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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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