Thank you for your insightful article and clearly hugely valuable work. I must say, though, that I’m still confused by the idea of employing a ‘gender lens.’ I feel like this is a bit of a catch phrase right now with many groups. Does it just mean that you looked out for the needs of women in particular, the same way that a child advocacy group would arrive at a crisis looking out for the needs of children? If so, why not just say that you’re interested in meeting the needs of women in particular?
Thank you for your thoughtful review and your question regarding this concept. It is correct that the term ‘gender lens’ is now broadly accepted as flag for approaches that make women the priority for services and/or funding. Focusing on serving women alone does not constitute a true gender lens. In our work, we take the idea of a gender lens further by not stopping at addressing what women experience, but how and why they experience unique and persistent challenges. In the case of natural disaster, we understand that women experience trauma differently than other groups because of the societal structures surrounding women that strongly impact their experience of risk and access to resources. Working within a gender lens also creates opportunities for considering how gender shapes life opportunities and economic security when working with other groups including men, trans, and gender fluid individuals. Consequently, when this article discusses strategies employing a gender lens for women it is referring to our appreciation of the organizations that we fund, which have a specific expertise in understanding how the complexities of those social structures push under-resourced women and their families further behind the starting line to reestablish stability and opportunities to thrive following a disaster. An authentic gender lens is able to appreciate that communities, in which women live and participate, are built around these historical gender-based structures which often negatively impede opportunities and resources for low-income women and families.
COMMENTS
BY LAUREN JANUS, [url=http://www.thoughtfulphilanthropy.com]http://www.thoughtfulphilanthropy.com[/url]
ON September 17, 2015 07:25 AM
Thank you for your insightful article and clearly hugely valuable work. I must say, though, that I’m still confused by the idea of employing a ‘gender lens.’ I feel like this is a bit of a catch phrase right now with many groups. Does it just mean that you looked out for the needs of women in particular, the same way that a child advocacy group would arrive at a crisis looking out for the needs of children? If so, why not just say that you’re interested in meeting the needs of women in particular?
BY Erin McDonald
ON September 22, 2015 11:22 AM
Thank you for your thoughtful review and your question regarding this concept. It is correct that the term ‘gender lens’ is now broadly accepted as flag for approaches that make women the priority for services and/or funding. Focusing on serving women alone does not constitute a true gender lens. In our work, we take the idea of a gender lens further by not stopping at addressing what women experience, but how and why they experience unique and persistent challenges. In the case of natural disaster, we understand that women experience trauma differently than other groups because of the societal structures surrounding women that strongly impact their experience of risk and access to resources. Working within a gender lens also creates opportunities for considering how gender shapes life opportunities and economic security when working with other groups including men, trans, and gender fluid individuals. Consequently, when this article discusses strategies employing a gender lens for women it is referring to our appreciation of the organizations that we fund, which have a specific expertise in understanding how the complexities of those social structures push under-resourced women and their families further behind the starting line to reestablish stability and opportunities to thrive following a disaster. An authentic gender lens is able to appreciate that communities, in which women live and participate, are built around these historical gender-based structures which often negatively impede opportunities and resources for low-income women and families.