Me drawing the below poster
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Gender Equality Programs
BERDO has found that development projects are much more successful when they include the participation of both men and women in the community. Gender inequality is major issue in rural Malawi. Often the women are over burdened with work, and are not involved in finical decisions. Harvest time is particularly bad, as the men get a relatively large amount of cash that is not always spent in the best interests of whole household. Money is wasted on beer, cigarettes, entertainment, extra material relationships, or frivolous purchases. In order to curb these behaviours BERDO runs education sessions on gender equality practices. One thing they have found that works well is having community debates on gender issues. One thing they asked me to do was make some posters showing gender inequality. From what I have seen of BERDO's programs there are more women than men participating. I am not quite sure why this is, but it is something to question, as having little male participation is also not desirable.
Me drawing the below poster
Me drawing the below poster
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Team Malawi 2007
The Malawi team meets for the first time in Calgary during the EWB National Conference
3 comments:
Those are some really challenging issues that you raise. It's difficult to address the issue of gender inequality I think because everyone has a different idea of what gender equality means. Some people may see the role women play in the society as being equal but just different. Other people may not even see gender equality as a desirable thing. I think it's particularly difficult when comparing a situation in another country with the situation in Canada. Gender inequality still exists here but in some ways it's more subtle. When promoting equality in other places we have to think really critically about the what we have achieved here in terms of gender equality and perhaps what the consequences have been and we need to ask if the path we have taken is really the best path to achieve equality. And then on top of that are the steps we took even practical in a different context? I remember when I was in Ghana getting very frustrated when it came to discussions about gender equality and women in general. There were comments that some of my coworkers made that I took great offense at as to me they seemed to be objectifying women. To them, however, they seemed like either harmless jokes or plain honest factual statements. Some of these people considered themselves to be promoters of gender equality too but their idea of what that meant was different from mine. It really forced me to question my preconceptions and assumptions and start asking myself what gender equality actually means. I still haven't figured it out.
elisa, Do you think there were men in Ghana who were promoting and supporting gender equality? what did they see as equality in terms of roles and opportunities?
I would say that "harmless jokes or plain honest factual statements" are a big part of gender inequality in Canada. Did you feel comfortable discussing these statements with your coworkers in ghana at all? In canada I think many people would have a very hard time discussing inappropriate comments at work openly. So I am also wondering if the steps we have taken have been appropriate.
You bring up some great points. Gender issues are very complicated. Other volunteers in Malawi have experienced more issues with it than I have. I see more what BERDO is trying to do about it rather than the actually problems themselves. Other volunteers have told me that women having less decision making power, infidelity of husbands, women being over burdened with work, and violence towards women are all very real issues in their communities.
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