Dr. Susan P.

Murphy
Trinity College Dublin
Ireland
Content
Evolution of gender mainstreaming in
development practice
From margins to mainstream – gender and the
MDGs
Problems in research and practice
 Drivers of discrimination
 Origins of inequality
 Dynamics of gender relations
Implications for gender-based research
 Beyond checklists and head-counting
Post 2015 SDG agenda
 Gender and education
Women in development
Since UN Commission on the Status of
Women in 1946:
matters related specifically to women have
been a core dimension of discussions on
development and global poverty eradication,
justified on the evidence-based arguments that
greater empowerment is instrumentally
valuable to development;
and to a lesser extent, on reason-based
arguments that development generates
intrinsic benefits to women, as human beings
of equal moral value
2013 Report – UN High
Level Panel of Eminent Persons
 ‘The next development agenda must
ensure that in the future neither income nor
gender, nor ethnicity, nor disability, nor
geography, will determine whether people live
or die, whether a mother can give birth safely,
or whether her child has a fair chance in life’
(2013: 7).
How is this different from the MDG
commitments?
What does this say about 20 years of gender
mainstreaming (post Beijing 1995)?
What is ‘gender mainstreaming’?

Emerged from the women in development

(WID) policy approaches widely adopted by
development organizations in the 1980s
Integrate women into economic development
Central to Beijing Platform for Action (1995)
 Equality and women’s empowerment central

to human development
 States need to make radical changes to

achieve equality and promote empowerment

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UN definition
“Mainstreaming a gender perspective is the
process of assessing the implications for women
and men of any planned action, including
legislation, policies, or programmes, in all
areas and at all levels. It is a strategy for making
women’s as well as men’s concerns and
experiences an integral dimension of the design,
implementation, monitoring and evaluation of
policies and programmes in all political, economic
and societal spheres so that women and men
benefit equally and inequality is not perpetuated.
The Ultimate goal is to achieve gender equality”.
(UN Report for the economic and social council.
1997: 1)
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Two further aspects
Evident in some definitions
Institutionalization of gender concerns …. to
ensure a ‘transformation of the organizations
attitudes and culture
Gender empowerment through women’s
participation in decision-making processes,
enabling women to have their voices heard,
giving them power to put issues on the agenda
(Moser 2012: 439-440)
Designed to tackle both implicit and explicit
forms of discrimination and exclusion
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Gender mainstreaming
Policy
A dual strategy of mainstreaming gender-equality issues
into all policies, programmes, and projects (the
Integrationist approach), combined with context-specific
supporting targeted actions for gender equality (the
stand-alone approach)
Gender analysis (sex disaggregated data and gender
analytical information)
Women, as well as men, playing an active role in decision
making processes to influence the development agenda
Organisational capacity-building and gender training
Gender sensitive monitoring and evaluation systems and
tools (Moser 2012: 440)

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Gender mainstreaming in
Theory

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From margins to mainstream
 MDG Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower
women
 Target – eliminate gender disparity in primary and
secondary education, preferably by 2005, and in all
levels of education no later than 2015
 Measurements also include – political participation;
paid employment

 Also
 MDG 1 - Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
 MDG 2 – achieve universal primary education
 MDG 4 – reduce child mortality
 MDG 5 – improve maternal health (since 2005 –
universal access to reproductive health)
 MDG 6 – combat HIV/Aids
 MDG 7 – environmental sustainability
 Target 10 access to clean water and sanitation
 Target 11 – improvement in the lives of at least 100
million slum dwellers 10
In practice
 MDG period saw some successes:
 improved health outcomes,
 increased numbers of women in the formal economy, and
 increased enrolment rates in education at primary level
 However….
 Lives and status of women has not seen a dramatic
transformation
 Women continue to be more vulnerable to extreme poverty,
malnutrition, ill health, lower educational outcomes and
higher incidents of violence.
 Women continue to carry greatest responsibility for
reproduction, care, subsistence food provision, and household
tasks
 Women continue to be under-represented in leadership roles
both in the public institutions and private organisations.
Problems with mainstreaming
approach
‘Away streaming’ – (Mukhopadhyay 2004).
That is
Used as an argument to stop ‘stand-alone’
projects and interventions.
 Reduces financial and institutional resources
specifically allocated to women’s needs
According to Hivos, this has resulted in a
‘reduction in gender expertise, capacity and
advocacy’ (2007: 11)

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Problems with
Gender based research
Controlling for GM
It is a challenge for all organizations to assess the
impact of gender mainstreaming on the lives of
women and girls, men and boys…. whose lives are
altered profoundly by all sorts of change taking
place beyond the planned interventions of
governments and development organizations.
Opening Pandora’s box
The gender division of labour within the
household
 The ‘black box’ in contemporary mainstream economic
modelling of non-market based production (Susan
Moller Okin, 2003)
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And more…
Ramya Subrahmanian (2007) –
 ‘key criticism about GM has been the “narrowness” of
the strategy despite the complexity of gender
relations and the contextual variations in the process
and outcomes related to gender inequalities’ (2007:
113)
Monitoring and evaluation
 Difficult, if not impossible to distinguish impact of GM
from other changes occurring beyond planned
interventions.
‘Smart economics’
 Only supported by some due to its instrumental value,
rather than the intrinsic value of equality and
women’s empowerment
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Problems in theory &
practice
Failed to tackle
Hidden power and prevalence of discrimination
 Key distinction between explicit and implicit
discrimination –
 Implicit discrimination has escaped challenge

 Stiglitz 2012 – Cognitive Capture

 Duflo 2012 – Implicit bias

Hermeneutical gaps
 Sweetman 2012 - The leadership of key development
organizations which shape our world is still
overwhelmingly rich and male. Women’s priorities and
perspectives are still missing from key decision-making
bodies
 Miranda Fricker – hermeneutical injustices

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From gender back to women?
On the one hand some argue that the focus on gender has
 Cornwall, Harrison, and Whitehead, have argued that the
term ‘gender’ has neutralised the political content of
feminist struggles, acting as a ‘technical fix’ (2007: 9) in
development projects and programmes.
 Such a technocratic approach depoliticised and de-
radicalised the feminist struggle for the empowerment of
women.
 They argue that the term gender has ‘fallen from favour and
has a jaded, dated feel to it. Diluted, denatured,
depoliticised, included everywhere as an afterthought...
(2007: 6-7).
 Thus, they call for a move away from the concept of gender,
to refocus on the specific needs of women (Mannell 2012;
Cornwall, Harrison, and Whitehead 2007 & 2008).
On the other hand
Some argue that this would represent a step backwards
 Caroline Moser - there is a need for a shift away from
‘women’s issues’ and incorporate issues that relate to
women and men, girls and boys. ‘Such gender disparities
can then cross-cut with other types of diversity such as
those based on age, ethnicity, race, or sexual orientation’
(2012, 442).
 Focusing on gender allows for an examination of other
factors such as ethnicity, age, class and so on, how they
can interact and can generate new forms of inequality
(Dhamoon, 2011, Sandler and Rao 2012; Ndesamburo ,
Flynn, and French 2012; van Eerdewijk and Dubel 2012;
Derbyshire 2012; Chant and Sweetman 2012, Unterhalter,
2012).
Pathway to progress
Broadening the research agenda:
 Moser 2012: Appropriate quantitative and qualitative
indicators to assess progress in GM to include 2
components
 Implementation: measured in terms both of the integration of
women’s and men’s concerns throughout the development process
and in terms of specific activities aimed at empowering women.
 Outputs and impacts: measured in terms of equality and
empowerment of women; impact and change for men
 Unterhalter 2012: move beyond headcounting towards
deeper examinations of norms, beliefs, and socially
constructed challenges and opportunities for social change
through integration of the ‘intersectionality’ approach to
GBR

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Broadening the focus of practice
 Greater consideration of gender dynamics within the
household and the personal / local drivers of
inequality (of access, of opportunity, of resources
and so on)
 Targeted action to reduce / remove the role of violence as
a method of social control
 Increased consideration of the gendered division of labour
in non-market based productive activities.
 Access to land; energy, finance, and the Factors of

Development
 Broadening the focus of policy
 Shift towards the language of linkages rather than narrow
goals and targets to reflect and target the relational
dynamic of gender, rather than gender as a static category
Education: Beyond Access
 Recognizing the role of education
 Perpetuation of discrimination or platform for social
transformation; Reinforcing or challenging social norms?
 Critically examine if it aims towards ‘transformative’ agency
or ‘effective’ agency? (Kabeer 2005)
 Transformation would require
 Focusing on girls and boys, and different social identifiers
that may influence a child’s life chances
 Examining curriculum, assessments, and management to
enhance and support a child’s agency ;
 Gender study centres leading in 1) the delivery of teaching
across the disciplines and 2) continued research into the
constructions and relational dynamic of gender in local and
global contexts

‘Education [both teaching and research] is both a

systemic source of gender oppression and a means of
ending it’. (Enslin and Mary 2006)
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 Thank you.

All thoughts, comments,

and questions are
most welcome.

Susan.p.murphy@tcd.ie

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Appendix
GOAL 1 End poverty in all its forms everywhere
GOAL 2 End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and
promote sustainable agriculture
GOAL 3 Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
GOAL 4 Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning
opportunities for all
GOAL 5 Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
GOAL 6 Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all
GOAL 7 Ensure access to a!ordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
GOAL 8 Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and
productive
employment and decent work for all
GOAL 9 Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization
and
foster innovation
GOAL 10 Reduce inequality within and among countries
GOAL 11 Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
GOAL 12 Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
GOAL 13 Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts*
GOAL 14 Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for
sustainable
development
GOAL 15 Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems,
sustainably
manage forests, combat deserti"cation, and halt and reverse land degradation and
halt biodiversity loss
GOAL 16 Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide
access to justice for all and build e!ective, accountable and inclusive institutions at