{"id":3118,"date":"2015-09-07T16:38:32","date_gmt":"2015-09-07T11:08:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/?p=3118"},"modified":"2015-09-17T12:45:36","modified_gmt":"2015-09-17T07:15:36","slug":"taking-off-the-gender-lens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/taking-off-the-gender-lens\/","title":{"rendered":"Taking off the Gender Lens"},"content":{"rendered":"

Participants from eleven countries across the Asia-Pacific region launched into day 1 of ASAP’s\u00a0Safe Abortion Advocacy Institute for Youth Champions\u00a0<\/strong>by looking at gender construction, gender myths and resultant discrimination against women.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

GENDER BENDERS: How do gender roles emerge?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Facilitator, Manisha Gupte\u00a0initiated a discussion on gender by gauging the level of understanding of gender and biological sex among participants. She asked participants how we as a society determine the difference between boys and girls at different life stages. Participants discussed how social attributes of gender, such as the length of one\u2019s hair, are visible from early childhood\u00a0and therefore they seem natural and biological. This social conditioning results in the perpetuation of certain gender myths such as \u201cWomen are patient, Men don\u2019t cry\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Gender<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Manisha Gupte, then led a discussion on the hypocrisy of GENDER constructs. \u201cWhen it\u2019s unpaid, laborious, unappreciated \u2013 it\u2019s women\u2019s work. When it comes from the private sphere into the public \u2013 gets recognition, is paid and appreciated \u2013 it\u2019s men\u2019s work.\u201d The facilitator then used this discussion to introduce how gender conditioning influences reproductive health issues including who uses contraceptives. She asked participants to consider how even though men are more \u201clinked to reproduction\u201d because they release sperm each time they have sex, yet contraceptives are geared towards women instead.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"image1-2\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
\"image1\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
\"image1\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

What is wrong with these gender roles?<\/strong> Participants discussed how gender roles discriminate against some groups, give privileges to some and not others, create risks for certain persons and society\u00a0gives roles to people based on physical traits not on their desires, capabilities etc.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>They discussed what happens when men and women don\u2019t conform to gender roles and expectations \u2013 they are discriminated against.\u00a0A participant from Myanmar shared that in her country girls are required to have higher marks to enter medicine \u2013 because there is a perceived concern for their safety due to late working hours.<\/span><\/p>\n

The facilitator also introduced the concept of heteronormitivity and how it starts from childhood, when we\u2019re given dolls to play with as girls and given sports equipment to play with as boys. These same ideas and expectations come into marriage aspirations.<\/span><\/p>\n

“When young girls play with dolls they go through all the stages of growth until the doll gets married and then the game ends at marriage. This shows\u00a0the mentality that life is over after marriage and there\u2019s no more story left in the doll\u2019s life.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013\u00a0Suleiman, Afghanistan, Youth Champion<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

PATRIARCHY: Rule of the fathers<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Manisha asked the group to share examples of how conforming to the rules of patriarchy results in rewards and how one\u2019s position grows \u2013 and examples of how non-confirmation is punishable. She explained how women\u2019s reproduction is controlled in order to ensure pure lines of blood passed through generations of men. And this control over women\u2019s reproduction is done through controlling their sexuality. The group then looked at various agents of patriarchy that perpetuate this control over women\u2019s sexuality, reproductive rights and right to abortion\u00a0in particular.<\/span><\/p>\n

NEEDS OR RIGHTS? Who gets to decide?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Manisha asked the group to consider what are our basic human needs and how these become rights. Participants enquired into how the market influences wants and creates demands. She emphasized that if needs become rights \u2013 then we can lobby or advocate for them to be provided. If they are just needs then we\u2019re dependent on others to grant us these needs and these aren\u2019t legally enforceable. She encouraged the group to always adopt a rights\u00a0based approach versus a needs\u00a0based approach. And in the case of safe abortion, to always give the decision making power to the woman.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDifference, disadvantage, disparity = discrimination\u201d\u00a0\u2013 Manisha Gupte<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The group then discussed the significance of the paradigm shift at the ICPD, from demographic goals to individual reproductive rights. They learned the history of how reproductive rights emerged within the global discussion on population and development.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHuman rights are universal, equally important and they\u2019re interdependent\u201d. <\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

CLARIFYING VALUES<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"_MG_2744\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Participants had to choose \u2018Agree\u2019 or \u2018Disagree\u2019 with certain statements such as \u2018can sex workers be raped\u2019, \u2018does a woman who chooses an abortion violate the right to life of a fetus\u2019, \u2018if the husband wants to keep the fetus, does the woman still have a right to abort it\u2019 etc. The facilitator then explained how we arrive at our values and how these change over time. \u201cNo one was born as safe abortion advocates, we\u2019re all subjected to social norms around us \u2013 it\u2019s up to us to decide what our values are\u201d. She invited participants to question to dominant notion or social norms and arrive at their own set of values related to sexual and reproductive rights.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"_MG_2730\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

POWER WALK:\u00a0Who has access to information on abortion?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Youth Champions learned about the various levels of privilege given to certain groups based on class and economic status and how this impacts who has access to information on abortion.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u00a0\"image1<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

Day one concluded with the screening of Dirty Dancing, a mainstream Hollywood film that highlights the issue of abortion. Participants were then invited to a dinner party so as to get to know each other better.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Participants from eleven countries across the Asia-Pacific region launched into day 1 of ASAP’s\u00a0Safe Abortion Advocacy Institute for Youth Champions\u00a0by looking at gender construction, gender myths and resultant discrimination against women.\u00a0 GENDER BENDERS: How do gender roles emerge? Facilitator, Manisha Gupte\u00a0initiated a discussion on gender by gauging the level of understanding of gender and biological…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":4097,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,176],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives","category-youth-advocacy-institute"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/blog-featured-image-logo.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3O7nG-Oi","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3118"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3289,"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3118\/revisions\/3289"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}