Section outline
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Hear from Dr. Jessica White, Senior Research Fellow for the Terrorism and Conflict Research Group at the Royal United Services Institute on how to apply gender to P/CVE.
Source: PAVE Project. ‘’Dr. Jessica White: Applying a Gender Lens to P/CVE.’’ 2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xc4hvUetM7M.
Gender analysis is the critical starting point for gender mainstreaming. Gender analysis is a tool that brings to the surface gender disparities of a core problem. This process is used to identify, understand, and describe gender differences and the relevance of gender roles and power dynamics in a particular context.
A gender analysis asks two sets of questions about the conditions conducive to violent extremism. The first addresses ‘gender behaviors’ – it examines how men, and women and non-binary individuals behave in relation to these conditions. The second addresses ‘gender norms’ – the social pressures to behave in a particular manner, or what types of masculinity and femininity are rewarded or punished. Utilizing gender-responsive approaches and leading gender-transformative programs removes the gender-based inequities, structural barriers, and empowers disadvantaged populations, including through the creation of strategies to foster progressive changes in power relationships between women and men. Gender-responsive approaches address the different needs and experiences of women, and men and non-binary individuals, whether through the questions asked in a focus group or survey to the trainings that you might conduct.
Here are a few examples of integrating gender into the design of research questions.
1) What are the different impacts of violence and insecurity on men and women? 2) What are the gender dynamics around conflict? 3) How do gender norms and realities drive violence and/or peace? How are women’s roles assigned within families in the community? 4) Who are the key actors with influence, means and motivations to mobilize groups and resources into collective action for peace or for violence and what are the links between them? Are these key actors predominantly male? What are the priorities of the women peacebuilders or women-led civil society organizations?
A gender-responsive approach does not exclusively focus on women and girls. Engaging men and boys is also a critical part of a gender analysis and opportunity to create space for women and girls to engage in an otherwise male-dominated setting. Men and boys also play critical roles in supporting women and girls in their families, including by encouraging the education and empowerment of female relatives. This includes non-violent conflict resolution, efforts to encourage rethinking masculinities and stereotypes about women, and mitigation of exposure to violence in the home, which can feed the societal acceptance of violence. Finally, men can work alongside women to open space for their inclusion in CVE responses such as community-oriented policing.
Finally, gender analysis should also be included in P/CVE program monitoring and evaluation frameworks. This means including gender analysis as a systematic analytical process based on gender or sex-disaggregated data. This process is used to identify, understand, and describe gender differences and the relevance of gender roles and power dynamics in a particular context. Gender or sex-disaggregated data builds an evidence base that can be created to showcase how gender inequalities impact security and P/CVE outcomes. This approach needs to be applied across the whole of P/CVE programs, not only to the components which might be focused on the empowerment of women.
The program’s gender or sex-disaggregated data should be used within its’ logical framework. As part of the program’s objectives, ensure to formulate the project objectives to link the prevention and combating of terrorism to improving gender equality and sustainable development and to address one or more issues that affect mainly women. The project outcomes should describe which gender measurement of each outcome is wanting to be achieved, how the project will increase the capacity of women leaders or participants, and how the project will engage women and women’s civil society organizations overall. Finally, the project outputs should demonstrate how the project will impact women and men independently.
If a program or initiative does not incorporate gender into its analysis, the program will suffer from gender blindness, ignoring rather than recognizing distinctly gendered factors, which misinforms policymaking and programming. Any initiative, policy, or study which neglects to consider and understand half of the population’s roles in any given situation will be partially accurate at best, and usually less effective and responsive to the situation on the ground than an initiative, policy or study that has mainstreamed gender throughout, giving focus and attention to the different positions and needs of all gender identities.
The empowerment of women is an essential part of a gender mainstreaming strategy. Here are some key takeaways to remember:
- Ensure to engage women and women-led or focused organizations and initiatives in discussions about P/CVE policies and strategies and seek their input in the design of P/CVE programs.
- Promote partnerships with and between local women-led or focused organizations and build their local ownership – this is key to effective program implementation.
- Support community outreach programs that raise awareness and inform women on identifying and responding to violent extremism and terrorism.
- Build the capacity of local women-led or focused organizations and of women to promote P/CVE and implement P/CVE programs. This includes capacity building for mediation, community engagement, communication, monitoring and evaluation, administration and program management.
- Avoid using women and women’s groups solely for P/CVE purposes, as this can lead to negative consequences for those groups, e.g. facing threats from extremist groups, undermining efforts to promote gender equality (if these become equated with a security agenda).
For more information on addressing new challenges and opportunities in the extremism space, analyzed through a gender lens, read the International Civil Society Action Network’s (ICAN) piece, “To Address Extremisms in the New Decade, Do What the Women Say,”: https://icanpeacework.org/2022/10/to-address-extremisms-in-the-new-decade-do-what-the-women-say/.
Photo Source: Fransen, Rosalie. “To Address Extremisms in the New Decade, Do What the Women Say.” October 19, 2022. ICAN. https://icanpeacework.org/2022/10/to-address-extremisms-in-the-new-decade-do-what-the-women-say
