Module 1 BACKGROUND GENDER AND FEMALE TALENT

Transcription

1 Module 1 BACKGROUND GENDER AND FEMALE TALENT Session 1 Gender and female talent a conceptual framework Gender biases are inaccurate and false generalizations that color our assumptions and expectations based on sex. Such a view on the world directly or indirectly affects our thoughts about and actions towards both male and female colleagues, thereby influencing how they are judged, treated or promoted at the workplace. Most efforts dealing with the issue of female talent development up to now have provided tools to fix women because they lack the capacity to do certain things. So why is it important to bring gender biases in female talent development programs? This module is trying to highlight: 1. Unequal gender relations especially sex based discrimination, misogyny and second generations gender biases are serving as part of the major stumbling blocks to female leadership, 2. Measures to overcome challenges of female leadership such as affirmative action, while only opening doors could not bring more women in leadership positions, hence posing challenges towards the promise, principles and achievements of the goals of higher education in the country. Sturm (2001) 1 argues that the challenges towards women s progress and advancement are complex and elusive. The Assessment 2 indicated a myriad of issues exist, putting hurdles towards female faculty members leadership in higher educational institutions in Ethiopia. These challenges include subtle resistance, multiple roles affecting their work life balance, and lack of access to formal and informal networks, stereotyped roles and assumptions on their capabilities, which are often manifested in subtle expectations of failure. The primary targets of this toolkit are female faculty members and the aim is to improve their skills, knowledge and practices through heightened self-awareness and changes of perspectives. This cannot be achieved by targeting only women; the commitment and changed attitudes of male colleagues are also indispensable. Without their avid support, significant progress toward ending sex based stereotypes and disparities are unlikely. Understanding this, the involvement of men in the efforts to motivate and engage in shaping and providing substance and moving forward is a necessity, as also brought up by Marcus and Harper (2014) 3 1 Sturm S. (2001), Second generation employment discrimination: A structural approach, Colombia Law Review, 101: Eerdewijk et Al. (2014). Female Faculty and Leadership: Affirmative Action and Gender Equality in New Public Universities in Ethiopia (assessment), 2014, NICHE ETH-015, University Leadership and Management Capacity Development Project 3 Marcus, R. and Harper C. (14 January 2014), Gender Justices and Social Norms Process of Change for Adolescent Girls towards a Conceptual Framework 2. Shaping Policy for Development, Odi.org 1

2 Increasing attention is being paid to men s agency in promoting gender equality, [including] through anti-gbv campaigns such as White Ribbon and Ring the Bell, and through participatory work challenging hegemonic masculinity (Connell and Messerschmitt, 2005), that is perceptions of what it means to be a real man and what this means in terms of relating to women and girls. As noted above opportunities to reflect on male privilege and gender equality appear important in helping men and boys socialised into accepting gender inequality to adopt alternative ways of relating to girls and women (Greene et al., 2012).The first step towards male engagement is therefore a continuous, frequent and structured conversation, engaging both men and women. And this toolkit envisages to stir conversation and explore the various hurdles to female leadership, including deeper organizational cultures, At the same time, we want to co-create a level playing field based on changed perspectives and heightened awareness towards better outcomes. Through continuous conversations, male and female colleagues learn to listen to each other and understand different experiences, perspectives and world view. While conversing, colleagues cooperate, develop trust and experiment with learning to relate in new ways as well as standup collectively in defining, working for and achieving goals that benefit both women and men. Questions motivate curiosity, inquiry and self-reflection. The conversations cannot materialize without using critical questions, which each session strives to provide on various topics. To achieve sustained impact, it is important to not only involve the Gender Directorate and male and female faculty members, but also the university communities (including university top administration) and stakeholders such as Educational Strategy Center (ESC), the Ministry of Education (MOE), Ministry of Women and Children s Affair and gradually the wider community. The identification and participation of stakeholders is crucial because cultures are transformed through a critical mass of people where stakeholders stand up, speak out, set goals and join hands for the achievement of sustained changes. Therefore, a set of practical instrument and references is offered for professionals working on strengthening female talent in higher institutions in Ethiopia. The toolkit adopts a gender analysis framework, which is primarily developed by Gender at Work and later reviewed by ShowMe50 for understanding issues at the workplace better (See Annex 1). This toolkit provides tools to facilitate training skill based trainings, personal and group reflections and exploring systems and measures taken in the higher education institutions in an effort of creating enabling environment to advance female talent development. Through these tools, it is expected to come up with concrete steps towards both personal and institutional accountability to changes, including a systematic follow-up process that is measured through concrete milestones. 2

3 Session 2 Gender analysis frameworks and checklist a) Gender analysis framework Gender analyses are conducted to understand how gender relations affect development interventions through the use of a framework, which provides a step-by-step method to analyze gendered power relations and socio-economic factors. Gender analysis frameworks are useful to generate data and information on gendered power relations, gender stereotypes and discriminatory laws practices and shed light on potential solutions. In the box below, some examples of gender analysis frameworks are presented with reference for further reading. Box 1 facilitators note on gender analysis framework The Moser Gender Planning Framework (By Caroline Moser) 4 The goal of this framework is to alleviate women s subordination and facilitate them to achieve equity, equality and empowerment. It collects quantitative details and empirical facts about gender roles and tries to analyze the causes and processes that lead to disparities on access and control. It looks at roles and assesses needs, control of resources and intra-household decision making processes. It uses six (6) tools for gender analysis: 1. Gender role identification 2. Gender needs assessment 3. Balancing of roles 4. WID/GAD policy matrix 5. Disaggregating control of resources and 6. Decision making within the household and gender awareness. The framework is sometimes criticised for not adequately addressing gender relations through examining roles. As a result, it creates the impressions that there is balance in roles and acceptance of rights, whereas in reality there is ongoing negotiation and compromise in gendered relationships. It lacks a mechanism to look at other aspects of inequalities such as due to race, class, age and the like. The Women s Empowerment Framework/Longwe Framework (By Sarah Longwe) 5 This framework focuses on what gender equality and empowerment practically mean and on the extent to which various development interventions support empowerment. It introduces five levels of equality, by which to assess the level of women empowerment, and emphasizes that empowerment is essential at all of these levels: 1. Control, 2. Participation, 3. Access, 4. Welfare, 4 ill_applicable_in_the_year_2014 accessed on February 8, accessed on February 8,

4 5. Conscientisation Empowerment refers to enabling women to take an equal place with men and to participate equally in the development process to achieve control over the factors of production on an equal basis. Gender at Work framework of analysis The 2 axis in this framework provides opportunities to explore structural issues that are the root causes which maintain or perpetuate gendered discriminatory practices and therefore need to change. The framework also helps to assesses organizations (both the formal and non-formal aspects) and develop action plans for change. The Gender at Work analytical framework helps deepen understanding of the way changes in policies, individual resources (the formal/visible aspects) and attitude/consciousness may shift norms, traditions and cultures (invisible aspects) that perpetuate gender inequality. Details on this framework are available on Annex 1 of this module. Social relations approach This framework is developed by Naila Kabeer (1994). The framework lays emphasis on gender relations and particularly social construction of gender. This is because social relations help maintain or reproduce inequalities. The framework assesses the causes for gendered discrimination and inequality and how they are sustained or reproduced in the household, community, market and state. According to the framework, there are five aspects of institutions that is, rules, resources, people, activity and power. And institutions operate in their own ways, but their policies, plans, processes and the like shows weather the organization is gender blind, neutral, aware, specific or redistributive accessed on February 10,

5 b) Checklists to conduct gender analysis/assessment The following checklist is provided as guidance to support gender analysis efforts of the Gender Directorates. The questions in the checklist are not exhaustive and many more issues may need to be considered. Gender directors can add questions according to their need, when they use this checklist. Policy and procedures Is there a gender policy? Is gender integrated in other policies? How are these gender related provisions addressed in consequent regulations and implementation procedures? How are gender related targets identified? Who participated? Is senior management explicitly committed to gender? How is this translated in practice? What role do women and men and decision making How are implementations followed-up/monitored? Does this monitoring mechanism allow monitoring beyond disaggregated data? Can you provide examples? Financial resources What percentage of program project budgets are allocated for gender related matters? What percentage of program and human resource development budget is allocated for women? And for men? How are budgets allocated and reviewed for their gender sensitivity, inclusiveness and affirmative action? What is the process of allocation of this budget? Who participates in allocation? What are the responsibilities How are the budgets monitored? Are budgets allocated for gender related research? If yes, give concrete examples, if no provide reasons why not? Conceptualization, competence and capacity Is there a theory of change with regard to gender? How does this theory conceptualize gender and identify changes with regard to gender? And how feasible is this conceptualization? How would action plans, resources and structures adopted enable achievements of strategic changes in gender? What is staff s level of capacity/competence to achieve the goals of the envisaged change? Which staff have gender included in their job description? What specific skills and tools do staff need to carry out their job in a gender aware way? What existing programs for students and capacity building initiatives for staff includes gender? What incentives are there to motivate staff to be (more) gender competent? 5

6 Planning How are learning from experiences captured and incorporated in the planning process? Who is represented in the planning process? Male? Female? Whose voice is heard? Do the female members feel their voice is being heard? Can they recall instances where their ideas have influenced decisions? Give examples What does the identification and incorporation of gender issues in the planning process involve? How gender sensitive is plans? Give examples? How do plans and implementation strategies reflect gendered differentiated considerations? (provide examples) Do plans consider measurement of changes in gender related issues? Accountability measures and commitment Who is responsible to ensure gender related objectives are met? What are they responsible for? What is their decision-making status? How does the university community perceive them? Do the staff members of the Gender Directorates have clear job-description, terms of references, skill, resources, incentives and support from the top university leaders? Is the Gender Directorate involved in policy/program planning and development? Is there a means by which gender related lessons are shared within the university community and outside stakeholders? Are there performance evaluations of the gender directorate? Are there capacity development initiatives for the directorate staffs? Human resource management and gendered opportunities What is current male to female balance of staff in different posts in the University? What gender issues/gaps does the gender opportunities policy address and how is it implemented? Are these opportunities easily accessed by female faculty members? If no? What hinders access? Are these opportunities adequately financed? Organizational culture What are the informal and formal channels of information in the university? Are these accessible by both female and male staffs equally? How gender sensitive are all of the values and principles of the university? To what extent is the decision-making body accessible to male and female staff? What is prevailing attitude towards male and female staff competencies? To what extent are certain practices such as working late feasible for both male and female staff? How is sexual harassment defined and what does it include? How are sexual harassment related issues treated in the university? 6