Gender Training

A Transformative Tool for Gender Equality

Lucy Ferguson

• Publisher: Palgrave Pivot
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9783319918273
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book develops a case for feminist gender training as a catalyst for disjuncture, rupture and change. Chapter 1 traces the historical development and current contours of the field of gender training. In Chapter 2, the key critiques of gender training are substantively engaged with from the perspective of reflexive practice, highlighting the need to work strategically within existing constraints. Questions of transformative change are addressed in Chapter 3, which reviews feminist approaches to change and how these can be applied to enhance the impact of gender training. Chapter 4 considers the theory and practice of feminist pedagogies in gender training. In the final chapter, new avenues for gender training are explored: working with privilege; engaging with applied theatre; and mindfulness/meditation. The study takes gender training beyond its often technocratic form towards a creative, liberating process with the potential to evoke tangible, lasting transformation for genderequality.

© The Author(s) 2019

Lucy FergusonGender TrainingGender and Politicshttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91827-3_1

Begin Abstract

1. At the Intersection of Theory and Practice: Locating Gender Training

Lucy Ferguson¹

(1)

The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland

Lucy Ferguson

Email: [email protected]

Abstract

This book explores how to maximise the transformative potential of gender training scenarios and processes. It does so by highlighting and interrogating innovations from practice in order to overcome some of the key challenges for gender training. The book constructs a notion of feminist gender training, which is reflexive, self-critical and focused on process. This chapter traces the historical development of the field of gender training, drawing on a range of resources and projects that have attempted to map the emergence and current state of gender training. It then goes on to map the field of gender training and explore how processes of professionalisation and developing quality criteria can contribute to a more feminist-informed theory and practice of gender training. This chapter establishes the book’s explicit focus on transformation, which sets it apart from the more technocratic aspects of gender training. Moreover, it asks how gender training can be harnessed as a catalyst for disjuncture, rupture and change.

Keywords

Mapping gender trainingProfessionalisationQuality criteriaTransformationFeminist gender training

End Abstract

This book is concerned with the possibilities and limits of gender training as a transformative tool for gender equality. The term tool has been selected in order to firmly locate gender training within a broader set of practices and processes for gender equality across a range of levels—institutional, societal and individual. Gender training has often been dismissed as overly technical and devoid of political content (Mukhopadhyay 2013). Indeed, this may be a fair reflection of much of what passes for ‘gender training’ in contemporary institutions and organisations. However, I hope to reclaim optimism for what gender training can do and argue that it is a vital part of any change process towards gender equality. Of course, it is important to recognise the limitations of gender training. Yet even while doing so, it is possible to strive for gender training to be ever more feminist and ever more political. As such, this book serves as a contribution to discussions about what can and cannot be done through gender training, located within broader conversations about the possibilities for feminist change in institutions, societies and individuals.

Before going into these debates in a substantive manner, it is useful to first develop a working definition of gender training that will guide the conceptual and practical foundations of this book. For example, the UN Women Training Centre—based in Santo Domingo—offers the term ‘training for gender equality ’ as opposed to gender training, with the aim of broadening the scope of what such training can achieve. Training for gender equality is defined as:

A transformative process that aims to provide knowledge, techniques and tools to develop skills and changes in attitudes and behaviours. It is a long term continuous process that requires political will and commitment from all parties involved (both decision makers and trainees) with the objective of creating an aware, competent and gender equitable society. (UN Women Training Centre, n.d.)

This notion of a ‘transformative process’ is particularly useful for the focus and approach of this book. As noted in a review of gender training since the Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing in 1995 (UN Women Training Centre 2015b), gender training has been referred to in diverse ways since the establishment of ‘gender mainstreaming’ in the 1990s, as shown in Fig. 1.1. The review notes that these terms have often been used interchangeably, and there is little conceptual clarity on the differences and similarities between them. Moreover, this varies by sector or Critical Area of Concern in the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (PFA).

Fig. 1.1

UN Women Training Centre approach to integrating quality criteria and mechanisms across the training cycle

(Source UN Women Training Centre (2017b))

Box 1.1 Focus of gender training across the PFA’s critical areas of concern

In some areas, the focus of training is predominantly on skills training for women—namely poverty, the economy and the environment—without an explicit discussion of the role of training in gender mainstreaming within these fields. Other areas—notably education and the girl child—are concerned with non-discrimination training. In the remaining Critical Areas of the PFA, greater attention is given to ‘gender-sensitive training’, more closely in line with the approach of this book. The sections on health, violence and human rights particularly highlight the need for gender-sensitive training for personnel. In the sphere of Institutional Mechanisms for gender equality, the proposed measures include staff training in designing and analysing data from a gender perspective, alongside training and advisory assistance to governments, in order to help integrate a gender perspective in their policies and programmes.

Source UN Women Training Centre (2015b).

In order to expand on this further, the UN Women Training Centre produced a typology of gender training in 2016, establishing five key themes: awareness raising and consciousness building; knowledge enhancement; skills training; change in attitudes, behaviours and practices; and mobilisation for social transformation. Training geared towards raising awareness and building consciousness “introduces participants’ to key issues concerning gender (in)equality and women’s empowerment,” while training centred around knowledge enhancement “provides more in-depth information and understanding on these issues and the power structures underlying inequalities.” Skills training enhances competences related to gender. Training to elicit change in attitudes, behaviours and practices “fosters lasting positive changes in the way participants think and act, as well as their long-term habits.” Finally, training that aims at mobilisation for social transformation “stimulates participants’ capacity to collaboratively put their knowledge, motivation and skills into practice, in order to change their work, communities and daily lives into more gender equitable spaces” (UN Women Training Centre 2016: 6). In essence, distinguishing between ‘types’ of gender training is important, the Training Centre argues, to help “set realistic objectives, pick appropriate modalities, use effective methods, cater to the needs of audiences, and select suitable trainers ” (ibid.: 6). Nonetheless, they acknowledge that—at its core—what really matters is process. For instance, the Typology notes that “different types of training are not mutually exclusive [….] Nor are they meant to imply a chronological process of learning, where awareness is followed by knowledge, then skills, and change in attitudes, behaviours and practices, and finally, social transformation. Effective learning is an ongoing and continuous process in which ‘learning’ is more usefully understood as a ‘circle’ or ‘cycle’, not a linear trajectory” (ibid., 2016: 11). The discussions included in this book draw on analytical concepts such as Training Cycle—a key analytical tool for exploring the different processes and power dynamics of gender training—and gender training modalities.

What is important to highlight from this brief review of definitions or types of gender training is that the key concern of this book is with the process of gender training, as opposed to the specific content or context in which it takes place. Moreover, many trainings overlap in terms of their form and objectives. As such, it is perhaps more useful to consider the underlying premise of all gender training to be social transformation. In order to achieve this, different types of training can be conducted in different modes and contexts. However, in order to be an effective transformative tool for gender equality , gender training must be guided by a series of processes, principles and practices. These are developed in more detail throughout the book.

This concern with gender training as a transformative tool for gender equality in institutions and public po...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. At the Intersection of Theory and Practice: Locating Gender Training
• 2. Critiques and Challenges in Contemporary Gender Training
• 3. Gender Training and Transformative Change
• 4. Gender Training and Feminist Pedagogies
• 5. Future Directions for Feminist Gender Training
• Back Matter