Preparing a message - part 2: gender, changing attitudes, international do's and don't's, local credibility...,

Rosemary Bechler — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 17:21:59 +0100

Contents
1. UN SCR 1325 needs to be better known and better understood
2. UN SCR 1325 needs to be better enforced
3. The participation/representation of women must go beyond numbers
4. Our expertise must extend beyond women to gender
5. How do you change attitudes in your society?
6. International aid and intervention – what not to do
7. We need local credibility
8. How democracy can be made to work
9. How to cope with vulnerability and combat victimisation
10.How to defend women’s human rights
11.Towards a ‘bloodless knowledge revolution’

4. Our expertise must extend beyond women to gender

Many bloggers were keen to shift the 1325 debate away from the concerns of women alone and towards a more profound understanding of gender equality, gender mainstreaming and gender hierarchies.

Lina Abifareh’s concern was that the women she encountered did not wish to be ‘extracted from their social realities’. They wanted to work with and alongside men. She saw this as a challenge for 1325 activists who too often liked to forget that men are an essential part of gender work. She cited one woman’s comment: “Men don't want to see women improve their lives. They think it is at their expense. No foreigner can come in and change this. If an organization comes to help men, this is better. First work and training, and then talk about change and women."

There was little disagreement about the need to encourage men to be active supporters of women’s rights and to work on gender relations. But different priorities were expressed. Mu Sochua was sympathetic to listening to those who fear change: ‘I think I went very strong on promoting women's space, when I was first minister of women's affairs and it was my deputy who told me, taught me to include men. And then it became easier as men who abuse their wives had less to fight against. They give up their space more easily when we explain that it is not a weakness but a sign of strength to allow their wives to have their own opinions’. But she is not keen to compromise ‘away our space in democracy because we need men… Democracy is never a free meal. It is not a fight between men and women – it is a fight to make sure that laws are used to protect men and women equally, rich and poor fairly, majority and minority justly.’

For some in the discussion, feminism helps both men and women, by ‘diluting the false patriarchal dichotomy, man/woman.’ For others, such as Farkhanda Chaudhry, speaking about the Muslim Women Talk project in the UK, women make a huge difference whether or not their work is recognized, or gender relations are challenged: ‘…the contribution of women in the creation of stronger communities is essential. Women's work needs to be recognised as valuable, like the cement used to build structures. This work may not always be recognised: it may be done in the background. Often we see women as the backbone to voluntary contributions: but men may front the initiative.’

But for others the right of women to be different and do things differently is what has to be defended, often from violence, and particularly in militarized societies where male aggression is the subject of adulation. Mu Sochua drew this conclusion from reading the discussion, ‘maybe women define democracy and peace very differently from men and that is the reason why women's agenda for peace rarely gets on the table.’

Galia Golan writes about how women in peace negotiations are more likely to be interested in individual well-being, inclusiveness, transparency – a win-win situation. Zainab, returning from monitoring the first free, multi-part elections in Liberia doesn’t mince her words, ‘Whenever I meet men politicians in Africa, I tell them Africa is in the mess in which it is because it has been run by men. They have destroyed our continent.’

Judith Butler’s essay, ‘On being Beside Oneself’ triggered a discussion about the violence against body and mind suffered by people ‘gendered and sexualized outside the mainstream’ in so many societies. This touched on the emancipation a closer encounter with diversity could afford all of us. Cindy Weber concludes, ‘the challenge is to make difference - in this case, the difference women make - something that is safe to imagine and to live.’

Sam Cook began to do the work of careful discrimination between terms which is crying out to be revisited in the attempt to understand, for example, sexual and gender based violence (SGBV): “Through research on sgbv in South Africa and Sierra Leone…it is clear that it is gender hierarchies and notions of masculinity and femininity which motivate and facilitate such violence… The Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development has defined gender-based violence to be any act “involving use of force/coercion with an intent of perpetuation/ promotion of hierarchical gender-relations in all social structures.” This focuses on the intended effect of gender-based violence as being the perpetuation of gender hierarchies. This is an important move but this too fails to include a sense of such violence exploiting and relying for its effectiveness on current gender roles and hierarchies – that is, being based on gender. So we need to look at more than masculinity and femininity but also at how these operate in a society in relation to each other in a particular power context.”

5. Let’s share knowledge about how to change attitudes in our respective societies:

Visaka notes that ‘we have to work very hard to change the attitudes of our respective societies – the main obstacle to the implementation of 1325.’ What really does make change possible in our societies? Bloggers have found that all sorts of different approaches work. Here are a few examples – please add approaches you think have been important in these blog pages.

- The cost benefit argument, ‘Peacemaking and building is complex. You need all the help you can get. Women are agents of positive change – you should support their work.’
- The Organizacion Feminina Popular is a women’s organization leading a non-violent resistance against violence in Colombia. Despite the assassination of its leader by paramilitaries, the group offers training for work, in healthcare and arts courses to 1,200 women in safe houses across the region
- Films like Hotel Rwanda take people’s stories away from them and sanitise them. Rwandan survivors of genocide need to tell their own stories face-to face to international visitors. This is particularly important when women survivors have to face those who raped them and killed their families coming back into their communities. We must ask ourselves how we can support these women.
- Activism on 1325 is a way of overcoming fear and escaping from the position of the marginalized other. Global solidarity across borders and barriers also give alternative support to activists.
- Women prisoners brutally detained under the Uruguayan dictatorship for up to ten years, kept sane through their solidarity network. Now they work for democracy more energetically than anyone else, because they remember this ‘black page’ in their country’s history.
- Amongst the diversity of views, we have women who do wish to develop resistance using the parameters of their understanding of Islam, while others, who come from a very secular view point wish to do so from their own particular stance. One challenge is how to build up a coalition which respects this diversity and values the strength of collaborative working to achieve good outcomes for all.

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open Democracy News Analysis - Preparing a message - part 2: gender, changing attitudes, international do's and don't's, local credibility..., - Comments

Preparing a message - part 2: gender, changing attitudes, international do's and don't's, local credibility...,