions. A growing men's movement development organisations wish to work. is currently asserting what the women's One challenge to the dominant view of movement has said for years: that men are sex and gender in our work argues that gendered beings, not a 'norm' from which they are based on an assumption that all women deviate, and that they therefore face societies have two clear gender identities particular issues associated with their which 'match' two sexes. Ultimately, this masculine identity and role. means that GAD work does not challenge As Sternberg argues, projects focusing prejudice against same-sex sexualiries, and, on men must be founded on a gender by its acceptance of clear norms of bodies analysis of unequal power relations and behaviour, betrays those who do not between women and men, and go hand-in- fall into these categories. As Susie Jolly hand with complementary policies and shows in her article, denial of human rights interventions which promote women's of lesbians and gay men is an issue not only inalienable right to the final say in for human rights activists, but for reproductive decision-making. If they do development workers, in both South and North. The issue of same-sex sexualities is of violence against women bear witness to most commonly taken on by anti-HIV and men's freedom to abuse women who they reproductive health interventions; but there perceive to be challenging male authority, are many other areas of development where with minimal risk of punishment. The programming needs to change. In World Health Organisation estimates that particular, lesbians are forced to choose at least one in five women have been between their bodily integrity and their physically or sexually abused by a man at economic security in societies where some time in their lives (WHO 1997). women do not have full legal majority and How can these statistics be related to the must marry in order to gain access to assets assertions of governments and other and resources, for example, land. service-providers that they are taking As Susie Jolly points out in her article, a 'more strategic approach ... which homosexuality is often seen as a Western promotes full equality between women and phenomenon; in fact, the desire of a sizeable men in all spheres of life, addressing the minority to have sexual relationships with causes as well as the consequences of the same sex is present throughout the inequality and aiming to bring about world. Tolerance of difference and diversity fundamental changes in gender relations' is critical for peaceful human development, (DflD 1998, 1)? Siobhan Riordan argues in and GAD workers in particular have as a her article that this approach is not being resource the long experience of the women's taken in the UK, or in the context of movement in learning not only to cope with development. Repeated studies of the ways diversity, but to recognise it as a strength. in which gender issues 'evaporate' from our organisations bear witness to the difficulty of turning rhetoric about power and social Conclusion transformation into action. In general, the After the first 25 years of WID and GAD non-economic aspects of the feminist work in international and national develop- agenda have been paid lip-service only. 'It ment institutions, aiming to eradicate is widely recognised that the concepts of women's poverty and marginalisation, "gender and development" and "women in what has been achieved? From their divers development" have frequently been perspectives, articles in this collection argue construed as one and the same thing, and compellingly that the work of redressing often not mistakenly' (Chant 2000, gender inequality has only just begun. On forthcoming). In Riordan's research in the the economic front, women are still dis- UK, she found chronic under-funding of proportionately likely to be poor: global gender-equality initiatives, both in statistics are a clear testament to the work mainstream institutions (including which has yet to be done. As UNIFEM government) and in funding disbursed to states: 'Women are still the poorest of the women's organisations. Riordan points out world's poor, representing 70 percent of the that the very existence of the women's 1.3 billion people who live in absolute movement bears witness to women's need poverty. When nearly 900 million women to meet their own concerns, and the failure have incomes of less than $1 a day, the of governments and mainstream NGOs to association between gender inequality and do so. While transformative work to poverty remains a harrowing reality' address gender power relations may be (http: / / www.undp.org/unifem / economic, carried out on a small scale, global powers htm). In politics and decision-making at all — including the international financial levels of society, women's voices are muted institutions, the UN and other bodies — are or silent. Global estimates of the incidence lagging behind. Editorial

The articles included here demonstrate References not only the importance of understanding how individuals react and respond to Bown L (1990) Preparing the Future: Women, global policies according to their identity literacy and development, Action Aid, and location, but the iterative relationship London. between people's chances (which are shaped Connell RW (1995) Masculinities, Blackwell, by their economic, political and social UK. surroundings, including gender relations) Department for International Development and their choices (in terms of the way they (1998) Breaking the Barriers: Women and the exercise their agency to conform, resist or elimination of world poverty, DfID, London. transform their surroundings). Throughout Mohanty C (1988) 'Under Western eyes: history, women and men have overcome feminist scholarship and colonial and circumvented obstacles to move discourses', in Feminist Review, 30. forward, and this will continue in future. Oakley (1972) Sex, Gender and Society, Funding and support is needed from Temple Smith. mainstream institutions at the international UN (1996) Globalisation and Liberalisation: level to facilitate the efforts of all those Development in the face of two powerful women, and men, who wish to transform currents, report of the Secretary-General human life for the better by bringing about to the ninth session of the UN fundamental changes to gender relations. Conference on Trade and Development, UN, New York and Geneva. Note White S (1994) 'Making men an issue: 1 The 'patriarchal dividend' refers to the fact Gender planning for "the other half", in that even if an individual man chooses to Macdonald M (ed) Gender Planning in reject exercising power over women, he Development Agencies: Meeting the benefits from the existence of male-biased challenge, Oxfam GB, Oxford. structures and institutions which will discriminate in his favour (Connell 1995). 10

Moving the goalposts: Gender and globalisation in the twenty-first century Ruth Pearson

Development institutions saw their work challenged by those working on gender and development in the last third of the twentieth century. Ruth Pearson argues that the new century will witness an assertion of the global relevance of gender in development, and see gender analysis applied in new contexts, and to men as well as women.

alk of globalisation is all the rage at What does globalisation the beginning of the new millennium. mean? Some see it as the beginning of a new T Globalisation is a term that has a broad and era which promises integration and develop- elastic meaning, denoting the process in ment for all, with technology, investment, which economic, financial, technical, and and trade overcoming geographical and cultural transactions between different economic isolation. Others understand countries and communities throughout the globalisation as the acceleration of an on- world are increasingly interconnected, and going process of economic polarisation, in embody common elements of experience, which more 'developed' regions get richer practice, and understanding. and richer, while countries in the periphery However, many commentators focus only (particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, most of on the economic aspects of globalisation. For Latin America, parts of south and south- instance, the Secretary-General of UNCTAD east Asia, and the former Soviet Union) defined it as 'a process whereby producers become further impoverished and and investors increasingly behave as if the politically unstable, with little prospect of world economy consisted of a single market catching up and developing alongside the 1 area with regional or national sub-sectors, more prosperous parts of the world. rather than a set of national economies Certain phenomena — including the linked by trade and investment flows' HIV/AIDS pandemic, environmental (UNCTAD 1996, 6, cited in Panos 1999). degradation, pollution, global warming, This focus on the economic aspect of civil and national conflict and insecurity — globalisation reflects the extraordinary affect people throughout the world. It is concentration of international trade, also clear that the ability of individual states investment, and financial flows in recent to challenge the larger forces emanating years. There are many indicators of this: for from beyond their frontiers is diminishing, example, foreign direct investment in and people from poorer and less developed production facilities has expanded twenty- regions are particularly vulnerable. fold in recent decades, from US$21.5 billion Moving the goalposts: Gender and globalisation in the twenty-first century 11 in 1973, to US$400 billion in 1997 (Panos fruit, flowers, and vegetable production are 1999, 2). Transnational corporations (among now co-ordinated on a global scale to serve the main instruments of globalisation of markets all over the world. Second, the production) are now responsible for 80 per production of the semi-conductor (micro- cent of foreign direct investment, and chip) and its applications in computers and directly employ up to 50 million people in telecommunications have had significant Export Processing Zones throughout the effects on global trade and production. A world (ibid.). Although this is only a fraction range of new electronics components and of the world's workforce, together with sub- equipment for military, production, and contractors and allied services it represents consumption markets, are now being a sizeable, and increasing, proportion of developed and marketed in different parts global employment and production. of the world. Third, new computer and tele- Globalisation of trade and investment has communications technologies including the also been accompanied by a rapid growth in worldwide web have facilitated the spread financial flows across national borders for of a whole range of new services and investment and speculation in commodities processes such as data entry, e-commerce, including financial products and currencies. consumer-service call centres, and enter- The integration of world financial markets tainment and leisure services, implying that has become a very significant feature of the neither production nor consumption of modern world economy. The Asian financial these services need be constrained by crisis in 1997/8, which started in Thailand geographical boundaries or distance. and spread to Malaysia, Indonesia, and A key aspect of globalisation which is Japan, revealed the extent to which national associated with these widespread economic economies and financial systems are and technical changes is the well-marked interlinked one with another. On another trend of international and national side of the world, rather than cut off movements of populations. These have financial assistance to Russia in the face of resulted not merely in growing urbanisation, the chronic instability of its economy, the but specifically in the creation of 'world World Bank and the IMF have offered cities' (Sassen 1991), starting with the global additional short- and medium-term financial financial centres of New York, London, and assistance in order to prevent financial crisis Tokyo, followed by Paris, Frankfurt, Zurich, spreading to other parts of an increasingly Amsterdam, Los Angeles, Sydney, and' interdependent world economy. Hong Kong, and now including the 'mega- Technological change, associated with conurbations' of Mexico City, San Paolo, the so-called 'third industrial revolution'2 Buenos Aires, Bangkok, Tapai, and Bombay 3 has been at the heart of many changes in (Sassen 1998) . the world economy. The first of these is the The existence of these cities — literally ability of international corporations to 'concrete' manifestations of globalisation — operate on a scale that increasingly reflects another very significant aspect of transcends national and regional borders. the contemporary world, that of increasing The scale and range of international inequalities. Over the past 20 years, the transactions would not have been possible share of income received by the poorest without the technology of electronic fifth of the world's population has dropped transfer and calculation of transactions. (from 2.3 per cent to 1.4 per cent), while the New technology has made possible the co- proportion taken by the richest fifth has ordination of production and trade risen. By the mid 1990s, in sub-Saharan internationally, often from metropolitan Africa 20 countries had lower incomes per centres, so that locally based sectors such as head in real terms than they had in the late 12

1970s (Giddens 1999). Within global cities, of sustainable human development for the same kind of inequalities coexist: the families, neighbourhoods, and countries in rich and well educated have lifestyles that the twenty-first century. reflect the advantages of global growth. A gender perspective on contemporary Large numbers of low-paid workers — globalisation however, must be framed in many of whom are migrants from poorer terms of the historical reality of countries and regions — produce high- international economic and social policies quality goods for consumption by their in the 1980s and 1990s. This era was high-living neighbours, while others dominated by economic policies designed provide personal services for them. to compel indebted developing countries to As well as the diminishing spatial restructure their economies and become segregation between rich and poor, and the solvent within the world economy. These growth of metropolitan and peripheral policies, collectively known as structural communities, a combination of global adjustment packages, were the price communications technology, and marketing demanded by the World Bank and the IMF and advertising techniques have produced in exchange for extending financial global patterns of consumption and tastes. assistance and credit to such countries These are transcending local customs and (Watt 2000). But the packages were based resource allocations. For example, the on economic models that were indifferent universal demand for certain kinds of sports to gender divisions in household and and leisure wear — Nike trainers or Levi's national economies, and ignored the needs jeans, or 'fast' or 'convenience' foods such as of populations for health and education McDonald's hamburgers and Nestle baby services as the foundation for human resource development, and the family milk — is created by global practices rather requirements for unpaid reproductive than local priorities. The creation of global labour involved in child nurturing, care of demand for such products can often distort the sick, disabled, and elderly, and local expenditure patterns, and create community management (Elson 1995). tensions and frustrations — or worse — for millions of people. It is perhaps most straightforward to trace the economic implications of The implications of globalisation for women in terms of the globalisation for women: a employment generated by the expansion of gender analysis global trade and production. As has been long acknowledged, the majority of the In looking at globalisation from a gender workforce in the new sectors producing perspective, we need not only to find out consumption goods and services for global how, and in what ways, women or men win markets are women — in clothing and or lose in the globalisation process, and to sportswear, in electronics components and trace the (often nefarious) impact of consumer goods, in data entry facilities and globalisation on women. We also need to financial services call centres, in fruit map out the different aspects of the orchards and flower farms (UN 1999). globalisation process, and view each of Tourism, another by-product of economic these aspects through the lens of gender internationalisation, also provides a high analysis. Only if we do this will we gain proportion of jobs for women. However, detailed insights into women and men's across these sectors, the evidence is that livelihood struggles. These insights will women are still largely confined to lower- enable us to create policies, organisations, paid occupations. Indeed, a feature of and institutions that will further the process contemporary globalisation is the trend Moving the goalposts: Gender and globalisation in the twenty-first century 13 towards the flexibilisation of labour, their reproductive health, while the health including part-time, casual, and informal- of women working in seasonal export sector jobs (including home-based work), agriculture is harmed by chemical fertilisers and women are over-represented in all and pesticides, and those working on these sectors (UN 1999). In rural areas, computer terminals can suffer from evidence suggests that women still perform repetitive strain injury and radiation effects the bulk of tasks in subsistence agriculture. (Pearson 1995). Meanwhile, increasing commercialisation Women's employment has been a key of agriculture, as well as landlessness and aspect of recent changes in global impoverishment have meant that women as production and trade, particularly in well as men have had to develop a portfolio labour-intensive manufacturing such as of income-earning activities, including electronics, garments, and sportswear petty trade, services and artisan production, (Pearson 1998), data entry (Pearson and to meet the increasing cost of household Mitter 1993; Dunn and Dunn 1999) and survival. Surviving is a task made all the teleservices (Reardon 1999; Mitter 1999). more difficult by the global trend towards Yet, there is evidence that ongoing technical user charges on basic social services, change may actually override the reasons including education and health care. why women have become the preferred In many ways, women have become the labour force in many industries. For ideal 'flexible' workers in the new global example, automated fabrication and economy, in the sense that their widespread assembly can replace women's dextrous incorporation into global labour markets and accurate labour on electronics assembly has given them little security or bargaining lines; the worldwide web could replace call power in relation to wages, working centres; and direct computer entry can 4 conditions, and entitlements to non-wage replace data entry employment. The fact benefits and publicly provided repro- that the demand for women's employment ductive services such as child care, elderly may decrease in this way in the coming care or unemployment benefits or pensions decades highlights the structural problems (Pearson forthcoming). Moreover, the women face in obtaining access to the global features of the modern world technical skills and training required for economy have meant that new employment their full participation in the new 5 opportunities are vulnerable to externally knowledge-based economy that is such a induced economic crisis. The collapse of the key feature of globalisation. south and east Asian economies a few years Other aspects of globalisation also ago left many former women factory interlock with economic need to present workers unemployed: reports indicate that problems and vulnerabilities for women. 10,000 women workers in South Korea were The growth of the international transport, laid off every day, while those whose tourism, and entertainment industries has earnings wholly or partially supported their fuelled demand for the trafficking of families' survival had to face reductions in women for sexual services. Rising numbers real wages of up to 100 per cent within a of sex workers — legal, semi-legal and six-month period (Panos 1999). Women illegal — are an acknowledged aspect of the workers within the global economy are also global reach of services and markets, which vulnerable to the fact that their working should not be overlooked in any analysis of conditions are often unregulated and globalisation (Pettman 1996). unprotected. For example, there is much While globalisation has resulted in evidence that electronics workers suffer a women's increasing involvement in range of hazards to their health, including production and paid employment, most are 14

retaining their primary responsibility for to the relentless global marketing of reproductive activities in an increasing fashion clothing and accessories, and unstable world. The rising participation of 'modern', Western-style furniture and women in waged labour destroys any decor. Internationalisation of consumption illusion that men have a unique role as not only reinforces and expands a family breadwinners, and this requires a gendered demand for consumption difficult adjustment for current and future spending, which may itself cause inter- generations of men. At the same time, there gender and intergenerational conflict, is little evidence that men are significantly particularly in households with limited taking on more of what has traditionally incomes, but also puts additional strain on been women's domestic labour, causing women who are most frequently the stress and conflict in many households individuals required to balance the (Koch Laier 1997). In situations where competing demands on household traditional sources of employment and budgets (Engle 1995). income generation are no longer available, many men — and some women — are forced to migrate to other parts of the Response or resistance to country or even to other countries and globalisation: the role of the continents, splitting families and international women's communities. While globalisation is movement challenging women in terms of increased Women's perspectives and gender issues and changing participation in the paid have been increasingly prominent on the economy, there is no doubt that men's roles international stage since the First United are also being challenged by globalisation Nations Conference in Mexico City in 1975 processes; these are causing increasing marked the start of the UN Decade for polarisation in terms of access to education, Women 1976-85. However, the debates of training, and employment, and high levels the Mexico City meeting were firmly rooted of migration, separating men from their in a pre-global order of national and families and communities. The economic international politics. and social trends outlined above leave One response to the increasing level of many women unsupported in their economic globalisation is the attempt to challenge to make a living and bring up regulate international trade and investment their children. through the activities of transnational bodies The internationalisation of tastes such as the World Trade Organisation referred to earlier places women and men (WTO). However, as the events surrounding living in poverty in the centre of a global the WTO negotiations in Seattle in December consumption nexus, mediating between 1999 indicate, the terms on which the global children whose demands are formulated economy is to be regulated are being fought through international media and imagery, out not just between national governments and limited economic resources. A and representatives of transnational cor- manifestation of the gendered nature of porations (TNCs) and labour organisations, such global tastes lies with the hegemony but also by a large range of organisations of football as the world sport par excellence from across the spectrum of civil society. In a — primarily (though not solely) a sense, the response to the Seattle trade talks masculine activity with a multi-billion- reflects the multi-dimensional nature of dollar spin-off industry of clothing, globalisation, and the difficulties of trying to equipment, media, and communication contain its forces within a purely economic products. Women and girls too are subject and technical sphere.6 Moving the goalposts: Gender and globalisation in the twenty-first century 15

The quarter of a century since the Mexico Global feminist action has also resulted City meeting has witnessed an inter- in changes of policy on the part of nationalisation of feminist activism, international development bodies. An asserting that economic and technical issues example here is the current international must be seen in their social and political concern about the exclusion of women and context. Over the last years of the 20th girls from employment, education, and century, women's organisations and lobby health care in Afghanistan. Both aid groups emerged as the transnational agencies and international organisations political actor par excellence. Women's have reiterated their commitment to the perspectives have not been limited to the principle of equitable development, and quinquennial United Nations meetings on negotiations for development assistance in women and development meetings, but Afghanistan have centred on issues of have been central to key international equitable access and resources for women conferences on the environment (Rio in and men (Emmott 1999). The broader issue 1992), human rights (Vienna, 1993), of the rise of fundamentalism all over the population (Cairo, 1994) and social develop- world — and the control on women's lives, ment (Copenhagen, 1995). Globalisation of education, and marriage exercised in the technology, and of economic regulation and name of adherence to religious texts — is production has afforded opportunities to also being challenged on the grounds of the international women's movement to universal human rights of women. insist that women's perspectives are central International solidarity between women to international policy and governance. in different parts of the world is being They have resulted in important acknowl- assisted greatly by the new commu- edgements at international fora of the nications technologies associated with interlinked nature of economic, social, and globalisation. For instance, there is a new political change, including the importance campaign against the practice of female of environmental management for genital mutilation (FGM), supported by sustainable livelihoods; women's human Womankind Worldwide, a UK-based NGO. right to freedom from violence in the home FGM is a practice rationalised in the name and the public sphere; the need for of culture and tradition, but which has long reproductive rights being mainstreamed been contested by African women in the into population and family planning policy; continent and in the diaspora. The and the central importance of unpaid work Womankind Worldwide programme is in the family and community for the building on this opposition by facilitating economic wellbeing of the public economy. the creation of an international coalition of This mainstreaming of gender concerns women's groups from a range of African in international policy fora has resulted in countries and Northern countries. It is the formulation and reform of laws, using the world wide web to share ensuring that it is more than mere lip experiences, knowledge of health and legal service to politically correct opinion. For practices and devise strategies for advocacy 7 example, the recognition that women have and awareness campaigns). the right to freedom from violence and A further illustration of the current bodily integrity as a basic human right has incorporation of gender concerns at a global been translated into the addition of rape as policy level is the current discussions at the an international war crime, and several war IMF and the World Bank on the proposed trials following the conflicts in the Balkans Global Standard for Social Policy. Proposals and in Rwanda have concretely reflected for this draw on the 1995 United Nations this change in public policy. Social Summit in Copenhagen and its 16

Platform for Action. They cover general The challenges for gender principles in the following four areas: of globalisation achieving access to basic social services; enabling all men and women to attain There are many who have reacted against secure and sustainable livelihoods, and the global incorporation of gender issues decent working conditions; promoting into the NGO and development agenda, systems of social protection; and fostering contending that it reflects a Western social integration8 (Norton 1999). Although imperialist bias and indicates opposition to such discussions are at a very early stage, appropriate local social relations and they reflect a recognition of the intercon- practices. However, the robustness of the nectedness of production and reproduction, challenge on gender issues from feminist which has been the basis of gender analyses activists and gender and development of the global economy over the past 30 policy-makers to development policy and years. This recognition itself reflects the institutions in the last third of the twentieth growing realisation on the part of economic century indicates that its relevance policy-makers that they cannot continue to transcends the local. The indications are that limit their policy analysis to the formal the new century will witness an assertion of employment sector, but instead have a the global relevance of gender in develop- responsibility for the majority of producers ment not just by gender advocates, but by in the developing world, who work in self- development institutions and organisations employed, family-based or informal forms concerned with meeting the challenges of of labour and therefore fall outside formal globalisation (Sen 1997); extending the systems of social protection. application of gender analysis to men as well as women, and encouraging the The problems for women arising from creative application of gender-equitable their incorporation into the global economy policies to new generations and contexts. are real and ever-present. But so, too, are While the constraints and inequalities initiatives seeking to extend guarantees of produced by economic and technological the ILO's Core Labour Standards to all globalisation will provide the backdrop international production and global trade. necessary for international and local While the internationalisation of global campaigning, advocacy, and policy design consumption patterns will continue to and implementation, they also offer the accentuate the pressure on women opportunities for new and appropriate responsible for making family budgets initiatives. I will conclude by mentioning a viable, international consumer pressure project recently initiated in a small British has also been responsible for a range of provincial town, Norwich. Called 'Moving initiatives including Voluntary Codes of the Goalposts', it has as its objective the Conduct to safeguard the working promotion of girls' football in an area conditions of workers involved in the around Mombasa in Kenya.9 It seeks to production of a range of consumer products provide training for local girls, links with including sportswear, clothing, and fruit girls' and community football projects in and vegetables. While such initiatives cover Norwich through educational and fund- both men and women some of the most far raising activities, and ultimately through reaching Codes of Conduct are those drawn international exchange visits and tourna- up by and for women workers. These cover ments. This was an initiative that came in non-wage benefits, sexual harassment, the wake of the Woman's Football World security and safety of employment, and Cup in 1999, which attracted a great deal of serve as a model for other workers in global international intention, but it was also production chains (Seyfang 1999). inspired by an existing girls' football team Moving the goalposts: Gender and globalisation in the twenty-first century 17 of some years' standing in Kilifi, eastern possible not just international commu- Kenya. In seeking to empower young nications, but international control and women in both Kenya and the UK, the dispersion of production and services. project demonstrates a fresh and innovative 3 For further discussion of world cities and approach to gender and development. It globalisation see leGates, RT and Stout, F offers the opportunity to capture the (eds) (1996) The City Reader, Routledge, UK. interest of an entire new generation in a 4 A call centre is a relatively new and fast- new context, promote international under- growing kind of production site where standing and learning, and use global service functions are carried out over the communications in a positive way. Such a telephone, for a range of enterprises project is the product of internationalisation including sales, banking and financial — of sport, of media, of communications services, inland revenue (tax) offices, and product markets — and an example of airline and travel companies. Telephone how women's activism and imagination can be used to subvert the gendered interaction replaces (or less commonly stereotypes of international sport. It may complements) face-to-face interaction not have the weight of the international with the customer. Call centres are sports and leisure industry behind it, but it offices, usually fairly large in scale, and provides an indication of the fluidity of may operate for a single operation or gender relations in a global world, and the handle teleservices for a range of sense that there is everything to play for. contractors. See Richardson (1999). Further information can be found on Ruth Pearson is Professor of Development http://www.callcentreworld.com/ Studies, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, 5 The knowledge economy refers to the UK. E-mail: [email protected] increasing displacement of physical labour (usually men's) and manually Notes dextrous and docile labour (usually women's, required in sectors such as 1 The various academic and political micro-electronic assembly, garments, positions on globalisation and its impli- food production, data-entry, and tele- cations in different regions are well services) with technically trained and covered in Lechner, Frank J and Boli, qualified labour, predominantly male. John (eds) (2000) The Globalization Reader, See World Bank 1999. Blackwell Publishers, Oxford. 2 The 'third industrial revolution' refers to 6 For more discussion on the WTO, see the the great changes in production techno- Globalization Reader, op cit (note 1). logy that followed the development of 7 Website: http//www.womankind.org.uk micro-electronics and biotechnology, /cpgfgm.htm. For more information on leading to the production of a range of Womankind Worldwide see Resources new products, as well as to their incorpo- section, p 115. ration into existing products such as cars 8 Social protection refers to systems (usually and television sets. The application of run by the state) of social security and micro-electronic and computer techno- income support for the unemployed, the logy to telecommunications has further elderly and the sick. Social integration revolutionised a range of production refers to the combating of social exclusion processes, and catalysed the develop- (a term increasingly used to denote not ment of new products and services such only economic poverty, but exclusion as mobile telephones and the worldwide from opportunities in the labour market, web. Most importantly, it has made education and services). 18

9 This project is organised by a local for a New Paradigm for Women's Work', women's group who have applied to the Gender, Technology and Development, 3:1. UK National Lottery for funding. A Mitter, S and Bastos, M-I (eds) (1999), current fundraising activity is a so-called Europe and Developing Countries in the 'bootlink' in which local (to Norwich) Globalised Information Economy: football-playing girls are encouraged to Employment and distance education, donate second-hand football boots and Routledge, UK. other kit to be donated to the much Panos (1999) Globalisation and Employment: poorer teams in Kenya. New opportunities, real threats (1999), Panos Briefing No 33 May (Panos References briefings can be obtained from PANOS 9 Blumberg, RL, Rakowski, CA, Tinker, I and White Lion Street, London, Nl 9PD, UK. Monteon, M (eds) (1995) Engendering Tel +44 (0)20 7278 0345; e-mail: Wealth and Well-being: Empowerment for [email protected],org; website: global change, Westview Press. http:/ /www.oneworld.org/panos/ Dunn, L and Dunn, HS (1999) Employment, Pearson, R (1995) 'Gender perspectives on Working Conditions and Labour Relations inhealth and safety in information Offshore Data Service Enterprises: processing: Learning from international Case studies of Barbados and Jamaica, experience', in Mitter, S and Rowbotham, Multinational Enterprises Programme S (eds) (1995) Women Encounter Working paper No 86ILO, Geneva. Technology: Changing Patterns of Emmott, S (1999) 'Personnel management Employment in the Third World, in a time of crisis: experience from Routledge, UK. Afghanistan' in Porter F, Smyth, I and Pearson, R (Dec 2000, forthcoming) 'All Sweerman, C (eds) (1999) Gender Works: Change? Women, men and reproductive Oxfam experience in policy and practice, work in the global economy', in European Oxfam GB, Oxford. Journal of Development Research. Engle, P (1995) 'Father's Money, Mother's Pettman, J (1996) 'An international political Money, and Parental Commitment: economy of sex?', in Kofman, E and Guatemala and Nicaragua' in Blumberg Youngs, G (eds) Globalization: Theory and et al. (eds) (1995). Practice, Pinter, London. Elson, D (1995) Male Bias in the DevelopmentReardon, G (1999) 'Telebanking: Breaking Process, Manchester University Press. the logic of spatial and work Giddens, A (1999) Runaway World: How organisation', in Mitter, S and Bastos, M- globalisation is re-shaping our lives, Profile I (eds) (1999). Books, London. Richardson, R (1999) 'Call centres and the Koch Laier, J (1997) 'Women's Work and prospects for export-oriented work in the the Household in Latin America: A developing world', in Mitter, S and Discussion of the Literature', CDR Bastos, M-I (eds) (1999). Working Paper 97, Centre for Sassen, S (1991) The Global City: New York, Development Research, Copenhagen. London and Tokyo, Princeton University Norton, A (1999) 'Can there be a Global Press. Standard for Social Policy? The Social Sassen, S (1998) Globalization and its Policy Principles as a Test Case', ODI Discontents, The New Press. Briefing Paper (draft), October. Sen, G (1997) 'Globalization in the 21st Mitter, S (1999) 'Globalization, Century: Challenges for civil society', Technological Changes and the Search University of Amsterdam Development Moving the goalposts: Gender and globalisation in the twenty-first century 19

lecture 1997. Available from the Institute UN (1999) 1999 Survey on the Role of Women for Development Research Amsterdam in Development: Globalization, Gender and (IDRA), University of Amsterdam, Work, UN Division for the Advancement Plantage Muidergracht 12, 1018 TV of Women, Department of Economic and Amsterdam, The Netherlands; e-mail: Social Affairs, New York. [email protected] Watt, P (2000) Social Investment and Seyfang, G (1999) 'Private Sector Self- Economic Growth: A strategy to eradicate Regulation for Social Responsibility: poverty, Oxfam GB, Oxford. Mapping codes of conduct', Working World Bank (1998) Knowledge for Paper No 1, Research Project on Ethical Development: World Bank Report 1998/9, Trading and Globalisation, Overseas Washington DC. Development Group, UEA, December. 20

Gender, globalisation, and democracy Sylvia Walby

Women's presence in democratically elected assemblies around the world has increased, and women have been participating in the wave of democratisation during the 1990s. While the proportion of parliamentary seats held by women is not in itself a sufficient indicator of women's representation in politics, it is an important factor in reflections on gender equity and development.

lobalisation has often been repre- women. However, while the attention to sented as a process which is hostile diversity has been an important dimension Gto democracy, yet globalisation and of feminist analysis, it has led to a relative democratisation have been taking place at neglect of the larger scale of social change, the same time. Despite the rise of global especially globalisation. Feminist analysis financial markets and corporations — needs to address global change, and the which are widely believed to reduce the global future needs to be gendered. political capacity of nation-states (Held 1995) — there has been not only a third The political dimensions of wave of democratisation (Huntington 1991) globalisation and immediate suffrage for women in the While much attention has been focused on new democracies, but also an increase of the economic dimensions of globalisation, women in existing parliaments (Inter- some of the political dimensions are as Parliamentary Union [IPU] 1995). important. Globalising processes may be While it can be important to grasp the undermining the capacity of nation-states to detail of the particularity of women's lives, act autonomously, but some aspects of these we must not lose sight of the larger picture processes are facilitating the development of of global and regional linkages and certain democratic procedures. changes, especially in an era of Globalisation is not a uniform process globalisation. Much contemporary feminist with a single direction, and one can identify scholarship has argued for a focus on the many paradoxes: increased numbers of particular, on the specific, rather than the highly educated skilled workers, even large scale of global; it has focused on though global capital appears to seek cheap difference and diversity rather than labour; more democratic governments commonality. This argument is often alongside the greater power of multinational positioned as a rejection of essentialism and companies and financial markets; increased of a false universalism based on the calls for the state's protection of human experiences of dominant white Western rights at the same time as its role in Gender, globalisation, and democracy 21 providing welfare is eroding; and increases mothers. The second approach sought to in the spread of education and literacy, gain equity for women, but was seen as simultaneous with the growing power of based on Western concepts rather than global financial markets (Walby 2001). endogenous feminism. The anti-poverty Analysis of globalisation has sometimes approach focused on poor women in order been polarised between those who think to improve their productivity, but tended to that globalisation produces uniformity or isolate poor women as a separate category. homogenisation (Fukuyama 1992; Ohmae The efficiency approach focused on 1995) and those who think that particularity improving the efficiency of the local or heterogeneity is maintained by different economy by drawing on the contributions of cultural responses to ostensibly similar women, but was problematic in its tendency global pressures (Robertson 1992). Rather merely to extend women's working time. than catalysing convergence or divergence The fifth approach, empowerment, was seen in social relations, globalisation catalyses as seeking to empower women through transformation. greater self-reliance, and to have a 'bottom- But how is globalisation gendered? What up' rather than 'top-down' orientation, but are the changes in women's participation in because of its focus on women's self-reliance formal parliamentary politics on a global tended to be unsupported by governments, scale? To what extent are these related to a leading to slow growth of under-financed country's internal economic and political voluntary organisations. situation rather than external pressures? What are the implications of increased A new approach global flows at a political level for achieving A sixth approach which combines efficiency women's democratic political expression and empowerment needs to be added, one and power? Is there a connection between which sees democratisation and efficiency economic development and political going hand-in-hand, and for women as well democracy for women? as for men. This would highlight the This article uses recent data from the problematic nature of the direction of Inter-Parliamentary Union (1995, 1999a, causality assumed in the traditional 1999b), the UNDP (1995, 1997, 1999), and 'modernisation' theory of development, by the ILO (1996). Since these data are suggesting not that liberal democracy is the relatively easily accessible, the raw data will outcome of economic modernisation, but not be reproduced here. This global level of that economic modernisation requires a free analysis is intended as an addition, rather and democratic society (Leftwich 1996). Such than an alternative, to case-study analysis. an approach is facilitated by the end of the cold war, and, indeed, some see the fall of communism as proof of such an approach Gender and development (Huntington 1991), because it is associated approaches and democracy with the increased interest in the role of a The analysis of gender relations within 'free' civil society in underpinning a processes of development planning has democratic state (Cohen and Arato 1995; been authoritatively described by Moser Potter et al. 1997). The new approach is (1993) in her influential distinction between based on the understanding that a modern five approaches: welfare; three Women in economy needs people to be educated and to Development approaches: equity, anti- be able to associate freely and to exchange poverty, and efficiency; and empowerment. information; further, that democracy is an The earliest approach, welfare, was seen efficient way to control the vested interests merely as trying to develop women as better which might otherwise dominate and 22

corrupt the state, harming its potential for The rise in women's ensuring development (Castells 1996). representation in national It is unnecessary to set up a false parliaments dichotomy between the efficiency and empowerment approaches to gender- Since 1945, there has been a major increase sensitive development interventions. in the extent to which women are elected as Rather, they are interdependent, and representatives in national parliaments should be synthesised in the sixth approach around the world (Table 1). This started described above. This approach, captured from a very low base indeed, and in the shorthand 'productive engagement', everywhere, women's representation in has the potential to become well-known parliaments is still lower than men's. and of widespread use. Nevertheless, there have been major While most work within this emergent changes. perspective pays little attention to gender, it During the course of the twentieth is incomplete without a gender dimension. century, women have won the right to vote There can be no democracy if women are not in most countries of the world, with three full political participants. Not only must major waves in 1918-20, 1945-46, and women's empowerment be a focus for during decolonisation. But the right to vote grassroots organisations (as was typical in did not immediately mean that women the early empowerment approach), it must were elected to parliaments; this has been a also be a focus for the state and the very slow development. institutions of global governance. In order This increase in women in parliaments for an economy and a society to be has overlapped with a general 'third wave' productive, women as well as men need to of democratisation (Huntington 1991), be engaged fully, which can only effectively although the rise in women's repre- happen if the state, as well civil society, is sentation is of longer duration. A higher democratic. proportion of countries have demo- In the rest of this article, I shall examine cratically elected assemblies today than 20 the evidence which has emerged in support years ago. This in itself increases the of a 'productive engagement' approach, number of women in parliaments. The examining the rise of women's participation third wave has involved important changes in parliaments around the world, and its for women as well as for men, although association both with economic and human this is barely noted in otherwise wide- development and with regional and global ranging texts on democratisation political alliances. (Huntington 1991; Potter et al. 1997).

Table 1: Percentage of women MPs in national parliaments around the world

Year 1945 1955 1965 1975 1985 1995 1999

Percentage of women MPs 3.0 7.5 8.1 10.9 12.0 11.6 13.2

Number of parliaments 26 61 94 115 136 176 179

NB These include all national assemblies, whether or not they meet conventional definitions of membership through democratic elections. Source: IPU 1997,1999a, 1999b. Gender, globalisation, and democracy 23

Variations depends on an equation of parliamentary The pattern of women' representation in with democratic representation. parliaments is very variable between To be fair to Petersen and Runyan, they different countries; a few of the reasons will do not say that all the parliaments they be mentioned here. consider are democratic. They use IPU data, There is a regional pattern, although which includes all parliaments, whether or there are significant variations within each not the membership is through democratic region. The Nordic countries have the elections. In particular, the IPU data highest representation of women, with includes the parliaments of Eastern Europe female parliament membership at 38.9 per during the communist period. It is very cent, while that of Europe is 15.5 per cent, unusual to consider these parliaments as Asia 14.9 per cent, the Americas 14.7 per democratic, because of the limitations on cent, sub-Saharan Africa 10.9 per cent, the the number of parties allowed to contest Pacific region 8.7 per cent, and Arab states elections and on free debate. During the 3.8 per cent (IPU 1999a). period from 1945 to 1989, women Some types of electoral system are constituted about one-third of the associated with higher proportions of membership of these assemblies in Eastern women elected. In particular, these include Europe and the Soviet Union. The transition multi-member constituencies, where to a market economy and more open electors get to choose several candidates democracy was accompanied by a dramatic from a list, and proportional representation drop in the number of women in the rather than the first-past-the-post system, national assemblies. Very recently, this has so second-choice candidates get a chance to been growing again. It appears, therefore, be elected. Countries with these electoral that it is the dramatic changes in Eastern systems tend to have higher proportions of Europe which account for the apparent women MPs than those who do not, stagnation and fall in women's presence in probably by removing the pressure to vote national assemblies between 1988 (14.8 per for just one candidate who is more likely to cent) and 1994 (11 per cent). However, if be a man, and replacing this with these assemblies are removed from the incentives to get a 'balanced' set of world averages, then the proportion of representatives (Lovenduski and Norris women in national parliaments shows a 1993; IPU 1997). continuing upward trajectory, with no stagnation or fall. Unsurprisingly, countries in which women have had suffrage for longer tend to have higher proportions of elected women Explaining the increase in in parliament. women elected to national Non-democratic parliaments and parliaments women's representation There are two main factors behind the rise Not everyone agrees that there has been a in women's election to parliaments: the steady increase in women's parliamentary increase of women's economic power; and representation. Petersen and Runyan (1999) women's political struggles. suggest that the proportion has 'stagnated'. They report that the peak of women's Women's employment parliamentary representation was reached There is a correlation between the proportion in 1988 when women made up 14.8 per cent of women in employment and parliament in of elected members of parliament world- many countries. The countries which have the wide. However, this pessimistic conclusion highest proportion of women elected to the 24

national parliament have high rates of paid 1999; IPU 1995). This means that an increase employment among women. For instance, the of women's employment, under particular Nordic countries have the highest rates of circumstances, can make an increase in female membership of parliaments in the women's parliamentary representation world, and among the highest rates of female likely. Table 2 provides examples of employment. Sweden (42.7 per cent of MPs), countries where there has been an increase Denmark (37.4 per cent of MPs), Finland (37.0 both in women's employment and their per cent of MPs) and Norway (36.4 per cent of parliamentary representation between 1970 MPs) have more women in parliament than and 1995. (Data for all countries can be anywhere else (IPU 1999b), and women's found in the UNDP annual reports, by employment as a percentage of men's is high combining tables. The table is selective in Sweden (90 per cent), Denmark (84.7 per rather than representative.) cent), Finland (87.3 per cent) and Norway The correlation between the increase in (83.8 per cent), compared with a world women's parliamentary representation and average of 69.8 per cent (UNDP 1999, 233). In women's proportion of paid employment is comparison, countries with low levels of stronger in industrialised countries than in representation of women in parliament also non-industrialised countries. This is partly have low rates of female paid employment. because the category 'paid employment' For instance, among the Arab states, women better fits contexts where work outside the make up 3.8 per cent of members of household is likely to be paid and that parliament, and women's employment as a within the household unpaid; it has a less percentage of men's is 38.6 per cent — the certain meaning in societies with a large lowest on both indicators for any region of agricultural sector, where the boundaries the world (UNDP 1999). between paid and unpaid work, and More interesting for those considering between the public and domestic sphere, what will occur in the twenty-first century is are less likely to coincide . the change in political representation and Of course, industrialisation does not employment levels over time. In many necessarily lead to an increase in women's countries, the proportion of women in employment, as Boserup (1970) noted long parliament has grown significantly in the ago. Indeed, Pampel and Tanaka (1986) same period during which women's paid show that the relationship between employment has grown. Thirty years ago, industrialisation and women's employment the Nordic countries had quite modest levels is described by a U-shaped curve: women's of women in parliament, at a time when employment declines in the early stages of their female employment was comparatively industrialisation and rises later on. Thus it low. The pattern of strong parliamentary is important not to conflate industrialisation representation and high levels of female with women's waged employment, but to employment is not an unchanging essential keep them separate in any analysis (Walby feature of Nordic societies, but a 1990), which traditional modernisation phenomenon of the last quarter of the theory did not. The focus here is specifically twentieth century. For instance, in Norway on the correlation between a rise in in 1970, women's economic activity rate1 women's employment and a rise in their was only 40 per cent of that of men — representation in parliament. considerably less than the 1977 average for The failure of traditional modernisation the developing world of 68 per cent. In 1970, theory (Lipset 1960) to make the distinction 9 per cent of MPs in Norway were female, between industrialisation and the increase similar to the rate of 10 per cent among in women's paid employment is one of the developing countries in 1999 (UNDP 1995, reasons why it does not recognise the link Gender, globalisation, and democracy 25

Table 2: Women's economic activity rates as a percentage of men's in 1970 and 1994; female percentage of parliamentary seats in 1970 and 1995

Country Women's economic activity as Female percentage of parliament a percentage of men's (lower or single house)

1970 1994 1970 1995

Canada 47 63 0.4 18 USA 53 65 2 11 Jamaica 67 82 4 12 Barbados 54 78 0 11 Honduras 17 27 3 7

Guatemala 15 21 2 8

Guyana 25 34 12 20 Finland 70 82 17 34 Norway 40 68 9 39

Sweden 54 77 14 40 Denmark 54 77 11 34 France 53 64 2 6 Spain 22 31 1 16 UK 51 60 4 9

Ireland 35 41 2 12

United Arab Emirates 9 23 0 0

Tunisia 13 33 4 7

Egypt 7 12 1 2

South Africa 47 54 25 Zambia 34 41 2 7 Sri Lanka 37 36 4 5 Australia 45 61 0 9

Sources: derived from UNDP (1995) Annex Table A2.3; IPU (1995) 'Women in Parliaments 1945- 1995: A World Statistical Survey Series', Reports and Documents no. 23, Geneva. between economic development and Women's political struggles women's access to political democracy. In Women's political struggles have been a order to understand the nature of the connection between modernisation and significant factor in gaining the vote and changes in gender relations, it is necessary representation for women in most places. to undertake a gender analysis of both the However, the rise in women's parliamentary nature of the economic changes and the representation is linked, not only to specific nature of the political changes. national struggles, but to regional and global 26

political alliances. Democratisation is a There are many examples of feminist political movement which is not confined to global alliances since the 1970s. These have nation-states, but one which draws strength successfully utilised institutions of emerging from regional and global political linkages. global governance such as the UN and the Four illustrations of this are given here: the World Bank, as spaces within which feminist first female suffrage wave, when women politics can be built. An example of this has demanded the vote; decolonisation and been the campaign to put the regulation of suffrage (voting rights for all new citizens); men's violence against women on the global the role of women's voices in the regulation political agenda, and thereby on the of male violence; and women and domestic agenda of specific nation-states. A development. feminist advocacy network (Keck and The first female suffrage movement was Sikkink 1998) successfully established that international, based in several northern women's rights should be equated with European countries and North American human rights, and that this included the countries. The vote might have been a tool right not to be beaten or raped. An within nation-state politics, but women's international feminist campaign won suffrage was advanced by an inter- agreement at the 1993 United Nations World nationally connected movement. The Conference on Human Rights in Vienna that timing of the vote for women around the women's rights were human rights (Peters North Atlantic rim in about 1918 cannot be and Wolper 1995). This established a context attributed to a particular level of economic in which it could be successfully argued that development, since the timing both of violence against women constituted a industrialisation and of women's entry into violation of women's human rights, as was employment was very varied, ranging from achieved in the Declaration and Platform for the mid-eighteenth to mid-twentieth Action at the 1995 UN Conference in Beijing. century. For instance, while women in the This movement was decentralised, and not UK and Sweden won the suffrage at nearly led from any one country, yet it created a the same time — 1918 and 1928 in the UK, powerful international feminist alliance. It 1919 in Sweden — both industrialisation was successful in building a campaign that and women's entry into waged work took draws on the notion of universal human place a lot earlier in the UK than in Sweden. rights, while at the same time respecting the This means that in Sweden political cultural differences between women, citizenship was won for women before holding in creative tension both industrialisation, while, in the UK, entry to 'universalism' and sensitivity to particular the waged labour market preceded entry to contexts. While not succeeding in instigating parliament. The suffrage movement crossed a strong legal response to violence against national boundaries because of the links women, nevertheless, the issue has been between activists in countries in the same placed on national agendas through the region of the world. concerted efforts both of feminist activists around the world and of women members of Decolonisation was a global political national parliaments. movement, although it involved specific foci on the dominant colonial powers. In the The Women in Development movement vast majority of countries freed from is a further example of a global feminist colonial rule during the twentieth century, advocacy network (Waylen 1996; Moser suffrage was granted to men and women at 1993) which engages with both the same time. Even where feminism was international bodies and national seen as a Western invention, women's parliaments. This is crucial in a context suffrage was seen as a human right where states are still significant political (Jayawardena 1986; Ramirez, et al. 1997). actors, despite globalisation. Gender, globalisation, and democracy 27

While women's struggles are varied in empowerment. While there are many their specific goals and organisational caveats — that the work is badly paid; that formats, and uneven in the extent of their the proportion of women in parliament is mobilisation, they share the goal of too low — nonetheless these developments improving women's position in society. provide a basis on which some women can They are also variously successful in their enhance their capacities and capabilities. struggles. While the lack of success may be The increase in parliamentary attributed to organisational failure, it is representation does correlate to some extent sometimes better explained by the hostility with an increase in women's paid of the particular context (Walby 1997). employment, especially in the more Thus, in addition to asking whether and industrialised countries. This gives an how women organise to achieve particular indication that women are able to transfer goals, we must inquire about the particular power from one arena to another, under conditions under which they struggle. This certain circumstances; but the connection is focus on the context of women's political far from complete. One of the reasons for struggles returns us to the significance of the relative lack of fit between increase in their economic context. parliamentary representation and paid employment is that feminist politics are Conclusion less constrained by the borders of nation- states than are women's opportunities for Feminists have often been sceptical of the employment. Women's suffrage politics in claims of modernisation theory, because of particular have always been regional at the its overly simplistic assertions that develop- very least, and are now global. Women in ment will be good for women (Boserup one place derive support from others 1970; Waylen 1996; Petersen and Runyan elsewhere; international feminist linkages 1999). Yet sometimes this pessimism can go have made a difference. too far. Often, globalisation has been seen in terms of its capacity to undermine While it will always be important to democratic forms of politics (Held 1995) consider the differences between cultures and criticised accordingly; yet feminist and between women, we should not omit to politics is an example of globalisation consider both commonalities and the scope assisting democratic politics in certain for alliances between women from diverse contexts. This assistance is patchy, of course, contexts. Globalisation is a gendered and, indeed, unequal access to new global process which is restructuring social forms of communication such as the inter- relations on a large scale. As well as net is likely to result in unequal access to challenges, it presents opportunities for political decision-making. But globalisation women in development. does produce new opportunities for feminist politics as well as new difficulties. Sylvia Walby is Professor of Sociology, First, there is the emergent position of Department of Sociology & Social Policy, 'productive engagement', in which an University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK. E- efficient economy and a democratic society mail: [email protected] are seen as interdependent. There is a steady increase in the proportion of women Note in parliaments around the world; women are increasing their participation in paid 1 Economic activity refers to people in employment; and some women, in some paid employment as well as to those places, are gaining some kinds of seeking it. 28 References Martin, H-P and Schumann, H (1997) The Global Trap: Globalization and the assault on Boserup, E (1970) Women's Role in Economic democracy and prosperity, Zed Press, Development, Allen & Unwin, London. London. Castells, M (1996) The Information Age: Moser, Caroline (1993) Gender Planning and Economy, Society and Culture; Volume 1: Development: Theory, practice and training, The Rise of the Network Society, Blackwell, Routledge, London. Oxford. Ohmae, K (1995) The End of the Nation State: Cohen, J and Arato A (1992) Civil Society The Rise of Regional Economics, Harper and Political Theory, MIT Press, Collins, London. Cambridge, Massachusetts. Pampel, FC and Kazuko T (1986) 'Economic Fukuyama, F (1992) The End of History and Development and female labour force the Last Man, Penguin, London. participation: A reconsideration', Social Held, D (1995) Democracy and the Global Forces, 64:3, 599-619. Order: From modern state to cosmopolitan Petersen, VS and Runyan AS (1999) Global governance, Polity Press, Cambridge. Gender Issues, Westview Press, Boulder, Huntington, SP (1991) The Third Wave: Colorado. Democratization in the late twentieth Peters, J and Wolper, A (eds) (1995) century, University of Oklahoma Press. Women's Rights: Human Rights: Inter-Parliamentary Union (1995) Women in Parliaments: 1945-1995: A World Statistical International feminist perspectives, Survey, IPU, Geneva. Routledge, London. Inter-Parliamentary Union (1997) Men and Potter, D, Goldblatt D, Kiloh M and Lewis P Women in Politics: Democracy still in the (eds) (1997) Democratization, Polity Press, making; A World Comparative Survey, IPU, Cambridge. Geneva. Ramirez, FO, Soysal Y, Shanahan S (1997) Inter-Parliamentary Union (1999a) 'Women 'The changing logic of political in National Parliaments: World average; citizenship: cross-national acquisition of regional averages', women's suffrage rights, 1890-1990', http: / / www.ipu.org / wmn-e / world.htm American Sociological Review, 1997, 62, Inter-Parliamentary Union (1999b) 735-745. Women in National Parliaments: Robertson, R (1992) Globalization: Social World classification', theory and global culture, Sage, London. http: / / www.ipu.org/wmn-e / classif.htm UNDP (1995) Human Development Report, Kandiyoti, D (ed) (1991) Women, Islam and Oxford University Press, New York. the State, Macmillan, Basingstoke. UNDP (1999) Human Development Report, Keck, M and Sikkink, K (1998) Activists Oxford University Press, New York. Beyond Borders: Advocacy networks in Walby, S (1990) Theorizing Patriarchy, international politics, Cornell University Blackwell, Oxford. Press, Ithaca, New York. Walby, S (1997) Gender Transformations, Leftwich, A (ed) (1996) Democracy and Routledge, London. Development, Polity Press, Cambridge. Walby, S (2001 forthcoming) Modernity and Lipset, SM (1960) Political Man: The social Globalisation, Sage, London. bases of politics, Heinemann, London. Waylen, G (1996) Gender in Third World Lovenduski, J and Norris P (ed) (1993) Politics, Open University Press, Gender and Party Politics, Sage, London. Buckingham. 29

Globalisation and gender training for the media: Challenges and lessons learned

Patricia A. Made

The 1995 Beijing Conference on Women identified the media as one of the critical areas of concern for the advancement of women's equality and development. In an era of globalisation, its role in the struggle for gender equality is critical. This article discusses the author's experience of developing gender training for media professionals.

he media have the power to shape journalist even questioned the correct attitudes, to perpetuate the status definition. He argued that his definition of Tquo, or to instigate change. Media gender, as women fighting for their rights, professionals' lack of knowledge of gender had to be the correct one — because this and development is one of the major was what he had read in the media challenges facing not only the international (personal experience, 1997). If even those women's movement, but also media who work in the media are 'victims' of the professionals like myself who are involved wrong information and messages that are in training our colleagues. printed or broadcast daily, one can imagine the impact on millions of viewers, listeners, Three years ago, during a gender and readers worldwide. training programme for journalists in The media are a key institutional player Harare, Zimbabwe, the group was asked to in holding governments and other define the word 'gender', one of the institutions accountable for adhering to the common terms used in the discourse on democratic ideals of transparency, women's rights and development. accountability and 'good governance', Anonymously, each journalist wrote a which must include equality for women definition of the term on a card, which were and men. To date, the media have then pasted to the wall for everyone to see. positively influenced public attitudes on All kinds of definitions of gender were many issues of human rights, but failed to given: 'women's fight for equality'; 'women challenge gender-based discrimination in attacking men'; 'women fighting for their societies across the world. The 1995 Beijing rights'; and many others. Platform for Action stated that 'the lack of When the correct definition of gender — gender sensitivity in the media is evidenced those differences between men and women by the failure to eliminate the gender-based which are socially constructed, can change stereotyping that can be found in the public over time, and vary within and between and private, local, national and inter- cultures — was announced, many of the national media organisations' (Beijing journalists were stunned. One brave male Platform for Action, Section J, 133). 30

In addition to their role in promoting report more analytically and competently positive images of women and educating on gender issues. This is groundbreaking the public on gender equality, the media work with the potential to transform the also have a social responsibility to self- media and to ensure that gender regulate in order to avoid indecent, stereotypes are broken, and women's views degrading, or exploitative depictions of and priorities represented. women. At present, the Beijing Platform for Since its founding in 1964, IPS has Action points out that '...the print and become a major information provider, which electronic media in most countries do not seeks to promote the principles of human provide a balanced picture of women's rights, democracy, and good governance diverse lives and contributions to society in through its system of inter-cultural a changing world. In addition, violent and communications. Integral to IPS's principles degrading or pornographic media products is the dissemination of information that are also negatively affecting women and heightens awareness of the inequality their participation in society. Programming between women and men, and of that reinforces women's traditional roles information which can be used as a key tool can be equally limiting' (ibid., 133). in advocacy and lobbying efforts by civil The current process of globalisation has society in eliminating gender inequality and implications for the regulation of the media: discrimination. It aims to develop a global as electronic methods of communications communications strategy, bringing together proliferate, state regulation will become the media, civil society, and policy-makers, increasingly difficult. Margaret Gallagher, a at national, regional, and international levels. media consultant, has observed that 'with The agency now covers news and issues the globalisation of markets, economic in Africa, the Asia-Pacific region, Latin affairs are becoming more and more America, North America, Europe, and the detached from social concerns. As multi- Caribbean, through a network of full-time media conglomerates increasingly gain correspondents and freelance journalists. control of world information and commu- The agency has regional offices and nication markets, public authorities are less editorial headquarters in Africa, the Asia- and less able to impose or maintain controls Pacific region, Latin America, North — to the detriment of the most vulnerable America, and Europe, and a World Editing groups in society. With media regulation Desk in Mexico. IPS has grown rapidly, becoming more and more difficult to which has prompted a constant review of enforce, and with the media increasingly its founding principles and a commitment driven by the quest for huge financial to 'introspective change'. We have realised, profit, the commodification of women in like many other organisations, that we need media content is likely to intensify'. to face the challenge of bridging the gap between our commitment and good The IPS experience intentions, and putting these into practice; so over the past four years, we have worked This article discusses the experience of Inter to strengthen the gender perspective in our Press Service (IPS), a global information news coverage. and communications service which is set up as a not-for-profit association of journalists, in re-training media professionals to IPS's work on gender challenge their views on gender issues. We First, the agency examined gender roles and have introduced new training programmes, responsibilities within the organisation and tools, and curricula to enable the media to reviewed its organisational structure. Globalisation and gender training for the media: Challenges and lessons learned 31

Women now hold key posts as regional network between 1994 and 1999 to develop directors, as project officers who develop guidelines, provide training, and develop programmes and policies; the interim head gender tools that could be used by the of IPS is a woman. We have learned journalists on their desks to improve through practical experience that training further their reporting of gender issues. and re-training journalists to report fairly One of these tools was a glossary of terms on gender is not only about teaching new common in gender and development concepts, but more importantly, it is about discourse. This glossary has been produced changing the way journalists go about in English and Spanish, and the agency is gathering information, and setting the now working on French and Portuguese 'news agenda'. editions. The second step, which coincided with the first, was creating gender-responsive Challenges of gender editorial and employment policies to guide training for the media the agency's work towards better practices. IPS Africa was the first regional centre to Developing any training programme for the develop the first policy. Gender analysis is media in a new area presents an array of not only a key tool in effecting change in challenges; one needs to find creative ways the voices and perspectives presented in to ensure that media professionals grasp our editorial coverage of news, but also in that the issue is 'news', to be consistently ensuring positive change for women in our covered. Below are several of the challenges own organisation. that IPS has experienced in training on After developing the policy, the next step gender issues. was training. At the outset, the training took the format of seminars, and what the agency Understanding the basics refers to as 'on-line' training: editors provide The first challenge is to ensure that guidance for the writing and development of journalists and editors understand the stories through messages sent to journalists issues and the concepts, in order to report using e-mail and the internet. When stories them competently and accurately. We are sent into the editing centres, editors read cannot assume that when we refer to terms them for style, content, sourcing, including 'gender', 'equity', 'equality', and background information, and data, and 'empowerment of women' that journalists often send back queries to correspondents and editors automatically understand what and stringers' when information is missing. these terms mean. This method, used within the agency for a People have formed definitions of these number of years, has helped to improve the terms based on their experiences and quality of writing received from freelance through discussions with others, which and young journalists learning how to write may often be misleading or wrong. This for the media. then translates into the communication of As the agency progressed through the wrong or negative messages when the process of policy development, we began terms are used in articles or broadcasts to see the challenges of gender about women and their development in 'mainstreaming': that is, integrating the relation to men in a society. So the first concepts of gender, equality, and women's challenge is to treat gender and rights into all our editorial coverage, and development like a specialised area of ensuring that these issues influence our reporting, thereby crafting training news agenda. IPS carried out a range of programmes which start with the basics of activities in the various regions of the defining the terms. 32

Dispelling the myth of 'hard' and 'soft' awareness-raising, those involved in news training must craft a well-designed training A major challenge is the false distinction programme that puts the principles of between 'hard' and 'soft' news in gender equality into practice, by showing journalism, which has marginalised women journalists what needs to be done in the major issues which determine men's differently in their daily job of deciding on a 'news agenda' and gathering and and women's relationships and the course disseminating newsworthy information. of development. 'Hard' news, which focuses on gender-blind analyses of current events, This is a big challenge. How do we craft politics, and macroeconomics, is seen as the journalistic training or re-training guts of journalism. 'Soft' news includes programmes that provide the media with reporting on social sectors, including health, gender analysis tools which can be used in education, and 'women's issues', which are their day-to-day work? For example, such a isolated on separate pages, or in tool might provide them with a set of new programmes or magazines which are aimed questions which must be asked when they entirely at women. The topics covered in are doing a story, to assess the impact of an 'women's pages' tend not to be analytical, event on women and men. Another might even though they may include practical show them how to redefine their idea of issues, for example cookery and children's news, in order to ensure the incorporation of a gender analysis. We may attempt to health, in line with the stereotype of women provide such tools, for example by raising as primary carers for families. the question of gender-sensitive language, However, the distinction between 'hard' and of the way in which women and men and 'soft' news is false, as is the association are portrayed; but how often do we revisit of 'soft' news with women's concerns. It the interviewing techniques which are has become clear that gender-based fundamental to gathering information? Is discrimination is a cross-cutting issue which information gathered from men and affects political and economic, as well as women in the same way? What new social, development. We can no longer, for techniques might need to be incorporated example, talk about economic development to ensure that increasingly, journalists go to without talking about the issue of poverty, women as sources of information as a and the data show that the majority of the matter of course, leading to more of their world's poor are women. Using a gender voices and perspectives in printed stories analysis to examine 'hard news' stories and broadcasts? What new data must be enables us to find hidden stories which are used in writing or compiling stories for of interest and relevance to all readers. print media or broadcast, and how do journalists source it? Moving front awareness-raising to providing professional tools Another challenge is to present journalists IPS's response with professional tools which they can use When we trained the journalists within the every day, rather than rely only on IPS network, the gender training was awareness-raising. Over the past 15 years, designed specifically to meet the staff's gender training for various professional needs and priority issues. For example, groups has become quite an industry. While training in Africa focused on gender and some journalists have undergone gender human rights, while the Caribbean region training, this has not a discernible impact decided to introduce gender and on the content of programmes and print development concepts. However, it is clear media. To be effective in moving beyond that we need a much more holistic and Globalisation and gender training for the media: Challenges and lessons learned 33 comprehensive training approach, in work. Once a policy has been developed, addition to developing curricula on how to implementation needs to occur through it incorporate gender even further into being constantly promoted by the editors, specialised areas of journalism, including who are key to determining what issues are environment, technology, and economics. covered and who set the news agenda. Developing training manuals helps to We think that our policy is proving take the message beyond the few who sit in successful for several reasons: a seminar or short course. Crucial, too, is • It ensured commitment within the the fact that the development of the agency at the highest levels of manuals and tools begin to ground gender management (central and regional). as a journalistic discipline. Manuals need to be on hand in news rooms, in training • Through seminars, the policy was institutions, and with non-government and developed with the participation of other groups wishing to work with the senior editors and correspondents, rather media. These manuals should include than externally or by top management. gender glossaries which not only define Therefore, those who had ultimate terms, but also give examples of usage. responsibility for implementing and We also need training tools on guiding the policy, both men and specialised areas. At IPS, we are currently women, took ownership of it. developing a training manual entitled 'How • Having a policy helped to overcome to report on gender violence'. This has been resistance from correspondents and a two-year endeavour: we tested aspects of stringers who were not used to going to the manual in two small sessions in women for information, or who saw Southern Africa, and plan to test it further women as not having credible opinions and produce it in 2000 for use by the media on political and economic issues outside and non-government organisations culture and social issues. working with the media. Training is the key to change Lessons we have learned Training enhances skills, and provides the opportunity to reflect on and question continually how we cover issues. In Policy is the first step to tnainstreaming particular, professional training of the kind Policy guides the process of change. suggested earlier will take journalists from Developing an editorial and employment being 'gender-aware' to being 'gender- policy on gender is key, and a major step in responsive' in their coverage of all issues. the process of changing the media's However, we have learned that training treatment of women. Once a policy is will only remain effective if it is built upon developed, especially a gender-responsive by subsequent programmes which reinforce editorial policy, it becomes a tool for guiding earlier gender training. It cannot be a one- the editors' and journalists' work, and things off activity. are not left to the biases that men and women editors and journalists have grown It is far easier to preach than to practise accustomed to over a long period of time. Mainstreaming gender into the news In IPS, every region developed a policy coverage, or strengthening the gender on gender, which were subsequently taken perspective in news, is a process which up and 'owned' at senior level. We then takes time, commitment, and effort. The identified ways to implement the policies process must be worked on in a concerted within the framework of the news agency's and consistent way. 34

Keep track of the progress of 15 profiles portraying the lives of women We must devise tools for evaluating leaders at community, regional, national, progress, so that the weaknesses of our and international level. The central focus of work can be addressed. So far, an annual the series is to capture, through their own analysis of IPS's editorial content is done by voices and of those around them, the the Communications School at the diverse leadership styles and the University of Washington in Seattle, USA. achievements of women who are However, it focuses in the main on contributing to sustainable development quantitative data (the extent to which and change in their societies. As the world women have been used as sources for prepares for the 'Beijing +5' Review at the news). We need to devise tools for United Nations in June 2000, this special qualitative analysis. IPS series meets one of the specific action points in the 1995 Beijing Platform for The importance of new partnerships Action: 'to produce and/or disseminate In the regions where IPS works, its media materials on women leaders, inter experience of trying to mainstream gender alia, as leaders who bring to their positions into its work has precipitated the forging of of leadership many different experiences'. new partnerships with organisations The features will appear at the end of every working on women's rights and gender and month, and will be drawn from Africa, the development. These organisations have Asia-Pacific region, Latin America, North become key sources of information to IPS America, and the Caribbean. journalists, and have also been partners in developing seminars and training Patricia A. Made is Interim Director of Inter programmes for correspondents and editors. Press Service News Agency, PO Box 6050, This partnership also has provided IPS Harare, Zimbabwe. E-mail: [email protected] with new audiences: information targeted at the media has been re-packaged into electronic mail bulletins, specifically for non- Note government groups and policy-makers. We 1 People who provide the media with compile a free weekly news bulletin on information on news in particular gender and human rights, which is contexts. disseminated worldwide via e-mail. (Readers interested should send an e-mail to Reference [email protected]; [email protected]; or [email protected].) Gallagher M (undated), 'Some Issues in the Finally, IPS is joining forces with Gender and Media Debate', in Women, UNIFEM in the first six months of 2000, to Media and Violence, a WACC Women's send its e-mail bulletin subscribers a series Programme publication. 35 Women's labour and economic globalisation: A participatory workshop created by Alternative Women in Development (Alt-WID) Carol Barton and Elmira Nazombei1

Alt-WID, a working group of feminist educators and activists formed in 1993, focuses on the relationships between global macroeconomic policies and conditions in our local communities. The group is particularly interested in translating ideas into popular education tools that can be used by organisers and grassroots groups. This article describes one of their workshops.

lt-WID aims to bridge the gaps in leading to action. This article describes Alt- analyses of human rights and WID's Women's Labour and Economic Aeconomic justice in both North and Globalisation Workshop, which we have South from a feminist perspective (which presented in various contexts in the USA, integrates awareness of gender, race, and primarily with women activists working at class differentiation). Alt-WID has the local, national, or international level. particularly focused on promoting women's Most recently, we ran the workshop at the right to work, to social protection, bodily Association for Women in Development integrity, and an adequate standard of (AWID) conference, held in Washington in living, concepts which have emerged from November 1999. Rather than confining the UN Universal Declaration of Human ourselves to a report on the outcomes of the Rights of 1948 and the 1966 UN Covenant AWID workshop, we are writing this article on Economic and Social Rights. Human as a guide for other trainers, outlining the rights lawyers and women's organisations aims and method of the workshop as well tend to neglect economic and social rights, as providing the materials. Finally, we while development organisations which are summarise the kinds of topics participants concerned with these issues have tended to have raised so far. be weak on gender analysis. (The name we chose for our group shows our awareness Aims of the workshop of the way in which many international The purpose of the workshop is to consider development organisations have merely the varied roles that women play in the tried to add a gender perspective to the global economy, and to consider their dominant development agenda.) experiences in the light of those rights Our aim in developing public education which they are entitled to as member of tools through participatory work is to draw families, communities, nations, and the from participants' knowledge and international community. The workshop experience, and enable them to build a features a series of anecdotes to illustrate collective analysis of a situation, ultimately the diverse ways in which globalisation 36

affects women in all regions of the world. Introduction (15 minutes) Our working assumption is that women's Here, we use a brief exercise to make the labour is the lynch-pin of globalisation: the group members feel comfortable, to learn global economy would not be able to more about them and about their own function without women's paid and experiences in relation to the theme of unpaid labour — from work in sweatshops economic globalisation2. and factories, to work in forced prosti- tution, to increasing unpaid work for the Plenary: Identifying Women's Human community. Very often, however, women's Rights (15 minutes) labour, paid or unpaid, is undervalued in We use a wall-sized sticky cloth in order to both monetary and social terms. construct a version of the grid seen in the To do this, we ask participants to handouts detailed below, with the four 'rights' categories on the left, and headings consider fictional, composite accounts ranged across the top. As the group names which have been created from real women's specific rights, we write them on coloured experiences. We choose different accounts paper and begin to sort them into the depending on the group, because we categories (work, bodily integrity, social consider it essential to have at least one protection, and adequate standard of living). anecdote which relates closely to the We then have a brief discussion about what group's own experience, and one which human rights laws ('instruments') exist, how represents a very different reality. economic human rights are identified, and Questions are posed to encourage why we think it is useful to explore participants to consider the connections globalisation within a rights framework. We between different women's experiences of hand out copies of the Universal Declaration globalisation, and the institutions and value of Human Rights and the Economic and systems that shape their contexts. The Social Covenant for reference. workshop aims to enable participants to Small group work: The vignettes look beyond local and national (45 minutes) circumstances, to the 'layers of causality' which shape their specific experience of We divide the group into four small groups globalisation. Participants analyse different (or multiples of four if it is large) and give each one an anecdote to work on (see scenarios to explore which human rights below). Each group is also given a hand-out are violated, which individual and with these questions: institutional actors are causing the violation, which policies are at work, and • What human rights are implicated in this which underlying values support these situation? policies. Participants specifically examine • What are the policies at work that which impacts are gender-specific, and specifically or disproportionately affect which disproportionately affect women. women's rights in this situation? They go on to consider why this is the case. • Which institutions, organisations, We then take time to discuss the individual, governments and/or value systems are responsible? community-based, and institutional actions necessary to bring about change. Participants are asked to read and discuss the anecdote, and discuss the questions. We The workshop schedule also hand out four grids (see opposite) which they can use if they wish. The goal is We estimate a minimum running time for to begin from the lived experience of a this workshop of three hours, with the woman, and to identify the policies, actors, following elements. and values that shape her situation. Women's labour and economic globalisation 37

Handout 1: Women's labour and economic globalisation: Identifying women's rights

Rights Rights identified

Work

Personal safety

Basic services

Adequate standard of living (access to land, jobs, education, credit, and so on)

Handout 2: Women's labour and economic globalisation: Rights, experience, policies/practices

Rights Policies/practices: Policies/practices: gender-specific disproportionate impact

Work

Personal safety

Basic services

Adequate standard of living (access to land, jobs, education, credit, and so on) 38

Handout 3: Women's labour and economic globalisation: Actors

Rights Persons Institutions Governments Value systems

Work

Personal safety

Basic services

Adequate standard of living (access to land, jobs, education, credit, and so on)

Handout 4: Women's labour and economic globalisation: Current strategies for action

Rights Personal Communal Institutional

Work

Personal safety

Basic services

Adequate standard of living (access to land, jobs, education, credit, and so on) 'Women's labour and economic globalisation 39

Plenary: Building a group analysis (1 hour) The anecdotes The small groups come back together, and Here are four very different accounts of the each group briefly tells the others the story kind used at our workshops: of the woman whose account they discussed. They share their insights about causality. As A Filipina 'entertainment' worker in Japan they report back, we build an overarching Fely is 18 years old and works as a 'dancer' analysis by putting up their observations on the wall-sized grid. We may interrupt from in Tokyo. She comes from a very poor rural time to time in order to ask questions or to community in the Philippines. Two years encourage discussion on a specific point. For ago, she left her village because her family example, if a group identifies that a woman could not earn enough money to support has had her right to an adequate standard of her brothers and sisters. Her parents hoped living violated, and the policy that has that she might find a job in Manila, and be resulted in this is 'welfare reform' in the able to send money home to the family. USA, we may encourage a discussion of the Fely lived in Manila with her cousin, but specific dynamics which led to that policy — for two months was unable to find work. who wins and who loses? In this discussion, She was about to give up when her cousin we might ask participants to think about told her that she had heard that the which consequences of this policy government's Overseas Employment disproportionately affect women (such as Administration had a special service to help layoffs in a female-dominated industry), and women who want to work overseas. She which are based on stereotypes of gender learned that in order to earn hard currency relations in society (such as policies against to help pay its foreign debts, the hiring women of child-bearing age). This government had been advised by the World aims to deepen our understanding of the Bank to encourage its citizens to work gendered nature of globalisation. abroad, where the demand for cheap labour is great. The government agency said that Plenary: Discussion of alternatives to the jobs for women were especially plentiful. existing policies (30 mins) Some estimate the remittances from Filipino As a group, we collectively discuss the values overseas workers at as much as US$2 inherent in the policies discussed, and million a year. Fely remembered that her consider alternatives. We try to steer towards cousin Lea had left the Philippines several examples of current, concrete alternatives to years ago to work in Japan, and the whole the policies discussed, because we have family relies on the money she sends home. found that otherwise it can get very abstract Fely's cousin helped her find a 'broker', (such as 'end patriarchy'), which is who told her that he could arrange for her demotivating. We suggest that if you have time, and the workshop participants plan to to have a job as a 'dancer'. He promised to work together beyond the workshop itself, arrange for a passport and to pay her this is the moment to discuss what this airfare. He promised that she would have particular group might do together. no trouble paying him back with the large salary she would be earning in Japan. Individually and in plenary: Evaluation When Fely arrived in Japan she (15 minutes) discovered that her broker had sold her to The workshop always ends with another man for US$8,000. This man owned participants giving written feedback, as a bar/brothel, and her job would not be well as communicating it in a group dancing, but prostitution. Fely felt discussion which focuses on the process of frightened and desperate, but she had no the workshop and the group's discoveries. choice but to go along with the bar owner's 40

plans. In the weeks that followed, she the same time, 20,000 unionised public learned that the bar where she worked, and sector workers have lost their jobs. many others, are controlled by crime Workfare recipients now form one-third of syndicates, and that the sex industry in the Sanitation Department's workforce. Japan is worth trillions of yen. The success They earn below the statutory minimum of Japanese companies at home and abroad wage, and are still below the poverty line. has earned some people high incomes, and They are supposedly acquiring transferable excess wealth has increased demands for skills, so that they can go on to a permanent the sex industry. Fely knows that some of job, but street-cleaning gives them no skills, the money goes to bribe corrupt passport and it is often dangerous. One elderly officials and other bureaucrats. She has woman died of a heart attack when she was noticed that when police officers come to forced to work despite making complaints. the bar they receive free services from the Workfare recipients are denied coats and bar girls. The other girls in the bar tell her protective gloves, and are exposed to that they have heard that there may be as hazardous materials. Helen and her friends many as 150,000 Filipina women working consider it slave labour. From what Helen as prostitutes in Japan. sees, the workfare programme in New York Fely has never found her cousin Lea, but is mostly made up of Latina and African now she hopes that she is not somewhere American women, and now the Mayor is else in Toyko leading a life similar to her insisting that disabled mothers also take own. Fely wishes that she could return to part in the scheme. The city administration Manila but she knows that she will have to is also threatening to deny subsidised work for a long time to pay back the bar housing to women who don't work outside owner. She knows that her family is making the home. good use of the money that she is able to Helen used to go to the City College, and send back home. Sometimes she wonders was able to use her public assistance money why people think so little of women that to pay for child-care. However, now she they must face such a difficult life. She must pay for child-care during the hours knows that she has never met a Filipino she spends on workfare, and has had to man in Japan who has been forced to give up her education. Also, the classes endure the abuse that she faces daily. conflict with her work schedule. Moreover, the city authorities are cutting back on A 'workfare' worker in New York classes and tightening admissions, so fewer Helen is an African American woman poor students and immigrant students can living in New York City. She is 35 years old attend. Helen is also seeing cuts in her and mother of two young children. She children's school's budget, as class sizes get receives public assistance3, but is facing a bigger and there are fewer materials. The cut-off in her benefits, because the city schools her children attend can't afford the authorities have created a 'workfare' computers and resources that other schools programme, under which all recipients of catering for richer children have. public assistance have to work, mostly Helen has heard that if every new job cleaning the parks and subways. More than created in New York were given to a 37,000 people are now working for their welfare recipient, it would take 21 years for benefits in New York City. More than all of them to get a job! Even in a boom 17,000 workfare recipients have signed a economy, it is clear that there are not petition requesting the right to form a enough jobs to go round — much less good union, but the city argues that they are not jobs with benefits. Some of her friends have workers, so they cannot form a union. At got off public assistance by taking poorly Women's labour and economic globalisation 41 paid jobs or temporary jobs, but they don't the food they needed with the money they last. Low-paid jobs don't offer health could make from flowers. She knows that insurance, and it's hard to cover child-care until the profits from the flowers come in, costs. Helen is scared of what will happen she will need to use the remaining food to her and her children. carefully and make sure that her two sons that are in school eat their fill first. African rural woman Today, Wanjiku's young daughter is sick Wanjiku is 30, and lives on a small farm with diarrhoea. Wanjiku has decided not to with her mother-in-law in the Central walk to the health clinic in the village to see Province of Kenya, less than 100 miles from the nurse because she does not have the fee Nairobi. She has three children, two in that the clinic now charges, and she hopes primary school and one at home. Wanjiku that she can treat her at home with some went to school up to the age of 12. herbal remedies. Although she passed the exam to go on to secondary school, her parents did not have A maqiiiladora worker in Mexico money to send her. She worked at home on Reynalda works in a maquila plant in the farm with her mother, taking care of her Monterrey, Mexico, assembling electronic younger brothers and sisters until she was products for export to the US. She is 20 years 17, when she got married. Her husband has old and has worked at the factory for four a job as a messenger in Nairobi, and comes years. She discovered this year that she has home about once a month. carpal tunnel syndrome4, and may not be Before Wanjiku left her mother's farm, able to continue to work. A US company one of her responsibilities was selling in the owns her factory, but companies from Japan, market. Wanjiku would take the maize and Korea, and Germany also employ women other vegetables that her mother grew and workers in Monterrey. Almost all of the sit in the market and sell them. Her mother workers in her plant are women; they work used the money she earned to pay school long hours for minimal pay. There are no fees and buy school uniforms for Wanjiku's unions, and if they try to form one, they younger brothers and sisters. know they will lose their jobs. Reynalda and Wanjiku had hoped to grow vegetables her friends dress up smartly to go to work herself to sell, in order to send her own because the bosses like it. Sometimes they children to primary school. But during his are sexually harassed, but they are last visit, her husband told her that the frightened of losing their jobs if they don't government had been told by some acquiesce. The bosses prefer to employ international experts that there is much young, unmarried women who are unlikely more money to be made in growing flowers to challenge them, and who will obey orders. for export to Germany. The experts said It's hard for some Reynalda's married that the only way Kenya could get loans to friends to keep working at the factory, help with its debt repayments and to because of child-care and the extra strengthen its economy would be to grow demands on them: but they do it because more cash crops. Wanjiku's husband thinks they need the money. There are other that the government will give him a loan to problems for mothers: in one border town, help him start growing flowers, and told they know of babies who were born her that she must forget about vegetables. without a spine, which is attributed to When Wanjiku asked him what the pollution from the plant. In Reynalda's children were going to eat, since those plant they are told to wear masks, but these vegetables were also their food, he laughed don't seem to protect them from the toxic and said that they would be able to buy all fumes. The mask instructions are written in 42

English, so she is not exactly sure of what mentioned ways in which gender they say. The pollution is also affecting the stereotypes of women's work shape their community's water and land near the experience of it under globalisation: factories. Everyone is concerned about what is happening. They want to complain and to 'A lot of women's work is unpaid and change things, but work is scarce, and lots unremunerated.' of others are waiting in line for jobs. 'Some women are held in servitude for economic Many women have come to the city from and sexual exploitation.' the countryside, as large-scale agricultural enterprises run by large corporations are 'Many women are denied the right to control moving in and displacing small farmers, their own money.' following the repeal of laws that 'Men are often still regarded as the primary safeguarded their land titles. Reynalda has income-earner, leading to lower pay for women.' heard that this new legislation is part of the 'Pensions go to the "head of family".' policies Mexico had to adopt because of its huge foreign debt. In order to get new 'Women in employment face discrimination due loans, the IMF and World Bank want to see to pregnancy and child-care.' changes. Mexico sold state companies to 'The image of a worker is male-biased.' private firms, and invited in foreign companies. Mexico is now exporting 'Lower female literacy rates mean lower-paying vegetables, but importing corn, its staple jobs.' crop. At the same time, the government cut 'Women in higher-paying professions face both food subsidies, so prices for basic goods formal and informal occupational segregation.' keep going up, and more people in the family have to work. It's easier for the 'Women's work and women's status is not women to get these jobs, so Reynalda hangs adequately measured, so there is little on at the factory. acknowledgement of their contribution and protection.' Workshop outcomes 'Women are often the last hired, first fired.' Discussing what rights the women in the 'The traditional care-giving skills women have anecdotes need to have recognised, are not valued.' workshop participants identified the right 'In some contexts, women are not allowed to to economic independence and to work. At work outside the home, in others they are forced work, they have the right to safe and to do so.' healthy working conditions and a living wage, to equal pay for equal work, and the The group summarised this by pointing out right to organise in unions. They have a that international economic policies are right for their children to be cared for while based on fundamentally discriminatory they are working, or to look after their own assumptions about the nature and children. They have a right to reasonable conditions of women's work. working hours and paid holidays. They have a right to control over their own Identifying the causes bodies, to health-care and housing. Finally, The small groups at the AWID workshop they have the right to live in their own also explored how economic changes country, and to freedom of movement. brought about by globalisation affect In discussing gender-specific violations gender relations between men and women. of rights, workshop participants at AWID Their points included: Women's labour and economic globalisation 43

• sexual harassment (women's economic companies and individual home-workers conditions may make it harder for them (which undermines principles of wages and to challenge this); conditions and prevents workers from organising in unions), and the growth of • the growth of the informal sector of the sweatshops and maquilas in 'developing' economy, in which women predominate; countries. These trends have relied on • women migrant workers — for example women as a flexible workforce in need of for sex work or domestic work — have paid employment. Participants also no legal status or rights to protect them discussed the role of the IMF and World against exploitation and abuse; Bank in prescribing structural adjustment policies (SAPs) in the 1980s and 1990s, which • women agricultural workers — those have promoted privatisation, deregulation, working for their families — may earn cuts in social spending, and an opening of nothing. Those employed in agribusiness markets to foreign direct investment and may have few safeguards on their rights trade, as well as a reorientation of economies and may earn very little; towards export production. They identified • competition for jobs forces workers to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and take unsafe and poorly paid work, or to trade liberalisation as having a major role in migrate; shaping the job market, the health of national economies and national budgets, • some laws which are supposed to protect and ultimately the process of democratic are used to discriminate; decision-making within states. • the growth of contracted labour and home work, particularly in sectors such Strategies for action as textiles, has relied on women workers; The part of the workshop which is most • cuts in the public sector and social likely to vary is the final part, when services, including education, health- participants are called on to identify possible care, and child-care, have resulted in strategies for action. Some strategies can be increased unpaid labour for women; taken on by all — for example, popular education and campaigning, including • families often prioritise boys' education; efforts to influence the media. Others are specific to the participants at a particular • in industrialised countries, cuts in public workshop: for example, a workshop where assistance have forced women to leave all participants are women from one their children to work at sub-minimum industrialised country might decide to wages; support women whose access to public • the migration of women weakens family funds is threatened. At a workshop like support systems and increases violence AWID, where participants come from all against children; over the world and many different • the increase in male migration leaves institutions, it is possible to address a global women to care for families on their own. problem, such as the trafficking of women. Other global strategies could include local Looking at macroeconomic policies and efforts to support civil society organising at relevant actors and institutions, AWID the regional and international levels, or to participants focused on the process of challenge international financial institutions corporate restructuring that has led to and other global bodies, culminating in 'downsizing' operations in industrialised mobilisation such as that seen in Seattle for countries, sub-contracting to smaller the WTO Ministerial Conference in 1999. 44

Conclusion Contact details: Alt-WID/NY, do MADRE, 121 West 27th Street, #301, New York, NY As we emphasise at the start of each 10001, USA. Tel: +1 (0)212 627 0444; e-mail: workshop, women's human rights are not [email protected]; [email protected]; abstract dreams; nor are they merely a set of website: http://www.geocities.com/altwid_ny/ legal covenants and conventions. Alt-WID (under construction) has now run this workshop in many fora. These include the Fifty Years is Enough/Jubilee 2000 Conference, the Notes Women's International League for Peace 1 Our thanks to Elena Arengo, Susana Fried, and Freedom Conference, and events run Cathy Powell, Radhika Balakrishnan and by the Women's International Global all of our Alt-WID/NY colleagues for Leadership Institute of the Centre for their role in developing this workshop. Women's Global Leadership. Clear analyses 2 Use any suitable ice-breaking exercise. and inspired strategies for action have Williams, S et al. (eds) (1994) The Oxfam originated from women's experience of Gender Training Manual, Oxfam GB, daily life, their awareness of their dignity as Oxford, is a useful source. human beings, and the requirement that 3 Economic support from state funds. this human dignity is recognised and 4 A disorder also known as repetitive enforced through law. Please let us know if stress injury (RSI), resulting from injury you use the workshop; we would welcome to the median nerve passing from the a dialogue with any readers who use our arm to the hand. methodology, and would also like to have contributions for new accounts of women's lives. Eventually, we hope to publish a collection of anecdotes, which can be used for a range of educational purposes. 45

'We are forgotten on earth': International development targets, poverty, and gender in Ethiopia Fra von Massow1

A team of researchers talked to people living in poverty in Ethiopia to ascertain what stops them from gaining access to affordable, good quality basic health-care services, reproductive health-care services, and primary education. The research findings shed new light on the linkages between limited access to basic services and poverty, low incomes, insecure livelihoods, and poor nutrition.

n 2000, chronic hunger, illiteracy, • to reduce mortality rates by two-thirds in disease, and the mental anguish which for infants and children under the age of Iaccompanies absolute poverty and 5, and reduce rates by three-fourths in unfulfilled aspirations remain a reality for maternal mortality; millions of women and men. In mid-1999, a • to ensure access through the primary headline in a British daily newspaper health-care system to reproductive announced that the 'UN seeks $50m aid as health services for all individuals of Ethiopians approach millennium "facing a appropriate ages as soon as possible; biblical famine"' {The Guardian, 16 July • to ensure that current trends in the loss 1999). For me, as for others, the word of environmental resources are 'biblical' conjures up ideas of unchanging effectively reversed at both global and historical inevitability. However, there is national levels. nothing inevitable or historical about modern-day hunger in Ethiopia. (DfID 1997, 21) Western nations have pledged to achieve Are international resources being made the following international development available and allocated in such a way as to targets to end absolute poverty by the year ensure that these targets are achieved? This 2015. article looks at evidence from Ethiopia, from research carried out from January to March • To halve the proportion of people living 1999. The research was commissioned by in extreme poverty; Oxfam GB, as part of a wider health and • to achieve universal primary education education research and advocacy project, 2 taking place in Uganda, Mozambique, in all countries ; Vietnam, Philippines, Nicaragua, India, and • to demonstrate progress toward gender Ethiopia. Four sites were visited in Ethiopia: equality and the empowerment of women Cherkos in Addis Ababa, Delanta in North by eliminating gender disparity in Wollo, Metta in Eastern Hararge, and Jijiga primary and secondary education by 2005; in Somali Region. The research was led by a 46

team of nine women and men, including year 2015. Bilateral donors such as the the author3. About 500 women, men, girls, British government's Department for and boys participated in the research, and International Development (DflD) are aware 50 people were involved in co-ordinating of this: 'the resources which the inter- and implementing the research. Partici- national community has made available to patory research tools were used in single- support the development process have sex focus-group discussions, including declined over recent years' (DflD 1997, 79). youth (aged 10-18) and adults. Thirty-five At the same time, the number of families household interviews were conducted at suffering absolute poverty in countries each site, in which women made up 70 per including Ethiopia is on the increase. cent of respondents. Government, private, and traditional health-care and education service providers were also interviewed. The findings Thus, local experience, perceptions, and beliefs were compared and linked with Environment, poverty, and food those of service providers. Direct quotations insecurity in this article are all from people involved In the case of Ethiopia, the population had in the research (Micro Research Health and reached 58.2m by 1997, and is projected to Education Ethiopia Site Reports 1-4, and grow to 90.9m by 2015 (UNDP 1999). The Summary Report, 1999). World Bank estimates that in Ethiopia there Our hypothesis was that, despite the are 19m rural resource poor households, broad consensus that the provision of basic which cannot maintain adequate food health-care and education services on a security (World Bank 1996, 3). gender equitable basis can directly improve Climatic changes in countries like human development indicators, access to Ethiopia are destroying basic subsistence these services is being eroded in many livelihoods in both urban and rural areas. countries due to deepening poverty and Seven consecutive years of droughts and fiscal crises. We focused on access to basic flooding in northern Ethiopia have health care, reproductive health care, and affected food security and incomes. primary education. The research aimed to Christian Aid estimates that 'the G7 are reflect gender and age differences, and to running up carbon debts4 in economic provide disaggregated information. We efficiency terms of around $13 trillion per used the term 'gender' to refer to the social, year. On the same calculation, the group of economic, and political relations between highly indebted poor countries (HIPCs) women and men, in which women are often are running up credits of between $141 subordinate and disadvantaged. We paid and $612 billion because of their under-use attention to men's roles and experiences of of fossil fuel resources and the climate.' On poverty as well as women's, and focused on this basis they argue that 'industrialised kinship and households. We recognised countries should commit significant new that roles of women and men are not resources and technology to help poor natural but socially constructed, capable of countries affected by the increasingly change, and context-specific. volatile global environment' (Christian Aid As this article shows, the research 1999, 1). Our research team could see no yielded much evidence to indicate that, with signs of such investments in identifying current conditionalities on aid and at and promoting alternative sources of current levels of resource allocation, income for poor farmers in Ethiopia. including Western aid, human development Women in Delanta, North Wollo, said, 'we targets are unlikely to be reached by the are forgotten on earth'. 'We are forgotten on earth': International development targets, poverty, and gender in Ethiopia 47

In Ethiopia, as elsewhere in sub-Saharan families with a very sick family member, Africa, livestock represents an important are considered particularly vulnerable, as safety net for bad times, and animals are are families with little land or no livestock. only sold to pay for essential health care and Having a large family is recognised as a to buy food in 'hungry seasons'. In Jijiga, contributor to poverty, as is dependence on women explained: 'we measure our wealth erratic and low incomes from daily hired- by number of cattle. Before, there were labour or trading activities. At all sites differences in the life of people. But these visited, participants described how days, all of us go down. All our cattle are dependence on women's low income from dying'. There, the drought had left cattle labour-intensive trading has increased as a dead and dying around the village, result of the crisis in agriculture. Women producing a stench of decay and swarms of said: 'we just use one pot of water for three flies. Land ownership used to be a sign of days because we have nothing to cook. We wealth, but 'since we can't plough the land used to make injera5 and tella6 [also to sell].' without oxen, it serves no purpose.' Loss of crops also means a loss of women's Persistent poverty and lack of resources income from food processing. affect water resource management and This vulnerability affects health, sanitation in all locations. Drought in Jijiga nutrition, and school attendance. A mother and Delanta exacerbates an already bad in Delanta said: 'my son dropped out of situation. Women in Jijiga said: 'when there school when he got hungry - a problem for is rain the stagnant water gets washed away most people here'. At all sites, participants and we can get clear water, but now there is were well acquainted with the signs of no rain'. In both sites, villagers shared the malnutrition. About 60 per cent of the water hole with livestock and wild animals. poorest households reported eating two The research findings in all sites meals a day, but a 'meal' at the time of the confirmed that rural households spend 90- research often consisted of a handful of 96 per cent of their meagre incomes on roasted grains. In Delanta, over 70 per cent food, and still do not have adequate diets. of households reported earnings of less than Participants in all rural sites explained how $6.40 per month for households of five or harvests and livestock have been lost as a more persons. Over 90 per cent of income is result of droughts and flooding, and 'all spent on food. Women and children households have become poorer'. As a reported working harder to earn money direct result of lost harvests, a 'levelling off from collecting and selling firewood and in poverty was reported in all sites, and 70- cow dung. The men said that 'we are all 80 per cent of households were categorised struggling selling wood, dung and wool. by participants as 'worst off (ibid.). The We are now tired, and the eucalyptus is also reduction in the number of better off lost.' They are aware that they are denuding households has a ripple on effect on income their own environment in order to survive. sources for poorer households. In Delanta and Jijiga, participants reported that normal Health care and education: shifts to the share-cropping and livestock-tending 'unpaid economy' arrangements were hardly functioning. In Women in Cherkos, Addis Ababa, told us Metta, men from worst-off households no that 'poverty is a disease in itself.' The longer had the opportunity to work on negative impact of World Bank and IMF wealthier farms because of the drought. structural adjustment policies on health However, households headed by women care and education has been catalogued and those with many small children were (Elson 1992). Our findings showed that said to be least able to cope. Widows, and none of the four sites in Ethiopia had 48

sufficient health-care and education As a result of structural adjustment facilities to service the demand for school policies, health-care and education services places, basic health care, and reproductive that used to be provided by the 'paid health care at current population levels. economy' have shifted to the 'unpaid Existing health-care and education facilities economy' (Elson 1992). In particular, are under-resourced: there is a shortage of women 'spend more time and energy qualified staff, inadequate supplies of the providing care to the sick, the old and the most commonly needed drugs, and a children amidst increased deaths and shortage of water and electricity in malnutrition aggravated by people's low hospitals and clinics. Reports of a lack of purchasing power and inadequate drugs, vehicles and funds for outreach services medicine and food' (Mukangara and Koda came from each site, despite the fact that 1997, 21). The Ethiopia research found that women reported using outreach services the absence of affordable, nearby clinics until they stopped coming. There is nothing limits women's choice to home-based or left from household budgets to pay for traditional treatments and birth attendants. clothing and exercise books for school, or to This failure to provide primary education treat the most common diseases such as and basic health care has had an enormous diarrhoea and scabies. In Delanta, one cost in lives and mental health already, and scabies treatment costs $0.35, or two days' will result in a low productive and work for a woman collecting and selling economic capacity of the next generation. In cow dung as fuel. Malnutrition and water- Belhare, Jijiga, where 98 per cent of women related diseases affect both sexes and all and girls and 79 per cent of men and boys ages, as does the inability to access health in the poorest households are illiterate, the care. Participants told us: 'we just lie on the women said: 'if our children were educated we would not be like this.' bed and wait to die'. In schools, textbooks are shared between Gender equality and women's four to eight children, and some subjects empowerment have no textbooks at all. Average class It is widely accepted that women make up a sizes range from 80 to more than 100, with large proportion of the very poorest people. a sharp fall in attendance after grade 1. UNIFEM's website states: 'Women are still Local education authorities and primary the poorest of the world's poor, representing schools reported that a high percentage of 70 percent of the 1.3 billion people who live children were not in school as a result of in absolute poverty. When nearly 900 million income poverty, hunger, and child labour, women have incomes of less than $1 a day, especially girls who contribute to domestic the association between gender inequality labour. Women's role in earning income and poverty remains a harrowing reality' becomes ever more important, often using (http: / / www.undp.org / unifem / economic, their children's labour. Girls from all sites htm). said that they helped their mothers. In The research in Ethiopia is witness to the Delanta, girls who collect firewood to sell fact that everyone — men, women, girls, in the market 15 km away pointed out, and boys — suffers the physical and 'if our fathers could get a harvest we could psychological trauma of extreme poverty. go to school full time'. Boys in Delanta However, women and girls are without affirmed: 'We want to stay alive and learn'. doubt even more disadvantaged, as men However, teachers reported that, should all and health-care providers confirmed. This children of primary school age come to is due to their low social status compared school, there would not be enough places with men, their under-representation and to accommodate them. low participation in decision-making at all 'We are forgotten on earth': International development targets, poverty, and gender in Ethiopia 49 levels, their reproductive health experience their daughters. For those who do enrol, (including female genital mutilation, early attendance rates are poor. Boys in Delanta marriage, and multiple pregnancies), and reported that 'we miss one to two days of labour-intensive domestic and productive school a week in order to work, and girls work. In Addis Ababa and Delanta, women miss two to three days to help their mothers from the poorest households believe that who are overburdened'. women and girls 'can last longer without food', so they have a smaller share. Access to reproductive health care for all Traditional healers reported treating women Few rural Ethiopian women have access to for severe abdominal pains attributed to family health-care programmes unless an carrying heavy loads over long distances. outreach clinic services their village. At two Men were aware of, and expressed sites, infants had not been immunised, and concern about, women's low nutrition, there was no access to ante-natal services, enormous reproductive health burden, and since an international donor had stopped heavy workload. However, they appeared funding the outreach service. In all sites, a powerless to shift the traditional gender shortage of funds for outreach services, division of labour. Although men and boys mother-and-child health care (MCH), and from the poorest households reportedly health education was reported. There are sometimes help to collect water for the no reproductive health-care services in or household, they never perform other near the villages visited. All the women domestic tasks. It is women's and girls' interviewed in the rural sites had delivered designated role to maintain the household their last born in their village, without any on a daily basis. In Cherkos, Addis Ababa, trained medical help. Even in Addis Ababa, men said that women are responsible for all 52 per cent of women interviewed had also domestic work according to tradition and delivered at home. Maternal mortality rates religion. Outside the household, women in Ethiopia are amongst the highest in the continue to be represented by men in the world at 1,400 per 100,000 live births in traditional governing structures of the 1990, compared to a UK figure of 9 per community, which organise and manage 100,000 (UNDP 1999). community affairs in the absence of active In all sites except Addis Ababa, early local government structures. marriage involving girls aged between 12 In order that 'they don't suffer like us', and 18 is common. It is estimated that 85 per as one mother in Addis Ababa put it, cent of girls and women in Ethiopia are women would like their girls to attend circumcised (Spadacini and Nichols 1998). In school. Others, for example in Jijiga, did not the eastern regions of Metta, Eastern Hararge, see the point of sending girls to school, and Jijiga, Somali Region, the most intrusive 'when all they are going to do is build form of female genital mutilation (FGM), homes and grind grain'. Youth groups and infibulation7, is practised during primary schools said that parents' low appreciation school years. 'There is not one girl who is not of the value of education, particularly for circumcised,' the women in Metta stated. In girls, contributed to low overall attendance Jijiga the girls said that 'stitching is a rates. While primary school attendance problem at marriage and delivery.' A doctor rates are staggeringly low for both girls in Eastern Hararge confirmed that very few and boys (65-88 per cent of children in the women have trained medical attendants four sites are not in school), even fewer present during delivery, despite the fact that girls than boys in each site attend school. because of FGM, 'problems during delivery With heavy workloads and low-income are common. Since the outlet is too narrow, livelihoods, women cannot manage without this causes obstructed labour'. 50

The National Committee on Traditional In Cherkos, Addis Ababa, poverty and Practices in Ethiopia is running an awareness- youth unemployment have found raising campaign to eliminate FGM, but the expression in a considerable increase in campaign has not yet made an impact in male youth delinquency, and alcohol, more remote places. In Metta, girls said: 'we tobacco, and drug abuse. Girls in Cherkos don't know what circumcision is for, but our are afraid of being accosted, abused, and parents are circumcised so they do that for even raped on their way to school. Girls their children.' Another girl commented: explained that boys suffered from 'mental 'we have been educated that it is not good to unrest and disturbance' because of poverty, circumcise girls but it still continues to be unemployment, and lack of prospects. practised.' The low priority of, and few Interestingly, it was men (in Addis Ababa) resources granted to, this work, women's who included early pregnancy and illegal poverty of representation, and the lack of abortions in their list of major health opportunities for self-expression (especially problems, often resulting in life-threatening for exploring intimate issues) all slow down situations. Abortion is illegal in Ethiopia. In the process of change. all sites, boys in particular recommended Many reproductive health conditions are more reproductive health education for intricately tied to traditions and a culture of their own generation and for their parents. reticence. Teachers explained why girls do not perform as well as boys in school by Discussions from the saying that girls are socialised to be shy and research retiring, carry out domestic work, and are not allowed to move as freely as boys. Three areas of concern arising from the Women may not see reproductive health research are highlighted here in a brief conditions as health problems. Men in Jijiga discussion. perceived women's gynaecological problems as 'Allah's will for women'. They said: When does poverty become an emergency? 'women do not talk about such problems. Where is the dividing line between the They are shy. Even if they are sick they do condition of chronic poverty, affecting the not tell men about their diseases'. We also life expectancy of increasing numbers of found that change is held up because of people, and an emergency situation? men's effective exclusion from reproductive Overall, aid to Ethiopia has shifted from health education. Despite men's evident relief aid to development aid. During awareness of the problems created by high the 1974-91 regime of Mengistu Haile population density on exhausted land, family Mariam, 'Western aid for Ethiopia was ... health programmes do not target men. largely restricted, for political reasons, to HIV/AIDS (Ethiopia's highest reported emergency, or "humanitarian" help' incidence is in Addis Ababa) and sexually (Pankhurst 1998, 275). This relief aid was transmitted diseases (STDs) in particular channelled through NGOs, but since 1991 were often more associated with men's there has been an increase in grant aid reproductive health. Participants reported channelled through the government. A that few men go to government health structural adjustment programme first centres for help if they suspect that they are introduced in 1992 led to an increase in the HIV-positive or have a STD, because these country's debt stock between 1992-94. The health centres require them to name their World Bank provided loans for the health- partners. Participants said that such men care and education sector programmes prefer the anonymity of drug stores, holy (Christian Aid 1999, 6-10). Christian Aid waters, or herbalists. estimates that 'as donors did not replace 'We are forgotten on earth': International development targets, poverty, and gender in Ethiopia 51 decreasing emergency disbursements with you get parasites and a swollen body and disbursements for development, total aid die.' In Cherkos, Addis Ababa, there are disbursements decreased' (ibid., 8). open sewers, overflowing public toilets, Oxfam's research in Ethiopia and drains flooding crowded housing. The demonstrates the need to integrate skills worst-off households in all sites cannot and experience and to run parallel relief access treatment for the most basic water- and development programmes. For related health problems such as diarrhoea. example, men in Jijiga said that they were Government health centres visited too weak to plough: 'we need food first'; confirmed that while their supply of the yet there was no food aid. Oxfam Ethiopia most frequently needed medicines was staff were aware that the lack of emergency inadequate, the poor could not afford them food aid undermined progress in their anyway. In all sites, stories of extremely development programmes. One of the most sick people staying at home to 'pray to common health problems identified by Allah', to 'pray to God', to 'lie on the bed participants in Metta was 'swollen body' and die', because they could not afford (kwashiorkor) among infants. In all sites, treatment, were common. In each site, teachers said that the children were hungry health-care service providers reported that in school. Yet neither infants nor primary women in particular do not seek help until school pupils have access to supplementary they are seriously ill. feeding. Hunger is as much a cause of low school attendance as the lack of buildings, The need to invest in citizenship and teachers, and textbooks. education One woman in Metta explained: 'many Donors are rightly concerned about good children get sick and die because of food governance. The British government is shortage. For instance, the doctors advise us committed to 'encouraging democratic to give them many kinds of food like eggs structures which can hold government and milk. We are obliged to give them once accountable and give the poor a voice' or twice, but we can't give them after that. (DfID 1997, 30), and this has obvious So most of the children get sick until they implications for women. can't even walk.' A man in Delanta reported In the Ethiopia research, it was clear that that men were distraught by their inability women and men had little access to to produce food: 'We could not afford decision-making bodies which formulate clothes for the children. We could not policy decisions affecting them. Poverty is provide food and safe water. Due to the perpetuated by a lack of access to local drought our wives are malnourished and government and federal government give birth to unhealthy children.' In all sites, structures, which are managing resources traditional birth attendants attributed on the people's behalf. Jijiga had no form of anaemia during pregnancy, miscarriages, local government structure, so neither men and excessive bleeding after delivery due to nor women have access to information, poor nutrition. resources, and services. They continue to be Moreover, emergency relief programmes 'governed' by default outside the formal usually focus on water supply and local government system, by the all-male sanitation. 'Why do you think the flies clan elders. A man in Belhare, Jijiga, told us: come and land on us? It's because we are 'you won't believe this but we went to the dirty', a woman complained in Delanta. In police station to complain about having no Jijiga, women reported: 'When animals use school in the village. We did not know the water point, they urinate in it and where to go.' Lack of access is aggravated worms get in it. When you drink that water, by this lack of knowledge and by illiteracy. 52

Our research indicated that massive received in aid, $1 is paid straight back in investments in basic adult, as well as debt servicing' (van Diesen and Walker primary and secondary, education and in 1999, 9). The IMF and World Bank policies citizenship are needed, in order to, as DflD of the 1980s and 1990s aimed to increase terms it, 'give the poor a voice'. In Jijiga, capacity to service debts, through men and women were equally conscious emphasising the importance of export of the socially and politically crippling production over local economic activity. consequences of illiteracy: 'we want our 'The IMF and World Bank can oblige children to be educated, not blind like us,' [heavily indebted poor countries9], through one man observed. The women were sure conditionalities attached to loans, to that 'if our boys went to school, they would redirect their macroeconomic policy in know about the city, and they would tell accordance with the interests of the the government about our problems.' international creditors.' These strategies There are obvious issues here concerning have been criticised for '...maintaining] gender equality. In Delanta, Metta, and debtor nations in a straitjacket which prevents them from embarking upon an Jijiga, the Orthodox Church, the mosque, 10 and the council of Elders respectively were independent national economic policy' . ranked as the most important institutions, While improving livelihoods, citizen- and all are dominated by men. There were ship, and access to basic health care and no women on school committees in Delanta education are on the agenda, these are or Metta. Therefore appropriate strategies seriously under-resourced. Women and to ensure women's involvement in men in our research in Ethiopia do not want governance and citizenship need to be their sons and daughters to suffer as they encouraged while also aiming to raise the do. In Metta, men identified 'securing the whole community's awareness. Hardly any daily bread' as their main problem, and women representatives were members of they were concerned for the 'peace and local government bodies at grassroots level, safety of their children'. They need such as the kebeles8 and the Peasant economic, political, and social stability. Associations (PA). In Metta, the PA had a They want food to give them strength to women's wing, none of whose members work and to go to school, they want were recruited into decision-making productive livelihoods, basic medical positions in the main PA. treatments, and trained birth attendants. They want to earn sufficient cash to send Aid conditionalities, conflict, and poverty their children to school clothed and fed. How can development workers ensure that They need reproductive health-care macro-level policies on aid and education and services, clean water to development fully respond to needs on the reduce the incidence of disease, and are ground? International support is needed, looking for support to find strategies to including increased grant aid for human manage the ongoing problem of climatic resource development and the creation of a change and loss of livelihoods. strong civil society. Research of this kind is In 2000, Ethiopians also face another a first step in that it provides evidence of threat to economic survival: their country is success or failure to do this. currently at war with neighbouring Eritrea. In 1996, Ethiopia's external debt This war will inevitably reduce amounted to $10,077m, 169 per cent of its significantly the external resources made annual GNP, and more than ten times the available to Ethiopia for achieving value of its annual export earnings. international human development targets. Christian Aid estimates that 'for every $6 Conditions concerning 'good governance' 'We are forgotten on earth': International development targets, poverty, and gender in Ethiopia 53 and democracy imposed by international likelihood of attaining human development development funders are factors which, in targets and will ultimately maintain the a 'globalised' world, determine people's cycle of debt, poverty, and conflict costing access to aid, debt relief, and, ultimately, Africa lives and its potential. their escape from deprivation. Western governments and international donors Fra von Massow is a social development have an increasing tendency to withdraw consultant and associate of the Development from, and a reluctance to fund, countries at Planning Unit, University College, London war. However, it is known that debt, WC1H 0PD, UK; e-mail [email protected] poverty, and conflict have a cyclical relationship, and it is acknowledged that Notes this is a cycle which needs to be broken. The British Government's International 1 Thanks to Peter Bourne for his comments Development Select Committee (IDSC) and support. criticised the IMF and World Bank for 2 These are shared targets; the Ethiopian their approach to countries in pre- and government aims to achieve a national post-conflict situations: 'The Committee average primary school gross enrolment notes that Rwanda's three-year adjustment ratio of 50 per cent by 2002, and 100 per programme only permits a small increase cent by 2015, and will be covering over in health-care and education spending, and 70 per cent of the costs of the World does not allow spending for rebuilding, Bank-influenced Education Sector reconciliation and alleviation of the "dire Development Programme. poverty" that was one cause of the war and 3 The research team, also involved in genocide.' (www.jubilee2000uk.org). producing the four site reports, included Moreover, there are certain nine workers: a team leader, a senior inconsistencies in international financial, researcher on education, a senior industrial, and political relations, with the researcher on health, four assistant IMF holding centre field. Bilateral aid researchers, a senior statistician and an agreements are made with governments assistant and secretary. which may have a well documented record 4 We recognised that roles of women and of human rights abuses, or may fund arms men are not natural but socially for conflicts between developing countries. constructed, capable of change, and The IMF agrees rescue packages with context-specific. We used the term certain countries such as Indonesia and 'gender' to refer not to women or to men Russia, in the knowledge that this will specifically, but to the social, economic, restore confidence and trigger another and political relations between them - round of lending by commercial banks. relations in which women are often When probing the commitment of IMF subordinate and disadvantaged. We officials to 'good governance', the IDSC therefore paid attention to men's roles found that 'it became quickly apparent that and men's experiences of poverty as well by good governance they meant primarily as women's, and focused on kinship and economic good governance, for example households, since it is through these transparent and well-regulated financial relationships and locations that gender markets, rather than human rights and identities and roles are reproduced. participative democracy' (www.jubilee 5 Carbon debts are 'the accumulation of 2000uk.org). This is a clear example of the surplus carbon dioxide beyond the many inconsistencies in the politics of capacity of the environment to absorb' development, which undermine the (Christian Aid 1999,1). 54

6 Local flat bread. Elson, D (1992) Male Bias in Structural 7 Locally brewed beer made from barley or Adjustment in Afshar, H (ed.) Women and wheat. Adjustment Policies in the Third World, 8 Infibulation: the practice of removing the Macmillan, London. clitoris, labia minora and labia majora, Mukangara F and Koda B (1997) Beyond stitching the girl with thorns and binding Inequalities: Women in Tanzania TGNP/ her legs until the wound heals leaving a SARDC. small hole for urine and menstrual flow. Pankhurst R (1998) The Ethiopians, 9 A local government administrative unit, Blackwell, Oxford. which provides a link between the urban Spadacini B and Nichols P (1998) government administration and the 'Campaigning against female genital community. mutilation in Ethiopia using popular 10HIPC: heavily indebted poor countries. education', in Gender and Development, Under the World Bank/IMF HIPC 6:2, Oxfam GB, Oxford. agreements, a country has to maintain UNDP Human Development Report 1999, policies and repayments to the UNDP, New York. satisfaction of the IMF, while taking on UNIFEM website: http://www.undp.org/ board more loans to finance balance of unifem / economic.htm payments deficits and structural van Diesen A and Walker C (1999) The adjustment programmes, for a minimum Changing Face of Aid to Ethiopia, Christian of three years before qualifying for debt Aid, London. relief. For more information, refer to the von Massow F (November 1999) Oxfam Jubilee 2000 Coalition web site: Policy Department Micro Research: Health www.jubilee2000uk.org 11 Maria Clara Couto Soares of IBASE, Rio and Education in Ethiopia (January-March de Janeiro. 1999) unpublished report, Oxfam GB, Oxford. The White Paper on International Development: References Eliminating World Poverty: A Challenge for Christian Aid (1999) Who Owes Who? the 21st Century, presented to UK Climate change, debt, equity and survival Parliament by the Secretary of State for Christian Aid, London. International Development, 1997. 55

Rethinking gender and development practice for the twenty-first century1 Judy El-Bushra

People are confused about the concept of gender as used in development planning and practice, and male-dominated institutions are still resistant to it. This is threatening the achievement of women's rights and equality and the transformation of gender relations, argues Judy El-Bushra, and explores some definitions.

he United Nations Fourth World both policy and practice underwent a Conference on Women, held in Beijing substantial shift from a Women in Tin 1995, placed women's rights centre Development (WID) approach to a Gender stage for governments, policy-makers, and and Development (GAD) approach (Razavi rights workers all over the world. The and Miller 1995), a change that has been Beijing conference's Platform for Action welcomed as clarifying the essentially (UN 1996) has undoubtedly contributed to cultural nature of injustices which are an an increased profile for issues of gender outcome of gender identity. relations in human society, and to a greater It is now 30 years since Esther Boserup recognition of the need to overcome first alerted the development community to gender-based injustice. Governments, the importance of women's role in agri- politicians, the media, religious movements, culture, and triggered its current concern professional groups, and civil society with 'gender'. My contention is that, on generally, daily acknowledge and struggle present evidence, GAD as a project is in danger of marginalising itself from reality, with the implications of the global and needs a radical overhaul of its basic commitment to women's equality spelled starting-points. Much confusion and out in this document. tension exists about GAD as a concept, both Development agencies, in their function within development agencies, and within as an increasingly important channel for institutions providing training for develop- global aid transfers, have much experience ment agency personnel. This confusion may to contribute to the ensuing debate. Since hinder the transformation of gender the publication of Esther Boserup's relations, and threaten the achievement of pioneering work on women's role in women's rights and equality. Undoubtedly, agriculture (Boserup 1970), development some of the confusion derives from agencies have placed increasing emphasis resistance in male-dominated institutions. on policy goals related to women in However, some also arises from problems development, and this work has been well with the concept of gender as we use it in documented. From the 1970s to the 1990s, development planning and practice. 56

The start of the twenty-first century specialists need to undergo in order to seems a good time to acknowledge and ensure that the organisation concerned is analyse such problems, and revisit first fully equipped to meet its moral and principles, aiming to build the project of practical goals. gender transformation on secure Unsurprisingly, different individuals and foundations for the future. This article agencies differ radically in the way they expresses my personal views, borne out of interpret the concept of 'gender' in their 20 years' experience in raising the profile of work, each one asserting that their gender equality and gender transformation interpretation is correct. The word itself was in development agencies. Most of this used originally in linguistics. It has grown experience has been with ACORD, a up within a European, and specifically development agency working directly with English, tradition. It is now used in several communities in sub-Saharan Africa. I will different disciplines (including linguistics, first describe some practical difficulties I anthropology, and, more recently, cultural have observed in that context. The second studies, development studies and part of the article will consider some feminism), and its use in each of these has theoretical problems in •interpreting the contributed layers of meanings. It is a word concept of gender. The last section draws which is used in many different senses: to some conclusions about the challenges analyse social relations, to describe aspects which gender and development practice of people's lives, or in judgements about the will meet in the next phase of its evolution. value of social change. Being a highly specialised word, it is poorly understood by What's wrong with 'gender the average English-speaker, and few words and development'? exist for it in other languages. In my experience, workers in development Overemphasising the economic aspect of agencies — both women and men — women's empowerment express considerable confusion when In spite of the policy shift from WID discussing GAD in the context of their approaches to GAD approaches in the late work. I see this falling into three broad 1980s, in practice 'gender work' is still seen areas: confusion about the discourse (what first and foremost as concerning women. gender is about; who defines it; who is, and The fact that men too have socially- who is not, privileged to speak determined roles, and the social constraints authoritatively about it); confusion about on them that may exist, are addressed in the assumption that gender transformation token fashion if at all.2 In much GAD work, equals women's economic empowerment; women are treated as a homogenous and confusion generated by the tendency category for targeting, despite the towards translating complex issues into differences that may exist between them. over-simplifications and 'sloganeering'. Both WID and GAD evolved in a policy environment dominated by economic Confusion in the discourse perspectives on development, perspectives In my view, GAD tends to be seen as the that retain their hold today. Many realm of an exclusive group of 'gender development agencies adopt women's specialists'. These 'specialists' decide who is economic empowerment as their main 'gender-aware' and who is not, and what strategy for achieving gender equity, constitutes awareness. It is they who assuming that it will lead automatically determine the content of 'gender training': a to gender equality. Yet women throughout process which, it is believed, non-gender the world describe their experience of Rethinking gender and development practice for the twenty-first century 57 discrimination in many other areas of life, advocacy work, development practice including their political roles, which define needs to be based on an understanding of their power to control resources within the relationship between global inequality social relationships, and their need for and the context-specific experiences of both emotional security and reproductive individual women. rights within interpersonal relationships. The tendency in development agencies In relation to this last point, I have found to oversimplify complex issues renders it that gender specialists often assume that harder to achieve solutions. An example is women who value their relationships with work to eradicate female genital mutilation male partners and relations more than their (FGM). While there is no doubt that FGM is autonomy are suffering from 'false a scourge affecting millions of girls and consciousness' about the nature of their women and their families, few successful oppression. strategies for dealing with it have emerged so far. Demonising those who practise The oversimplification of complex issues FGM, while failing to understand the The need for agencies to formulate bite- complexity of the reasons for perpetuating sized 'messages' for training and lobbying the practice does not reduce the incidence purposes leads to complex issues of justice of FGM. Many people who practise FGM and equality being reduced to slogans. link it to the values they hold — rightly or 'Two-thirds of the world's work is done by wrongly — about gender relations, and to women' (UN 1985) is a typical example. conceptions of beauty and purity. In some This statistic is an average, abstracted from cases the practice is closely tied to cultural the different contexts in which develop- identity, which may explain why some ment practice takes place. Used carelessly, refugee populations in exile maintain it such slogans can be highly misleading. more diligently than they ever did back 3 Women's work is grindingly hard in some home. If FGM is to be eradicated, it will contexts — for example, in south-east Asia have to be addressed first and foremost at women provide up to 90 per cent of labour this level of emotions and attitudes, by for rice cultivation (FAO 1999); but in people who understand its complexity as others their scope for production is limited, an issue (Toubia 1993). either because of limitations placed on their opportunities outside the home, or Exploring the meanings of gender * because the economic environment is only The question 'What is gender?' i.e. what marginally productive. (Finding viable sort of 'animal' it is, and how fundamental economic niches for both women and men it is to our being, is at the root of many of in stagnant economies and resource- the problems described above. The Concise poor environments is a challenge faced by Oxford Dictionary describes gender as: many development agencies.) For women 'grammatical classification (or one of the in such contexts, the problem may not be classes) of objects roughly corresponding to overwork, so much as having too little the two sexes and sexlessness; (of nouns opportunity for work that would ensure and pronouns) property of belonging to their economic needs could be met. The such class; (of adjectives) appropriate form relationship between the global picture and for accompanying a noun of one such class; specific contexts where reality looks very (colloq) one's sex' (Seventh Edition, 1982) different is extremely complex. While Gender analysis, as used by economists genuinely global statistics on gender and social scientists, rests on a conceptual inequalities raise awareness and are separation between gender and sex, a important for international activism and distinction that common speech usually 58

blurs. This separation was first spelled out In addition, individuals differ from the in 1972 by Ann Oakley, in the following norms, to such a significant extent that the terms: 'Sex is a biological term: 'gender' a norms themselves fail to stand up to psychological and cultural one. Common scientific measurement. Women are sense suggests that they are merely two commonly thought of as human beings ways of looking at the same division and whose vagina, womb, breasts and female that someone who belongs to, say, the hormones enable them to conceive and female sex will automatically belong to the bear children, yet we are all aware that corresponding (feminine) gender. In reality many people known to be 'women' are this is not so. To be a man or a woman, a unable to bear children, because of the boy or a girl, is as much a function of dress, absence of the appropriate hormones, and gesture, occupation, social network and sometimes the absence of, or malfunctions personality, as it is of possessing a of, the relevant body parts. In the same particular set of genitals' (Oakley 1972,158). way, not all men possess the necessary These definitions have been used by physical attributes to reproduce. GAD trainers since the start of GAD as a Finally, being born with a body field of study and work, and are usually characteristic of a particular sex does not presented as clear and unambiguous guarantee that you identify with members (Williams et al. 1994). However, both of that sex, or even that you have to remain distinctions rest on assumptions that are in the same biological sex. A proportion of increasingly being questioned. individuals are 'trans-sexuals', who have the physical attributes of one sex, but lack The assumption of a distinction between the psychological capacity to identify with male and female sexes that sex. Such people often describe them- Is it really the case that there are two sexes selves as having been born into the 'wrong' — men and women — which can clearly be body, and many go on in later life to live distinguished from each other? Observation satisfying lives as a different sex after and common sense certainly indicate that undergoing 'gender re-assignment' surgery. this is true in a general sense, and the In many contexts, trans-sexuals become science of genetics has demonstrated that socially accepted in their new sexual there does exist a fundamental genetic identity. However, their legal position is difference between biological males (whose unclear: recently, some countries have cells include an 'X' and a 'Y' chromosome) introduced, or are considering, legislation and biological females (whose cells include to permit trans-sexuals to be legally two 'X' chromosomes).5 However, in the married in their new sex. absence of genetic testing, deciding whether In summary, although physical a person is biologically male or female measurement of male and female sexual largely depends on examining their characteristics is possible, in practice the external genitals, usually at birth. Not all identification of those characteristics is individuals can be unambiguously sometimes haphazard and often dependent identified as male and female at birth. In on social convention. In many societies, the United States, for example, it is there is a widespread reluctance to imagine accepted medical practice for individuals of that people could be classed in any other indeterminate sex ('intersex' individuals) to way than into two sexes. In some contexts, undergo surgery during their childhood in including Northern Europe and the order to assign them to one sex or the Americas, society's desire to categorise other, a practice which can be seen as a individuals who do not conform is form of genital mutilation. increasingly being considered as a human Rethinking gender and development practice for the twenty-first century 59 rights issue. For example, the 'third sex' intercourse, or may change during the movement in parts of South and North course of a person's lifetime. For example, America is an informal social movement 'in Nepal ... the differences between the uniting trans-sexuals, intersex individuals, female and the male are conceived of as the transvestites (people who dress as members difference between flesh and bone. of the opposite sex), homosexuals and However, these differences of gender are others who feel they do not comfortably fit said to be located in all bodies, thus into the accepted physical confines of either collapsing the distinction between sexed of the two sexes, and who wish to bodies and socially constructed genders ... campaign for a recognition of the injustice The female and the male, as flesh and bone, that follows. This same concern has given are necessary features of [everyone's] rise to a new sub-discipline of 'cultural bodily identity.' (Moore 1994,13) studies' known as 'queer theory', which There is a second debate which needs to examines everything and everyone who be had about the distinction between sex does not fit neatly into established norms. and gender that we use in GAD. This is This is discussed by Susie Jolly in her article rather different. It focuses on research in in this issue. other disciplines that raises questions about whether the 'gender differences' we The assumption of a distinction between associate with women and men are socially sex and gender constructed, or whether they are in fact GAD training also tells us that 'sex' and genetic. We must now question whether 'gender' are very different ways of male and female social behaviour is entirely classifying human beings. How true is this? learned, or whether some of it is Does 'sex' really belong only to the realm of determined by inherited factors. Modern empirically observable science, and evolutionary theory argues that human 'gender' only to the realm of culture? There sexual behaviour, as well as the human seem to be three sorts of arguments that body, has developed from generation to this may not be the case. First is the generation, to ensure the 'reproduction of argument that sexual distinctions are the fittest'. In this view, the survival of the themselves part of culture. What we regard human race is best served by individual as characteristic of 'sex' includes many men and women aiming to reproduce different elements of human nature rolled themselves through having children, who into one. Foucault (1978) put it in this way: are conceived and nurtured to maturity in '...the notion of 'sex' made it possible to the greatest numbers and in the best group together, in an artificial unity, possible conditions. Everyday human anatomical elements, biological functions, behaviour is driven by this need, which conducts, sensations, and pleasures, and it affects different people in different ways. enabled one to make use of this fictitious Thus, differences in behaviour between unity as a causal principle, an omnipresent men and women, and even between rich meaning' (Foucault 1978,154). and poor, royalty and commoners, hill- Secondly, views of biological sex dwellers and desert people, can be common in the West are not necessarily explained by differences in their shared by others. Moore (1994) refers to reproductive strategies. In this argument, studies from Nepal and Papua New culture is derived from biology, not the Guinea, where it is believed that the other way round (Ridley 1993). biological characteristics of male and female Moreover, biologists have now gone a may both exist within one body, may be long way in mapping human genes; genes exchanged during eating or sexual have been discovered that govern or affect 60

a number of areas of human behaviour, should it undermine our view that the previously believed to depend on oppression of women is one of the major individual choices or socialisation. issues of our time. Women are widely According to this research, whether girls discriminated against in their personal play with dolls or with toy motorbikes lives, in their economic opportunities, in depends partly on how they are brought their opportunities for political and creative up, but also on tendencies that are part of expression, and in the area of legal rights. their sex-related genetic inheritance. This Their life choices are relatively restricted, links to research nearly half a century ago especially if they are caring for children, in linguistics. Noam Chomsky pioneered and their vulnerability to domestic and the view that children are born with innate other violence is high. knowledge, not of any particular language However, what the foregoing does imply as such, but of the basic ground-rules of is that we may well be oversimplifying the language structures (Chomsky 1957). This issues, and that we can best understand may also lend support to the idea that some women's position in the context of a more form of predisposition towards a 'gender nuanced and sophisticated understanding of identity' is at least a possibility. The the roots of human behaviour. If we are arguments put forward by geneticists and concerned about oppression, marginalisation linguists are not proven, and all are the and injustice, we need to recognise that these subject of controversy; there are no are features of all human societies, and that definitive answers. they are linked to a variety of factors of All in all, Ann Oakley's definition of which difference between the sexes is just gender seems to be a simple statement of one. As Henrietta Moore puts it, 'When has reality, and it has become fundamental to gender ever been pure, untainted by other GAD work. Many of our current forms of difference, other relations of assumptions about men and women in inequality? Lives are shaped by a society are based on it. However, there is multiplicity of differences.... The concepts of now evidence suggesting that the concepts sexual difference and gender difference we use are nothing like as clear and collide at this moment and cannot usefully unambiguous as they first seemed. 'Men' be separated again.... And as for gender and 'women', 'male' and 'female', 'sex' and discourse, there is no discourse on gender outside the discourses of race and class and 'gender' are all words surrounded by ethnicity and sexuality and so on' (Moore controversy, and are subject to complex and 1994,20). different interpretations. Moreover, we seem to be fixated by the We need to move beyond the neat need to describe the world in terms of a distinctions between 'sex' and 'gender' and whole series of polar opposites. Might there 'men' and 'women' used in development not be intermediate or overlapping agencies, to develop a theory of social categories, which would better represent relations that enables us to understand the the complexity of real life? way in which our identities are rooted in our physical bodies on the one hand, and in Some implications our historical context on the other. Here are three elements of such a theory Eternal vigilance is needed as we work to which are indicated by the above argument. promote gender equality and justice. First, we need to envisage social relations I do not think that the above discussion themselves as the mainframe of analysis, should lead us to conclude that differences looking at the totality of the elements in our between the sexes are unimportant, nor identities and our interactions with others Rethinking gender and development practice for the twenty-first century 61 as the starting-point. From here, we need to the relevance of homosexual experience to understand the standpoints of various an understanding of gender identities and individuals within this system. The 'social gendered patterns of oppression. I have relations framework', developed at the found in my work that it is widely assumed Institute of Development Studies, UK that same-sex relations are a feature of the (Kabeer 1994), accepts the 'inter- so-called advanced capitalist world, and connectedness' of men's and women's therefore not relevant to development. In roles, and seeks to understand the 'relations particular, homosexuality is seen as a of everyday life' in the context of the 'luxury' issue in environments of extreme institutional underpinnings of gender poverty. This ignores the fact that what has hierarchy. Institutions need to be changed in the 'West' is the degree of 'unpacked', so that we can understand how openness about homosexuality, and they function in terms of rules, resources, therefore the possiblity of living it, rather people, activities and power structures. A than the desire to live it. In any key part of this understanding is that environment, suppression of sexuality has institutions are not monolithic structures: the potential to lead to untold social they are constantly being re-created, problems, as well as personal unhappiness. through the struggles of women and men to The lack of attention to homosexual define their own ideas of equality and experience is a pity, since attitudes towards empowerment and create a viable and sexuality may offer important insights into satisfying life for themselves in the context the nature of gender identities and gender of — or in spite of — their social identities. oppression generally,6 and assist GAD Gender should not be seen — as it practitioners in exposing the gender sometimes is in development agencies — as stereotyping that is at the root of gender the major axis of social differentiation. inequality and injustice. Rather, we should understand people's Moreover, to the extent that develop- experience of gender differentiation as ment agencies lack interest in human linked to their experience of other forms of sexuality, this may also reflect a lack of social difference, such as those of age, race concern over reproductive health and or class. This understanding of people's sexual relations generally. Indeed, the identities as complex and nuanced permits a whole area of interpersonal relations and closer understanding of power relations in emotional life constitutes a major blind spot general, and the illumination of contra- in dominant development paradigms. dictions and injustices inherent in those relations. GAD specialists should draw on sociological work on the nature of power, Conclusions including feminist interpretations which 'Gender' should be seen not as a politically delve into the varied forms of power that correct ideology, but as an integral element women and men have imposed on them in a wider search for a deep understanding and that they themselves wield. For of human behaviour, which concerns itself example, Bob Connell uses such nuanced with physical and emotional needs, definitions of power to develop the notion perceptions, motivations, relationships and of 'hegemonic masculinity' to describe the structures. Concepts such as 'identity', subordination of men to men as an aspect of 'agency' and 'power' describe how human patriarchal power relations (Connell 1995). beings struggle to carve out acceptable lives Finally, development agencies and the for themselves in the constraints imposed academic world alike have generally been by their historical positions, their social slow — and reluctant? — to acknowledge roles, and their personal attributes. If the 62

concept of gender is to be a useful tool for Oakley (1972) Sex, Gender and Society, development and for the advancement of Temple Smith. women's rights, GAD research, policy and Razavi, S and Miller, C (1995) From WID to practice must direct its energies towards GAD: Conceptual shifts in the women and understanding the complex meanings of development discourse, UNRISD. this and similar concepts, and resist Ridley, M (1993) The Red Queen: Sex and the promoting itself as an unquestionable good. evolution of human nature, Penguin Books, UK. Judy El-Bushra is Acting Director of the Toubia, N (1993) Female Genital Mutilation: Research and Policy Programme at ACORD, A call for action, Women, Ink. 52 Horseferry Road, London SW1P 2AF, UK.UN Department of Public Information Telephone: +44 (0)20 7227 8628; e-mail: (1996), Platform for Action and the Beijing [email protected] Declaration, New York.

References Notes Butler, J (1990) Gender Trouble: Feminism and1 Based on a paper presented to a con- the subversion of identity, Routledge, ference on 'NGOs in a global future' at the London. University of Birmingham, January 1999. Connell, B (1995) Masculinities, Polity Press, 2 It is only fairly recently that 'masculinity' Cambridge. has become a major issue in the academic El-Bushra, J 'Transforming conflict: some field, giving rise, for example to a series thoughts on a gendered understanding of seminars in the UK funded by the of conflict processes' in Jacobs, S et al. Economic and Social Research Council. (eds) (forthcoming), States of Violence: The debate about masculinity and its Gender, violence and resistance, Zed Press, place in gender studies in the develop- London. ment field is still young. Elshtain, JB (1992) 'The power and 3 Health workers among the Somali powerlessness of women', in Bock and community in the UK, for example, James (eds) (1992) Beyond Equality and report hardened attitudes towards FGM, Difference: Citizenship, feminist politics andalthough the custom had been beginning female subjectivity, Routledge, London. to lose ground during the Siyad Barre Foucault, M (1978) The History of Sexuality, regime (personal communication, Halimo Vol. 1, Penguin Books, UK. Hersi, 1990). Dunne B (1998) 'Power and sexuality in the 4 Henrietta Moore, in A Passion for Middle East', Middle East Research and Difference, inspired much of this section Information Project (MERIP); website: (Moore 1994). http:/ / www.merip.org 5 For a summary of current research in Kabeer, N (1994) Reversed Realities: Gender genetics, see Ridley, M (1993). hierarchies in development thought, Verso6, For example, B Dunne describes how London. Middle Eastern attitudes towards male Moore, H (1994) A Passion for Difference, homosexuals mirror those of men Polity Press, Cambridge. towards women (Dunnel998). 63 'Put your money where your mouth is!': The need for public investment in women's organisations Siobhan Riordan

If we are to attain gender equality in the twenty-first century, the organisations which carry forward this agenda must be strengthened. This article explores the inadequate funding of women's organisations1 by governments and donors, gives examples of their contribution to political processes, and argues that the political rhetoric of supporting women's organisations must be turned into reality.

hroughout the twentieth century, groups, in collaboration with other non- women have created organisations governmental organisations, should be Tthat seek to improve the status and encouraged to organise networks, as situation of women. Around the world, these necessary, and to advocate for and support have often been the driving force behind the implementation of the Platform for social change (Perlmutter 1994, Walter 1998). Action by governments and regional and By the end of the century, political rhetoric international bodies' (DfEE, undated, 41). had begun to acknowledge their role in achieving gender equality; calls have come What hinders or supports from all quarters — including the World women's organisations? Bank, the United Nations, the European Union, international NGOs, national and First, the political context in which women's organisations operate raises issues such as local government — for partnership the availability of resources to NGOs, and between 'mainstream' organisations and the difficulty or ease of accessing them; women's organisations, in order to advance women's status in society; political agendas; social and economic development. the kinds of public institutions which exist, In particular, women's organisations and their mandates and agendas; and civil were identified as key stakeholders in rights within a particular context. All these achieving the UN Global Platform for affect the capacity of women's organisations Action, agreed at Beijing in 1995. Paragraph to operate effectively. 298 of the Platform for Action states: 'Non- Another group of factors relates to the governmental organisations should be historical context in which women's encouraged to contribute to the design and organisations are operating. Issues here implementation of these strategies or include the values and principles of national plans of action. They should also different women's movements, a particular be encouraged to develop their own organisation's stage of development, as programmes to complement government well as the stage of development of wider efforts. Women's organisations and feminist social movements in that context. 64

A third group of factors affecting the The research took place between 1996 progress of women's organisations relate to and 1999 and used a range of methods, the organisation itself. Issues here include including ten in-depth interviews with the dynamics of power between women in women working paid and unpaid in the organisation, which are linked to those women's organisations (Riordan 1998b); 30 in wider society; the organisational interviews with 'key informants', women structure, leadership, and management and men who were selected for their first- style; the balance between paid and unpaid hand knowledge about this topic; archival workers; and the ownership and control of analysis of policy-makers' and hinders' the organisation. public records and reports (Riordan 1998c); This article focuses on one issue within and a gender analysis of records of public the political context: the availability of, and funds disbursed to British non-government access to, financial and technical resources. organisations (Riordan 1998a). It should be noted at the outset that I do not seek to argue that all women's organisations should be funded by the state and public Women's agendas and donors; many choose not to take this path organisations for fears of co-optation or constraints on their work. However, for those organi- Researchers into organisational sations which choose to, or need to, engage development argue that the needs and with the state and donors in order to secure aspirations of human beings are the reasons sufficient resources to achieve their goals, for organised effort in society (French and then the choice needs to be available. At Bell 1978). Thus, women's organisations are present, there is growing evidence from specific sites for the articulation of women's across the world that many women's needs, and the application of women's organisations do not have this choice. solutions (Iannello 1992; Young et al. 1993). The scope and range of women's organisations around the globe at the start The research of the twenty-first century is an impressive The research on which this article is based testimony to women's organising efforts, came about because of a wish to understand and demonstrates the diversity of women's why so many women's organisations in the agendas. Thousands of diverse women's UK exist on the margins of viability, with groups and organisations have emerged in dilapidated offices, out-of-date equipment, the past 20 years, across Latin America, poorly paid (if at all) workers, and Africa, Asia and the Middle East, as well as inadequate funds. I found that a significant in Europe and North America ( Karl 1995; determinant of the development of women's Perlmutter 1994; Sen and Grown 1987; organisations in the UK is their ability to Wallace and March 1991). A European command resources and secure public study of seven countries concluded that funding from state and donor agencies. women's shared agenda made them the Inadequate resources and the current 'driving force in local action' (EFILWC allocation of public funds undermine the 1992, 86). While some organisations are capacity of British women's organisations to explicitly feminist in aim, others do not respond to the social, political, and economic problems they seek to address. Funding identify themselves as part of a women's plans that specifically target initiatives movement, but nevertheless address promoting women's equality can help to concerns related to women's practical ensure that public funds reach women's needs, in health care, law, child care, organisations, thereby strengthening their education, and employment legislation capacity to achieve their goals. (Coward 1994,13). 'Put your money where your mouth is!': The need for public investment in women's organisations 65

One interviewee in my UK research In contrast, feminists have long argued explained the considerable impact of that women's caring roles and their women's organisations on her context: 'A responsibilities in society produce different lot of women's organisations came out of priorities, concerns, and needs to the unfunded activist groupings in the 1960s predominantly male elite who control and 1970s, and I think they are admirable. economic globalisation and govern political They have changed the face of social service power structures. In June 1995, in the UK, provision. They have raised the issue of women's different agendas were articulated domestic violence and preventative health through the largest ever survey of women's care. They have transformed the way many attitudes, concerns and policy agendas. In issues are dealt with in society, the way that June 1995,10,000 women were asked, 'what domestic violence has been recognised. do you want?'; this survey generated 46,000 Until three or four years ago, there was no 'wants', and the authors concluded that the such thing as rape in marriage. It has been findings show the need for a radical re- the work of those organisations which has evaluation of how we think about women, changed the whole spectrum of society.' their concerns, and their approaches to the Despite this success, lack of adequate social and economic problems of our time funding hampers the capacity of women's (WCC 1996). The researchers concluded organisations in the UK, and elsewhere, to that if the solutions offered by women in influence and shape political and economic the survey were adopted, it would lead to a agendas. Despite their diversity of context fundamental shift in political priorities, and aim, women's agendas have one thing political process, and political culture in common: they remain marginalised by (WCC 1996, 9). power structures. In a study across seven European countries, it was found that concern about The failure of social policy the care, health, and education of children to address women's was a shared concern provoking local priorities action, and common to all countries, although the pattern of constraints varies Much research in a range of Northern and considerably according to national and Southern contexts has indicated that local conditions (EFILWC 1992). Women women's social, economic, political, and are ultimately responsible for the daily personal agendas fail to be represented in survival and care of children, the elderly, the economic and political power structures •the sick, and disabled in the community. which govern society (Sen and Grown 1987; For some, there is a clear connection Stein 1997; Women's Communication between men's isolation from direct caring Centre (WCC) 1996, 1997). Evidence of this roles and their violent exploitation of not gulf between women's agendas and only women, but the environment and the political power structures can be found Third World' (Mies 1986). across the world's regions. Created and Research in many contexts has indicated controlled by a shrinking elite of men, that, in addition to having different political and economic power structures are agendas, women's organisations concerned with a development model of demonstrate different values: co-operation, unlimited growth of goods and services, of an emphasis on relatedness, the inclusion of money revenue, of technological progress, the personal dimension, valuing feeling and and of a concept of well-being identified as giving status to intuition, and commitment an abundance of industrially produced to taking a long-term perspective rather commodities (Mies 1997). than pursuing short-term gains (Page 1997; 66

Yasmin 1997; Stewart and Taylor 1997). The in political institutions results in women's fact that women organise points not only to priorities being excluded within public and the connections between economic, political development policy which determines the and social needs, but to the need for an allocation of funds (ibid.). approach to organisational development which promotes social cohesion. Public funding and Women's agendas in action women's organisations An example of the difference in agendas One of the critical factors that maintains the between women in the community, and gulf between women's agendas and political and economic leaders who control political power structures is inadequate resources and determine the priorities of public investment in women's public policy, comes from a comparison of organisations (Riseborough 1997; Clarke women's peace-building efforts in Northern 1998). Without economic and decision- Ireland, Israel, and Bosnia. In her research making power, women's organisations are on this subject, Cynthia Cockburn (1996) dependent on others for resources. And if discovered that women had created those resources are not forthcoming, this grassroots organisations which were valid undermines the capacity of organisations to peace-building processes in their own right. promote women's agendas. They provided institutional models for Nowhere is this argument more aptly peace-building and laid the foundations for demonstrated than in Northern Ireland. The co-operation between people divided by Northern Ireland Women's Coalition ethnicity, religion, and political affiliation. (NIWC) was formed in 1996 to contest the Arab women organised with Jewish elections to the multi-party peace talks. The women, Catholic women with Protestant NICW won 1 per cent of the vote but two women, and Muslim, Croat, Bosnian, and seats at the talks. Northern Ireland does not Serb women organised together. In these have a single woman MP in the UK areas of explosive conflict, other civil parliament or the European parliament, and society organisations have failed to only 14 per cent of local councillors are generate, or failed to sustain, ethnic mixing, women. The Coalition argues that this lack yet women have succeeded in transcending of political representation is a direct result ethnic and religious divides in working to of a society dominated by militarism and improve the situation and status of women nationalism, set against a background of in their communities, and their ability to violence. Since the political space left for sustain the lives of their dependents and women is very small, they tend to be active communities. in community, rather than formal, politics. However, as Cockburn concludes in her The Coalition grew out of this community research, there is a great gulf between such activism, helping women to move from small-scale women's initiatives and the community politics to a more formal arena power structures in which cease-fires are (Clarke 1998). agreed and constitutions negotiated. The NIWC's impact can be seen Women in all the projects she examines throughout the Good Friday Peace point out that while they often prepare the Agreement, which the people of Northern groundwork for peace, they are neither Ireland voted to accept on 22 May 1998. present nor acknowledged when male The 'women's agenda' which the Coalition leaders make (and break) peace agreements. brought to the peace talks resulted in Women may have different perceptions commitments to equal opportunity and to from men of what is needed, and male bias safeguards for the human rights and 'Put your money where your mouth is!': The need for public investment in women's organisations 67 religious liberties of all sections of the to suggest that they experience obstacles in community. The setting up of the new accessing financial resources. Even where Civic Forum, included in the agreement, there is political rhetoric about women's provides people from outside political life equality, this invariably fails to be matched (representatives of the private sector, by public investment in women's equality trades union and voluntary sectors) with initiatives (Goetz 1997; Kardam 1997) or the opportunity to be consulted on organisations working to this agenda. political questions. The creation of the Interestingly, I was able to find very little Forum was a specific proposal which the literature which has examined and analysed NIWC brought to the peace-talks, and the the funding of women's organisations. women concluded that their involvement Literature about women's organisations, made a real difference to the final both in countries of the South and the North, agreement: 'You can see our values and constantly makes reference to inadequate ideas throughout the document: in the funding undermining the effectiveness of proposal for the Civic Forum, in the women's organisations; however, it does not consideration of the victims of violence usually analyse this situation any further and in the explicit right given to women to (del Rosario 1997; Griffin 1995, 7). However, equal political participation' (ibid., 8). the primary research confirmed that Yet, in spite of this success in bringing women's organisations face the problems of women's agendas into the peace-making insufficient funds, understaffing, and and political process, NIWC was forced to marginality to mainstream economic and make a plea for funds to sustain its work in social development. This, in turn, the summer of 1998. The Coalition has undermines organisational development fought five elections in two years, relying and capacity to influence political agendas on individual donations and membership and development policy. As one interviewee subscriptions. Monica McWilliams (one of in the research explained: 'Getting more of a two candidates recently elected to the commitment from those with resources to newly formed National Assembly) argued target women's organisations would enable that without an additional £10,000, the so much more to happen. Working from Coalition would be unable to continue, and desperation and survival is not a powerful women's agendas could be lost in the place to be; ... [you're] doing things half- National Assembly of Northern Ireland, baked. You're papering over cracks. That's especially given that only 14 out of 122 how it is when you're working with Assembly Members are women (ibid.). desperation and survival.' This is a particularly familiar picture for Papering over the cracks those organisations which combine both practical and strategic responses to The role of women's organisations is women's needs — the very approach explicitly stated in those paragraphs of the needed to make political rhetoric a reality. Beijing Platform for Action which list In the context of international development, strategic objectives and actions. If this Caroline Moser observed almost ten years rhetoric about women's equality is to ago that, because the work which genuinely become a reality, beyond the Beijing Plus seeks to empower the powerless is Five meetings in Washington later this year, potentially challenging to those in power, then it requires investment. women's organisations which aim to Despite calls to integrate women's empower women remain largely organisations into economic and social unsupported both by national governments development, I found considerable evidence and bilateral aid agencies. They are under- 68

funded, reliant on the use of voluntary and Public investment in women's organ- unpaid women's time, and dependent on isations needs to be monitored at a local, the resources of those few international national, and international level, as well as non-government agencies and First World within donor agencies and domestic governments prepared to support this foundations. Such monitoring could provide approach to women and development important evidence to influence and shape (Moser 1991b). development agendas and public policy In both UK policy and in international priorities. It offers an opportunity to call development, there is some evidence that political and economic leaders to account. public funds are available for meeting the More importantly, it provides a tool to practical needs of women (Margetts 1996; expose the inadequacy of public investment Newman and Williams 1995; Stewart and in the organisations created by women to Taylor 1997). However, there is little to find solutions for the problems of our time. show that public funds are available for responding to women's strategic needs Siobhan Riordan is a Visiting Research Fellow (Griffin 1995). at the Centre for Institutional Studies, University of East London, Manbey Park Road, London E15 1EY, UK; she also works as an Monitoring public independent management consultant to NGOs. investment E-mail: [email protected] While the UK's socio-political context is unique, there are some lessons to be learned Note from this research which may be of relevance to women in other contexts. If political 1 Women's organisations are here defined rhetoric about women's equality, be it at a as those run by and for women, and local, regional, national, or international which seek to improve the status and level, is to become a reality, then investment situation of women. of public resources is necessary. Given the current situation for women's References organisations, with evidence from across Black, N (1989) Social Feminism, Cornell the world of under-investment and University Press, Ithaca, USA. inadequate funding, it is now necessary to Brown (1992) Women Organising, Routledge, devise systems for monitoring public London. expenditure to women's organisations. Chatterjee, M (1993) 'Struggle and Without such systems, it will remain development: Changing the reality of difficult to expose the inadequacy of self- employed workers' in Young G et funding and resources, and the emptiness al. (eds) (1993). of political rhetoric. At the University of Clarke (1998) 'More Talk?', in Sibyl East London, we have received three years' July/August, Agender Ltd, London. funding to develop a scheme for Cockburn, C (1996) 'Missing It', in Red monitoring public funds to women's Pepper, September. organisations in the UK (Riordan 1998a and Coote, A and Campbell, B (1987) Sweet 1998b). As part of an ongoing research Freedom: The struggle for women's programme, we will be examining the often liberation, 2nd Edition, Blackwell, Oxford, innovative and creative strategies women's del Rosario, VO (1997) 'Mainstreaming organisations pursue to generate resources, gender concerns: Aspects of compliance, while maintaining their autonomy and resistance and negotiation' in Goetz AM independence from state and donor control. (ed) (1997). 'Put your money where your mouth is!': The need for public investment in women's organisations 69

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Culture as a barrier to rural women's entrepreneurship: Experience from Zimbabwe Colletah Chitsike

Gender analysis shows that women can only be self-confident and autonomous in their economic activities if no cultural restraints hold them back. This article identifies the most important issues to be addressed by programmes and projects aiming to promote women's equality through entrepreneurship and makes suggestions for the future focus of gender programmes, especially training.

n 2000, millions of women throughout levels of society: from the United Nations, the developing world (including my through the Platforms of Action that have Ihome country, Zimbabwe) continue to come from global conventions, to experience problems related to lack of community organisations representing money, resources and economic power. As a women in countries worldwide. In all these, gender and development consultant, I am as in development funding organisations increasingly being asked to facilitate the and governments, the goal of women's planning of programmes that aim to train 'economic empowerment' has been the women entrepreneurs to gain self confidence focus of many lengthy discussions, and and autonomy in enterprise management. In much analysis. In practice, these this article, I explore ideas of entrepreneur- discussions have tended to result in various ship, and highlight the reasons why a gender kinds of income-generating projects for analysis of women's context must underpin women (with emphasis on those from rural attempts to promote women entrepreneurs. areas). From the 1980s, in line with The current interest in finding ways of dominant neo-liberal ideas of promoting enhancing women's capacity does not economic growth through individual effort, necessarily indicate that development the terminology used has been of organisations are acknowledging the promoting women's 'entrepreneurship'. cultural and structural barriers to becoming The word 'entrepreneur' is defined by the entrepreneurs that women face — and that Oxford Complete Wordfinder as a 'person who the concept of entrepreneurship is itself undertakes an enterprise or business with biased towards men. the chance of profit or loss, person in control of a commercial undertaking, a contractor acting as an intermediary' (Tulloch 1993). Entrepreneurship as a Other words that the wordfinder suggests as gendered concept close approximations are 'adventurer', In the last three decades of the twentieth 'intermediary' and 'executive'. Although this century, pressure on national governments definition of entrepreneurship seems to end women's poverty came from all straightforward and gender-neutral, and 72

may be understood as such by some village face different structural barriers programme planners, in fact there is from those in a city; but similar cultural evidence from programme evaluations that barriers are identified as problems by the social context in which women and men women in both village and city. These are live influences their ability to become at the root of women's marginalisation entrepreneurs. from economic, political and social An example comes from my own resources, and their heavy, dual workload experience in the early 1990s, when the of family caring as well as production. International Labour Organisation (ILO) undertook a project in Zambia, Zimbabwe Cultural barriers and Uganda. It aimed to produce Start Your Business [SYB] training manuals and to Cultural barriers to women entrepreneurs, train trainers, who, in turn, would train which I have seen in my work in Zimbabwe potential women entrepreneurs. When the and elsewhere, lie in the difference in the ILO project was later evaluated, a key way that women and men view finding was that training that emphasises entrepreneurship as a concept. I discussed business training alone does not guarantee the topic of women, men and money with successful entrepreneurship. In addition, a women during workshops for Project gender analysis of the processes and sorts of Making Sense, a communications project to behaviour that are important in entre- explain entrepreneurship, in 1998. The preneurship is needed, and training women's attitudes can be characterised as materials should be developed that meet follows. For some women, making large women's needs. In the ILO project, potential amounts of money is a dirty pursuit, full of entrepreneurs in all three countries had had all kinds of evil. In Zimbabwe, women are not only to overcome the generally traditionally brought up to associate making unfavourable macroeconomic environment, money with immorality: the Shona but additional structural barriers that face expression anoda man sehure ('she wants to women specifically. These included lower make money like a prostitute') expresses levels of education than men, and a much utmost disgust. The predominant male view more limited availability of finance for start- of business is that one has to acquisitive and up capital. Women in all three countries also assertive — perhaps even ruthless — to be a have to overcome cultural constraints, in success. Even where a positive aspect is societies that do not encourage them to recognised the titles given to women who behave in an entrepreneurial manner (ILO are strong and decisive are based on male internal report 1997). standards. For example, in one of the Shona dialects, the term bambo mukunda (father- While structural barriers are clearer than daughter) refers to a daughter who takes cultural ones, and may be more easily male responsibilities. The language fails to overcome, the two types of barriers are acknowledge the female gender, and lacks subtly linked. A good example of a words that express the strengths of women. structural barrier that has been changed in During a field workshop in Gwanda, Zimbabwe is the 1981 establishment of a Zimbabwe, for the same intervention, I legal age of majority for all. Previously, was told about women who are involved women were regarded as minors. in gold-mining. They restrict their However, although the law now recognises involvement to panning for gold, which women as adults, cultural barriers still requires basic equipment and no skills. It is exist, that deny women use of this law. In men who do the larger-scale panning, and any southern African country, women access heavy machinery to mine. Women running a small business in an isolated Culture as a barrier to rural women's entrepreneurship: Experience from Zimbabwe 73 tend to depend on selling their gold to woman in Zimbabwe actually belongs to middle-men. This is a hazardous process her husband; he has the right to own her (zvevanhu vemadhiri), involving shady deals. through lobola (the bride price paid by the During the severe drought of 1992, a future husband to the bride's parents). In woman who had panned a large piece of customary law women do not have gold approached a middle-man to sell it for individual economic rights, on the grounds her. She received only Z$4,000 (US$100) for that they have benefits given to them it; in her presence, the middle-man sold the through their spouses or male relatives. The same piece to a tourist who was passing by, women in the Project Making Sense and received Z$30,000 (US$1,000) for it. workshops felt that money is an expression When the woman tried to argue with the of power, and that culture is used by men middle man to get a fair share of the fee, as a way to keep women distanced from she was told that she had sold the piece and power. They said that in contrast to those the contract had been agreed upon. When associated with money-making (and men), she continued to argue, she was threatened. the social qualities associated with women The belief that women cannot run large- in Shona society include skills in fostering scale businesses leads some to pretend that peace and preventing conflict; fairness and men are involved in order to conform to equity in distributing resources so that cultural expectations. During a workshop society and the family benefit (even to the for self-awareness for widows run by extent of denying themselves resources for Harare Anglican Diocese Mothers' Union, I the benefit of others); and the promotion of heard of a woman who ran a lucrative and social justice and reduction in exploitation. very productive commercial farm. Her With these attitudes within them and husband had been imprisoned soon after surrounding them, it is exceptionally they purchased the farm, and she ran their difficult for Zimbabwean women to become agricultural business in a very successful entrepreneurs; they will not do so unless manner. When her husband died, however, there are challenges to culture. They will this woman proceeded to invite her brother continue to regard themselves as secondary to come to live on the farm. Asked why she earners who do not have the responsibility did this, she responded that she had to have of being breadwinners. They will remain a male live on the farm as protection from trapped in small-scale, low-investment her late husband's family, and that her businesses, which cannot lead to 'liberating family could not allow her to own the economic empowerment' that provides success. She explained that, according to her independence from men. culture, she owed her success to her It is noticeable that men do not seem to ancestors and therefore she needed the male be constrained in the same way from taking relative to be present to own that success. up work that is conventionally seen as The mixing of traditional cultural beliefs women's. I have encountered male and the skills of entrepreneurship is an area receptionists in the offices of multilateral that needs investigation and research. agencies. Employers offer men doing such In summary, women are permitted to jobs opportunities to progress within the want money, but not large sums of money. organisation and earn high salaries. Clearly, When they have it, they have to hide the there is a need to encourage organisations fact, neither showing it nor claiming that to formulate gender policies, and to they have earned it due to personal success: promote the practice of employing women instead, they say ndeya baba, ('it belongs to in jobs that have been seen as men's, as well father/husband'). In traditional custom, as employing men in jobs conventionally everything that belongs to a married associated with women. 74

Structural barriers harder than men to make arrangements to be away from home. It is common to hear Current restrictions to women's entre- comments such as: 'What is a woman doing preneurship lies in the differences in at the market at this time of the day? She women's and men's involvement in should be with her children at home, business. The occupations women take up serving her husband.' Men maintain that are defined by their skills, the resources women have a role at home and should not they have available (including time, and be engaging in vigorous business activities, their ability to travel, which are restricted which involve mingling with men in those by their caring role for the family), their role sectors social constructed as male. There is in the family, and cultural expectations. also a popular prejudice against women travelling; people say 'vanozohura' or Lack of marketable skills 'vanobatwa kwiyo' ('they will become Even when it appears that women are prostitutes', 'they will not be able to protect breaking out of 'traditional' roles by themselves'). producing for cash, the nature of their involvement in serious entrepreneurship is Most often, these reasons can be used to determined by gender norms. Women may men's economic advantage. In the run small-scale businesses. They commonly commercial farm workers sector, farm sell commodities made in or near the home, owners often choose female candidates for out of materials that are home-grown. the position of farm health worker. An Alternatively, they may use the skills they evaluation of farm workers' experiences in have been taught as children, in their Maconi District showed that when the farm caring role — mainly sewing, cooking, and owners subsequently learnt that these doing crochet. However, the products and workers would have to go away from the services have a lower market value and are farm village for training (on courses that, less in demand than carpentry, tin-smithing incidentally, offered participants an and manufacturing of heavy equipment: all attendance allowance), they selected men done by men. instead; the justification given was that Zimbabwean women's businesses tend women could not cope with the travelling to be small, and most are not supported by (SNV NECAIZ 1998). the legal system, which is based on male In some cases, women do succeed in standards and language. Many women extending their businesses in scale and trade in agricultural produce including across wider areas. Some become migrants: vegetables, fruits, small animals, birds and Zimbabwean women cross national borders pigs. Others engage in production of crafts, into Botswana, South Africa, or travel as far while quite a number buy and sell as Namibia and Tanzania, to trade crafts commodities that are available in their areas and buy wares to sell back at home. While or they travel to get items for re-sale. most women who venture far are single mothers or divorced women, obliged to Time and ability to travel support themselves, there is no reason why Men are often much more enterprising in women cannot be assertive enough to travel their choice of what to sell, due to a mixture and carry out their business. Risk-taking is of time resources and opportunity, and the a quality needed in entrepreneurship. fact that cultural beliefs allow them more scope than women have. For example, men Land and assets are freer to go out and find products to sell Gendered patterns of ownership and control that originate far from home. Women have of assets impact on women's ability to build to care for families, and most find it much businesses in many contexts, including my Culture as a barrier to rural women's entrepreneurship: Experience from Zimbabwe 75 own. Women do not have collateral to business itself. Many women will use it to engage in large-scale business activities that meet immediate family needs, such as could generate real wealth, such as ranch- school fees, or to buy basic necessities such farming or large-scale manufacturing. as salt, oil and clothes for the family. Under customary law in Zimbabwe, women do not own land or inherit land Current policy approaches (Chenaux-Repond 1993). Land is owned and to women entrepreneurs inherited by males. The woman's role is to farm for their fathers and later for their As stated at the start of this article, much husbands, and finally for their sons, on land work has been done to date by development that they do not own. The harvested product workers to enable entrepreneurs in rural is not theirs either, but men's property. For areas of Zimbabwe to improve their skills. example, in a cotton farming rural area in Most approaches emphasise vocational skills Gokwe in the Midlands province, the training, augmented by training in business number of female suicides has been reported skills and marketing. I find that women say in the national and regional press as rising the standard training materials are useful. after every cotton marketing season (The Typically, they include material on choosing Mail and Guardian, 18 August 1998). Womenwhat product to produce and /or sell; commit suicide because their husbands selecting a location for the business; collect the cheques from the Cotton distribution and promotion; evaluating the Marketing Board, and the women never see product relevance to the customers; fixing a the money. If they demand the money, they price for the goods or service; ensuring a may be beaten or other acts of violence may good distribution of selling points; be perpetrated against them. One woman expanding the business; solving specific was killed by her husband for planting seed marketing problems; and developing in a manner different from that dictated by marketing plans for given periods. him (Herald, 20 January 1998). Women are Entrepreneurial training is accompanied by unpaid and unacknowledged workers for training in simple financial and project their male relatives, and their labour is record-keeping. Finally, depending on the accrued to the men's assets. nature of the business, other specific skills training is usually offered. From my Education observation, businesses where such training The importance of literacy and education is necessary include dressmaking, soap- for women in business is impossible to making, crocheting, animal husbandry, and overemphasise. Illiteracy limits women to crop production. Women's organisations working at the lowest level of the informal have tended to focus on the production of sector. Development interventions need to products that are associated with women focus on education as a pre-requisite to and domesticity. entrepreneurship. Even if the organisation is aware that this agenda may limit women, it may Position as primary family providers struggle to suggest training in non- Women's responsibilities as family carers traditional occupations since many have direct implications for their business organisations now ask women themselves strategies. Women farmers who grow food to state their views and express their felt for their families and communities may needs. In the absence of encouragement adopt very different strategies in their and awareness-raising about possible businesses from men. If a woman is the alternatives, it is natural that women will primary carer, profit can rarely be focus on familiar activities that are related considered as 'surplus' to be invested in the to their existing roles. 76

What is missing from the current questions here are 'can being an approaches? entrepreneur be compatible with the In contrast, training needs identified through cultural values society associates with participatory approaches should focus on women?' and 'is being trusting incompatible education, solving problems, and providing with business'? When women get into information. The problem with conventional business, our own internal programmes that approaches to entrepreneurship is that they we use to judge what is right and wrong, do not focus on the need to challenge beliefs acceptable and unacceptable, often tell us about women, men, money and power, or that to behave like a man commonly on making efforts to change the mind-sets of behaves is inherently wrong. It does not feel women and of society generally. The right to do 'male' things and we may shy training itself usually takes place in a context away from this challenge to gender roles, in which women are given permission by instead of deciding on the best course and their husbands (or mothers-in law if the forging on with business. husband is away at work) to attend In fact, it should be possible to be an workshops. Very little emphasis is placed on entrepreneur while still valuing the what aspects of human behaviour are commitments to justice and fairness that are required in the harsh male world of business associated with women by communities in and politics, and how this behaviour is Zimbabwe. It is not only important to constructed to disadvantage women. distinguish between what is seen as 'male' Women struggle to liberate themselves from and 'female' behaviour, and to understand the constraints culture places on them to how behaviour is valued according to exhibit qualities that do not seem to be in gender norms, but to see which behaviours line with those required of entrepreneurs. (which may be associated with men or with For example, at Project Making Sense women) are actually detrimental to society. workshops in Lupane, Matebeleand North, rural women I talked to complained that they could not be assertive with men because their Conclusions culture did not allow it. Stories of women In southern Africa, as in other parts of the who have been conned by men in their world, poverty is suffered more acutely by micro-enterprises are numerous. I was told women and children than by men, since they about a woman who bought ten bags of fish are marginalised from decision-making and in Mangochi, in the southern region of resources in all parts of society. Economic Malawi, to sell in her village in Mulanje, and independence has, together with education, was helped by a young man to load them been identified as key to the emancipation onto the bus to take home. At some point, the of women and to national development. fish were stolen, but until she reached her However, women entrepreneurs lack destination the woman believed reassurances experience of leadership and command, due from the male bus conductor that her bags to women's generally low level of experience were safe. I believe, with my informant, that of leadership at community level. this woman lost all her fish because she was Development programmes focusing on too trusting. That was the end of her women entrepreneurs in Zimbabwe have enterprise. If this woman had been assertive, mainly concentrated on the practicalities of she would have checked at every stage that skills needed for production and marketing, the fish was still on top of the bus.1 rather than recognising that entre- Existing approaches also fail to discuss preneurship is a foreign concept for most and transfer the behavioural skills that make women. In addition, women need personal an individual an entrepreneur. For gender empowerment skills: assertiveness; skills and development workers, the key in negotiating and balancing the tasks Culture as a barrier to rural women's entrepreneurship: Experience from Zimbabwe 77 that women and men do in the family; time - act, not because they do not have the management skills; and self-awareness. information or knowledge, but because there Programmes also need to focus on education are macroeconomic factors that inhibit them. for men so that they develop awareness of As mentioned above, women come for the effects of their behaviour on women, and village-level entrepreneurial training a desire to change this. because they are left in the village while men migrate for paid employment or to find Addressing constraints to entrepreneurship more lucrative informal work in towns and While participatory methodologies, capacity cities. National-level policies should building and strengthening of women have understand that this is because women been the focus of development work in the undertake most of the reproductive work, last decade of the twentieth century, these and recognise the worth of this work, as well concepts do not touch on the core of cultural as the constraints that it puts on women's patriarchal values that need to be reversed role in production. In no way should policy in order for women to gain economic be formulated on the basis that women's independence. Effective entrepreneurship work is ancillary to men's. Women are equal needs to be stimulated through the design players in the economy at all levels. and implementation of development activities that assist women to consider the aspects of their lives and culture that make it Colletah Chitsike is a development consultant difficult for them to become entrepreneurs. and trainer in rural development, organisational A key strategy here is to put themselves in change and gender issues. She has an MA in situations where the values they have learnt Adult Education from the University of can be examined and questioned vigorously Zimbabwe. Her passions are gender and by others. The need for women to look at participatory approaches to development. their values through the eyes of others and learn from them — especially those who Note have done well in business — is an important feature for programmes for 1 Testimony collected during a workshop women in the future. Values that are ethical on Community Participation in Mulanje, but also effective need to be communicated Oxfam-funded project, Malawi 1991. with other would-be women entrepreneurs. To do all this, women need to cross cultural References barriers that state that openness is dangerous in itself. For example, there is a Chenaux-Repond, M (1993) 'Gender-biased saying in the Manyika dialect of Shona, land use rights in model: A resettlement 'where ngeineyi?' (why the noise?), which is schemes of Mashonaland', unpublished used when someone shares an idea openly. report. This encourages people to keep their views ILO (1997) 'Second start your business and ideas to themselves. impact evaluation report: Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe', unpublished. The need for macroeconomic policy change Project Making Sense (1997) Policies promoting women's role in 'Use of multimedia to make sense of economic production need to be formulated entrepreneurship', DFID / ActionAid / in the understanding of what women Radio for Development, unpublished actually do, what they are capable of, and report. how they see themselves in their social SNV NECAIZ (1998) 'An evaluation of farm setting. Only then can they enable women to workers, Makoni District, Zimbabwe', realise their potential. Often women do not unpublished evaluation. 78

'Queering' development: Exploring the links between same-sex sexualities, gender, and development Susie Jolly

This article argues that gender and development policy and practice would be enhanced by embracing the challenges to conventional definitions of sex and gender that 'queer theory' poses. The author draws on insights from cultural studies, and discusses the experience of lesbian and gay activists from China as well as Europe and Africa.

n 1998,1 facilitated a number of gender- training. In the bar, I had heard questions awareness workshops in Beijing, run for such as 'Of the two of you, who's the man, IWomen's Federation officials from rural who's the woman?' and 'Are you a top or a areas. The sessions began with everyone bottom?'. Some boys referred to each other shouting out words associated with 'woman' as 'sisters'. While these questions do not and 'man'. Then we would discuss which imply that gay men and lesbians are words are applied exclusively to one sex. completely unrestricted as to which gender The usual conclusion we reached was that roles and identity we can assume, they do 'pretty', 'handsome', 'brave', or 'tender' imply more flexibility in thinking. They could describe either women or men, but implicitly recognise that it is not the body that 'beard', 'uterus', 'menstruation', or you are born with that dictates whether you 'pregnancy' can apply only to one sex. At have a gender identity as a 'boy' or a 'girl'; the end of the exercise, I would then reveal rather, it what you choose to do with it. to them that they had discovered the I wonder how these understandings of distinction between sex and gender. Both the complex relationship between one's body and one's gender identity might be these terms have recently been translated brought into our gender training. It would into Chinese as shehui xingbie ('social sex not have been politically acceptable to hold difference') and shengli xingbie ('biological an open meeting between rural Chinese sex difference'). government officials and cosmopolitan 'gay During these exercises, I would think boys' from Beijing, and in any case, the about the bar I knew in central Beijing clash of such different cultures might have which was popular with lesbians and gay rendered the exercise counter-productive. men. The bar was always crowded with However, there must be ways to start such Chinese men — and sometimes a few communication, which could well prove women — playing games about gender worthwhile. identity with a consciousness that was During the past year, it seems that there different from the 'awareness' we were has been greater interaction between trying to promote through our gender lesbian, bisexual, and gay activists and 'Queering' development: Exploring the links between same-sex sexualities, gender, and development 79 individuals working on 'women's issues' in focus on women's disadvantages in male- China. For example, Kim Wu, a lesbian dominated society, to a more politicised activist, gave a presentation to academics at emphasis on power relations between a national conference on feminism in women and men (Razavi and Miller 1995). Beijing (interview 1999). This interaction has started me thinking about the Linking the sexual and the material connections between same-sex sexualities Freedom to determine one's sexual and gender and development (henceforth behaviour is closely connected to economic abbreviated as GAD). I am interested in the and political freedoms. Feminists have long following questions: argued that constraints on women in sexual and economic realms are interconnected, • Do theoretical approaches to same-sex hence the slogan 'the personal is political'. sexualities have something to offer In particular, the marital relationship has development theory and policy? physical, sexual, social, economic, and legal • Should GAD be concerned with dimensions. 'The desire to control women's questions of sexuality, including same- reproductive functioning and to maintain sex sexualities? control over their sexuality has been a major impetus behind various restrictions on • Can same-sex sexualities be a focus for women's public role, ranging from seclusion gender and development policy and and veiling to more subtle pressures and practice, without replaying familiar disincentives ... There are sexual and North-South power dynamics which nonsexual reasons for women's subordinate impose Western influences on yet status, and... these reasons interact and another arena? reinforce one another in many different My ideas are informed by two academic ways ... [Sjexual desire itself is shaped by disciplines, which I believe have much to structures of power and subordination; I offer each other. One is development don't think that the distinction between the studies, firmly located in the social sciences. "sexual" and "nonsexual" is, or should be, a The other is queer theory (a body of sharp one' (Nussbaum 1999,17). theories addressing same-sex sexualities, Gender norms concerned with sexuality originating in lesbian studies, gay studies, shape both women's and men's lives, and other forms of cultural studies, which I including rules determining how, and with discuss later in this article). The article whom, women and men should engage focuses on examples from China, where I sexually. For example, there are rules on spent six years of my life. Much of this time whether sex should happen only within I lived in Beijing, working on poverty marriage; how many wives or husbands we alleviation, and co-operating with local should marry; and whether or not we lesbian and gay activists in my spare time. should sleep only with people of the opposite sex. These norms are all-pervasive, and not only determine the sexual aspect of What can a focus on same- our lives, but also shape our access to sex sexualities offer to GAD economic resources, and our ability to concepts? participate in social and political activities. During the last 15 years of the twentieth For women, failure to marry may restrict century, development policy and practice access to vital resources such as land or has shifted from women in development housing, while at the same time, marriage (WID) approaches to GAD approaches, at its worst may make women vulnerable to denoting a change from a relatively narrow marital rape and violence. 80

GAD policy-makers and practitioners 'The widespread stereotyping of both have argued that if women are to gain feminists and gays and lesbians as greater choice over their sexual underminers of traditional social order gives relationships, they need sufficient economic us one strong reason to study the two sets of and social bargaining power to enable them issues together, asking what definitions of to exercise their choices, since those who maleness and femaleness underlie both the stray from the norms of female sexuality in fear of feminism and the opposition to equal many societies — including heterosexuality civil rights for lesbians and gay men. Thus, and chastity before marriage as well as legal theorists have recently argued that fidelity and constant sexual availability resistance to full equality for gays is a form within it — face social sanctions which affect of sex discrimination in the sense that it is a their livelihoods and well-being. For device for maintaining fixed divisions example, a woman who lives in an Islamic between the male and the female, which, in society where purdah (female seclusion) is turn, are traditionally linked with a practised may decide to violate purdah in hierarchical placement of male over female.' order to participate in income-generating (Nussbaum 1999,15) work. By doing this, she is simultaneously threatening the economic control and the Human rights perspectives sexual control of men over her life. GAD's Since the start of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, analysis of the connections between the it has become clear that sexual activity is a control of sexuality and economic and life-and-death issue for women and men political power can be extended to examine throughout the world — regardless of their the unjust treatment meted out not only to sexual orientation. However, sexual women as a sex, but to all who deviate from orientation itself is also a matter of life and prescribed gender roles. death for the many women and men in same-sex relationships who face homo- Feminists and gay activists as 'other' phobic violence, in their homes and in the Those who challenge gender norms sexually public sphere. or otherwise are often stereotyped as a Homophobic violence is a common dangerous 'other'. Some Third World problem worldwide. In 1999 a US soldier, commentators have gone further, responding Barry Winchell, was beaten to death by to feminist writings by denouncing such another soldier in a killing motivated by ideas as Western impositions on traditional homophobia ('Army Death Spurs Criticism cultures. 'Western feminism' has been of Policy', Associated Press, Yahoo News, 10 labelled 'cultural imperialism' by politicians December 1999). Transvestites have been in Zimbabwe (Seidman 1984, 432). Such murdered in Mexico, gay men imprisoned accusations, common in many countries, can under sodomy laws in Romania, and create a difficult climate for Southerners who lesbians and gay men executed in Iran advocate gender equality. They are always (Rosenbloom 1996). Suicides among lesbians vulnerable to the charge of putting 'Western' have been reported in North and South: one values before 'tradition' and patriotism. In case is that of Gita Darji and Kishori Shah in Taiwan for example, Women's Studies India, who killed themselves together rather academics are under pressure to demonstrate than allow their relationship to be broken their difference from 'Western feminism', up by their families (ibid.). A Zimbabwean and to prove that they are 'Chinese enough' woman reported being raped with her (Ding and Liu 1999,140). Both feminism and family's knowledge and consent so that she the movement for lesbian and gay liberation would get pregnant, marry, and cease to have been charged in this way. have relationships with women: '[My girl- 'Queering' development: Exploring the links between same-sex sexualities, gender, and development 81 friend and I] are always on the run because several other possible reasons for GAD's my parents are against what I am. When reluctance to address questions of sexuality. they found out that I was a lesbian, they In this section, I will look at three. tried to force me to find a boyfriend ... in the end they forced an old man on me. They 'What right do we have to intervene in locked me in a room and brought him every local culture?' day to rape me, so I would fall pregnant and This question is the 'flip-side' of the be forced to marry him' (ibid., 234). This objections raised by commentators from woman had no recourse to help from the developing countries who accuse feminists authorities in a country where the President, and gay activists of Western domination. It Robert Mugabe, has stated publicly of is often asked by Western development homosexuals 'I don't believe they should practitioners in the context of GAD have any rights at all' (Phillips 1999,3). programmes which directly address Human rights activists have pointed out relations between individual women and that '[w]omen's rights and lesbian rights individual men, including sexual concerns. are linked in substantive ways. Both issues Interfering in 'culture' appears to be much challenge how human rights distinctions less of a concern for most in interventions between the private and public and dealing with issues such as poverty reluctance to address female sexuality have alleviation, implying that a double standard perpetuated violations of women and kept is in operation: 'Why is it that challenging them invisible. Further, the defense of gender inequalities is seen as tampering lesbian rights is integral to the defense of with traditions or culture, and thus taboo, all women's right to determine their own while challenging inequalities in terms of sexuality, to work at the jobs they prefer, wealth and class is not?' (Metha cited in and to live as they choose with women, Smyth 1999). The question of the right of men, children or alone.' (Charlotte Bunch, outsiders to intervene should be asked of in Rosenbloom 1996, vi). As the examples all projects, economic or otherwise. given here demonstrate, protection from One possible answer is that 'women homophobic violence is a basic — and belong to cultures. But they do not choose urgent — need. to be born into any particular culture, and they do not really choose to endorse its norms as good for themselves, unless they GAD's reluctance to engage do so in possession of further options and with same-sex sexualities opportunities—including the opportunity Development policy and practice have to form communities of affiliation and tended to avoid discussions of sexuality, empowerment with other women' beyond debates on population and, more (Nussbaum 1999, 54). Different groups and recently, HIV and AIDS. It has been argued individuals have different stakes in, and that the exclusion of sexuality from feelings of belonging to, the cultures in development agendas suggests the which they live. Development interventions problematic assumption that while in the can play a part in raising women's North people need sex and love, in the awareness of the 'further options and South they just need to eat (Wieringa 1998). affiliations' which may exist. They may do In fact, lack of freedom to express sexuality the same for sexual minorities. Those who can threaten survival, the most basic of feel constrained by certain aspects of their human needs. culture could be offered the choice whether In addition to the focus on narrow to aim for an alternative, or to consciously interpretations of basic needs, there are validate 'their' culture. 82

However, while the introduction of an functioned as a means to continue colonial alternative option by outside forces can be control in the South (Rahnema et al. 1997). liberating, new options rarely appear as Whether or not one accepts this view, many neutral choices. This is particularly evident would agree that the legacy of the in the economic arena, where the development industry is at best mixed. Do worldwide spread of free-market we really want to encourage the clumsy economics can hardly be interpreted as 'development machine' into even more having been a free choice by national intimate areas of people's lives? Do we trust governments. 'Globalisation' of economic it to approach sexualities with any level of systems has been accompanied by cultural awareness and sensitivity? I look at some influences which sweep people along, often Chinese views concerning these questions appearing to be the only profitable or viable in the following section. option. This process has challenged, and often changed, understandings of gender and sexuality throughout the world. Tongzhi, globalisation, and gay identities 'Homosexuality comes from the West' In the context of China, homosexual Homosexuality is often stereotyped as a behaviour and love are not seen as Western; Western phenomenon; for example, however, particular gay identities are. In the President Mugabe of Zimbabwe has next sections, I will discuss the way in attacked homosexuality as 'non-traditional' which these identities are coming into and 'un-African', in spite of numerous context with tongzhi (literally, 'common historical records and contemporary voices will'). This is the Chinese word for from the South which contest his view, 'comrade' which many lesbian, bisexual, including that of the organisation Gays and and gay people in mainland China, Hong Lesbians of Zimbabwe (Queer Africa Digest, Kong, and Taiwan now use to refer to 10 January 2000). themselves. How have these identities At the 1985 Decade World Conference on appeared in China? Are they appropriate to Women in Nairobi, Third World lesbians Chinese contexts, and are they being released the following press statement: 'If it imposed, or simply offered as an option? I seems that lesbianism is confined to white will also examine the role of non-Chinese western women, it is often because third activists like myself in this process. world lesbians and lesbians of colour come up against more obstacles to our visibility Discussions of Chinese gay identities — but this silence has to be seen as one more aspect of women's sexual repression A press release for the 1998 Chinese Tongzhi and not as a conclusion that lesbianism Conference in Hong Kong declared: 'The doesn't concern us ... The struggle for lesbi-gay movement in many Western lesbian rights is indispensable to any societies is largely built upon the notion of struggle for basic human rights. It's part of individualism, confrontational politics, and the struggle for all women for control over the discourse of individual rights. Certain our own lives' (cited in Rosenbloom 1996, v). characteristics of confrontational politics, such as coming out and mass protests and 'Let's not risk bringing the clumsy parades, may not be the best way of "development machine" into more achieving tongzhi liberation in the family- intimate areas of people's lives' centered, community-oriented Chinese 'Post-development' theorists have argued societies which stress the importance of that in spite of the rhetoric of good social harmony. In formulating the tongzhi intentions, development has largely movement strategy, we should take the 'Queering' development: Exploring the links between same-sex sexualities, gender, and development 83 specific socio-economic and cultural assistance' to tongzhi has begun. Ming, environment of each society into conside- another Beijing organiser, notes that such ration' (International News No.201,1998). support was instrumental to the establish- Zhou Huashan, a writer from Hong ment of the Beijing Sisters, a lesbian group Kong, argues along similar lines that a in Beijing: 'To start with, our activities more harmonious family-based approach mostly took place in foreigners' homes, will be an effective strategy for Chinese because foreigners are not afraid of coming tongzhi. He also makes the case that China out: they have the material conditions to has a tradition of same-sex love (parti- provide a place for activities, and also cularly in the case of men), which did not experience of organising. So that's how encounter such violent hostility as in the women tongzhi activities started. But our West, and points out that homophobia in activities were criticised by some for being China originated in colonial Christian centred around foreigners, imperialist-led, influences in the nineteenth century. In and so on. We are very happy to be contrast, Wu, an activist in Beijing, contests criticised like this, because we do indeed Zhou Huashan's position: 'If you insist on need our own women tongzhi organisations starting from the Chinese homosexual and leadership, but we also welcome help tradition ... well, married men historically and support from foreign imperialists with could have one, two, three boyfriends, but experience and enthusiasm. Without the this was by sacrificing the wife. This is help of these "foreign imperialists", sooner where I disagree with Zhou Huashan's or later we would have established our own claim that in China we're always organisation, but because of their support, harmonious' (interview, Brighton, 1999). we emerged a few years earlier than we Wu argues that international experience might have done otherwise. Although I don't may be more relevant than Chinese really agree with excluding imperialists, I 'tradition' to Beijing tongzhi today. She also still think this is worth raising as an issue.' believes that it is possible to 'pick and mix' (Ming 1999, 5). Ming also notes the dangers aspects of foreign influence, rather than of support from 'outsiders', but they are swallow it whole: 'If I look at what's Chinese heterosexual 'experts' who happening fin the les-bi-gay movement] in research tongzhi, rather than foreign lesbian the Philippines, England, Holland, I will women (although one such 'heterosexual consider what are they like because of the expert' appeared one day with a girlfriend historical, cultural, and social situation. I'll in place of her husband, illustrating the ask a lot of questions, then I'll think, what fluidity of such categories). would it be like if we tried that in China? ... Ming describes the Beijing Sisters' co- Seeing a lot of different things is very operation with tongzhi men as involving important. Even if the information all came certain tensions, but says 'if even foreign from the West, the West is big and varied. imperialists can join us, then we can't So we have to see how individuals deal exclude boys ... Race and the North-South with this.' (ibid.) divide are only a part of what unites and divides us. The foreigner-Chinese relation Engaging with international is only one of many aspects of women organisations and donors tongzhi co-operation with "outsiders". I Such debates are a live issue, as information, do not imagine that "the global sisterhood" funding, and support from international or queer comradeship can erase North- organisations and individuals start to South power differences.' Nevertheless, trickle into the tongzhi scene in Chinese alliances cross all kinds of fault-lines, and cities. On a tiny scale, 'development divisions occur in all kinds of alliances. The 84

interaction is complex, and 'alien' values — which could be clearly differentiated whether foreign, male, heterosexual, or from 'straight'. The use of the word 'queer' 'expert' — are not necessarily simply and constituted a rejection of the binary easily imposed. distinction between homo- and hetero- Wu remains optimistic regarding such sexual, and allowed us to conceptualise our impositions, and the capacity of tongzhi to sexualities as non-essential and transitional. select which, if any, elements of Western 'Queer' was to be a new approach to queer culture to accept. She locates the sexuality, open to all those who are dangers of globalisation not here, but in oppressed by these binary distinctions and areas where more powerful forces are at the gender norms which accompany them, whether they are lesbian, gay, straight, play: 'The scariest thing about globalisation bisexual, transgender, transsexual, celibate, is those who've studied in the West for undecided, or hermaphrodite. The idea of many years who come back [to China] to queer was taken up by academics, work for multinational companies. They've particularly in the USA and Britain, whose completely accepted Western things, and work has become known as 'queer theory'. know how to promote these things effectively in China' (interview, Brighton, Queer theory on sex and gender 1999). She suggests the best course of action Much GAD work (for example, the gender is to provide as much information as awareness course I taught in Beijing) is still possible, so that 'we can choose whether to based on the dichotomy between biological adopt, and how to apply,' outside influences. sex and social gender. However, queer She advises, 'You should worry less about theorists such as Judith Butler have pointed influencing us with your concepts, and think out that there is no 'pure' biological body on more about how to support us' (ibid.). to which social ideas of gender are inscribed. I cite this discussion not in the hope of Rather, our bodies and our social identities reaching any conclusions about how are interactive. Henrietta Moore describes the development, queer or otherwise, should body as an 'interface' or 'threshold' between deal with North-South power imbalances the material and symbolic, the biological and and persistent colonial dynamics. I wish cultural (Moore 1994). Our experiences have only to point out that these issues are being implications for the appearance, condition, actively debated in some Southern contexts, and performance of our bodies. For example, and that such voices should be listened to in women may have hysterectomies, bear any decision processes on if or how to children or not, remove or grow body or 'queer' development. facial hair. Both men and women may or may not exercise until they are muscular, or suffer from war or sports injuries. Does 'queer theory' have something to offer Judith Butler argues that bodies are development? understood by society through our ideas about sex and gender. People are cate- In the late 1980s, the term 'queer' (originally gorised as men or women according to their an insult for marginalised sexualities and potential capacity for pregnancy, or their other 'deviants') was reclaimed and invested type of sexual organs, but she sees this not with new meanings by activists in the USA. as a simple description of reality, but rather Formerly, with the use of the word as the outcome of a decision on the part 'homosexual', we had been defined in of society to stress the importance of certain relation to heterosexuality. The labels aspects of our bodies, rather than others, 'lesbian' and 'gay' also marked us with and the importance of particular differences supposedly bounded, static identities between bodies. Even the ability to become 'Queering' development: Exploring the links between same-sex sexualities, gender, and development 85 pregnant and bear children, which is Putting queer into practice viewed by most people as the determining in development factor defining women, is questioned: '...female infants and children cannot be Where does this challenge to the idea of impregnated, there are women of all ages biological sex as universal and unchanging who cannot be impregnated,' (Butler 1994, leave GAD? One option is to continue using 34). In fact, there may be as great a variation GAD's present categorisations of sex and between a group of bodies of one sex, as gender — not because we believe they between bodies of different sexes. necessarily capture objective truth in the Judith Butler stresses that it is those in real world, but because they are practical to power who decide which biological work with. However, for social policy- differences between people will put them in makers to deliberately ignore new research particular categories. Similarities between on gender issues does not seem a promising bodies of one 'biological' sex are strategy. Alternatively, GAD could adopt a exaggerated, and differences between second strategy of challenging the binary bodies of different sexes are played down. distinctions between sex and gender as we Those who do not fit these two categories find them in our gender training materials, are effectively made to disappear, either by and exploring new, queer ways of being shamed into secrecy, or by physical understanding sex and gender, for example intervention, such as operations on using Theatre for Development. hermaphrodites at birth (Valentine et al. Judith Butler's ideas and discussions of 1997). Thus, although the categories of sex potential ways forward, are already appear natural and absolute, they are filtering through into GAD literature 'cleaned up' by active human intervention. (Kandiyoti 1998; Wieringa 1998). These Butler goes on to ask: 'Why are we thoughts challenge GAD policy and defined by our reproductive capacities? This practice to live up to their promise to focus is 'an imposition of a norm, not a neutral on gender relations, not simply on women description of biological constraints... If you as a category. Many GAD programmes still are in your late twenties or your early work only with women. The focus could be thirties and you can't get pregnant for shifted to those marginalised by gender biological reasons, or maybe you don't want norms, or those who lack power, and away to, for social reasons — whatever it is — you from the simple distinction between are struggling with a norm that is regulating women and men. (Of course, we have to be your sex.' (ibid., 34) practical; identifying individuals with less If, as Butler argues, we are classified as power in a specific context would be much men or women due to the way society sees more complicated than selecting members our bodies and wants us to use them, rather from the known categories of women or than because of the nature of our bodies themselves, then the category of biological men. I myself have taken part in women- sex, as well as gender, can be challenged. only feminist groups, and argued for micro- And if biological sex loses its essential credit loans in a poverty alleviation project meaning, then same-sex and different-sex to be targeted exclusively at women. desire also cease to be absolutely distinct, However, such criteria can often involve fixed categories, and — like sex and gender compromises made at a hidden cost.) — are revealed to be socially and politically How development practice would be constructed. Instead of being unchangeable, queered is a big question that is as yet our sex and our sexuality, like our gender unexplored. However, some implications are identity, depends on how we choose to already visible. There is both a need to target behave moment by moment. queers specifically, and to mainstream 86

'queer' into social policy and GAD. In the Notions of the household model need following, I outline ways of going about this. to be adjusted in order to render visible the way in which queer members of the Targeting queer groups for support household are integrated, both socially and Donor support to Southern queer economically, and to understand the communities, like any other international decisions they take to conform, or resist development assistance, can involve either conformity, to norms of marriage, parent- unacceptable, clumsy, and inappropriate hood, and the gender division of labour. imposition of alien values, or an emphasis Approaches developed by queer researchers on mutual learning, capacity-building, and and activists to understand same-sex transferring ideas on 'best practice'. relationships within the household could be Development assistance of the latter kind to fruitfully adapted to look at heterosexual queer groups in Southern countries is situations: 'Same-sex households provide already starting — albeit on a small scale — an avenue to expand our understanding of via international funding and support to gender itself [for example, where gender- activities in countries including China, stereotypical behaviour patterns occur Zimbabwe, and South Africa (see between people of the same sex] and the International Lesbian and Gay Association, nature of the relationship between gender http://www.ilga.org). Queer initiatives do and the sexual division of labour' (Giddings have some advantages over more 1998, 97). traditional development: their small scale, unofficial nature, and activist element may Integrating queer into health, education, mean they stand more hope of being and youth work reclaimed and controlled by local people. Development interventions in the health and education sectors — particularly those Adapting perceptions of the community, working with young people — also need to household, and family integrate awareness of specific issues Many development interventions have the affecting people who have same-sex sex. household as a primary focus, due to. a Most obviously, much is at stake for men growing awareness in both economics and who have sex with men, and for their wives sociology that the household is far from a or female partners. Just as men can put their homogeneous unit, and that resources female partners at risk by having unsafe sex within the family are not distributed with other women, some also do so by equally, particularly along gender and age having unsafe sex with other men. Safer sex lines (Kabeer 1994). However, there is little and AIDS-related education programmes or no research into the way in which people can benefit from the experience of gay com- who have minority sexual identities figure munities. However, while the promotion of in relation to their communities, house- safer sex is of course a major task, so is the holds, or families. prevention of physical, especially sexual, In some contexts, where there is a visible violence against sexual minorities, and minority of these individuals, 'alternative' protection of their mental health in the face family or community groups have been set of such pressures. up. However, most people remain within conventional family set-ups. While some do Institutionalising queer develop sexual relationships with members If GAD workers do try to move the field of the same sex (perhaps with a degree of onwards by taking on some of the insights secrecy), others do not, denying who they offered by queer theory, they need to be are at some emotional cost. fully aware of the need to queer develop- 'Queering' development: Exploring the links between same-sex sexualities, gender, and development 87 merit institutions themselves. This would References include acknowledging the existence of same-sex partnerships among their own Butler, J (1990) Gender Trouble, Routledge, staff, extending the rights and benefits London. offered to heterosexual couples (for Butler, J (1994) 'Gender as performance: example, to health care) to same-sex An interview with Judith Butler', Radical partners of staff, and integrating queer Philosophy, Summer. awareness into staff training (for example, Naifei Ding and Liu Jen-peng (1998) 'The through diversity training). penumbra asks the shadow: Reticent poetics and queer polities', Gender Concluding thoughts Research, 3:4 (written in Chinese, English translation available). There may be many more implications of Giddings, L (1998) 'Political economy and queer experience for feminist action and the construction of gender: The example GAD policy and practice. Michael Warner of housework within same-sex argues that 'queer theory is opening up in households', Feminist Economics, 4:2. the way that feminism did, when feminists International Lesbian and Gay Association began treating gender more and more as a website: http:/ / www.ilga.org primary category for understanding International News No.201 (March 1998) problems that did not initially look '200 at Chinese Tongzhi conference in gender-specific ... we do not know yet Hong Kong', website: http:/ /www.dakini what it would be like to make sexuality a .org / news / 98 / 7.htm primary category for social theory' (Warner 1993, xv). In my view, queer Kabeer, N (1994) Reversed Realities: Gender experience and theory has much to offer Hierarchies in Development Thought, Verso, GAD. Likewise, development assistance London. could provide vital support to Southern Kandiyoti, D (1998) 'Gender, power and women and men who face marginalisation contestation: Rethinking bargaining with and oppression as a consequence of their patriarchy' in Jackson, C and Pearson, R refusal to conform to conventional sexual (eds) (1998) Feminist Visions of norms. As I found in my work in China, Development, Routledge, London. queer activists, feminists, and GAD Ming (1999) 'Beijing sisters and Tongzhi workers can form alliances with the shared hotline', unpublished conference paper, goal of challenging prescribed roles based 'Women Organising in China', Oxford, on static, 'natural', and universal notions July 1999 (written in Chinese). of sex and/or gender. Ideally, queer and Moore, H (1994) A Passion for Difference, GAD activists and thinkers can engage in a Polity Press, London. process of mutual support and learning, Nussbaum, M (1999) Sex and Social Justice, taking on the common obstacles posed by Oxford University Press. oppressive gender norms. Phillipps, O (1999) 'Sexual Offences in Zimbabwe: Fetishisms of procreation, Susie Jolly is a queer feminist activist and perversion and individual autonomy', development practitioner. She is currently unpublished PhD dissertation, Institute of studying at the Institute of Development Studies,Criminology, University of Cambridge. University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9RE, UK.Queer Africa Digest (10 January 2000), E-mail: [email protected] e-mail newsletter, 1:137. Rahnema, M and Bawtree, V (eds) (1997) The Post-Development Reader, Zed Books, London. Rosenbloom, R (ed) (1996) Unspoken Rules: Valentine, D and Wilchins, RA (1997) 'One Sexual orientation and women's human percent on the burn chart', Social Text, rights, Cassell, London. 52-53 Fall-Winter, 215-22. Razave, S and Miller, C (1995) 'From WID Warner, M (ed) (1993) Fear of a Queer Planet: to GAD: Conceptual shifts in the women Queer politics and social theory, University and development discourse', occasional of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis. paper, UNRISD. Wieringa, S (1998) 'Rethinking gender Seidman, GW (1984) 'Women in Zimbabwe: planning: A critical discussion of the use Post-Independence struggles', Feminist of the concept gender', ISS Working Studies, 10:3, Fall. Paper Series, No. 279. Smyth, I (1999) 'A rose by any other name: Wu, Kim (1999), unpublished interview by Feminism in development NGOs', in Susie Jolly (in Chinese). Porter, F, Smyth, I and Sweetman, C (eds) Zhou, H (1997) Post-colonial Tongzhi, Hong (1999) Gender Works: Oxfam experience in Kong Tongzhi Research Institute policy and practice, Oxfam, Oxford. Publishing House (written in Chinese). 89

Challenging machismoz Promoting sexual and reproductive health with Nicaraguan men Peter Sternberg

Health education work with men needs to he done from a gender perspective, which encourages men not only to take on responsihility for promoting health, but also to share that responsibility with women. This article presents the results of a participatory exploration of men's attitudes towards sexual and reproductive health issues in Nicaragua.

en's participation in sexual health and male-oriented, generally viewing promotion is seen by many as a women as vehicles for reproduction or the Mpromising strategy (Drennon transmission of illness, rather than as valued 1998). However, apart froma small number individuals (Wilton 1994). This stance not of recent interventions such as Stepping only ignores women's needs as individuals Stones, an HIV prevention programme (Doyal 1991), but also ignores men as a based on gender relationships (Welbourn group (Barker 1996). As a result, such 1995), and Fathers Inc., a Jamaican peer- approaches reiterate women's responsibility based approach to adolescent men's sexual for health, especially for reproductive health, while ignoring the possibility that men could health (Lize 1998), health promotion has play a positive and proactive role alongside been slow to take up the challenge. women in promoting their own health and In 1996, the Centro de Information y the health of their families and communities Servicios de Asesoria en Salud (CISAS), a (Wegner et al. 1998). prominent Nicaraguan health-promotion There is a stereotype of men as sexually NGO, began working with groups of men, voracious, careless, and irresponsible. Men mainly in response to demands by women who conform to this stereotype are unlikely from some of the poor communities where it to be much concerned about the possibilities works. The women argued that it is all very of fathering an unplanned child or of well working with women and girls to contracting HIV or other sexually trans- promote sexual and reproductive health and mitted diseases. However, the stereotype is empowerment, but if you really want things not borne out by reality. For example, citing to change, you have to work with men too. his own research carried out in Puerto Rico From its inception in 1983, CISAS has in the 1950s, Stycos, the veteran health worked from a perspective of community promoter and family planner, stresses that empowerment, with a particular emphasis the men he interviewed were far from 'the on empowering women. However, CISAS sex-crazed males anxious to demonstrate has recognised that many organisations' their fertility' (Stycos 1996, 2) he had been health-promotion agenda is conservative led to expect. What he found instead was 90

that expectations and norms of male and economic instability which culminated, in female behaviour made communication 1990, in their electoral defeat. between men and women, especially on The two governments that followed have matters to do with sex and sexuality, very pursued neo-liberal monetarist policies, and difficult. Stycos identified this lack of adopted structural adjustment programmes communication between the genders as an set up by the World Bank (Vargas 1998). important aspect governing sexual Over the past ten years, these policies have behaviour, and concluded that there was a caused not only rising prices and stagnating need to work with men in highlighting the wages, but also a rise in unemployment and benefits of family planning to them as a rapid expansion of the 'informal individuals. It is only by establishing a men's economy'. The gap between the 'haves' and agenda in reproductive health that things the 'have nots' has widened dramatically: will change, a lesson, Stycos says, which has today, over 70 per cent of the population too often been ignored; it is a lesson which live below the poverty line (ibid.). CISAS is taking seriously. Managua, once one of the safest cities in CISAS hoped, through this research, to Latin America, has become a battle ground provide men with a body of information for rival gangs of young men; violent crime, that they could use to understand their robbery, prostitution, and sexual tourism are on the increase (CENIDH 1998). The behaviour, attitudes, and the context of country and the economy have also been these, in order to develop an awareness of afflicted by a series of natural disasters, the social and cultural norms defined by culminating with Hurricane Mitch in 1998. machismo, and the way these norms create a Some 865,700 people were directly affected certain model of 'acceptable' male sexual by the hurricane, losing their homes, their behaviour, and a particular set of attitudes. livelihoods or both (Alforja 1999). Individual men needed to consider how similar their actual behaviour and attitudes One result of this instability has been the are to the stereotypical model of exponential growth of Nicaragua's civil masculinity with which they are presented, society since 1990, a reaction to the gaps left the model that in Nicaragua makes up the through government inaction and lack of machismo system. Second, CISAS aimed to interest. CISAS and other Nicaraguan NGOs encourage men to consider the effect of have been at the forefront of championing their behaviour on themselves and on other human rights, and have managed to keep people. It was hoped that, by helping men gender power relations more or less on the to think through these issues, it would be policy agenda. Nicaraguan NGOs have had possible to change the power relationships some notable successes, including the which lead individual men to put passing of a law that made intrafamilial themselves and others at risk. violence a crime punishable by imprisonment, and the establishment of several pilot projects of a new police service The Nicaraguan context staffed by officers specially trained to deal Following the revolution in Nicaragua in with crimes against women and children. 19791, one of the aims of the Sandinista Despite these initiatives, police reported government was to foster more stable and that in 1998, crimes against women and egalitarian families, and to enshrine equal children had increased by 17 per cent from rights for women within the constitution their 1997 levels (INEC 1999). (Lancaster 1992). In this aim, as in so many Nicaraguan women continue to be others, the Sandinistas failed due to a under-represented in the public sphere and combination of war, bad planning, and abused in their private lives (Montenegro Challenging machismo: Promoting sexual and reproductive health with Nicaraguan men 91

1997). Only 11 per cent of National can only be legally performed with the Assembly legislators and 25 per cent of the permission of three doctors, and the consent Nicaraguan members of the Central of the woman's partner or guardian. American Parliament are women (CENIDH Unsurprisingly, there is a high rate of 1998). The official 1998 demographic and illegal abortions, many of which are health survey, ENDESA-98, found that 29 performed under unsafe conditions per cent of Nicaraguan women have been (Pizarro 1996). physically or sexually abused by their male In 1998, the Ministry of Health recorded partners. Of these, over 46 per cent had an incidence of 153 per 100,000 cases of been abused in the previous 12 months sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). By (INEC 1999). The Nicaraguan media is September 1999, some 476 cases of HIV conservative in its representation of women infection had been reported since 1987 in a (Montenegro 1997), a fact brought home to population of 4.8m people. The Ministry of many Nicaraguans by their virtual silence Health recognises that there is substantial on former Sandinista president Daniel under-reporting of STDs including HIV, Ortega's continuing refusal to recant his and the actual figures are probably much senatorial immunity in order to answer higher (MINSA 1999). The organisation charges of sexual abuse brought by his that co-ordinates HIV prevention 2 stepdaughter in 1998. initiatives for Central America argues that although reported numbers of infections Health and sexuality in are low, the population is at risk because of its young demographic profile, high Nicaragua fertility rate, and low or irregular usage of Statistics about sexual and reproductive condoms (PASCA 1997). health in Nicaragua reveal that although almost all of the women (more than 95 per Machismo and the Nicaraguan man cent) who took part in the 1998 national Almost without exception, studies of gender demographic survey had heard of modern and sexuality in Nicaragua highlight one contraceptive methods, only 60 per cent of overarching aspect of the culture: machismo. women of fertile age were users in 1998 There is no English word which adequately (ibid.). Some 15 per cent of women consider translates this term, but machismo could be their contraceptive needs unmet (ibid.). described as a cult of the male; a heady Although contraception is legally available, mixture of paternalism, aggression, syste- government policy emphasises the need for matic subordination of women, fetishism of sexual morality and abstinence until women's bodies, and idolisation of their marriage (GHCV 1997). Sex education in reproductive and nurturing capacities, schools is taught within a framework of coupled with a rejection of homosexuality. 'family values', which views sex as a The Central American psychologist, Martin necessary evil for perpetuating the species Baro, characterises it as a strong tendency (ibid.). This may be one of the reasons why towards, and valuing of, genital activity the Nicaraguan fertility rate is one of the (that is, penetration); a frequent tendency highest in Latin America, at an average of towards bodily aggression; a carefully 3.9 children per woman of fertile age (INEC cultivated devil-may-care attitude or 1999). It may also help to explain why by indifference towards any activity which the age of 19, 46 per cent of women have does not clearly reinforce masculinity; and been pregnant at some time (ibid.). In Guadalupismo, a hypersensitivity towards Nicaragua, abortion is illegal except for the idealised notion of women as virgins or medical reasons, and even then, abortions mothers (Baro 1988). 92

Machismo is not just present in the masculinity: sexuality, reproduction, and behaviour of individual men: it is fatherhood. It aimed to provide information manifested in political and social which could be used for planning further institutions and deeply ingrained in the work with men to help them develop an culture (Monzon 1988). Machismo has been understanding of their role in the seen as a system of political organisation — promotion of sexual and reproductive 'a political economy of the body' (Lancaster health. The study formed the first part of a 1992, 236) — in which the cult of the male is pilot project to involve men in health an important underpinning of the promotion in their communities. productive and reproductive economy. In all, 90 men were recruited for inclusion Machismo gives rise to powerful images that in the study, from five urban and three rural legitimate women's subordination and communities in different parts of Nicaragua establish a value system which is concerned where CISAS was already working with with regulating not so much relationships groups of women and children. They were between men and women, but relationships aged from 15 to 70. Seventy per cent were between men, where women are conceived of as a form of currency. married and /or living with their partners; 30 per cent were single. The average number A serious problem with using machismo of children fathered by each man was 4.7. to explain men's behaviour is that the Forty per cent of participants had been cultural values which surround machismo educated to primary level or less, 50 per cent are constantly being redefined. This state of had secondary education, and 10 per cent flux seems to be an integral part of had tertiary education. Nicaraguan society: as the political Work began with a workshop in August commentator and sociologist, Oscar Rene 1997. CISAS health educators invited 38 men Vargas, points out: 'As a country, Nicaragua is eternally searching for an from the communities mentioned above who identity and oscillating, in an ambivalent had previously participated in CISAS way, between old and modern, tradition activities (such as community meetings and and fashion, native and foreign.' (Vargas discussion groups). During the workshop, 1999, 19; my translation). This oscillation participants discussed issues related to belies any attempt to explain Nicaraguan sexuality, fatherhood, and reproduction with culture, or the political and social system, in health educators, in small groups and in terms of single-word concepts like plenaries. Participants also completed a machismo, or for that matter 'neoliberal', biographical questionnaire which included 'conservative' and 'catholic'. Such labels questions about their values and practical cannot be used, either, to explain or predict experience of contraception and fatherhood. men's behaviour. However, helping Using the questionnaire results, a small Nicaraguan men understand themselves, team of CISAS staff put together a guide for and the way in which machismo operates in in-depth interviews and focus-group their lives, might provide men with reasons discussions on the same key issues as the to participate in actions aimed at altering initial workshop. Participants for these the oppressive structures which maintain were men from the CISAS target women's subordination and exploitation. communities who had not participated in the workshop. Ten men were interviewed, two from each of the five regions where The study CISAS works, and five focus-group Our research examined men's knowledge, meetings (one in each region) were held attitudes, and behaviour in three areas with eight men in each group. CISAS health fundamental to the social construction of educators recruited men who had Challenging machismo: Promoting sexual and reproductive health with Nicaraguan men 93 participated from time to time in CISAS make an effort to control. In all focus activities such as discussion groups or groups, men expressed pride in their community meetings. stereotypical image as sexually voracious Many men seem to find it liberating to conquerors of women and therefore 'real discuss close relationships and sexuality men'. Such comments indicate that the first with other men. After the workshop, and thing every man does on meeting a woman after almost every interview and focus- is to evaluate her as a possible sexual group discussion, participants thanked conquest. According to participants, such researchers for the opportunity to share an evaluation involves her parametros fisicos their opinions about these rather intimate (physical appearance) and, secondly, her subjects with other men. Many commented marital status: 'Men, because they want to that it was the first time in their lives they be machos say that "whatever goes into the had had this opportunity. broiler is meat"... I've had sex with cousins, In qualitative research, not only the not with aunts, you understand, you have content, but the context of what is said is to respect them a bit more'. important (Miller and Glasner 1997). In any In focus groups, all participants spoke of verbal interaction, speakers assume that their sexuality in terms of force and what is said will produce a particular strength, and of female sexuality in terms of reaction in the interlocutor (Potter 1997); if beauty and passivity. Participants stated the reaction is not the desired one, the that 'honest' women should not have speaker will change or correct what he or she opinions on what they want in sex: it is up says. While some regard this problematic for to the man to know how to please them. researchers, because it implies that While many participants pointed out that sociological research is always subject to sexuality had much to do with how people contextual bias, others argue that it is very communicate, none of the participants useful, since it shows how established norms identified communication as an attribute influence people's behaviour (May 1993). In that they felt they had, or that they desired, our research, participants contradicted with their partners. themselves, or clarified their comments, Focus-group participants were asked when they were afraid that what they had about the qualities of the ideal female expressed might cast aspersions on their partner. The consensus was that she has a masculinity, or on the image that they beautiful body, but more importantly, that wanted to project as reasonable, rational, and she is a cook and household manager, who is caring people. These two inter-related sets of willing and able to serve her man faithfully values underlie what was said, and informed and be a good mother to his children. The the relationships between participants, and ideal male was seen as a worker who earns between participants and facilitators. The enough money to support his wife and comments and opinions which appear below children: his role is to provide financially for must be seen in this context. his family's needs. He does not drink, take drugs, or womanise. Despite this, 26 per cent of the men who attended the workshop Some results reported having more than one partner 'at the moment'. In discussions in the focus Attitudes to sexuality groups, it became evident that it is not just An important theme in the discussions seen as a man's right to have more than one about sexuality was the belief that male partner, but also as an important expression sexuality is governed by instinct, and that it of his sexuality: 'From the moment I meet a is something 'wild' which men need to woman that I fancy, I'm thinking that I'll do 94

something with her, I'm going to get to smaller ones than men: 'two to three know her and have an adventure; I can't inches'). Focus-group participants spent stop it, it's part of me'; and 'We're unfaithful much time trying to identify a direct cause by nature, I guess men are just born bad.' for lesbianism. Most felt that it was due to In comparison, a woman's infidelity the failure of men to please women sexually, is considered to be a different thing but this was generally seen as the woman's altogether: women, unlike men, are not by fault: she must be the kind of woman whom nature unfaithful. Unfaithful women are men cannot please. therefore 'bad' women. This is a good example of the double morality which is a Attitudes to reproduction salient feature of Nicaraguan machismo. Men expressed the opinion that within a However, a woman's infidelity is not only a marriage or a stable relationship, it is a reflection of her wickedness but also of her man's right to decide when a woman husband's failure, who apparently cannot should have children. This was never stated satisfy her sexually. directly, but it was implicit in many of the Men showed varying degrees of comments about contraception. Participants homophobia. To many in the study, felt this was because they were the ones homosexuality is 'against nature' and who would be expected to provide for the against 'God's will'. Homosexuality was children. 87 per cent of workshop regarded as an illness with a direct physical participants, and every focus group, were cause, such as a 'brain tumour' or a 'small in favour of contraception. It was clear from penis'. Some believed that it could be focus-group and interview information that caught, as though it were a sexually the main reason for participants' support of transmitted disease. Others saw homo- contraception was because it prevented sexuality as a result of society's loss of them from having to take economic values. During discussions on this topic in responsibility for unwanted children. As the workshop, several men pointed out that one man pointed out: 'For me, family society's views condemning homosexuality planning is important. I wouldn't want to had a direct impact on the way that they have anymore because of my condition. I'm relate to other men. There are certain things poor and wouldn't like any more children'. that men cannot do without being singled Despite this, using contraception is still out as cochones (a derogatory term for seen as a sin, as could be seen clearly in homosexual men). These were not, as might comments from the 13 per cent of workshop be expected, tasks seen as women's work: participants who expressed opinions they relate, instead, to how men relate to against it: 'It's a sin. You see, only God each other. For example, a man cannot knows what a child's destiny is. If God comment on the beauty of another man: 'I wants a child, he makes one, it is a sin to don't want to say in public or in private, prevent it.' Many participants referred to it "this guy is handsome, beautiful, pretty", as sinful even while justifying its use, as in because they'll mark me down as a queer'. this comment by a workshop participant: Discussions about lesbianism highlighted 'It's a sin but, for me, it's more sinful to bring the fact that men's sexuality is centred on a mountain of children into the world and the penis and penetration, since many could not know what to do with them; having not conceive of a sexual relationship them crying of hunger and not being able to without penetration. The participants of two feed them. That's a bigger sin.' groups took this to extraordinary lengths, Statistics about the number of men in believing with unshakeable confidence that Nicaragua who abandon their pregnant lesbians have penises (albeit somewhat partners are not available, but there is a Challenging machismo: Promoting sexual and reproductive health with Nicaraguan men 95 high incidence of female-headed house- you might use it, but, sometimes when you holds, at 31 per cent of all households meet a woman, maybe who's engaged, but (INEC 1999). Almost exclusively, men in allows you do it, there's no need to use a the study saw financial problems as the preservative. You know, they just don't feel reason for abandoning partners and the same, it's like attaching a hose or children. However, many did say they felt something, you just don't feel right.' strongly that it was 'unmanly' to run away Vasectomy was said to affect the from the responsibility: "As a man, you character of the man, making him like a have to take the responsibility, whether it's woman. This view expressed a fear which your wife or your lover or whatever, you many seemed to feel, that losing their can't reject it. Even if you have two women, ability to father children would affect their you have to hide it from the woman you manhood. Having said this, not all men live with. Denying the responsibility were against vasectomy; a few said that wouldn't be manly.' they would have the operation, because it Despite such views, the consensus from was a safe and sure method of contra- interviews and focus groups was that using ception which would prevent them from contraception is not men's responsibility. having to take economic responsibility for Focus-group participants' knowledge of more children. Only one man admitted that how the different methods worked was he had actually had the operation. poor, even among men with higher levels Female sterilisation, more than any other of education. Most discussions centred on contraceptive method, made men suspect the condom, vasectomy, and female that their partners wanted to have sex sterilisation, probably because these were with other men. In the questionnaire, seen to be the most controversial methods. participants' responses to questions about Publicity about condom use by CISAS female sterilisation reveal widespread fear and other organisations had clearly been of women's infidelity. 29 per cent of received by men in the study. Several respondents to the questionnaire agreed repeated the slogans from the publicity with the statement: 'After women have the proudly, and without prompting, during operation, they look for other men to have the workshop. However, while men in the sex with'. In discussions, even men who study knew that condoms could prevent said that they were not against female HIV infection and unwanted pregnancy, sterilisation first alluded to, and then there was general agreement that very few dismissed, the infidelity myth: 'if she wants men use them. Different reasons were cited to get sterilised it's because she's crazy, she for this, including illiteracy, the fact that the wants to cheat on her husband, she wants woman was known to be an 'honest to have one man and then another'. woman', and the fact that sex with condoms does not feel the same. Despite Attitudes to abortion this, some 68 per cent of workshop Over 92 per cent of the men in the participants reported that they had used workshop regarded abortion as a sin. In the condoms within the past six months. It focus groups, women who have abortions became clear that men felt that the only were termed 'murderers'. Men were asked women they needed to use condoms with in the groups and interviews why they were those whom they judged to be thought abortions happened: they cited 'suspicious': women in bars, and women medical reasons, but also understood that whose pasts they do not know. One many abortions take place for social interviewee summed up the majority view: reasons, which include relationship and 'when you see a very suspicious woman economic problems. In focus groups, the 96

consensus was that abortions were the fault In group discussions and interviews, many of irresponsible women, highlighting the men talked with pride of their children's fact that most men do not see contraception affection for them. as their responsibility. Most men in the study reported that they The situation is slightly different for involved themselves 'from time to time' in young, unmarried women. Men do not practical child-care. Activities mentioned expect them to be responsible or to be able included feeding, bathing, dressing, and to resist seduction. Unwanted pregnancies even washing and ironing clothes. in unmarried young women were seen as However, day-to-day child-care was seen as resulting from loss of parental control, and a help and support for mothers, rather than especially of fathers' control. However, as part of a father's role. even in the case of young women, men's The men were asked about the content of suggested solution was to have the child the last conversation that they had had with and give it away. their children. Almost all the men said that they had been giving advice; only one man Attitudes to fatherhood reported a discussion about a topic which All men in the study who had children talked did not have to do with control or of feeling mature after the birth of their first discipline. It would seem from this that children, as though fatherhood provides a fathers either lack skills to communicate man with an entrance into 'real' adulthood. with their children in other ways, or do not For most, these feelings went hand-in-hand see the importance of this. Many said they with the realisation that they were now find it particularly difficult to communicate responsible for the child's upbringing. One with their daughters, and that they are man explained that, after the birth of a child, often stricter with them than with their men feel a mixture of joy and worry over sons. The reason cited for this was that how they will be able to cope financially with fathers need to be especially vigilant with the extra burden: 'In the moment [when your their daughters, to prevent them from child is just born] you feel great, but then, becoming pregnant. Relationships between well, you know, you start thinking, you're fathers and their daughters were generally broke, and if s also worrying.' seen as more difficult. One possible reason According to the participants in four for this may be that daughters are regarded focus groups, providing economically for as less valuable than sons. A daughter is not children is a father's principal role. The valueless, but it appears that her value lies other main paternal responsibility is in her ability to serve her family, and not in teaching children how to behave. Men felt her as a human being. As one man said: that this is done through teaching children 'When I realised that God had given me a important values, including the value of girl, I said to myself, "at least I have a cook work, honesty, responsibility, and respect to make me tortillas".' for one's elders. These two responsibilities, as provider and disciplinarian, were the only two mentioned; only one man spoke of Insights from the research 'giving love' as a paternal responsibility. In many studies, machismo and the ideas on On the other hand, it was very obvious which the concept is based tend to act as that most men in the study value the love an explanation (and, occasionally, an of their children, and the time that they excuse) for men's behaviour. However, spend with them. In the questionnaire, using machismo as an explanation or excuse over 95 per cent remarked that playing assumes that the concept shapes men's with their children was important to them. conduct. In fact, perhaps its main effect is Challenging machismo: Promoting sexual and reproductive health with Nicaraguan men 97 to present Nicaraguan society with a groups, as well as by facilitating their full stereotypical model of men's and women's involvement in mixed groups, but the behaviour, which individuals may or may suggestion that a powerful group such as not adhere to. The results of this research men may require specific attention is new should not be seen as a picture of a single, and challenging. objective Nicaraguan machismo operating in interpersonal relationships, but as a Persuading men to participate in health snapshot of complicated, endlessly changing promotion relationships between participants, their Agencies which are reluctant to work with partners, and their children, and between men on issues concerning sexual and participants and researchers. reproductive health (Stycos 1996) may If the research has little predictive value justify this by saying that men have little or for men's behaviour in the context of their no interest in the theme. However, CISAS's relationships, because it cannot depict the experience is that men are very interested context, or explain the behaviour of once they can be persuaded to take part. individual men in their relationships with One reason for men's unwillingness to be women and children, why spend good recruited as participants in such projects as money in a poor country to do it? ours may be their perception that health promotion is women's work. Possibly, Challenging male hegemony development agencies themselves have had It is necessary, as well as morally a major influence in this perception, since defensible, to use development methods few efforts have been made to involve men which are based on a commitment to in proactive community-development empowerment and active participation. programmes. Many men, and some Norms of masculinity are so artificial, and development agencies, continue to view so inhuman, that they need to be policed to men's participation as unnecessary, and maintain them (Formaini 1990). Institutions even counter-productive (Drennon 1998). which do this policing include the church, For some women, the proposition that the government, the media, the medical there might be an agenda for promoting profession, and — most effectively — the men's sexual health seems threatening. family (Schifter and Madrigal 1996). As Marge Berer (1996) points out, many Together, these institutions put into place a women are suspicious of health planners' system of discipline which affects the social aim to increase men's participation in behaviour of individual men and women reproductive and sexual health, viewing under male leadership or rule (Connell this as part of a campaign which aims to 1995). As feminists have contended, win back power for men. It is possible that empowered individuals not only can these fears are well grounded, as they are challenge male hegemony and norms of founded on the bitter experience of the gender relations, but also play a significant 1960s sexual revolution which, for all its role in reformulating these relations, which rhetoric of sexual freedom, did little to would result in true emancipation (Holland change the subordinate role that women and Ramazanoglu 1994). play in most sexual relations with men Participatory methods based on a (Hawkes 1996). This is supported by some commitment to empowerment have rarely evidence that men's involvement in family been applied to work which focuses on men planning has actually increased men's as gendered beings. Much has been written control over the fertility of women, rather on the need to focus on women's than resulted in women having more participation through use of women-only choice (Cornwall 1998). There is also a 98

danger that efforts to get men to participate References will take away funds from projects that target women and children, and will AVSC International (1998) 'Men as Partners ultimately result in re-establishing a male Initiative: Summary report of literature dominated and orientated agenda (Berer review and case studies', AVSC 1996; Helzner 1996). International, New York Barker, G (1996) 'The misunderstood These warnings should not go unheeded. gender: Male involvement in the family The setting and application of a men's and in reproductive and sexual health in agenda for sexual health promotion should Latin America and the Carribean', John not result in the curtailment of services for D and Catherine T Macarthur women because funds are being reallocated Foundation, Chicago. to men (AVSC International 1997), nor Baro MI (1988) Accion e Ideologia. Pscologia should it give men the keys to more subtle Social de Centroamerica, University of forms of domination and exploitation. Central America (UCA), San Salvador, El Ultimately, as feminists have long realised, Salvador. men's participation in the reformation of Berer, M (1996) 'Men', Reproductive Health gender relationships is a two-edged sword. Matters, 7, May. Kimmel and Mesner (1995) point out that CENIDH (1998) 'Derechos Humanos en by making the processes of patriarchy Nicaragua', Centro Nicaragiiense de visible to men, there is a risk that they will Derechos Humanos, Managua. learn new ways of maintaining or even Connell R (1995) Masculinities, Polity increasing its power, rather than reforming Press/Blackwell, Oxford. the norms upon which it is based. The job Cornwall, A (1998) 'Beyond reproduction: of ensuring that this does not occur lies Changing perspectives on gender and fairly, if not squarely, in the hands of health', Bridge, 7, available from professional health promoters working http:/ /www.ids.ac.uk/ids/research/ with men. bridge (accessed 31 January 1999). Doyal, L (1991) 'Promoting women's Peter Sternberg is a development worker health', in Badura B and Kickbusch I employed by ICD/CIIR. He has worked with (eds) Health Promotion Research, WHO, CIS AS as a health educator and a researcher forCopenhagen. the past four years. Contact details: Peter Drennon, M (1998) 'Reproductive Health: Sternberg, CISAS, Apartado Postal 3267, New Perspectives on Men's Participation', Managua, Nicaragua. E-mail: [email protected] Reports, Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, Notes Population Information Program, October. Formaini, C (1990) Men: The darker continent, 1 For a useful introduction to Nicaraguan Heinemann, London social and political history up to 1990 see GHCV (1997) Responsibilidad Masculina en Norsworthy, K (1990) Nicaragua: A country Salud Sexual y Reproductiva, Grupo de guide, The Interhemispheric Education Hombres Contra la Violencia, RSMLAC, Si Resource Centre, Albuquerque, New Mujer, Managua. Mexico. Hawkes, G (1996) A Sociology of Sex and 2 For an interesting review (in Spanish) of Sexuality, Open University, Buckingham. the way the patriarchy handled the case Helzner, J (1996) 'Men's involvement in see Huerta, JR (1998) El Silencio del family planning', Reproductive Health Patriarcha, Renacimeinto, Managua. Matters, 7,146-154, May. Challenging machismo: Promoting sexual and reproductive health with Nicaraguan men 99

Holland, J and Ramazanoglu, C (1994) Proyecto Accion SIDA de Centro 'Coming to conclusions: power and America (PASCA), Managua. interpretation: researching young Pizarro, A (1996) A Tu Salud, SI Mujer, women's sexuality', in Maynard M and Managua. Purvis, J Researching Women's Lives from a Potter, J (1997) 'Discourse analysis as a way Feminist Perspective, Taylor and Walker, of analysing naturally occurring talk' in London. Silverman, D (ed) (1997). INEC (1999) 'Encuesta Nicaragiiense de Schifter, J and Madrigal, J (1996) 'Las Demografia y Salud: 1998', Instituto Gavetas Sexuales del Costarricense y el Nacional de Estadisticas y Censos Riesgo de Infeccion con el VIH', Editorial (INEC), Managua. IMEDIEX, San Jose, Costa Rica. Kimmel, M, and Mesner, M (1995) Silverman, D (ed) (1997) Qualitative 'Introduction' in Kimmel M, and Mesner Research: Theory, method and practice, Sage, M, (eds) Men's Lives (3rd edition), Allyn London. and Bacon Needham Heights, Mass. Stycos, M (1996) 'Men, Couples and Family Lancaster, R (1992) Life is hard: Machismo, Planning: A retrospective look', Working danger, and the intimacy of power in Paper No 96,12, Cornell University Nicaragua, University of California, Population and Development Program, Berkeley. Cornell University. Lize, S (1998) 'Masculinity and men's health Vargas, O-R (1998) 'Pobreza en Nicaragua: needs: a Jamaican perspective', Bridge, 7, un abismo que se agranda', Centro de available from http://www.ids.ac.uk/ Estudios de la Realidad Nacional ids/research/bridge (accessed 31 (CEREN), Managua. January 1999). Vargas, O-R (1999) 'El Sindrome de May, T (1993) Social Research: Issues, methods Pedrarias', Centro de Estudios de la and process, Buckingham, Open Realidad Nacional (CEREN), Managua. University Press. Wegner, M, Landry, E, Wilkinson, D, and Miller J, and Glasner, B (1997) 'The "inside" Tzanis, J (1998) 'Men as Partners in and the "outside": finding realities in reproductive health: From Issues to interviews', in Silverman, D (ed) (1997). Action', International Family Planning MINSA (1999) 'Plan Estrategico Nacional Perspective, 24:1, 38-42. de Lucha Contra ETS/VIH/SIDA: Welbourn, A (1995) 'Stepping Stones: A Nicaragua 2000-2004', Ministry of training package on HIV/AIDS, Health of the Republic of Nicaragua, communication and relationship skills', Managua. ActionAid, London. Montenegro, S (1997) La revolution simbolica Wilton, T (1994) 'Feminism and the erotics pendiente: mujeres, medios de comunicacidn of health promotion', in Doyal L, y politica, CINCO, Managua. Naidoo, J and Wilton T (eds) Women and PASCA (1997) 'Resumen de Pais — la AIDS: Setting a Feminist Agenda, Taylor Situation del VIH/SIDA en Nicaragua', and Francis, London. 100

Women's health and HIV: Experience from a sex workers' project in Calcutta Madhu Bala Nath

In her job as Gender and HIV Adviser for UNAIDS/UNIFEM, the author came across a movement of sex workers who are successfully negotiating safe sex in the heart of Calcutta, India. This article relates an inspiring discovery for those development professionals who are searching for ways to empower women to protect themselves, their partners, and families from HIV infection.

uring the last 20 years of the twentieth and as such it has huge numbers of century, HIV/AIDS emerged as a domestic and international migrants. Such Dmajor challenge to the health of mobile populations are known to be at a millions, and ultimately to the development relatively high risk of contracting HIV of the world. By the end of 2000, according (UNDP 1993). This demographic situation, to the projections of the World Health along with existing, and in many cases Organization (WHO), 40m men, women increasing, gender inequalities in the and children worldwide will be infected by region, has led to a scenario wherein out of HIV, or will have developed AIDS. The the 2.7m estimated new HIV cases in the epidemic is in different stages of maturity world in 1996, lm were in south and south- in different parts of the world. It first east Asia (UNAIDS 1997). India is home to manifested itself in sub-Saharan Africa and about 4m people living with HIV/AIDS. in the industrialised countries of the North This is the largest number of infected during the 1980s, but is now rampaging in individuals in any single country in the other areas of the world, including Asia. world (UNAIDS 1999). The years 1996 and 1997 saw a doubling of The current rate of infections in India is infection rates in 27 countries in Africa, in very high. Between 1988 and 1989, in the almost every country in Asia, and in some north-eastern state of Manipur, none of the countries in Eastern Europe (UNAIDS 2,322 injecting drug users recorded by the 1998a). State AIDS Control Organisation tested positive for HIV. By June 1990, the rate of infection among them stood at 54 per cent, HIV/AIDS in Asia and at present is 77 per cent (Narain 1999). Sixty per cent of the world's people of However, figures such as these show only reproductive age — assumed to be the age- the tip of the iceberg. It is thought that only span during which most sexual activity 8 per cent of the infections in India have takes place — are located in Asia. Asia is a occurred through contaminated syringes region of labour surplus, due to its youthful for drug use, and a further 8 per cent and rapidly growing demographic profile, through blood transfusions. About 75 per Women's health and HIV: Experience from a sex workers' project in Calcutta 101 cent of the infections have been contracted Sonagachi and the SHIP through sexual contact (Times of India, 1 project December 1999). In 1995, the WHO recorded 333m cases of sexually transmitted diseases Amid the grim statistics on HTV and AIDS in (STDs) in the world, out of which 150m India, the story I have to tell here is were in south and south-east Asia. The encouraging. It focuses on the sexual health and HIV intervention project in Sonagachi, a presence of STDs in the human body 1 increases the risk of HIV transmission five- red-light area in Calcutta, which I visited in fold (ODA 1996). According to a behavioural August 1999. Some of the red-light areas in survey financed by USAID in Tamil Nadu, cities and towns in India have been recording India, 82 per cent of the chosen sample of a prevalence rate of HIV/AIDS as high as 55 male STD patients had had sexual per cent since 1996 (UNAIDS 1996). A recent intercourse with multiple partners within study in India revealed that 90 per cent of the the previous 12 months, and only 12 per male clients of male sex workers were — cent had used a condom (ODA 1996). reportedly — married (ODA 1996). Although the links between gender In visiting Sonagachi, I wanted to identity and roles, sexual behaviour and improve my understanding of the ways HIV infection are complex, it is becoming in which women, including women sex more and more clear that gender-based workers, are negotiating safer sexual practices, to prevent the spread of HIV and discrimination is a central cause, and 2 consequence, of the HIV /AIDS epidemic AIDS. 1 did not get simple answers to my (UNDP 1990). The geographical locations questions, but I did stumble upon a where the epidemic is thriving are areas discovery: a movement of sex workers who with serious economic, social and political are successfully negotiating safe sex in the inequality between women and men. In my heart of Calcutta. The information given in work, piloting new and innovative this article has been consolidated from approaches in various parts of the world to information provided by the sex workers of address the gender dimensions of the Calcutta, through focus group discussions, epidemic, I constantly search for answers to informal interviews and visits to their the questions raised again and again by homes during 1999. Further information women in their struggle to cope with the comes from interviews I conducted with a rapidly spreading epidemic. These questions number of clients of the sex workers, social include whether a woman can be assertive in workers working in the area, doctors her sexual relationship with a man. working in the STD clinics, the donors supporting the Sonagachi project, and non- For most Indian women, it is almost governmental organisations (NGOs) impossible to contemplate this. Women are working in similar or related projects in brought up to rely on the principles of other parts of Calcutta. mutual fidelity in marriage, and pati parmeswar (the husband is God). Does For the past 400 years, Sonagachi has reliance on these ideals create an illusion of been known as the area in Calcutta where safety for her, which will shape her attitude vice and crime prevail. In a focus-group to risk? If a woman has no such illusions, discussion, some of the sex workers how can she suggest safe sex by ensuring reminisced about their lives in the area. that her partner wears a condom, when the Shankari Pal told me: 'We got only slaps. very suggestion of condom use carries with Shoes were thrown at us, cigarette butts it an indication of infidelity that could were stubbed on our cheeks.' Stories are threaten the security of not only the common of trafficking in young girls. It was relationship but her very existence? usual for the services of sex workers to be 102

bought through some kind of coercion. problem. Life in the area laid bare power Women in Sonagachi told me that many of relations and resultant exploitation in the the most exploitative brothel owners — the crudest form possible. Sonagachi is a malkins — had been the most vulnerable of community where constant negotiations are sex workers themselves. One malkin, Bela going on, and it was perhaps this aspect of didi, had lived in a bonded state of life that inspired work to control HIV existence for ten years. Every penny she through addressing sexuality and gender earned went to repay her 'debt'. The debt power relations. was the money the pimp had paid for her The SHIP project has three fundamental (approximately US$150) and the money for operating principles for its work: respect, her keep, including provision of her clothes recognition and reliance. The belief that sex and cosmetics, and rent of an area 10ft by workers are best working for themselves 10ft in the brothel, food, water, electricity, has informed its strategies. For example, 25 and medicines. per cent of managerial positions have been The first sex worker in Calcutta to test reserved for sex workers, and sex workers HIV-positive did so in 1982, in Kidderpore. hold key positions. This strategy was Subsequently, other cases were detected, in initiated by the charismatic leader of the adjoining red-light areas, including project, Mrinal Kanti Dutta, who told me: Sonagachi. In 1992, when the estimated 'Only if there is no alternative will outsiders prevalence rates among sex workers had be considered'. The child of a sex worker, risen to 5 per cent, the STD/HIV Intervention Mrinal was born in an alley in Kalighat, a Project (SHIP) was set up by the All-India red-light area. To protect him from Institute of Hygiene and Public Health, a harassment, his mother sent him to a school semi-autonomous government institution in in a neighbouring locality. However, this Calcutta funded by the state government of created problems of rootlessness: while West Bengal. Financial support was provided Mrinal's education separated him from the first by WHO and soon afterwards, by the offspring of other sex workers, his identity Norwegian and British development agencies. Dr Samarjit Jana, an epidemiologist, kept him ostracised from conventional was appointed project director. society. He attributes his abilities as an activist to this unusual start in life. The SHIP project was an experimental public health intervention, focusing on the The focus on using 'insiders' to work transmission of STDs and HIV among with their peers to motivate them reflects communities in Calcutta. It set up an STD the ideology on which the project is based. clinic for sex workers in Sonagachi, to From early on, members of the sex workers promote disease control and condom community were invited to act as peer distribution, in line with the then-popular educators, clinic assistants, and clinic approach of targeting HIV prevention to attendants in the project's STD clinics. particular groups who were particularly at Mrinal was the first to join as a clinic risk. However, during the course of the attendant. Sixty-five female sex workers project, the focus broadened considerably from the community were enrolled as peer beyond disease control, to address the educators. Since that start, SHIP has aimed structural issues of gender, class and to build sex workers' capacity to question sexuality. Brothels in Sonagachi were the cultural stereotypes of their society, and frequented by people from 'respectable' build awareness of power and who society, who took pains to avoid any possesses it. It seeks to do this in a way that possibility of recognition. Police brutality is democratic and challenging, yet non- against sex workers was an enormous confrontational. Women's health and HIV: Experience from a sex workers' project in Calcutta 103

'Negotiating with the self 'Are we alone to blame? What about the men The respect and recognition provided by who come to us? Are they not also polluting the the project to these peer educators society?' transformed their lives. From the very beginning, the project made it clear to the 'We give our art. In fact, we give a lot to this sex workers that in no way would a society — number-one quality stuff. The society 'rehabilitation' approach be adopted. The has an obligation to give us respect in return. project had not been established to 'save' We are not begging, we do not seek 'fallen women'. The peer educators were rehabilitation as we are not disabled.' provided with a uniform of green coats, and staff identity cards, which gave them This awakening is a very significant social recognition. A series of training transformation that the project has activities were organised, with the aim of achieved. The sex workers of Calcutta have promoting self-reliance and confidence, and begun to challenge the age-old notions of respect for them in the community. sin and blame, and are trying to reconstruct Comments from peer educators are on their identity. This perhaps, is the first stage record in a project report. One reported: of negotiations towards safer sexual 'The project has enabled me to face society practices — a negotiation with the self. with confidence'; another said: 'This apron has changed my life, my identity. Now I Negotiating with peers can tell others that I am a social worker, a It was a sad irony in the story of Sonagachi health worker' (DMSC 1998). that, as women in the sex trade were A base-line survey was conducted, using engaged in building self-awareness and a participatory methodology. A series of questioning unequal power, an incident group discussions were conducted, to occurred in the project area that brought debate the question, 'Why am I where I their vulnerability home to them. In early am?'. The survey confirmed that extreme September 1994, blood samples were economic poverty and social deprivation forcibly collected from approximately 50 sex were the main factors driving women into workers. This was carried out by an NGO the sex trade: 84.4 per cent of the sex with the help of the state government and workers were found to be illiterate; only 8.6 the local police. Earlier, they had dragged per cent of the sex workers had come out a brothel owner to the local police willingly to the sex trade, and the rest were station and threatened her with serious there because of acute poverty, a family consequences if she did not co-operate with dispute, or because of having been them in these research trials (DMSC 1998). misguided or kidnapped (AIIHPH 1997). Although the SHIP project had started Once the sex workers saw the results of well, the empowerment of 65 peer the discussions and the survey statistics, educators was not adequate to protect the they could see their vulnerability to 5,000 sex workers who lived in Sonagachi structural problems, and those who had alone from this abuse of their rights. How previously seen themselves as 'sinners' and could the project keep a focus on promoting 'loose women' changed their perspectives. safer-sex practices while the wider issue of In focus group discussions, peer educators political rights remained unaddressed? This told me: incident proved to be a catalyst for the peer educators' understanding of the power 'For us, this trade is also an employment. Why relations surrounding sex work. They wouldn't the government recognise it? Who began to view the issue within a framework says we are loose women?' of human rights, and to feel that it was 104

critical that an organised body of sex the successful implementation of the project workers be set up to fight such assaults on were not just behavioural. They were to do their dignity and rights. From negotiations with the way sexuality is seen in society, the with the self, they moved to a new level: lack of social acceptance of sex work, and the negotiations with their peers. legal ambiguities relating to it. All these The peer educators began their work, were now being increasingly recognised by going from house to house in the red-light the community as elements to be confronted, areas, equipped with information on battled against and overcome. Sex work was STD/HIV prevention, AIDS, how to access an occupation, and not a moral condition. medical care, and ways of questioning power And because it was an occupation, the structures that promoted violence. House-to- occupational hazards of STDs, HIV, violence, house work took three hours each morning. and sexual exploitation had to be Each day, every group of peer educators acknowledged as such, and overcome. (four in each group) contacted between 40 and 50 sex workers, and between 10 and 15 Building alliances with the clients brothel owners. They encouraged the sex In 1993, early in the life of the project, a workers to attend the clinic for regular health survey was conducted by the peer educators check-ups; they used flip charts and leaflets with babus (long-term, regular clients). The for effective dissemination of information on survey revealed that only 51.5 per cent of STDs and HIV; they carried condoms with the clients had heard of HIV/AIDS, but them to distribute to the sex workers. even this group lacked awareness regarding It was extremely important to visit all the the use of condoms. Only 1.5 per cent brothels and promote a sense of community regularly used condoms, and 72.7 per cent among them. This coming-together had a had never used a condom (AIIHPH 1997). direct bearing on promoting safer sexual After the survey, a meeting was organised, practices, since the clients soon found that to begin to build alliances between sex at least in some clusters they could not workers and their regular clients in the move from one brothel to another in search interest of promoting safer sexual practice. of condom-free sex. The conditions were About 300 clients attended. The discussions the same in all the brothels. that began at this meeting led to the opening As the project progressed, the educators of evening clinics for the clients, where they monitored the use of the condoms by could receive free treatment, counselling encouraging the sex workers to dispose of and access to condoms. Socio-cultural them in cardboard boxes. When asked by programmes were organised to introduce researchers about the rate of condom use safer sex and HIV /AIDS messages targeting and whether it had shown signs of rising, the clients. Today, the clients have come educators said: 'Look at the dustbins in the together in a support group called the Sathi area and you will get the answer. The Sangha ('Group of Friends'). This group cardboard boxes are there to show that the supports the sex workers in motivating new rate of condom use has definitely gone up' clients to use condoms, and supports the sex (DMSC 1998). workers' efforts to eliminate sexual violence As these activities got underway, in the area. awareness grew in the community about the project. While the project had begun as a Training the police targeted intervention to prevent the spread A training session for police personnel was of HIV/AIDS, using a strategy of promoting organised, after a strong partnership had behavioural change, it had become clear to been established, between the project and all involved that the main obstacles facing the Calcutta Police Department, by the All- Women's health and HIV: Experience from a sex workers' project in Calcutta 105

India Institute of Health and Hygiene. By the the peer educators, who monitor activities end of April 1996, about 180 police officers closely, ensure that this code of conduct is had attended these training programmes. adhered to.

Forming the DMSC Learning points The issue of HIV/AIDS, which was the entry-point for work in Sonagachi, had become a starting-point for social trans- Using stories and history to rally the formation. An organisation for sex workers, community the Durbar Mahila Samanvaya Committee Part of the success of the Sonagachi story (DMSC), was formed in February 1995. depends on the fact that, historically, there DMSC is a fully-fledged union for sex was a vitality in the sex workers' workers, promoting and enforcing their community. In 1980, a group of sex workers rights. A leading daily newspaper, the had formed Mahila Sangha (literally, Ananda Bazar Patrika, hailed this move with 'women's organisation'). Braving threats, the headline, 'Sex workers form their own they carried on a sustained campaign organisation'. The leader of SHIP, Mrinal against a local criminal who extorted money Kanti Dutta, was involved in the from the sex workers, finally driving him development of DMSC from the start. The away (DMSC 1998). When the SHIP project sex workers in Sonagachi had graduated to started, the peer educators were able to use becoming vociferous advocates for stories of these earlier successes to stir legislation for the recognition of their work people's emotions and rally them round a as a profession. common objective. Another shared memory The move was hailed because it was assisted work with the sex workers' clients: radically different from earlier attempts. that of the significant role played by a group Many organisations attempting to bring sex of babus in the history of prostitution in workers together call themselves fallen Calcutta. During the days of the nationalist women's organisations.3 These attempts struggle against colonialism in India in the have disallowed new notions of self and early twentieth century, these babus had only serve to enhance guilt and shame inspired the Sonagachi women to raise amongst their members. Abha Bhaiya has funds to aid the freedom struggle. very aptly remarked that 'such attempts have been apologetic rather than liberating', Retaining flexibility, meeting changing and have remained peripheral to main- needs stream women's movements (internal The SHIP project tried to respond to the UNIFEM report, 1999). perceived needs of sex workers in On the day that Mrinal became the head Sonagachi, as and when they arose. For of the DMSC — 1 May 1999 — the example, although it began by solely organisation won its first major political focusing on the sex workers' sexual health victory. This was formal recognition on the needs, it made arrangements to provide part of the state government of the self- them with non-formal education when the regulatory boards that DMSC's members demand for literacy programmes arose. had set up together with officials from the Similarly, vocational training programmes Department of Social Welfare and the were conducted for older sex workers state's Women's Commission. These during 1996 — 97 in response to their boards outline a mutually agreed code of concerns about security in old age. A credit conduct for all stakeholders in the red-light and savings society, the Usha Multipurpose areas of West Bengal and with the help of Society, was established, to help former 106

sex workers to set up self-employment turning a blind eye to the spread of AIDS. schemes. This component also aimed to The pimps have not resisted the campaign. liberate the community at large from the Similar approaches were adopted with the exorbitant rates of interest charged by police and malkins, who benefit from money-lenders. More and more women patriarchal power structures. joined as they found the process meeting The success of police training sessions their needs The report of the DMSC can be seen in the comments of peer published in June 1998 states that 2000 sex educators, who reported to me: 'The police workers had enrolled as members and that have to think twice before hitting us' and the assets of the co-operative amounted to 'Today, we go to the police station and we Rs. 697,100 ($17,000), as well as a piece of are offered a chair to sit on. Earlier, they did land in Madhyamgram, the market price of not even register a case if we went to report which was Rs 8,000,000 ($200,000). abuse.' The malkins have also responded to the project. A number of them today keep Using drama to promote communication condoms and provide these to the babus as Opportunities for communication and self- they arrive. Some provide days off for the expression have been created by the sex chokris (young sex workers), especially workers themselves, through Komal during menstruation. This was not the case Gandhar theatre group. Communicating a few years ago. Bela Didi, the malkin about methods of negotiating safe sex is discussed earlier in this article, informed us critical, and drama has enabled the sex that she had opened an account in the Usha workers to negotiate publically with the Co-operative Society for her chokris. clients, the pimps, the malkins and the police, in a non-threatening environment. Sex workers stated: 'It has given us the From the periphery to the space to say things that reside in our centre hearts', and 'This medium has been very Development work has tended to shy away effective in improving [the use of] a code of from addressing issues of sex and sexuality. health conduct by our clients'. In the last two decades, HIV/AIDS has forced many policy-makers and practi- Negotiating with men and opposing tioners to venture into this area, but the patriarchy discomfort that most of them feel has kept The project has a philosophy of fighting the discussion at very preliminary levels. It patriarchy rather than individual men. In is rare that the need for transformation of addition, there are groups of men who can perceptions about sex, and attitudes related be enlisted to work with women if there are to morality and values, are discussed. The mutual benefits. For example, the sex SHIP project is unusual and inspiring workers enlisted the support of clients to because it did this, with the aim of fight HIV infection to their mutual benefit. transforming and reforming power relations In 1993, a team of sex workers from the between women and men, and sex workers project met with the mukhiya (chief of the and those who profit from their work — pimps) to negotiate his support. It became both buyers and sellers. The project was clear that the mukhiya did not want to seen by Abha Bhaiya, a consultant for support the project, because he feared that UNIFEM who visited the project in August recognising that the HIV virus was present 1999, as a unique example of a community in Sonagachi would destroy their business. being mobilised to use human resources in a The project team explained that what public health/AIDS control intervention would destroy the business was in fact (internal UNIFEM report, 1999). Women's health and HIV: Experience from a sex workers' project in Calcutta 107

Over the past seven years, the SHIP fit into the larger development context of project has regularly celebrated Inter- India or the Asian region. In 1992, India national Women's Day, World Environment was embarking on its second medium-term Day, and World AIDS Day, participated in plan for AIDS control, and WHO's book fairs and in flood relief programmes, epidemiological analysis forecast a bleak sent delegations to Nepal and Bangladesh, picture. By 1994, at the World AIDS and to World AIDS conferences. The sex Conference in Yokohama, India was being workers have met with a range of partners, projected as the future AIDS capital of the and have developed the view that their world. Studies of high-risk behaviour struggle as sex workers is not very different commissioned by the National AIDS from the struggles of poor women in the Control Organisation in 65 cities of India in informal sector. The struggles are against 1994-95 only validated and confirmed this patriarchy and domination. Certain diagnosis. A survey of randomly selected nuances in these struggles are different, but households in Tamil Nadu found that, the overall spirit and thrust remain the even in this small state, close to half a same. Both the struggles have questioned million people were infected with HIV. power relations, both have explored and Since nearly 10 per cent of the people identified vulnerabilities, both have tried to surveyed had STDs, HIV clearly had fertile break structures that are oppressive. ground on which to spread rapidly The sex workers of Sonagachi have today (UNAIDS 1998). re-examined their situation vis-a-vis main- The existence of such factors made the stream society, and have come up with some dream of the women of Sonagachi seem very powerful observations and insights. rather unreal. But by 1996, research from One, Mala Sinha, referred in a focus group to SHIP showed indicators that were very the women in mainstream society as well as different from four years before (AIIHPH the sex workers of her community as 'Dogs 1997; DMSC 1998). Knowledge of STDs in — it's just that one is a dog with a collar and Sonagachi improved from 69 per cent in one is without it.' Another, Minoti Dutt, 1992 to 97.4 per cent in 1996; knowledge of remarked: 'We are more liberated and free in many ways. Those husbands as passports to HIV/AIDS rose from 30.7 per cent to 96.2 our identity are irrelevant' (internal per cent in the same period; and condom UNIFEM report, 1999). usage shot up from 2.7 per cent to 81.7 per cent in 1996. HIV/AIDS prevalence levels The Sonagachi movement has also plateaued at 5 per cent, when other red- successfully intervened in stopping child light areas the country were recording a trafficking in West Bengal. The self- rate of 55 per cent. In fact, the Telegraph, a regulatory boards set up in 1999 are the leading daily newspaper, hailed Sonagachi mechanism that enforce this. A number of as as having a negative growth rate of children trafficked have been returned to their homes, and in this way the HIV/AIDS, despite being the 'biggest organisation is reducing vice and violence brothel in Asia' (Telegraph, 18 September in wider society. 1995). In conclusion, the dream has only partly been fulfilled. Sonagachi's women told me Conclusion: the value of that they were still dreaming of a world dreams where sex work would be recognised as The sex workers of Sonagachi dreamt a legitimate work, and where sex workers dream seven years ago, of having a have been able to choose it freely as a community without violence, oppression, choice among other choices. A majority of HIV or other STDs. But this dream did not the workers I met would like to enter 108

stable marital relationships, and they want DMSC (Durbar Manila Samanwaya the world to have re-defined sex and Committee) (1998) 'The fallen learn to sexuality from a feminist perspective. rise: A report on the social impact of I left Sonagachi with a number of visions SHIP'. in my mind — an oasis in a desert, a Adler, M, Foster, S, Richens, J, and Slavin, flickering flame in a storm, a mountaineer H (1996) 'Sexual health and care: scaling heights. Sexually transmitted infections - Guidelines for prevention and Madhu Bala Nath is Gender and HIV Adviser treatment', ODA Health and Population for UNAIDS/UNIFEM, 304 East 45 Street, 15th Occasional Paper, ODA, London. Floor, New York, NY 10017, USA; e-mail: Narain JP (1999) HIV/AIDS and Sexually [email protected] I [email protected] Diseases: An update, WHO, Geneva. Notes Gordon, Peter and Sleightholme, Carolyne (1996) 'Review of Best Practice for 1 Red-light area: an area where sex-workers Targeted Interventions: Second draft live and work. report submitted to Health and 2 I should state here that the relationship Population Office, Development between HIV transmission and sex work Cooperation Office, Delhi, India', is complex, and it is essential to avoid International Family Health, London. demonising sex workers by blaming Reid, E (1990) Placing Women at the Centre of them for the spread of HIV. Recognition the Analysis, UNDP, New York. must be given to the unequal power Solon, O and A Barrozo,. (1993) 'Overseas relations that exist between a sex worker, contract workers and the economic her/his client, and any other sexual consequences of HIV/AIDS in the partners the client may have. Philippines', in Bloom and Lyons (1993). 3 For example, Patita Udhar Samiti, which UNAIDS (1996) UNAIDS Fact Sheet, means 'an organisation to save fallen UNAIDS, New York. women'. UNAIDS (1997) Report of the Global HIV/AIDS Epidemic, UNAIDS, New York References UNAIDS (1998a) Intensifying the Global All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Response to the HIV/AIDS Epidemic, Health (1997) 'A dream, a pledge, a UNAIDS, New York. fulfilment: A report on the SHIP project UNAIDS (1998b) 'AIDS Epidemic Update 1992-1997'. December 1998', UNAIDS, New York. Bloom and Lyons (1993) Economic ImplicationsUNAIDS (1999) The UNAIDS Report: A Joint of AIDS in Asia, UNDP, New York. Response to AIDS, UNAIDS, New York. 109

Compiled by Erin Murphy Graham

This collection of resources is very wide-ranging, since it attempts to encompass the 'Gender in the Twenty-first Century' theme. Resources are arranged thematically within each sub-section.

Women, Work, and Gender Relations in Publications Developing Countries: A global perspective (1996) Parvin Ghorayshi and Claire Belanger The Globalization Reader (2000) Frank J. (eds), Greenwood Press. Lechner and John Boli (eds.), Blackwell 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881, USA. Publishers. Drawing on case studies, this book 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK. discusses theoretical and methodological The various academic and political considerations of gender relations and positions on globalisation and its work, and linkages between the global implications for different regions are well economy and everyday life. It challenges covered in this comprehensive and the capitalist development paradigm and accessible reader. considers how empowerment and self- organisation promote social change. Economic Development and Women in the World Community (1996) Kartik C Roy, Beyond Economic Man: Feminist theory and Clement A Tisdell, and Hans C Blomqvist economics (1993) Marianne A Ferber and Julie (eds), Praeger. A Nelson (eds), University of Chicago Press. 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881, USA. 5801 South Ellis, Chicago, IL 60637, USA. This book explores the relationship between Economists, sociologists, and philosophers economic development and the socio- examine the central tenets of economics economic status of women in both from a feminist point of view. Contributors developed and less developed countries. It discuss the extent to which gender has argues that, given the benefits of greater influenced both the range of subjects economic independence and lower fertility economists have studied and the way in rates on development, women are the most which scholars have conducted their important agents of change. Case studies studies. The aim of this book is not to reject include developed regions, as well as Latin current economic practices, but to broaden America and the Caribbean, sub-Saharan them, permitting a fuller understanding of Africa, Malaysia, and China. economic phenomena. 110

Feminist Economics: Interrogating the United Nations Publications, 1 UN Plaza, masculinity of rational economic man (1999) New York, NY, 10017, USA. Gillian J Hewitson, Edward Elgar Publishers. This paper provides a review of the Marston Book Services Ltd, PO Box 269, literature on globalisation and women's Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4YN, UK. work. Using additional survey data from This book discusses the male biases Turkey and Columbia, the paper argues that inhererent in economists' debates on 'rational the effects of globalisation on employment economic man' and reveals the implications, are not gender-neutral, and that women are both theoretical and practical, of including increasingly represented in the workforce. women in mainstream economic thought. Among the implications given are women's increased empowerment in the family and The Elgar Companion To Feminist Economicscommunity, and increased decision-making (1999) Janice Peterson and Margaret Lewis in the areas of economics, fertility, and (eds), Edward Elgar Publishers. family mobility. This recently published book includes 102 entries by 89 authors on a variety of topics Women and Empowerment: Participation in relating to feminist economics. decision-making (1995) Marilee Karl, Zed Books. The Economics of Women, Men and Work 7 Cynthia Street, London Nl 9FJ, UK. (1997) Francine Blau, Marianne A Ferber This book attempts to promote women's and Anne E Winkler, Prentice Hall Business participation in civil society at the grassroots and international levels by providing an Publishing, United States. overview of what participation and Tel: +11800 643 5506, Fax: +1 1800 835 5327. empowerment mean and how they can be This book is an introduction to current realised. One chapter looks specifically at research on women, men, and work both in the international mobilisation of women in the labour market and the household. and around the United Nations. The book Particular attention is given to the changing concludes by outlining challenges that roles of men and women in an increasingly women face in increasing their participation globalised society. and decision-making capacities.

The Economics of Gender (1998) Joyce P Feminism and the New Democracy: Re-siting Jacobsen, Blackwell Publishers. the political (1997) Jodi Dean (ed), Sage Introducing new work on the differences Publications. between women's and men's economic A collection of essays which explore and opportunities, activities, and rewards, this respond to the debate about the book explores questions such as why relationship between politics and feminism. women earn less and why, throughout the It attempts to offer a framework for the world, men and women have tended to future of feminist theory and articulate a work in separate spheres. Although the 'new democracy' that views the 'political' primary focus is on contemporary patterns as complex and multi-faceted. Individual in the USA, four chapters compare a range chapters address questions of ethnicity, of societies. culture, and sexual orientation.

'Globalisation, employment, and gender' Women, International Development, and (1999) Siile Ozler, in Globalisation with a Politics: The bureaucratic mire (1997) Kathleen Human Face: United Nations Human Staudt (ed), Temple University Press. Development Report 1999 Background PapersBroad & Oxford Streets, Philadelphia, Vol. I, UNDP. Pennsylvania 19122, USA. Ill

The contributors to this volume come from a to political participation, women's variety of countries and work experiences, reproductive health, and adolescent sexual including Africa, Europe, Latin America, behaviour in Nigeria. This booklet contains and the Middle EaSt Each contribution the abstracts of discussion papers, reports explores how women have been excluded from training workshops and thematic from the democratisation process in many discussion groups, and a final evaluation. countries and analyses the influence of gender on the bureaucratic process. This Organising Women: Formal and informal volume also explores how NGOs continue women's groups in the Middle East (1997) to widen the public policy agenda to Dawn Chatty and Annika Rabo (eds), Berg. incorporate gender concerns. 150 Cowley Road, Oxford 0X4 1JJ, UK. This book analyses the relationship The Challenge of Local Feminisms: Women's between the state and both women and movements in global perspective (1995) Amrita men. It presents a mix of theoretical and Basu (ed), Westview Press. empirical research that explores the Rejecting the notion that feminism is a informal and formal ways in which women Western-inspired concept of middle-class have been organised and organised origins, this book provides an overview of themselves in Arab societies. Ten articles the birth, growth, achievements, and present information gathered from dilemmas of women's movements Morocco, Egypt, Kuwait, Amman, and worldwide, devoting attention mainly to Lebanon. Asia, Africa, and Latin America. It argues that women's movements are not necessarily able to transcend national Women and Social Movements in Latin differences, but are shaped by national America: Power from below (1997) Lynn levels of development. Stephen, University of Texas Press. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819, USA. Six cases of women's grassroots activism, in Subversive Women: Women's movements in El Salvador, Mexico, Brazil, and Chile, are Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean presented in this book. Each case study (1995) Saskia Wieringa (ed), Zed Books Ltd. analyses how these movements have An anthology of feminist writings from combined women's concerns about survival India, Indonesia, Peru, Somalia, Sudan, and the Caribbean, this book provides a and their oppression by men, and includes historical perspective on women's interviews with activists. organising. Individual chapters explore forms of resistance and social action The Women, Gender, and Development Reader including rebellion, unions, popular (1997) Nalini Visvanthan, Lynn Duggan, theatre, and poetry. Laurie Nisonoff, and Nan Wiegersma (eds), Zed Books Ltd. Moving from Accommodation to Transformation: This reader contains over 30 articles New horizons for women into the 21st century exploring a number of themes relating to (1997) Report of the Second African gender and development. It is organised Women's Leadership Institute, Bisi Adeleye- into five sections focusing on theories of Fayemi and Algresia Akwi-Ogojo (eds), women; gender and development, Akina Mama wa Afrika. households, and families; women in the 4 Wild Court, London WC2B 4AU, UK. global economy; women in the context of The second AWLI meeting explored themes international social transformation; and such as domestic violence, women's rights women organising for change. 112

Women in the Third World: An encyclopaedia of thought and practice. It includes examples contemporary issues (1998) Nelly P of the experiences of women in Africa, Latin Stromquist (ed), Garland Publishing. America, and Asia, as well as of women of Taylor and Francis, 47 Runway Road, Suite colour in industrialised countries. G, Levittown, PA 19057, USA. This reference work contains over 50 Feminist Visions of Development: Gender articles by more than 80 international analysis and policy (1998) Cecile Jackson and experts on gender issues. The book Ruth Pearson (eds), Routledge. encompasses a broad range of topics This volume brings together articles from including political participation, human the leading scholars and activists in the rights, housework, the family, equality, gender and development field. It explores domestic and sexual violence, new jobs and issues such as gender and the environment, exploitation in industrial production, AIDS, education, population, reproductive rights, the gender consequences of ecological industrialisation, macroeconomic policy, devastation, women's movements, and poverty. It is a comprehensive volume, education, and women in the media. It also relevant for students, academics, activists, contains an annotated bibliography of and practitioners. resources, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination 'Rethinking gender planning: A critical Against Women, and the Beijing discussion of the use of the concept of Declaration. gender' (1998) Saskia Wieringa, Institute of Social Studies Working Paper Series No. 279. A Passion for Difference (1994) Henrietta L Publications Office, ISS, PO Box 29776, Moore, Polity Press. 2502LT The Hague, The Netherlands. 65 Bridge St, Cambridge, CB2 1UR, UK. This article discusses the origins of the The theoretical section of this book concept of gender, stressing its radical and develops a specific anthropological comprehensive elements. It argues that the approach to current feminist post- concept of gender has been 'watered-down', structuralist and psychoanalytic theory. The that women's issues have become de- following chapters explore related themes politicised, and that concern for women's including gender; identity; violence, gender and identity in the household; and the links issues has been reduced to the socio- between the gender of the anthropologist economic components of women's lives. and the writing of anthropology. Women's Information Services and Networks: A Feminism/Postmodernism/Development (1995) global sourcebook (1999) Royal Tropical Marianne H Marchand and Jane L Parpart Institute, Oxfam GB, and International (eds), Routledge. Information Centre and Archives for the 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE, UK. Women's Movement, Kit Press and Oxfam. This book explores the power struggle BEBC, PO Box 1496, Parkstone, Dorset between voices from the South that BH12 3YD, UK. challenge Northern control over This sourcebook is a guide to women's development in a globalising world, where organisations and networks around the the meaning and practice of development world. It contains regional chapters on are increasingly contested. It argues that Africa, Asia, and the Pacific region, as well issues such as identity, representation, as central and eastern Europe. It provides indigenous knowledge, and political action brief descriptions and contact details of must be incorporated into development more than 160 organisations. 113

Women in Grassroots Communication: Women Empowering Communication: A Furthering social change (1994) Pilar Riano resource book on women and the globalisation of (ed), Sage Publications. media (1994) Margaret Gallagher and Lilia 6 Bonhill St, London EC2A 4PU, UK. Quindoza-Santiago (eds), World Association Authors from Africa, Asia, and Latin for Christian Communication. America have contributed to this volume, 357 Kennington Lane, London SE11 5QY, UK. providing a detailed analysis of women in The regional commentaries in this book grassroots communication in the developing highlight the situation of women with world. The first section reviews various respect to the media around the world, frameworks that address the relationship concluding that the power to develop media between women, communication, and policy and to determine media content participation. The second section analyses continues to evade women. Chapters focus women's ability to communicate and the on women and the media in North America, informal networks through which they do Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and so at the local level. The third section the Pacific region. focuses on media production and issues of media representation, evaluation, and Men, Masculinity and the Media (1992) Steve competency. The final chapters explore Craig (ed) Sage Publications. issues of leadership, organisation, and Bringing together scholars from the fields of communication strategies. communication studies, sociology, social studies, and political science, this volume Women's Experiences in Media (1996) Rina looks at how the media constructs male Jimenez-David, ISIS International-Manila identities and male relationships. The first and the World Association for Christian section is a study of previous media Communication. research on men and masculinities, PO Box 1873, Quezon City Main, Quezon followed by sections presenting case City 1100, The Philippines. studies and analysis of written and visual The second book to come from the 'Women materials. Empowering Communication' conference in Bangkok, Thailand, Women's Experiences Men, Work and Family (1993) Jane C. Hood in Media presents an overview of recent (ed), Sage Publications. developments and includes narratives of the This anthology explores the diversity and initiatives that came out of the conference. complexity of men's work and their relationships with their families. Specific Women in the Media (1995) Margaret articles focus on Mexican American, Gallagher, United Nations Department of Japanese, and Swedish men. The first Public Information. chapter provides a theoretical overview and UN Publications, 1 UN Plaza, New York, critique of men as 'providers' for the family. NY, 10017, USA. Other topics include single fatherhood and This booklet contains general information 'family-supportive' employment policies. on women in the media, focusing on women's under-representation and how The Making of Anti-Sexist Men (1994) Harry increased female participation and Christian, Routledge. inclusion can have a positive impact on This book presents the life stories of a gender inequality. Also included are group of 'pro-feminist' men which were 'success stories' of women from around the explored through qualitative interviews. world who have made outstanding The first section of the book presents an contributions in the media. analysis of the interview content and a 114

theoretical introduction to the study. It then The material in this book draws on a wide relates the personal life stories of the eight range of published and unpublished men and explores the study's implications sources, bringing together knowledge and for the potential of men's participation in experience of HIV/AIDS from a woman- feminist struggles. centred perspective. Topics explored include women's organisations, women's Men, Gender Divisions, and Welfare (1998) health and reproductive rights, and details Jennie Popay, Jeff Hearn, and Jeanette of projects and services for women with Edwards (eds.), Routledge. HIV/AIDS. It is of interest to health activists This volume explores the relationship and professionals, service providers, between men and welfare, focusing on the educators, researchers, and policy-makers. persistence of men's power and men's avoidance of welfare services. Individual 'Women, HIV/AIDS and development: chapters discuss family matters, including Towards gender-appropriate strategies in 'Are men good for the welfare of women South East Asia and the South Pacific' and children?' and '"I'm just a bloke who (1992) Sally Baden, BRIDGE Report No.5, has kids": Men and women on parenthood'. Institute for Development Studies, The book brings together empirical studies, University of Sussex. theoretical overviews, and analysis of University of Sussex, Brighton, BN1 9RE, UK contemporary discourse on masculinities. This report provides an overview of the gender implications of HIV /AIDS in the Women Coping with HIV/AIDS: We take it as South Pacific and South East Asia, it is (1998) J van Woundenberg, Kit Press. particularly in terms of prevention and P.O. Box 95001, 1090 HA Amsterdam, The control strategies. The report points out the Netherlands. increasing number of heterosexual women This book is a medical anthropological who are infected with HIV /AIDS, and study that explores the coping strategies of includes statistical information for the two women with HIV/AIDS through in-depth regions. It suggests strategies for prevention interviews. Particular attention is given to and control. how HIV/AIDS affects relationships and socio-economic conditions. 'An investigation of community-based communication networks of adolescent girls Triple Jeopardy: Women and AIDS (1990) The in rural malawi for HIV/STD prevention' Panos Institute, Panos Publications. (1994) Deborah Helitzer-Allen, International 9 White Lion Street, London Nl 9PD, UK. Centre for Research on Women. This book discusses ways in which 1717 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Suite 302, HIV/AIDS threatens women: they may Washington DC, 20036, USA. become infected themselves, pass the This study investigates the feasibility of infection on in pregnancy, or carry the main using traditional communication channels burden of care if a family member is within rural communities for HIV/AIDS infected. Triple Jeopardy also explores the prevention initiatives. It explores adolescent effect of AIDS on families and communities. girls' awareness of HIV/AIDS; their sources of information and social networks related Women and HIV/AIDS: An international to sex, marriage, and STDs and HIV/AIDS; resource book (1993) Marge Berer with the reported and actual sexual social norms; Sunanda Ray, Pandora Press. and the significance of ritual initiation 77-85 Fulham Place Road, Hammersmith, ceremonies in sexual behaviour and London W6 8JB, UK. knowledge. 115

'"I want to play with a woman": Gender Feminism Meets Queer Theory (1997) relations, sexuality, and reproductive health Elizabeth Weed and Naomi Schor, Indiana in rural Zambia' (1995) Paul Dover, University Press. Development Studies Unit Working Paper No reviews were traceable at the time of No.29, Department of Social Anthropology, going to press. Stockholm University. Stockholms Universitet, Annex 1, S-106 91, Organisations Stockholm, Sweden. Based on a field study in Chiawa and Goba, using semi-structured interviews, this Women Working Worldwide, MITER, Room paper explores how sexuality relates to 126, MMU Humanities Building, Rosamond upbringing and gender roles, sexual Street West, Manchester M15 6LL, UK. practice, traditional marriage, and Tel: +44 (0)161 247 1760 reproductive health including knowledge Fax: +44 (0)0161 247 6333 of HIV/AIDS and STD prevention. E-mail: women-ww@mcrl .poptel.org.uk Website: www.poptel.org.uk / women-ww Empowerment and Women's Health: Theory,Women Working Worldwide is a UK-based organisation started in 1983, which methods, and practice (1998) Jane Stein, Zed supports the struggles of women workers Books. in the global economy through information Targeting both researchers and exchange and international networking. practitioners, this book analyses the relationship between women's International Program for More and Better Jobs empowerment and health. While it does not for Women (WOMEMP), International focus on HIV/AIDS in particular, its Labour Organization, Geneva, Switzerland. analysis makes links between international Tel: +41 (0)22 799 8276 or +41 (0)22 799 7039 development policies, women's situations, Fax:+41 (0)22 799 7657 and the theories of women's health issues. E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.ilo.org/public/english/ My Gender Workbook: How to become a real employment / gems / conf / index .htm man, a real woman, or something else entirely The mission of this branch of the ILO is to (1998) Kate Bornstein, Routledge. promote employment in conditions of This book's author identifies herself as equality, and also to contribute to the 'transgendered'. The book explores gender successful follow-up to the Fourth World issues from a personal, non-academic Conference on Women and the gender perspective, and includes gender quizzes dimensions of the World Summit for Social and exercises to engage readers to think Development. It also aims to assist in the about their own gender identity. It is a development and implemention of national unique and challenging addition to the action plans to improve the quantity and gender studies literature. quality of women's employment.

The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader (1993) H Womankind Worldwide, 3, Albion Place, Abelove, MA Barale, and D Halperin (eds), Galena Road, London W6 OLT, UK. Routledge. Tel: +44 (020) 8563 8607 This multi-disciplinary anthology contains Fax: +44 (020) 8563 8611 more than 40 essays that illustrate the scope E-mail: [email protected] and diversity of the work currently being The organisation works with international done in the field of lesbian and gay studies. partners in grassroots community work, and 116

in an international advocacy capacity, Akina Mama wa Africa, 334-336 Goswell targeting the UK, EU, and UN, and Road, London EC1V 7LQ, UK. informing the general public. Tel: +44 (020) 7713 5166; fax: +44 (020) 7713 1959; e-mail: [email protected] The Centre for Women's Global Leadership, Website: www.akinamama.com Douglass College, Rutgers, The State 'Akina Mama wa Africa' (AMwA) is Swahili University of New Jersey,160 Ryders Lane, for 'solidarity among African women'. New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8555, USA. AMwA is a non-government development Tel: +1 (0)732 932 8782; fax: +1 (0)732 9321180 agency set up in 1985 by women from E-mail: [email protected] different parts of Africa residing in the UK Website: www.cwgl.rutgers.edu to create a space for African women to The Centre runs programmes to promote the organise autonomously, identify issues of leadership of women and advance feminist concern to them, and speak for themselves. perspectives in policy-making processes in AMwA aims to provide solidarity, promote local, national, and international arenas. awareness, and to build links with African Since 1990, the Centre has worked to foster women active in their own development. In women's leadership in the area of human 1996 AmwA started the African Women's rights through women's global leadership Leadership Institute in Kampala. institutes, strategic planning activities, international mobilisation campaigns, UN Women in the Media Initiatives, UNESCO, monitoring, global education endeavours, 7, place de Fontenoy, 75352 PARIS 07 SP, publications, and a resource centre. France. Tel: +33 (0)1 4568 1000. Website: www.unesco.org / webworld / com_media / society_women.html MADRE, 121 West 27th Street, #301 New Recognizing the lack of women in the media York, NY 10001, USA. who can influence content, policies, and Tel: +1 (0)212 627 0444; fax: +1 (0)212 675 3704 access to the means of expression, UNESCO E-mail: [email protected] has several initiatives to promote women's Website: www.madre.org participation and representation in the MADRE is an international women's media. UNESCO's tools include the Toronto human rights organisation which develops Platform for Action, the WomMed/FemMed partnerships with community-based Network (see below), and programmes for women's organisations which respond to training Mediterranean women journalists, women's immediate needs and work and women television producers in the towards the long-term development and Pacific region. political empowerment of women. WomMed/FemMed Network Sisterhood is Global Institute (SIGI), 1200 E-mail: [email protected] Atwater Avenue, Suite 2, Montreal, Quebec, Website: www.unesco.org / webworld / com / H3Z 1X4, Canada. wommed_femmed.htm Tel: +1 (0)514 846 9366; fax: +1 (0)514 846 9066The WomMed/FemMed Network brings Established in 1984, SIGI seeks to deepen the together women and men from around the understanding of women's human rights at world who seek to redress the gender local, national, regional, and global levels, imbalance in access to expression and and to strengthen the capacity of women to decision-making in the media, reaffirming exercise their rights through leadership the importance of pluralistic communication training. It has members in 70 countries, and to ensure women's full participation in currently maintains a network of over 1,300 society, and promoting all forms of individuals and organisations. democratic communication. 117

The Network was created by the The White Ribbon Campaign: Men Working to participants of the UNESCO International End Men's Violence Against Women, 365 Symposium 'Women and the Media: Access Bloor St East, Suite 16000, Toronto, Ontario, to Expression and Decision-making' in M4W 3L4 Canada. Toronto in 1995. Tel: +1 (0)416 920 6684 or +1 (0)800 328 2228 Fax: +1 (0)416 920 1678 Mujer/Fempress, Casilla 16637, Correo 9, E-mail: [email protected] Santiago, Chile. Fax +56 (0)2 2333 996 Website: www.whiteribbon.com.ca E-mail: [email protected] The White Ribbon Campaign (WRC) Website: www.fempress.org started out with a handful of men in 1991. Fempress was created in 1981 as an Each year the WRC urges men and boys to information and communication network wear a white ribbon for one to two weeks with the key goals of developing a (25 November- 6 December) as a personal communication strategy that promotes pledge never to commit, condone, or women's movements and spreading remain silent about violence against awareness of women's issues through the women. Their campaign also includes press and radio. Fempress distributes a educational work in schools, support of monthly magazine and radio programme local women's groups, and fundraising for throughout Latin America. international education efforts.

Mother's Voices,165 West 46th Street, Suite Men For Change, Box 33005, Quinpool Postal 701, New York, NY 10036, USA. Outlet, Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3L 4T6, Tel: +1 (0)212 730 2777 Canada. Tel: +1 (0)902 492 4104 Fax: +1 (0)212 730 4378 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.mvoices.org Website: www.chebucto.ns.ca/Community Mother's voices is an organisation based in Support / Men4Change / m4c_back.html the United States which aims to bring an Men for Change was formed in 1989 in end to HIV/AIDS around the world. Their response to the killing of women engineering mission is to encourage women everywhere students in Montreal whose murderer to become involved in HIV/AIDS singled them out because they were education, improved prevention efforts, fair 'feminists'. The group meets regularly to and effective policy formation, and explore male dominance and violence in increased research. male-female relationships. Small group meetings offer men the opportunity to share The International Women's Health Coalitiontheir feelings and reflections on their (IWHC), 24 East 21 Street New York, NY relationships and identities. While this 10010, USA. group's activities are limited to Montreal, Website: www.iwhc.org Men for Change could serve as a model for Founded in 1980, the IWHC is a non-profit men's groups around the world. organisation that works in Africa, Asia, and Latin America to promote women's International Lesbian and Gay Association reproductive and sexual health and rights. (ILGA), 81 Kolenmarkt, B 1000, Brussels, IWHC also publishes books and papers, and Belgium. Tel/fax: +32 (0)2 502 2471 maintains a global communications network E-mail: [email protected] of 6,000 individuals and organisations in 143 Website: www.ilga.org countries. In Chile, Nigeria, and Brazil, This worldwide federation of national and IWHC supports women's groups that are local groups is dedicated to achieving equal raising public awareness of HIV/AIDS. rights for lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and 118

transgendered people everywhere. Founded links to its magazine, Currents, its biennial in 1978, it now has more than 350 member report, and press releases, as well as to other organisations from every continent. feminist websites and publications.

United Lesbians of African Heritage (ULOAH), Feminist Activist Resources on the Net 1626 N. Wilcox Ave, #190, Los Angeles, CA www.igc.apc.org/women/feminist.html 90028, USA. This site guides activist feminists to Tel +1 (0)323 960 5051 resources on the internet. It lists inks to Website: members.aol.com / uloah / home.html other websites that explore issues such as ULOAH host annual retreats and a monthly reproductive rights, sexual harassment and 'rap group' to discuss issues of importance rape, domestic violence, women of colour, to lesbian women. women and politics, women and economic issues, women and health, and women's Khuli Zaban (The South Asian/Middle Eastern organisations. Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Women's Organisation), c/o Shamakami, Inc., PO Box The Electra Pages 1006, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130, USA. http: / / electrapages.com Website: www.geocities.com/ The Electra Pages is an on-line database of WestHolly wood / 9993 / khulizaban.html more than 9,000 women's organisations. Its Khuli Zaban was formed by a small group browser allows you to search for of women in 1995. Its website explains that organisations by location, category, and 'creating a space where we are understood, name. It also allows users to add their own safe, and grounded has been life changing listings and correct current listings. experience for many of the women in khuli zaban'. Women Leaders Online/Women Organising for Change Web resources www.wlo.org This website attempts to empower women in politics, media, society, the economy, and WomenWatch: The UN Internet Gateway on cyberspace. the Advancement and Empowerment of Women www.un.org/womenwatch AVIVA This website contains links to all UN www.aviva.org organisations and inter-government and AVIVA is an internet magazine or treaty bodies that work for women's 'webzine' that women from around the empowerment and gender equality, as well world can contribute to. Run by an as regional plans of actions from around the international group of women based in globe. London, it also provides free monthly listings of women's groups and events UNIFEM (United Nations Development Fund worldwide. for Women) www.unifem.undp.org Lesbian.org UNIFEM's mission is to promote women's www.lesbian.org empowerment and gender equality. It acts as One of the earliest and most comprehensive a catalyst within the UN system, supporting resources for promoting lesbian visibility on efforts that link the needs and concerns of the internet, this site contains links related to women to all critical issues on national, topics including politics and activism, arts regional, and global agendas. Its website has and culture, and lesbian and gay studies. 119

Matricies, A Lesbian and Lesbian Feminist Research and Network Newsletter, 92 Ford E-mail lists Hall University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA. GREAT Network is a UK-based organisation www.lesbian.org / matrices / index.htm based at the School of Development Studies at Matricies is a project of the Centre for the University of East Anglia. It disseminates Advanced Feminist Studies at the research results to development agencies and University of Minnesota, which endeavours academics, informs subscribers of relevant to increase communication and networking debates and information on the world-wide among those interested in lesbian web, manages topical debates, keeps members scholarship. Special features include up-to-date with job advertisements, and interviews with lesbian scholars, current journal and conference calls. To subscribe, bibliographies on lesbian topics, book send an e-mail stating 'join development- reviews, dissertation abstracts, calls for gender [first name last name]' (inserting your papers, conference announcements, reports first name and last name into the command) from lesbian research centres, and news to [email protected] and information from lesbian websites. PROFEM is an internet mailing list that FeminiStcom focuses on men, masculitities, and gender http: / / feminist.com/ relations. It aims to promote dialogue A website with weekly news updates, between men and women concerned with information on female-owned businesses, a gender justice and the elimination of sexism. 'bookstore', and a great variety of links to Additionally, it circulates information relating other feminist organisations. to research, new initiatives, and resources. To subscribe, send the message 'subscribe WWWomen.com: Lesbians/Advocacy profem-1' to [email protected] www.wwwomen.com / category / lesbia / ad voca2.html This site, hosted by WWWomen.com, has Video short descriptions of and links to various organisations of lesbian women, including Macho, by Luanda Broadbent regional chapters of the Lesbian Avengers, (running time 26 mins) the Lesbian Herstory Project, and support For copies on videotape contact: Lucinda groups for lesbian mothers. Broadbent, 345 Renfrew St, Glasgow G3 6UW, Scotland. Tel:/Fax: +44 (0)141 332 2042, 'Challenging Dominant Models of Sexuality E-mail: [email protected] in Development',seminar series, Institute of Documents the work of the Nicaraguan Development Studies, University of group Men Against Violence which aims to Brighton, UK. combat machismo and male violence. Xavier www.ids.ac.uk Munos, a member of the group, is personally This website makes available papers and torn by the sex scandal surrounding his summaries of discussions from this former hero, Daniel Ortega. This lively, January-March 2000 seminar series. engaging, and revealing film follows Xavier on a trip to San Francisco to share cutting- Cultural theory edge techniques to deal with violent men and http: / / theory.org.uk macho behaviour. The video was shot in Offers further information on cultural Managua, Nicaragua, and San Francisco, and theory, including essays on Butler, the USA. Available in Spanish or with Foucault, and others. English subtitles.