The Damaging Assumptions of Gender Mainstreaming

This week, I read an interesting article by Wendoh and Wallace (2006) entitled ‘Re-thinking gender mainstreaming in African NGOs and communities’. It addresses some of the challenges faced when undertaking gender mainstreaming initiatives. The article examined the situation in four African countries (Zambia, Rwanda, Uganda and Gambia) as these are countries with contrasting economic, political, religious and cultural contexts.

Though this article does not directly mention any connection with water or water management schemes, it does demonstrate that whilst female empowerment is considered necessary and important by academics, international organisations and others, there can be resistance when trying to implement gender equality initiatives within local communities. Furthermore, these gender equality initiatives do affect all levels of development and economics, including, of course, issues related to water. Local NGOs actually felt that gender mainstreaming was for the benefit of donors rather than local communities as work to address gender inequality issues is usually donor-promoted through government initiatives. Local NGOs and communities felt these initiatives were imposed upon them and so were either skeptical or had no real understanding of the issues.

Whilst some governments in Africa have increased the representation of women in parliament and are working on gender policies, resistance has been found at implementation level as people give higher priority to other activities. Most donors want around two-thirds of the main beneficiaries to be women but many governments have decided one-third is more appropriate as they fear a great number would exclude men. There is clearly misunderstanding by cultural policy makers as to how gender inequality is perceived on a local level.

During interviews with line ministries in the four countries, resistance was found to be due to concepts of gender being culturally inappropriate as it was considered to be a direct threat to male power as well as not being well adapted to local realities. Additionally, the speed with which gender equality ideas are expected to be adopted is seen as unrealistic. Not only must the concept be understood, but in order for changes to be effective, time must be allowed for people’s views and values to alter

The article also highlighted the need for women to be seen as agents of change in gender initiatives rather than objects of development. Women are told what equality is rather than being able to define it for themselves, which can result in further problems.

Whilst this article is relatively dated, a more recent book by Amutabi (2013) entitled ‘The NGO Factor in Africa: The Case of Arrested Development in Africa’ seems to reinforce these views seven years later. Amutabi discusses that some NGOs’ attempts to empower women have actually done the opposite and some women are actually content with the status quo as it is. Furthermore, their workshops were considered to be of little to no value and NGOs actually fuelled confusion and tension in the communities they became involved with.

Whilst these authors have discussed female empowerment in general in Africa, as opposed to in direct relation to water issues, they have demonstrated that the implementation of gender mainstreaming is not straight forward. Female empowerment is still crucial and has been found to have various widespread benefits, but, as mentioned in a previous post, we cannot assume that this is an outright solution. In fact, there is great complexity across time and space and so each context must be considered carefully and individually in order for any objectives to be successfully achieved. Female empowerment cannot just be forced on all communities in Africa in the hope that this will solve issues such as those related to water. Again, the local community must be consulted and considered when trying to improve or change any current situation.

References

Amutabi, M. (2006). The NGO factor in Africa. 1st ed. New York: Routledge.

Wendoh, S., & Wallace, T. (2005). Re-thinking gender mainstreaming in African NGOs and communities. Gender & Development, 13(2), 70-79.