1. The Interface of Gender and Culture
presentation to the participants of the UNESCO gender training Workshop
UNESCO Bangkok, March 2003
This slide show is developed as a discussion tool for UNESCO Bangkok staff and for gender focal points to use with their country, cluster and UNESCO National Commissions. It can be used in several ways: as a slide show in its entirety to spur discussion on the interface of culture and gender; in part; or simply to focus thinking and to guide dialogue with partners.
Hopefully, the content and strategies in this slide show will assist the UNESCO team in engaging national governments and stakeholders in discussing and mainstreaming gender. The first slides may be appropriate as a slide presentation with country governments or partners but should be enriched with country-specific information wherever possible. Examples: 1) researching which international conventions and agreements on gender equality the specific partner country has signed/ratified, the degree of implementation etc. 2) exploring whether there is a national gender policy/strategy or other national gender commitments that UNESCO programming should help implement. Where there is no national or ministry-specific gender strategy, there is a role for UNESCO to encourage the development of such. 3) identifying country- or culture-specific changes in gender roles and key forces that intersect with gender).
When UNESCO staff embark on country-specific work, the ‘entry points’ in slides may be useful. However, they should not be used ‘as is’. It is necessary to learn the in-country reality, then select appropriate entry points.

2. The Interface of Gender and Culture
Culture is… the whole complex of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features that characterize a society or a social group. It includes not only arts and letters, but also modes of life, the fundamental rights of the human being, value systems, traditions and beliefs.”
World Conference on Cultural Policies 1982
Request to the Culture Section of UNESCO to explore if there is another definition of culture that is more concise but is equally rich in content.
Also suggested is that a diagram of culture be inserted which has human beings (M/F) at the center.

3. The Interface of Gender and Culture
Cultures
Are products of people and how they interact, place, politics and history.
Respond to people’s changing reality.

4. Culture and tradition can:
The Interface of Gender and Culture
Culture and tradition can:
enable and/or obstruct
oppress and/or liberate
empower and/or disempower
Examples:
Obstructing factor: belief that girls do not need education; early marriage can prevent girls from completing their education.
Enabling factor: faith-based scriptures or holy books that call for the education of all or for equal and fair treatment of all people.
Oppressing factor: tradition of wife-beating or female genital mutilation.
Liberating factor: value of traditional knowledge related to herbal medicine by both men and women.
Empowering factor: significant role of women and men in rituals and celebrations; enlightened male and female elders can be mentors and facilitators of learning.
Disempowering factor: Upon the husband’s death, the removal of status, identity, belonging and livelihood support for women in some cultures. Dowry deaths – women being burned or murdered so their husbands can marry again and his family to get another dowry.

5. Cultures change to survive
The Interface of Gender and Culture
Cultures change to survive
Cultures are characterized by ongoing value judgements about what to keep, what to let go and what to add.
At times, people confirm and reinforce cultural norms. At times, they resist or challenge them. Education equips people to make choices and take action on them.
Cultural survival is based on this resiliance and adaptation.

6. The Interface of Gender and Culture
“People are influenced and formed by their cultural environments. At the same time, they influence and build the cultures around them, changing them as they resist, and reinforcing and recreating them as they conform.”
Susie Jolly, Gender and Cultural Change, Bridge 2002.

7. The Interface of Gender and Culture
The dynamic of gender
Our families, our communities and dynamics within our cultures determine what men and women do.
Men and women are expected to have certain characteristics, aptitudes and behaviors.
We are born into environments in which these gender roles exist. We learn them.

8. Culture & Gender Intersect
The Interface of Gender and Culture
Culture & Gender Intersect
Culture is dynamic. Cultures survive by responding to changing realities.
Gender roles are also dynamic. They can and do change.
Evolving gender roles are integral to the continuing evolution that each culture undergoes to survive.

9. Gender change: why is it resisted?
The Interface of Gender and Culture
Gender change: why is it resisted?
Gender roles shape daily life. So, gender change can affect a lot of people.
Gender change weaves through, and has impact on, the power dynamics within class, caste, race, religion etc.
The comfort zone created by an individual’s or a group’s identity may be threatened.
Cultures have power structures that favour a ‘status quo’ built on gender bias.

10. Gender progressdespite resistance
The Interface of Gender and Culture
Gender progressdespite resistance
Some individuals have the vision, strength and courage to stop conforming: to do something outside the stereotyped roles of men or women in their local environment.
They mobilize allies in their own environments.
Some are catalysts for major movements – in the tradition of Gandhi.
Gandhi wove homespun cloth and encouraged all women and men in India to do so. He encouraged men and women to take part in public campaigns of peaceful non-cooperation against oppression. These were major challenges to existing gender roles.

11. Gender change can be place-specific
The Interface of Gender and Culture
Gender change can be place-specific
Reinterpreting purdah lets Bangladeshi women work in garment factories
People stop foot binding in China
The first women become bus drivers in Papua New Guinea
These are examples of country-specific references. Examples should be researched for the specific country in question.

12. Gender change can be global
The Interface of Gender and Culture
Gender change can be global
More men are taking on domestic and child care responsibilities
More women are taking on public and leadership roles.
Individual men, often couples, make the decision that men will do more of the domestic work or child care. Supporting this decision today in a number of developed economies is the entitlement to paternity leave. Paternity leave signals a growing societal acceptance and approval of men taking on more childcare and domestic tasks. There can be many different triggers for men doing more in the domestic sphere. Among the catalysts of this change in gender roles: changes in the local job market, differing physical or mental abilities of the parents, degree of assistance from extended family etc.
Individual women, often with the endorsement and support of family members, become leaders and take on public roles. Government is often a catalyst, such as in India and Pakistan where a percentage of elected seats are reserved for women. NGOs and faith-based groups that build the leadership capacity of women, advocacy in the news media and emergencies can trigger women becoming public leaders. The catalysts for this gender change are context-specific even though the trend is global.

13. Change gives options Triggers of cultural change bring gender change.
The Interface of Gender and Culture
Change gives options
Triggers of cultural change bring gender change.
Without gender analysis, the rights and well-being of the disadvantaged sex, or disadvantaged sub-groups of males or females, can be neglected. Gender disparities can be deepened.
Action based on gender analysis can create openings to help the disadvantaged. This can bring more gender equality within diversity.

14. Culture & gender are impacted by:
The Interface of Gender and Culture
Culture & gender are impacted by:
Globalization
ICT and other new technology
Change in the labor market or economy
Environmental change
Armed and political conflict
Development projects
Globalization: (see ICT and labor market examples below)
ICT and other new technology: risk of a gender ‘digital divide’ where the gap between women and men is entrenched or increased. This will happen if care is not taken to provide ICT training and resources equally to women and men. Provision of cell-phones to poor Bangladeshi women is creating successful female entrepreneurs in rural areas. They charge modest cost-recovery fees to users. The introduction of cell phones and affordable charges in rural communities has allowed many isolated women a vital form of communication that they did not have before.
Labor market change: introduction of factory looms in Indonesia (Lombok) has created factory jobs primarily for men. Women who traditionally were weavers now have less market for their hand weavings. The factory price also puts a ceiling on what most buyers will pay. The result is to undermine women weavers’ ability to earn a subsistence living using their weaving skills.
Environmental change: deforestation, population increase and polluted surface water force women in many developing countries to walk further and further for safe, drinkable water for their families. In northern Ghana, some women spend so many hours transporting water, that they are physically exhausted and do not have time to perform other traditional tasks. One result is that some men are using their bicycles to transport water for family needs. Other families have acquired bikes without high crossbars (not deemed appropriate for modest Moslem women to use) which some women are allowed to use to fetch water.
Armed and political conflict: military rape of women and girls; Maoists in Nepal kidnapping young boys and threatening to harm their families if they do not join them as fighters.
Development projects: some water projects are training women as well as men for the first time, to do routine pump repairs and to be decision-makers in their village water committees. In some societies, these are new and empowering roles for women.

15. UNESCO’s focus Capacity building Networking Advocacy
Facilitating intersectoral approaches

16. What is UNESCO’s role? Support government in complying with CEDAW.
The Interface of Gender and Culture
What is UNESCO’s role?
Support government in complying with CEDAW.
CEDAW requires states to modify socio- cultural attitudes & practices that disadvantage women.
Support government in fulfilling its commitment to the Platform for Action.
PFA makes governments responsible for promoting gender equality.
Contribute to human development.
This includes the impact on culture & on gender equality
CEDAW – The Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women.
Platform for Action – A rights-driven agenda for women’s empowerment and gender equality adopted widely by national governments across the globe. The PFA is the product of the global women’s conference in Beijing, held in 1995 at the end of the decade for women.

17. Can we be passive? No Gender equality is a human right.
The Interface of Gender and Culture
Can we be passive? No
Gender equality is a human right.
Advancing gender equality is a UN and a global commitment.
The ‘do nothing’ option is not responsible. Any development activity that ignores the gender dynamics will unwittingly either change things (for better or worse) or sanction and reinforce the status quo.
There is a need for countries to be role models of good gender practice: applying gender analysis to ensure women and men participate and benefit fully.

18. The challenge for UNESCO staff
The Interface of Gender and Culture
The challenge for UNESCO staff
UNESCO is an ‘on-invitation’ partner.
Each intervention must be responsive and contribute to a culture of peace and development in which women and men are equal partners and equal beneficiaries.

19. Who or what should guide us?
The Interface of Gender and Culture
Who or what should guide us?
Local change agents. Gender equality advances in step with the will and the courage of the local people.
In context-specific gender analysis. Each culture has its own gender issues.
Local reality must always drive gender equality. Issues and realities are different in each environment. No country or culture has achieved full gender equality. In USA, as an example, there has been much gender progress. However, USA women lead the world in eating disorders (anorexia & bulimia). These are rooted in women’s poor self image and their driven desire to have what they perceive the society regards as a ‘perfect body’.

20. What we do not do: Condemn a culture or a society.
The Interface of Gender and Culture
What we do not do:
Condemn a culture or a society.
Impose outside judgements.
Be silenced by leaders who dismiss gender equality.
Hesitate to contact UNESCO’s gender team or the gender focal points within national governments. Seek their strategic input.
No culture, people or religious group should be condemned. However, UNESCO staff and resources should be catalysts for people identifying and addressing discriminatory customs or practices within their own culture that disadvantage or devalue individuals or groups. These initiatives should be based on a comprehensive situational analysis that includes gender analysis.
Some stakeholders or partners may refuse to seriously discuss gender issues or act to reduce gender disparities. This situation calls for UNESCO team members to use their skills, diplomacy and advocacy to engage these stakeholders in gender dialogue. Dialogue is the critical first step on the path to action or change.
Change is driven by people seeing the ‘benefit’ in doing things differently. Benefits come in many shapes and forms. The starting point for UNESCO is human rights. Women and men have equal human rights including the right to education and to live within a culture of peace. Gender analysis is used to document the harm or injury that results from the gender disparity linked with other marginalizing forces. Gender analysis should also shed light on what change is needed and the benefits of this change to individuals, families, communities and society. Documenting and advocating the potential benefits of positive gender change is fundamental to UNESCO’s leadership. An example is the UNESCO practice of documenting and advocating the benefit of women’s literacy and girls’ education.
Identify as many benefits as possible for doing gender-responsive work. These vary by context and need to be identified in gender analysis. Examples: healthier families(M/F), greater emergency response(M/F), more coping skills in families (M/F), greater ability of both women and men to contribute to family income etc., greater ability of both mother and father to help with their children’s school work.
Some governments do not have gender focal points in UNESCO partner ministries. In this case, it may be especially useful to connect with country-specific civil and private sector gender specialists.

21. What we do - entry points
The Interface of Gender and Culture
Learn as much as we can about the cultures in the countries in which we work. Explore the roles and realities of women and men within and between these cultural groups.
Discuss the government’s gender policy and commitments with key stakeholders. Do so prior to committing programming funds.
Introduce a simple gender tool, or better, collectively create one with key stakeholders. Use this to build gender indicators/results into each project & activity.
Create space for discussion of gender & culture issues.

22. What we do - entry points cont’d
The Interface of Gender and Culture
What we do - entry points cont’d
Ensure those often silent are heard.
Include the government’s gender machinery.
Support local change agents & gender advocates.
Ensure discussion is based on fact, not assumption. Fund gender analysis.

23. What we do - entry points cont’d
The Interface of Gender and Culture
What we do - entry points cont’d
Use gender analysis to identify benefits** that will result from the project being gender-responsive.
Facilitate buy-in from leaders.
Focus on elements that oppress and seek local solutions.
Don’t dismiss the existing traditions but facilitate local stakeholders to accommodate positive gender change within their culture.
**See notes for slide #20. Benefits will vary from context to context. These need to be identified through a comprehensive gender analysis. One of the benefits of gender analysis is making evidence-based benefits visible.

24. “We must hold the past sacred, but the future more so.”
The Interface of Gender and Culture
“We must hold the past sacred, but the future more so.”
Ngoni Makivaza, Development with an African Face: Africa’s Perspectives & Challenges to the Centre, 1998.