Gender, Gender Sensitivity, Gender budgeting and Eco-feminism

Gender, Gender Sensitivity, Gender budgeting and Eco-feminism

Gender

1. In 1972 Ann Oakley talked about the difference between sex and gender.
   1. Sex – biological features of one physiology – either male or female
   2. Gender – cultural and social ideas (traits and features, roles) of masculinity and femininity that we assign to male and female.
      1. Women – caring and nurturing;
      2. Male – rational, logical = this means women naturally suited for jobs like nursing and men for scientists and engineers
   3. Prejudice based on gender is deeply rooted in many cultures

 

Gender Sensitivity

1. Gender sensitization “is about changing behavior and instilling empathy into the views that we hold about our own and the other gender.”
2. How it helps?
   1. Gender mainstreaming is important in public service – by designing policies, programmes and activities, with gender sensitivity, will lead to effective implementation and success. Tools – gender budgeting,
   2. Recruitment, retention of best talent – equal employment and representative public service.

 

Gender budgeting – tool for gender mainstreaming

1. Women constitute 48% percent but still lag behind education, health, economic opportunities. Therefore special attention required.
2. It is not an accounting exercise but an ongoing process of keeping a gender perspective in policy/ programme formulation, its implementation and review.
3. To ensure gender commitments are translated in to budgetary commitments.

 

Eco-feminism

1. Vandana Shiva, Maria Mies, Bina Aggarwal, Gabriel Dietrich
2. It is a “value system, a social movement, and a practice (which) also offers a political analysis that explores the links between androcentrism and environmental destruction.
3. It is an “awareness” that begins with the realization that the exploitation of nature is intimately linked to Western Man’s attitude toward women and tribal cultures”.
4. Chipko movement in the Garhwal Himalayas – where women wilfully struggled for the protection and regeneration of the forests; showed 3^rd world women are not simply victims of development process but also possess the power for change.

 

 

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