1- Textbook: Gender Planning & Development Chapter 3 Practical & Strategic Needs

2- Rationale for Differentiating Gender Needs Rationale for Gender Planning is based on the fact that men & women have: Men & Women distinct levels of control over resources Men & women play different roles in society Men & women have different Needs, interests, and desires

3- Rationale for Gender Needs Women’s Practical Needs Women’s Strategic Needs Rationale for Gender Planning must consider women’s ethnicity, class, culture and religion

4- How the State can Control Women’s Strategic Needs State can effectively control women’s strategic needs through: –Family policy –Domestic violence –Reproductive rights –Legal status –Welfare policy

5- Identification of Gender Needs Planning for Third World low-income women must be based on women’s prioritized concerns Planning must differentiate between: –women’s interests/ false homogeneity based on biological similarity –gender interests/ depends on social position hence we must consider cultural, class, ethnicity & religion

6- Practical Gender Interests Primarily Involves Human Survival & Immediate Material Needs Strategic gender needs seek to change women’s socio-economic & political status whereby women achieve equality, equity & independence During the planning process interests defined as prioritized concerns that can be translated into planning needs

7- Gender Needs Gender Practical Needs for human survival such as: Provisions of water, healthcare & education Gender Strategic Needs concerned with: Freedom of choice Nature of relationship between men & women Women’s control over their bodies Access to credit, land rights, control over resources, domestic violence, equal wages, abolition of gendered division of labor (for instance, childcare not solely women’s responsibility)

8- State Interventions Historically top-down state interventions did not remove persistent cases of gender inequality, only when it has incorporated bottom-up cases of women’s organizations Therefore, strategic needs to overcome women’s subordination which women’s organizations struggle for need to be segregated from women’s practical needs Practical needs usually address women’s needs within their socially accepted role(s) in society It responds to immediate necessity & they are concerned with inadequate living conditions for survival: food, housing, water, these are required family rather than just women, yet are considered as gender practical needs for women As a result, we see state policies concerned with women’s needs within existing gender division of labor & roles as wives and mothers

9- State control over women’s strategic needs State mediates between family members, this requires addressing strategic gender needs State liberates or controls the lives of women through diverse socio-economic, political & legal policies concerning: –Marriage laws, rape, abortion, fertility & reproduction, wages, taxation & social security

10- Definitions of Intervention Policies Domestic Violence: family is seen as private domain and family matters belong to private spheres; hence, this gives license to men to treat women as they please behind closed doors Fertility & Reproductive Rights: the State is willing to intervene through policies to promote certain ideologies by using alternative incentives or drastic disincentives (India, China & Israel) Legal Status of Women in Marriage: State sees family as a fragile entity that needs support & a collapse of a family means a breakdown of society; hence, the State gives social & religious institutions liberty to control women’s affairs over the civil laws Benefits Rights & Welfare Policy: With the male considered as breadwinner who provides women with her needs, the State can deprive women of their rightful needs on the ground that husbands provide them those benefits

11- Goals for Strategic Needs Abolition of gender division of labor/sex- segregated occupations Alleviation of the burden of domestic labor & childcare Removal of institutionalized forms of discrimination in the rights to own land & property Access to credit Freedom of choice over childbearing Political equality Ending male violence & control over women

12- Meeting Practical Gender Planning Needs: Does It Provide a Starting Point for Meeting Strategic Gender Needs? State, civil society & men often subordinate and control women’s status, roles and positions, which constitute serious constraints in meeting women’s strategic needs; therefore, planners see practical gender needs as an entry point to achieve more fundamental changes This may be acceptable since women require integrative, cross-sectoral planning strategies

13- Integrative Cross-Sectoral Planning Strategies Gender Needs in Employment: since women’s fundamental need is to generate income, training becomes a priority, meeting this practical need. If this will help their economic independence, training will help meet their strategic needs rather than training to increase their domestic skills Gender Needs in Human Settlement/Housing: planning for housing makes it crucial to involve gender perspective. Modernization has resulted in drastic changes in housing designs irrespective of women’s needs. With zoning legislation that separate residential from business activities deprived women from productive work performed at home as informal sector activities Gender Needs and environmental planning: women depend on wood, water and soil for their daily survival. Utilizing environment as a productive resource, women use forestry as a life enhancing activity, while factory to them is a life-destroying activity; therefore, women resist urbanization when it affects their survival environment Gender Needs & Basic Services: implications in planning to meet gender needs –Planning childcare facility at women’s workplace meets their practical gender needs if it is located in the community that will encourage sharing responsibility & if it is located at father’s workplace that provides an opportunity for meeting practical and strategic gender needs –Transportation: Usually designed to meet men’s work schedules, this will deprive women from meeting their practical and strategic needs –Community Political Roles: the meeting times of those political activities are usually planned in times not conducive to women’s activity schedule