Acknowledging Reality, Fostering Change

“Women value family and take care of the home. You can best find them at church. Men value money and spend their time at work and with their friends. You can best find them at local bars and videoclubs.”

Stereotypes are ambivalent – we need them to cope with the complexity of life, they help us organize the many impressions our brains receive and direct our behavior accordingly, but they are also an obstacle to change and can even justify harmful acts. At a recent gender mainstreaming training, I experienced the challenge of working with stereotypes. Yes, we want to challenge gender stereotypes, especially those that violate women’s rights and limit their participation in decision-making. At the same time, in order for civil society organizations to mainstream their programs and ensure that women and men can and will participate, they need to consider where women and men are, what they do, when they have time, what their interests are etc. These discussions often lead back to gender stereotypes. Women get up early to heat up the water for their husbands to bath, prepare breakfast, and get the kids ready for school, before being able to go to work themselves. Similarly, in the evening, they prepare dinner, do laundry, help the kids with homework and get them ready for bed. While men might thus have time to come to community forums after work, women will most likely be busy at home and not come. Knowing these typical gender roles and activities helps CSOs schedule their activities in ways that are more gender-sensitive. At the same time, the discussion about gender roles reinforces stereotypes among the paticipants. “What did you learn today?” “We learned that women take care of the home and the children.” “We discussed that many women in our communities take care of the home and the children, right? So what does that mean for your programs?” It is a balancing act to talk about stereotypes and show the value of considering the roles that most men and women have, without sending the wrong message that these roles are set in stone and cannot or do not need to change.

Similarly, a recent training for radio stations provided them with skills in audience research so that they can be sustainable also when donors slowly withdraw from the country. When should the stations best advertise what for whom? Among the most successful ads in sub-Sahara African countries in transition appear to be ads for infant formula at times of the day when most women listen to the radio, and ads for liquor when wealthy (or aspiring-to-be-wealthy) men listen. Do we want to encourage more use of infant formula instead of breastfeeding? No. Do we want to encourage those with resources in a post-conflict and overall very poor country to spend them on liquor? No. Do we want the radio stations to become profitable so the media landscape won’t fall apart and remain diverse when donors withdraw? Yes. Again, it is a balancing act between acknowledging reality and fostering change.

Aids in this balancing act are research (so that we consider gender roles in our programming based on empirical data rather than mere stereotypes) and an encouragement to critically reflect on and cautiously articulate the findings (this is what the reality looks like but it does not mean that this is how it should or will always look like). Most of all, however, it is creative thinking: Point A is reality, point B is what we hope for – how can we move from the former to the latter in ways that are most beneficial, sensitive and ethical? Point A is fixed and it is not helpful to ignore it but the path we take to point B and the means to get there are our choice and open for creative solutions.