How have we measured our success?

How have we measured our success? Srilatha Batliwala (WEDO / Harvard University) with Lisa Veneklasen & Cindy Clark (Just Associates) & June Zeitlin (WEDO)

Our mission: • To transform the relations of power between • Women and men • Women of different social groups (class, caste, race, ethnicity, orientation, etc.) • Men of different social groups and their relations to women of their own and other social groups

Our three big goals: • Naming and challenging the ideology of patriarchy and other oppressive ideologies • Moving resources to women – especially poor women • Challenging and transforming the institutions and structures that reproduce and reinforce gender discrimination (family, community, state, markets, health care, education, media, etc.)

Seven key areas of success • Raising visibility and voice • Unearthing the nature of gender discrimination • Increasing formal equality • Creating and engendering international norm structures • Building new institutional arrangements and mechanisms to advance equality • Building organizations, networks, movements • Mobilizing and empowering women in communities (substantive equality)

Raising visibility and voice • Bringing gender discrimination and inequality in economic, social, and political structures into public consciousness – rallies, marches, protests, media – making societies see the “elephant in the room” • Breaking the culture of silence (domestic violence, rape, trafficking, sexuality, litigation, etc.) • Putting new issues on the map (reproductive & sexual health and rights) • Pushing governments and communities to acknowledge gender discrimination as a pervasive reality

Exposing the nature of gender discrimination • Huge body of research to unearth the contours of gender inequality in social, economic and political spheres (gender division of labour, lack of women in decision-making positions, wage differentials, violence against women, etc.) • Powerful new concepts and analytical frameworks (gender relations, “triple burden”, etc.) • Analyzing the nature of institutionalized inequality – (women’s access to public and private resources - health, education, asset ownership, political participation; institutionalized violence, etc.) • Tracking specific forms of discrimination in different societies (“Status of women” studies, studies of dowry/bride burning, FGM, etc.) • Showing how women count (contribution to economy, social reproduction) • Ensuring governments and international institutions to integrate gender-differentials in their data

Advancing formal equality • Campaigns and advocacy to remove discriminatory laws (marriage, inheritance, rape), policies (discrimination in education and employment) and • Putting in place new laws (inheritance rights, domestic violence, sexual harassment, banning female foeticide or FGM) and policies (women’s development and gender equity, affirmative action) • Enhancing representation of women in private and public sector, political institutions, etc. • Precedent-setting litigation, prosecutions, case law

Creating and engendering international norm structures • Beijing Platform for Action, CEDAW • Engendering and reshaping the environment, human rights, population, and economic justice / development debates and norm structures • Influencing and engendering other major global social movements (indigenous peoples’, fair trade, human rights, environment, workers)

Creating new mechanisms and institutions for women: • International institutions and mechanisms - UNIFEM, Special Rapporteurs, Security Council Resolution 1325 (on women, peace and security) ICC (rape as act of war, 30% women judges) • National women’s policies, agencies, and commissions on women • Women’s police stations and special courts • Quotas / affirmative action for women • Women’s development programmes / gender budgets • Equality measures in national and international statistical systems and development indices

Building our organizations, networks, & movements, engendering others’ • Creating a breadth, depth, and diversity of organizations working on women’s issues and for gender equality within countries and globally • Issue-based and broad-based networks of women’s and feminist organizations (local to global) • Innovative formations and partnerships (DAWN, donor-women’s movement) • Women’s movements of different kinds (sex workers, indigenous women, women of color) • Putting gender equality on the agenda of donors, governments, and other civil society organizations

What is a movement? • Aggregates of organizations are not equal to a movement. • A movement has: • A political agenda; • A membership or constituency base; • Some degree of organization (formal or informal); • Collective or joint actions in pursuit of common goals; • Some continuity over time; • Activities that combine extra-institutional (marches, protests) and institutional (advocacy & lobbying) forms.

Organizing and empowering women at multiple levels • Layers of organizing work with poor, marginalized, minority, oppressed, excluded women at the grassroots, national, regional and global levels • More than a “numbers” game – building a political base and the constituency • Often the least counted and weakest area of our work

Problems and dilemmas • Hierarchy of what is success (which often diminished work (and resources) critical to movement building, but which doesn’t yield quick, visible or measurable results: “empowerment is too slow”) • Valuing some kinds or levels of work rather than others • Validation of some forms of knowledge and not others – e.g. research-generated vs. women-generated (“anecdotal” “subjective”) • Increasing push for quantification and “results-based” approaches – • Low impact of even successful documentation

The windows of change Individual Access to & control over resources Internalized attitudes, values “Deep culture” Informal Community Formal \ Laws, policies, resource allocations Cultural norms, beliefs, practices Systemic With thanks to: Aruna Rao and David Kelleher

How have we measured our success?