1. Understanding Gender
Dr. Paramita Majumdar
Senior Consultant, Gender Budgeting
Ministry of Women and Child Development
Gender Resource Centre, Government of Bihar
6 August, 2016
2. Exercise:
Roles and Responsibilities
• Brainstorm:
–What do men do in your society?
–What do women do in your society?
–Only list activities, not professions or traits
4. Exercise: Whose Issue?
Issue Men Women Both
Controlling sales of guns
Providing free pre-natal care
Criminalizing gender-based violence
Supporting development of small
businesses
5. Understanding Gender
• Gender refers to the socially constructed relationships between
men and women.
• These relationships change over time, space and circumstances.
• Each institution has its own gender culture, that is relationships
between women and men.
• For instance, many Organisations interpret gender issues as
issues only concerning women. This results in only women being
sent to represent the institution at gender forums – resulting in the
marginalisation of gender issues as women’s issues. Thus it is vital
to make sure of male participation.
Activity – What is the gender culture of your Department?
Compare with any other institution.
List the gender similarities and differences &
Identify the reasons
Activity – What is the gender culture of your Department?
Compare with any other institution.
List the gender similarities and differences &
Identify the reasons
6. Understanding Sex
The term 'sex' refers to biological differences
between men and women. Thus, a person is a male or
female regardless of their race, class, age or ethnicity.
Activity - How do University perpetuate or transform the importance of
sex in the pursuit of knowledge? For example, you can look at which
academic fields are popularised for male as opposed to female students
and vice-versa. Use your institution to illustrate your responses.
Activity - How do University perpetuate or transform the importance of
sex in the pursuit of knowledge? For example, you can look at which
academic fields are popularised for male as opposed to female students
and vice-versa. Use your institution to illustrate your responses.
7. Gender Stereotype
• Stereotypes produce behaviour patterns that conform to
expectations – traditional roles
• Stereotypes stand in the way of our perceptions of reality and
social change e.g defence
• In education institutions, stereotypes result in certain fields being
reserved for certain group. For example, scientific and technical
fields for men. In workplaces, managers and directors are men,
secretaries and personal assistants are women
• Gender stereotypes inhibit women from realizing their full
potential
• Stereotypes have a strong influence in decision-making about
distribution of valued resources such as funding for research for
lecturers
8. Gender Sensitivity
• Gender sensitivity is the translation of awareness into practices,
which result in changes in the perceptions, plans and activities of
institutions and organizations.
• A gender aware institution is not necessarily a gender sensitive
one because awareness might not necessarily generate any will or
resolve to act on the basis of the gender awareness. In fact, it is
possible for gender awareness to generate resistance, obstruction and
other practices that make gendering an institution difficult.
• In attempting to make institutions more gender sensitive, gender
policies are usually developed in order to guide action and ensure
that the stated objectives of the policy are realised.
WHAT IS THE STATED GENDER POLICY OF YOUR
DEPARTMENT?
9. Gender inequalities: e.g. BBBP
- reduce program effectiveness and waste resources
- Inhibit growth and development
- limit opportunities and potential
Costs of Gender Discrimination
10. What are gender commitments in the
Indian context ?
Public Expenditure Programmes
Constitutional Provisions
Legal Framework
Policies
11. Constitutional Mandate
Article 14 Equal Rights and Opportunities in Political Economic
and Social Spheres
Article 15 Prohibits discrimination on grounds of sex
Article 15(3) Enables affirmative discrimination in favour of women
Article 39 Equal means of livelihood and equal pay for equal
work
Article 42 Just and Humane conditions of work and maternity
relief
Article 51(A)(e) Fundamental Duty to renounce practices, derogatory to
dignity of women
11
12. Key Legislations with a Gender
perspective
• The Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013
• Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and
Redressal) Act, 2013
• Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2010
• National Employment Guarantee Act 2006
• Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, 1994
• The Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006
• Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005
• The Equal Remuneration Act, 1976
• Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961
• Maternity Benefit Act, 1961 (amended Bill 2016 approved by Rajya Sabha)
December 14, 2016 12
13. Institutional Mechanism –
Creating Spaces for Gender Equality
December 14, 2016 13
State
District
Block
Village
• District Collector
• Development Officer/ PO
• Anganwadi Worker
National
State
• State Commission for Women
14.
15. Gender Mainstreaming
• Concept introduced in the UN Third World Conference on Women in
Nairobi, 1985. Further developed in the UN Fourth World Conference on
Women in Beijing,1995
• Gender mainstreaming is a systematic inclusion of both women’s and men’s
concerns, experiences and needs.
• It is a process of consistently incorporating sensitivity to gender differences
in governance, decision-making, policy, needs analysis, institutional offices
and mechanisms, planning, budgeting, implementation, monitoring and
evaluation in institutions so as to create an organisation that is gender
equitable
• Mainstreaming gender necessitates that gender perspectives become part of
the normal perspective of an organization without its having to resort to
special vehicles, units or offices that isolate and marginalize these issues.
16. How to mainstream gender?
• Effective gender mainstreaming should be context-and content-oriented. This
means a much more qualitative analysis over and beyond the quantitative
presentation.
• Pre-requisites for context and content analysis -
Profiling generally provides a quantitative picture of the status of men and
women in the employment circle at university.
Gender analysis is an essential first step of collecting and analysing sex-
disaggregated information in order to understand gender differences and how
these differences may have an effect on policies' effectiveness.
Gender audit is an evaluation process aimed at figuring out whether set
policies or interventions are doing that which they are meant to be doing. It is
an Institution’s self-assessment, monitoring and evaluation of interventions
with the broad aim diagnosis and transformation.
17. • Gender-sensitive indicators compare the situation
of one sex with the other. The emphasis is on the gap
between women and men, rather than on the actual
level for one or the other
• Women-specific indicators record the absolute
position of women at particular points in time
Indicators
