1. Gender Analysis Framework
Introduction
to the
Gender Analysis Framework .
The process of identifying gender inequalities and determining their programmatic and developmental implications is called Gender Analysis. Gender analysis identifies and examines the social constructions that influence the different identities, roles, and social, economic, and political relations between women and men. It helps us to understand the differential distribution of power and resources based on gender in different societies. Gender analysis reveals differences in men and women’s access to health service, information necessary for making decisions about healthcare. Gender analysis also helps us to understand the different constraints and opportunities that affect men’s and women’s health risks and capacity to seek appropriate quality care.

2. Contribution of Gender Analysis to Health Programs
For Groups and Individuals:
Risks and exposures
Occurrence, severity, and frequency of disease
Social and cultural responses to disease, sexuality, and reproduction
Access to health resources
Capacity to exercise rights
Gender analysis increases our understanding of differential magnitude in impact on women and men, and boys and girls of:
Health risks and exposures (stemming from both biological and social factors)
occurrence, severity, and frequency of disease
Social and cultural responses to disease, sexuality, and reproduction
Ask the audience if anyone can think of some examples of differences in these areas.

3. Contribution of Gender Analysis to Health Programs
For the Health System:
Responses of the health sector
Allocation and distribution of resources
Distribution of responsibilities and power among different categories of health workers
Impact of policies
Gender analysis can also reveal inequities in the health system with regard to:
Responses of the health sector the different needs, interests, and desires of women and men
Allocation and distribution of resources
Distribution of responsibilities and power among different categories of health workers
Impact of policies
By first identifying and then analyzing the source of gender inequities, program managers can more effectively address these factors and thereby make their programs more equitable and effective.

4. Two Fundamental Questions
How will gender relations affect the achievement of sustainable results?
How will proposed results affect the relative status of men and women?
The Automated Directive System (ADS), USAID’s regulations that guide program development, implementation, and evaluation, explains that in order to adequately address these two questions Strategic Objective Teams must take into account the different roles of men and women, as well as the relationship and balance between them and institutional structures that support them, and answer to fundamental questions:
How will gender relations affect the achievement of sustainable results?
How will proposed results affect the relative status of men and women?
When possible, gender concerns should be treated as an integral part of the broad range of technical analyses conducted in preparation of the strategic plan rather than as a separate issue. In order to answer these questions it is necessary to conduct a gender analysis of the particular cultural and social context in which you work. Gender experts have developed a number of analytical tools to guide you through the analysis. An illustrative list of tools is provided in the reference section of the Gender Integration Manual. There are some that are sector specific and others that can be used for different sectors.
Today, we will introduce you to gender analysis framework that can be used to guide planning for a more in-depth gender analysis. As we said earlier, the purpose is to help you identify what elements to include in a gender analysis. While it will not turn you into an instant gender expert, it will give you the necessary expertise to develop a thorough scope of work for a skilled professional to conduct a gender analysis, and to assess the quality of the final product.

5. Activity Domains for Gender Analysis
Access to Assets
Knowledge, Beliefs, and Perceptions
Practices and Participation
Space and Time
Legal Rights and Status
Power
More specifically, this framework facilitates the analysis of how gender relations operate in different domains of social life and development activities. It also helps to identify whether there are specific gender-based structural and institutional constraints that affect the relative status and opportunities open to men and women that can be addressed by development activities. In this framework, gender relations are analyzed across six domains to identify existing gender-based constraints. These six domains do not encompass the total range of human activity and there is some overlap among them, but they nevertheless provide a conceptual framework for addressing to the two questions posed by the ADS (listed above).
This framework should help USAID operating units and their partners to move beyond simply disaggregating process indicators by sex. It will move staff towards more accurately predicting the impact of development strategies and programs on the relative status of men and women as well as accounting for how well consideration of gender enhances the success of USAID programs.
The six domains that structure the gender analysis and identify gender-based constraints in this framework are:
Access
Knowledge, Beliefs, and Perceptions
Practices and Participation
Space and Time
Legal Rights and Status
Power

6. Access to Assets Access to: Resources Income Services Employment
The capacity to use the resources necessary to be a fully active and productive (socially, economically and politically) participant in society.
Access to:
Resources
Income
Services
Employment
Information
Benefits
Access
Access refers to being able to use the resources necessary to be a fully active and productive participant (socially, economically, and politically) in society. It includes access to resources, income, services, employment, information, and benefits.
Access to:
Resources
Income
Services
Employment
Information
Benefits
Can anyone think of an example of differential access?

7. Knowledge, Beliefs, and Perceptions
Types of Knowledge that men and women are privy to—Who knows what
Beliefs (ideology) that shape gender identities and behavior, and how men and women and boys and girls conduct their daily lives
Perceptions that guide how people interpret aspects of their lives differently depending on their gender identity.
Knowledge, Beliefs, and Perceptions
This domain refers to the culturally-mediated gender ideologies that shape beliefs about the qualities and life goals or aspirations appropriate to different gender categories. It involves understanding how people interpret aspects of their lives differently according to gender categories. Men and women may have access to different types of knowledge, have diverse beliefs, perceive situations differently, and conform to gender-specific norms. In many cultural systems, some knowledge may be proprietary to only one gender category and hidden from another, limiting peoples’ ability to participate in the full range of social experiences. This domain includes consideration of the different:
types of knowledge that men and women are privy to—who knows what;
beliefs (ideology) that shape gender identities and behavior, and how men and women and boys and girls conduct their daily lives; and
perceptions that guide how people interpret aspects of their lives differently depending on their gender identity.
What implications might differential knowledge, beliefs, or perceptions have for health programs?

8. Practices and Participation
Gender structures peoples’ behaviors and actions --what they do-- and the way they engage in Reproductive Health and HIV/AIDS (or other development) activities.
Participation in:
Activities
Meetings
Political Processes
Services
Training Courses
Practices and Participation
This domain refers to peoples’ behaviors and actions in life – what they actually do – and how this varies by gender. It encompasses not only current patterns of action, but also the way that people engage in development activities. It includes attending meetings, training courses, accepting or seeking out services, and other development activities. Participation can be both active and passive. Passive participants may be present in a room where a meeting is taking place, and therefore may be aware of information transmitted, but do not voice their opinions or play a leadership role. Active participation involves voicing opinions and playing an active role in the group process.
Gender structures peoples’ behaviors and actions --what they do-- and the way they engage in Reproductive Health and HIV/AIDS (or other development) activities.
Participation in:
Activities
Meetings
Political Processes
Services
Training Courses

9. PRACTICE PARTICIPATION
Here are some different examples of practices and participation. What do you see in the pictures?

10. Time and Space Gender affects how people use time:
Time Allocation
Time Availability
Division of labor
Gender affects where in the landscape people spend their time
Where women and men (girls and boys) work
Where women and men (boys and girls) socialize
Time and Space
Gender often structures both the availability and allocation of time as well as the space in which time is spent. This domain includes recognizing gender differences in the division of both productive and reproductive labor, identifying how time is spent and committed during the day, week, month, or year, and in different seasons, and determining how people contribute to the maintenance of the family, community, and society. The objective here is to determine how people in different gender categories spend their time and what implications their time commitments have for their respective availability for program activities. An important question to ask about time availability is whether it is flexible, negotiable, and fungible.
Gender affects how people use time:
Time Allocation
Time Availability
Division of labor
Gender affects where in the landscape people spend their time
Where women and men (girls and boys) work
Where women and men (boys and girls) socialize
How might a health program address women’s and men’s different use of time, and location?

11. T I M E
SPACE
What do these pictures suggest about gendered time and space?

12. Legal Rights and Status
Refers to how gender affects the way people are regarded and treated by both customary law and the formal legal code and judicial system.
Rights to:
Ownership and Inheritance
Legal Documents
identity cards
property titles
voter registration
Reproductive Choice
Representation
Due process
Legal Rights and Status
Analysis of this domain involves assessing how people in different gender categories are regarded and treated by both the customary and formal legal codes and judicial systems. It encompasses access to legal documentation such as identification cards, voter registration, and property titles as well as rights to inheritance, employment, redress of wrongs, and representation.
Rights to:
Ownership and Inheritance
Legal Documents
identity cards
property titles
voter registration
Reproductive Choice
Representation
Due process
Can you think of some customary legal constraints that would affect men’s or women’s health or access to healthcare?

13. Power
Gender norms and relations influence people’s ability to freely decide, influence, control, enforce, and to engage in collective actions.
To Exercise decisions about:
One’s body
Children
Affairs of the household, community, municipality,
and state
The use of individual economic
resources and income
Choice of employment
Voting, running for office, and legislating
Entering into legal contracts
Moving about and associating with others
Power
This sphere of social life pertains to the ability of people to decide, to influence, to control, and to enforce. It refers to the capacity to make decisions freely and to exercise power over ones body and within an individual’s household, community, municipality, and the state. This includes the capacity of adults to decide about the use of household and individual economic resources, income, and their choice of employment. It also encompasses the right to engage in collective action, including the determination of rights to and control over community and municipal resources. Finally, it includes the capacity to exercise one’s vote, run for office, be an active legislator, and to enter into legal contracts.
To Exercise decisions about:
One’s body
Children
Affairs of the household, community, municipality, and state
The use of individual economic resources and income
Choice of employment
Voting, running for office, and legislating
Entering into legal contracts
Moving about and associating with others
Are there any other domains of decision-making that are not included on this list, but may impact on health and well being?

14. Gender-based Constraints and Opportunities
Gender-based constraints are factors that inhibit men’s or women’s access to resources, behavior and participation, time use, mobility, rights, and exercise of power based on their gender identity.
Gender-based opportunities are structural and institutional factors that facilitate women’s and men’s equitable access to resources, behavior and participation, time use, mobility, rights, and exercise of power
Gender-based Constraints and Opportunities
Against this background information about how gender relations are expressed in these six domains, the next step towards strategic planning requires identifying gender-based constraints that might influence the achievement of sustainable results. Gender-based constraints are those barriers that limit or prohibit equal rights and equitable access to resources and opportunities. Similarly, analysis may also reveal gender-based opportunities for development.
Gender-based constraints are factors that inhibit men’s or women’s access to resources, behavior and participation, time use, mobility, rights, and exercise of power based on their gender identity.
Gender-based opportunities are structural and institutional factors that facilitate women’s and men’s equitable access to resources, behavior and participation, time use, mobility, rights, and exercise of power
To move from description to identification and analysis of gender-based constraints as well as opportunities, it is helpful to develop key questions for each of the six topical areas listed above.

15. STEP 1:DIRECTIONS
In Table 1 write down information you find in the case study on your assigned domain
Share your findings with other people at your table and decide on what is the most important information on gender for your assigned domain.
Together formulate 2-3 questions pertaining to information (within your assigned domain) that you need to know but do not find in the case study.
Step 1:Directions
We are going to hand out a case study and another handout with more information on each domain. The second handout has two tables. You will use the table 1 to do the first exercise.
You have about ten to fifteen minutes to read through the case study. Each table will be assigned a domain to analyze with regard to the information presented in the case study.
After reading through the case study, write down information you find in the case study on your assigned domain in the appropriate box in Table one of your handout.
Share your findings with other people at your table and decide on what is the most important information on gender for your assigned domain.
Together formulate 2-3 questions pertaining to information (within your assigned domain) that you might need in order to adequately take gender into consideration in a follow-on project. This is information that is not currently provided in the case study.

16. STEP 2 Directions:
Follow the directions under STEP 1 for your own project or one selected by one of your group mates
Take the information that you identified in Table 1 and try to analyze the implications of that information using the categories in Table 2.
Identify gender-based constraints and opportunities
Try to answer the ADS questions
Identify activities that may overcome the constraints or take advantage of the opportunities
Step 2 Directions
We are now going to apply the gender analysis framework to your own project, or one selected by your group. Write the objective of the project on the top of Table 1. Then go through the same process you went through with the case study, but this time analyze all six domains. After identifying all the relevant information that you know under each domain, formulate questions or list information that you don’t know but think is important. Remember to be selective. Not all possible information about gender is relevant to your project. Make some educated guesses about what you need to know.
After about half an hour, stop every one and say:
After filling out as much as you can, turn to Table 2. Can you identify some possible gender-based constraints or opportunities based on the information you analyzed that may affect the outcomes of your project or impact on the relative status of men and women?
Identify some possible activities or actions to overcome the constraints or to take advantage of the opportunities.
How will proposed results affect the relative status of men and women? What is the impact of the project on:
Access and control over resources by different individuals and groups?
Validation or challenges to different people’s knowledge, beliefs, and practices?
Different peoples’ interests and needs?
Participation of different individuals and groups?

17. Examples of Key Questions
Look on page 3 of your hand-out to guide your analysis of key gender-based constraints and opportunities.
You will find some Examples of Key Questions on page 3 of your handout.
How will gender relations affect the achievement of sustainable results?
Access:
Constraint: Does unequal access to project resources and services prevent the project from reaching its goals?
Opportunity of Facilitating Factor: Are there instances of equitable access with regard to certain types of resources that might provide a model for access to other resources?
Knowledge, Beliefs, and Perceptions:
Constraint: Are there gender-specific beliefs that will impede project outcomes? Opportunity or Facilitating Factor: Is there gender-specific knowledge that will facilitate decisions that are essential for reaching project goals?
Practices and Participation:
Constraint: Are people who are excluded based on their gender (even inadvertently) result in passive or active sabotage of project activities?
Opportunity or Facilitating Factor: Are there types of gender-specific leadership roles that might provide the basis for broader participation?
Space and Time:
Constraint: Are there gender-specific roles that prevent some people from participating in program activities because they work in a particular place?
Opportunity or Facilitating Factor: Does the gendered division of labor provide a useful framework for distributing project resources equitably and in a way that will be supportive of project objectives?
Legal Rights and Status:
Constraint: Do gender-discriminatory laws inhibit rights to property?
Opportunity or Facilitating Factor: Does a gender-neutral legal structure create an opportunity to push for gender equity in employment benefits or inheritance?
Power:
Constraint: Are people who are excluded from making decisions based on their gender likely to suffer adverse consequences from the decisions made by others?
Opportunity: Is it possible organize individuals who are excluded from making decisions based on their gender into groups or coalitions that may be able to negotiate for great decision-making power?
To process this part of the exercise, ask each group to comment on any surprises the may have uncovered or any difficulties that they encountered. Ask others if they had any similar discoveries and/or reactions. You can provide feedback back eliciting additional information or linking their findings to other experiences. You can also provide some ideas on how to deal with difficulties after asking other participants if they have any ideas about how to solve the problem.