Radar Charts: A Tool to Demonstrate Gendered Share of Resources

Abstract

Criticizing the conceptual categories and techniques used in existing statistics, most feminists argue that it does not depict the real picture and is biased towards powerful people in the society. Hence it is necessary to develop a gender sensitive and easily understandable presentation form, which reflects the needs and contributions of both women and men equally. This article develops a new quantitative model to measure gendered share of resources between women and men with the help of a radar chart. Further, the article shows the application of this model to measure the share of resources, using primary data collected from three communities in Kathmandu valley, Nepal. There are three main conclusions: (1) Men hold more resources than women and the position of men is quite similar in all the communities because they have a larger share of resources than women, whereas women’s position varies from one community to another. (2) Men have more access to and control over resources than women; and women have more access to resources than control over them. (3) Of the different resources, women have a greater share of economic than socio-cultural resources, and they have the least share of housing-related resources.