Policies have to carry voices of both genders
A policeman watches as a Mathare resident does press-ups as punishment during a crackdown on chang’aa brewing in the expansive Nairobi slum on July 28, 2015. Though women are more likely to suffer from sexual violence, men tend to be subjected to arrests and extra-judicial killings. FILE PHOTO |
What you need to know:
- Gender balance often consists of efforts to include women in all levels of policy making.
It is now the norm for development policies, programmes and projects to emphasise the need for gender inclusion.
While gender refers to relations between men and women, and associated ideas of masculinity and femininity, gender balance often consists of efforts to include women in all levels of policy making.
The idea is that, since women tend to enjoy less power and are less involved in corruption and violence, they should be involved to enhance planning.
This has worried me for a while. Not because women should not be brought in — they should — but because there is a danger that interpreting gender sensitivity as female participation neglects relations between men and women.
It neglects the significance of class, generation, ethnicity, race and religion.
CHALLENGES
I was reminded of this unease this week when I attended an excellent research seminar by Naomi van Stapele at the British Institute in Eastern Africa in Nairobi.
The paper, whose focus was gangs and masculinity in Mathare, highlighted the challenges that young urban men face as they look to become husbands, fathers and men.
This includes police shootings of many youths, allegedly for involving themselves in crime. Stapele’s paper made me think of some more general issues.
First, it highlighted how men, just like women, suffer from poverty, conflict and insecurity. While femininity tends to leave women as primary care givers, ideas of masculinity tend to demand that men act as family breadwinners.
In turn, while women are more likely to suffer from sexual violence, men are more likely to be subjected to arrests and extra-judicial killings.
To be successful, policies need to be aware of these nuances, and to consider ways that men and women suffer differently.
Second, failure to fully consider the pressures that men face leads to insufficient attention being given to masculinity, which has serious implications for policies that target women. For example, if one really wants to address sexual violations of women by men then one needs to also consider why men might be violent against women.
In short, while men and women often face different problems, the same is true for rich and poor, youth and elders, ‘locals’ and ‘outsiders’, Christians and Muslims and so on.
The point is that, while power relations are highly gendered, they are also shaped by other social relationships and identities.
For example, this week, Nairobi City County askaris demolished houses and businesses in the name of security in Mathare.
Such clearances highlight the fact that it is often the poor who cannot afford lawyers that suffer most. At the same time, the impact of such suffering will be gendered, so that homeless women will have to find food and shelter for their children, while male youth will try to acquire sufficient wealth to get married, have children, and ‘become men’.
The fact that men and women tend to experience life differently justifies an ongoing need to bring women in.
However, this difference also means that it is vital to bring in male voices so that development policies can be sensitive to their needs, and to the problems and challenges they face.
Gabrielle Lynch is an associate professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Warwick. [email protected]; @GabrielleLynch6
