Gender Equity and Diversity Workshop Report
May 12 – 14, 2008
Care International in Afghanistan
Facilitator:
Madhuri Narayanan
Senior Advisor, Gender Equity and Diversity, CARE USA
Co facilitator and translation support:
Abdul Raouf Nazhand
Human Resources Manager, CARE Afghanistan
Additional Support:
Milly Kayango, Senior Technical Advisor for Maternal Health, CARE USA
Jamie Terzi, Assistant Country Director, CARE Afghanistan
CARE Afghanistan Training Department
1. Why this GED workshop? What are the objectives?
The workshop started with opening remarks from the Country Director of CARE in Afghanistan that reinforced the importance of gender equity and diversity (GED) for achieving CARE’s mission of ending poverty and social injustice. Further, GED is one of the Strategic directions in the current strategic plan for CARE Afghanistan. This workshop is seen as the first in a series of workshops to build a basic common understanding among all staff about what is GED and how we could promote it in our programming and in how we work within the organization. The specific objectives of the workshop were:
- Strengthen awareness of basic concepts of gender and diversity and why it is important to CARE
- Exploring how our differences and similarities impact our organizational life
- Learning new skills and making personal and collective commitments to function differently to promote gender equity and diversity
The workshop agenda is provided in as Annex 1. The workshop was attended by 48 participants representing the Kabul and field offices. (Annex 2)
2. What is diversity? What is the diversity in CARE? What is the link between gender and diversity?
As part of introduction of the participants and the topic, each one was asked to approach two other participants who they perceived as being different from themselves and talk about the differences. This resulted in new knowledge of difference that existed in the group and the diversity factors identified through this exercise are provided in Box 1:
This exercise was followed by an activity to further explore the diversity of identity and meaning. Through this group could visually see the extent of presence and absence of certain diversity in the group. Some of key observations were that:
Each one of us carry multiple identities and have membership to multiple groups, some which forms the majority in CARE or in Afghanistan and others which place you in a minority. For example all the participants worked for CARE and the majority of the group were from Afghanistan, worked in Programs, followed Islam, were Pashtuns and right-handed. In contrast no one had English as their native language, only two men were single. The participants were encouraged to think about what it means in terms of who is included in CARE Afghanistan and whether this represents the diversity that exists in Afghanistan; how we experience and feel when we are part of the majority or minority; whether being in majority always means being in the dominant group.
The next activity explored the diversity of thoughts and worldviews using three topics – time, communication and views about an initiative to ban an Indian Soap Opera in Afghanistan because of its negative impact on religious values and culture. This activity demonstrated the diversity that exists beyond what is visual and tangible but equally defines who we are and what our attitudes and beliefs are that shapes our behaviors and relationships. This also demonstrated that all women and men are not homogenous in their backgrounds, experiences, and views.
Therefore, while gender is a factor of diversity that cuts across all other diversity factors, there is diversity within gender that needs to be recognized and taken into consideration.
Box 2 – Gender and Diversity
3. Why is GED important to CARE?
Finally, it was highlighted that diversity and differences are a given in any context and despite all the differences all of us in CARE work towards the achievement of a common vision and mission. It is important for us understand our diversity and differences and find ways of using it as a positive force to advance our vision.
· We need a variety of perspectives to inform relevant and responsible choices about our program design and management
· Success depends on our ability to learn and innovate
· To increase capacity within the communities, we need to build partnerships with people who have similarities and differences
Social Justice, Tolerance, Dignity and Security are in the center of CARE International vision and enshrined in the six programming principles. The objective of Gender Equity and Diversity Initiative is to support the critical processes for achieving that vision and is specifically aimed at holding ourselves accountable to these principles in all that we do.
4. What do we mean by the different commonly used terms?
In CARE, different terms such as gender, gender equity, gender equality, diversity, sexual and gender based violence (SGBV) and sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) are used widely but not all staff have a common understanding of what these terms mean. In an interactive session different statements about men and women (Annex 3) were discussed to define the terms ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ and related concepts. (Annex 4). Further, by discussing some scenarios (Annex 5 and Annex 6), we clarified the terms sexual harassment, sexual exploitation and abuse and sexual and gender based violence and how hey relate to each other.
5. How do we experience the diversity of power? How can we be better at understanding the experiences of subordinate group memberships?
The facilitator shared some key elements of dominant and subordinate group memberships and why it is an important part of our exploration of diversity of power.
Then participants were given an opportunity to share their personal experiences of subordination and practice the skills of seeking and understanding others’ experiences without judging, interrupting or advising. The exercise helped participants to understand the power dynamics between dominant and subordinate group membership and the effects these dynamics have on relationships. It also provided an opportunity for participants to give voice to their subordinate group membership experiences in a safe space.
1. This dynamic occurs all over the world;
2. It is not directly related to numerical majority (e.g. South African apartheid where whites were clearly in the minority yet held power);
3. We all have some experience with both dominant and subordinate group membership because of our multiple identities.
It is important to remember what we see of each other in the workplace is only behaviors and appearances and there is a lot of feelings and emotions hidden under the surface that affects our interactions and relationships. It was highlighted that recognizing these differences in experience and mindsets can deepen our understanding of power dynamics and its impact on relationships. Simple steps such as listening, seeking and observing can be powerful in deepening one’s ability to find solutions, and opportunities to strengthen relationships. We each have a role to challenge and shift this dynamic that exists in society as we seek to advance diversity.
6. Why Gender Equality? What are benefits?
The participants worked in small groups to complete the gender equality statements assigned to them and discuss the benefits of such a gender equal world for men, women, children and the wider society. The summary of the exercise outputs are presented below:
IF MEN SHARED SOME OF THE HOUSEHOLD AND CHILD CARE RESPONSIBILITIES THEN,
· Men will feel a sense of responsibility at home; Will come closer to their children and can help them in studies and moral character building; Will decrease the workload on women; The women will be able to think for more betterment of their home and children; The children will grow up with love and will acquire a balanced character and be better citizens to the society
IF WOMEN ENJOY THE FREEDOM TO MOVE OUTSIDE HOME WITHOUT FEAR THEN,
· Women will increase their knowledge; Will have self confidence; Will have more experience; Will take part in decision making; Will support her husband economically; Will have the capacity to manage her family environment with the good planning; Will share all big responsibilities with her husband; Will be a good advisor for her husband; Provide better health and education facilities for her children; Prepare better family environment for her children; Have a good part in fulfilling their children’s wishes; Will contribute to the society and development process as an active unit of change
IF WOMEN STOPPED DYING DURING CHILD BIRTH THEN,
· Since women take care of household responsibilities especially child care, men’s responsibilities increases when their wives die and this will stop; More chances of living longer helps them realize their dreams; Mothers play instrumental role in development of children’s attitudes, behaviors and personality and more children will enjoy their mothers’ care; More women will contribute to the formation of an ideal society
IF WOMENS’ OPINIONS AND VIEWS ARE EQUALLY VALUED THEN,
· Men and women will have equal roles and responsibilities; Women will enjoy their roles and rights; Children will be raised well and well mannered in the society; Society will move and grow towards less war and focus more on development
IF GIRLS ARE NOT FORCED TO MARRY AT A VERY YOUNG AGE THEN,
· Girls will get good education and good health; There will be good mutual understanding with partners after marriage; Children, both boys and girls will enjoy freedom of choice; There will be gender equity
IF MEN ARE ALLOWED TO EXPRESS THEIR EMOTIONS (CRY) THEN,
· Women will know their men better than before; Men will attract sympathy of women; Men will feel relief and less pressured; There will be less violence by men; Children may feel afraid and disappointed
IF MEN WERE LESS BURDENED AS PRIMARY BREAD WINNERS FOR THE FAMILY THEN,
· Mothers attention will get less on children; Men will not be able to live more happily; Since women work at home they have the responsibilities to keep children then they are being used fairly; Since men have more ability then women, the number of workers will be decrease and society will become weak
IF A GIRL CHILD GOT EQUAL HEALTH CARE AND NUTRITION THEN,
· Father will feel relax and happy for child; Being healthy will lead to playing perfect role in society; Mother will get more advantage for having healthy child who will help her in house work; Girls will think have equal rights with male members of family; Society will have healthy children with the low rate of malnutrition children
IF WOMEN HAVE EQUAL REPRESENTAITON IN PARLIAMENT THEN,
· They will make good decisions; Responsibilities will be divided equally between male and female all people will be aware of difficulty of women; Children will have bright future, if female and male know their responsibilities so equality will be implemented in society and society will develop without discrimination
IF WOMEN HAVE EQUAL SHARE IN PROPERTY THEN,
· Women will feel more responsibilities and power and take more interest in the economics; Women will enjoy a better status in the family and society; Men and women will get more respect; there will be an increase in awareness and decrease in poverty; Children will get more facilities; there will be further development
This exercise forced participants to unpack what we really mean when we say we want to promote gender equality and that a gender equal society will benefit not only women but men, children and society at large. However, the exercise also demonstrated that our social conditioning and definition of a “good” man is so deep-rooted that it is often difficult to think of the benefits of men not having the pressure to be the bread-winners or not to show emotions in public that may project them as vulnerable.
7. What are the privileges and pressures of being a man or a woman in Afghan society?
In order to deepen our understanding of the gender inequalities that exist in the society, Participants were asked to list the privileges and pressures of being a man or a woman in gender segregated small groups. Later participants from the other gender group were requested to review and add to the list of privileges and pressures. The full list generated by the groups is given as Annex 8. However, the important point to note is that both men and women enjoy privileges based on gender and also the pressures. However, in the current social construct of gender, men enjoy many more privileges as compared to women and women experience many more pressures as compared to men. It is in the interest of both men and women to work together to reduce the pressures and increase the privileges for all.
8. How to integrate gender in our programs and within the organization?
To facilitate participants’ application of some of the basic gender concepts in the programming and organizational situations, they were asked to work in small groups to discuss different case scenarios and identify the gender issues and recommend ways to address those. The five cases used and the small group outputs are provided in Annex 9. It would be important to continue such discussions and find ways to integrate gender perspective in all program and organizational activities.