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United Nations Fund for Women (UNIFEM)

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Research > Engendering; From a Social Point of View       
 

From a Social Point of View

  An Overview
 

Women are marginalized in decision making and leadership by a variety of processes that begin in infancy. In most societies, women lack experience of decision making and leadership in the public arena because girls, in contrast to boys, are socialized to play passive roles and given little opportunity to make decisions or develop leadership skills outside the family context. In most traditional societies girls are kept largely within the confines of the household and family where they are protected and taught to accept the decisions that others parents, teachers, brothers make on their behalf. As a result of this lack of experience in a public context, girls tend to the lack self-confidence and skills needed to function effectively in positions of formal leadership. An added handicap for many is their lack of capacity due to discrimination in access to education and training: in most countries, women have higher levels of illiteracy and fewer years of schooling than men.

Even women when women succeed in gaining education and enter the decision-making mainstream, they are often marginalized by an institutional setting that reflects men's needs and situation and ignores women's different needs and experience. Modern work patterns and practices are designed for men who have a supportive wife to take care of their essential domestic needs and family responsibilities at home hence the saying that every career woman needs a good wife! Because it is designed to fit the needs and expectations of men, the modern work environment is not family friendly. The hours and inflexibility of the working day, overtime, the location of work and commuting times make it difficult for working women to meet the dual expectations of their family and work roles, giving rise to role conflict.

In the work place, women are often judged by two quite different and conflicting standards, as women and as workers, placing them in a classic no-win situation. For example, good employees at the management level are usually expected to be decisive, articulate, assertive and clear about their goals and objectives. However, in most cultures women as women are expected to be submissive, passive and demure. Thus a woman who displays the characteristics of a good manager may find that her supervisors are not appreciative because they are actually and probably unconsciously judging her as a woman, as well as a worker. Some women also find that there is no "space" for them to perform effectively as decision makers because men dominate debate, male networks determine promotions and sexist stereotypes (for example, assumptions such as "women cannot work in the field", "will not take transfers away from their families", made without actually consulting the women concerned) bar them from gaining the experience required for senior decision-making positions.  

At the personal level, perhaps the first thing that needs to done is to change the way we rear our children. We must provide our daughters with opportunities to develop their decision making skills and leadership capacities, and we must train our sons to respect their sisters as equals. In particular, we must ensure that daughters have equal access to the same quantity, quality and type of education as sons. Since this is a long-term objective, we must also take immediate steps to place more women in decision-making and leadership positions and, at the same time, provide them with the necessary catch-up training and experience in order to be effective.

An essential step toward the more equal participation of women in decision making and leadership is awareness-raising for men. Institutional cultures that are unfriendly to women are not usually the result of deliberate policies but the consequences of their development over time to meet the needs and situations of men, who have for so long dominated the public domain and who have different needs, priorities and concerns from women. Men need to become aware of the ways in which their assumptions, attitudes and behavior are gendered to reflect their own situation, exclude a woman's perspective and thus obstruct women's equal participation. Women and men together must then negotiate a new institutional setting that provides space for both groups.  

Over the last two decades, most interventions have been directed toward strengthening women's leadership through women's organizations and national machineries. While this is clearly essential, perhaps the time has come to pay more attention to complementing these measures with programmes to strengthen the capacities of individual women. In the private and public sectors, mentoring and other leadership programmes for women are being introduced in a number of countries. Although most of these activities have been in the industrial countries, some developing countries, particularly the Philippines, are now exploring the potential for such programmes.

Resources
Annual Report of Unifem
Governing for Equity; Gender, citizenship and Governance
Engendering Democracy: Women's Organizations and their Influence on Policy Making within the Devolved Administrations in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales  Seminar Report
Gender and ICTs for Development: A Global Sourcebook
Women’s Political Participation and Good Governance: 21st Century Challenges
Decentralization and Engendering Democracy Lessons from Local Government Reform in South Africa
Engendering Governance through the Constitutional Review Process
Engendering Compensation: Making Refugee Woman Court
 

Special Coverage
Role of Women Parliamentarians


 

 

 

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