Complementing Gender Analysis Methods

Abstract

The existing gender analysis frameworks start with a premise that men and women are equal and should be treated equally. These frameworks give emphasis on equal distribution of resources between men and women and believe that this will bring equality which is not always true. Despite equal distribution of resources, women tend to suffer and experience discrimination in many areas of their lives such as the power to control resources within social relationships, and the need for emotional security and reproductive rights within interpersonal relationships. These frameworks believe that patriarchy as an institution plays an important role in women's oppression, exploitation, and it is a barrier in their empowerment and rights. Thus, some think that by ensuring equal distribution of resources and empowering women economically, institutions like patriarchy can be challenged. These frameworks are based on proposed equality principle which puts men and women in competing roles. Thus, the real equality will never be achieved. Contrary to the existing gender analysis frameworks, the Complementing Gender Analysis framework proposed by the author provides a new approach toward gender analysis which not only recognizes the role of economic empowerment and equal distribution of resources but suggests to incorporate the concept and role of social capital, equity, and doing gender in gender analysis which is based on perceived equity principle, putting men and women in complementing roles that may lead to equality. In this article the author reviews the mainstream gender theories in development from the viewpoint of the complementary roles of gender. This alternative view is argued based on existing literature and an anecdote of observations made by the author. While criticizing the equality theory, the author offers equity theory in resolving the gender conflict by using the concept of social and psychological capital.

Keywords::

• Gender
• equality
• equity
• framework
• analysis
• development
• feminism

Acknowledgments

This article was written during the author's stay at Indian Institute of Advanced Study (IIAS), Shimla as a Guest Fellow (May–July, 2013). The author is thankful to Amit Ranjan Basu, Pramil Kumar Panda, and IIAS fellows for their comments on this manuscript.

Notes

^1. Social and cultural roles assigned and adopted by men and women. In other words, “gender” conveys what individuals would conceive of their roles as males and females, roles that are largely sanctioned and ascribed by society (Raju & Lahiri-Dutt, 2011). Gender refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women.

^2. Frameworks are the broad conceptual structures that attempt to pull together a set of ideas about how a change intervention should be tracked and how its effects should be measured or assessed.

^3. Although the Social Relations Framework accepts the “interconnectedness” of men's and women's roles, it misses to incorporate concept and role of social capital.

^4. Roles or tasks those are monetarily reimbursed.

^5. Roles or tasks that are associated with child rearing/raising and care taking of the home (e.g., cooking/cleaning).

^6. Role and work that supports collective consumption and maintenance of community resources (e.g., local government, irrigation system management, and education, etc.).

^7. Social and cultural capital arises from relationships between individuals, families, groups, or communities that provide access to valuable benefits and/or resources.

^8. Development is a process of bringing positive change and wellbeing in one's life.

^9. Although there is no written evidence in feminist literature, it is prominently argued by the feminist scholars that men and women are equal. They may deny this statement but this very fact is the basis of equal demand and treatment.

^10. Nirantar Qualitative Study of SHGs and Empowerment, First Edition, February, 2007. Available at http://www.nirantar.net/docs/SHG_%20qual_%20eng.pdf

^11. This is just a fact coming out of the study. This should not lead to the argument that because of this woman should not work.

^12. Failure to acknowledge or account for historical variations in gender relations.

^13. Failure to recognize cultural variations in relations between women and men, and that relations between women and men are the same the world over.

^14. According to Warren Farrell, a woman calls it love when a man is a good provider and protector. He calls it love if she is beautiful and takes care of the home and the children. Love means a division of labor and that division of labor leads to a division of different male and female interests. Love can mean common interests, common values. Love's definition therefore is in transition.

^15. Financial and physical resources.

^16. Here, social capital means social resources derived from social interactions such as love, trust, and mutual respect and by extension to it, the concepts of norms, values, and networks which influence human relations and social interactions (see the works of Putnam et al., 1993; Coleman, 1988; Fukuyama, 1995; Bourdieu, 1986).

^17. According to West and Zimmerman (1987), “Doing gender involves a complex of socially guided perceptual, interactional, and micro-political activities that cast particular pursuits as expressions of masculine and feminine natures”.

^18. In terms of process of conception and birth.

^19. It may appear that this statement (according to available feminist literature and theories) is extremely narrow, heteronormative, and represents a traditional perspective, but in reality, it is not.

^20. Gender equity is not necessarily achieved by guaranteeing men and women equal rights through established laws, or dealing with groups as a collective entity (Gotschi, Njuki, & Delve, 2008).

^21.Gender equity refers to fairness and justice in the distribution of responsibilities and benefits between men and women whereas gender equality refers to the absence of discrimination on the basis of a person's sex in opportunities, the allocation of resources or benefits, or in access to services. Thus, gender equity should be the first step toward the goal of gender equality.

^22.Psychological capital refers to the collection of values, norms, perceptions, cognitive elements, and affective or emotional factors embedded in a person that can be expected to influence happiness and earnings. Psychological capital also includes an individual's inner feelings such as love, trust, and belief.

^23. In general understanding, feminism is a set of social (and political) movements dedicated to ending the subordination of women (Jaggar, 1994). Here, it is important to understand that feminism as an ideology was developed in the West and there is no Indian feminism which is important because of political, social, and cultural differences between India and the West. Although India has very old history of feminism in literature and epics, it was not further developed. For example, in the Mahabharata, when the Pandavas lost Draupdi in Choupar (type of game/gamble in which you put something which you have to lose, if you are defeated in the game), Draupdi questioned Pandavas that how they put her for gamble without consulting her.