Gender
- Wed Nov 05 2003
Source:
DAWN
Peggy Antrobus examined how the Millennium Development Goals could be made to work to promote women’s equality and empowerment in the CARICOM region in a presentation at the UNDP Caribbean Regional MDGs Conference held in Barbados, 7-9 July 2003. This is an extract from the full paper that can be found on the DAWN web site, in the Regional Engagements section.
I first heard of the MDGs in the outraged response of the global feminist community when the hard-won goal of women’s sexual and reproductive rights was excluded from the list. This is even more inexcusable given that women’s sexual and reproductive rights is not only a goal but a crucial target and/or indicator of progress under at least 3 goals - goal #3 (women’s equality and empowerment), goal (#4 child mortality), goal #5 (maternal health) and goal #6 (combating HIV/ AIDS). The deliberate exclusion of this fundamental indicator of women’s human rights and empowerment from the MDGs symbolises both the lack of sincerity on the part of the majority of those who voted on them, and the struggle that lies ahead for anyone who seriously seeks equality, equity and empowerment for women.
In fact, a major problem of the MDGs is their abstraction from the social, political and economic context in which they are to be implemented – the ‘political economy’ of the MDGs.
The Political Economy of the MDGs Specifically, the exclusion of the goal of women’s sexual and reproductive rights reflects the power of the forces of religious fundamentalism that emerged in the processes surrounding the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development, that continued to gain strength in the context of the on-going economic struggles of the South against the spread of neo-liberalism in the late 1990s, and that have received a boost with the right-wing control of the current US Administration.
In addition to the political context of the spread of religious fundamentalism and the male backlash against women’s rights, there is the spread of economic fundamentalism in the form of the neo-liberal agenda through WTO-enforced trade liberalisation. In fact, the major limitation of the MDGs lies in the fact that, in the official literature on these goals, I can find almost no acknowledgement of the extent to which the neo-liberal policy framework, starting with the 1980s macroeconomic policy framework of the Washington Consensus (including structural adjustment policies) served to halt and reverse progress toward the achievement of these goals (with the possible exceptions of goals #3 and #7) around which there was widespread consensus in the UN Development Decades of the 1960s and 1970s – in other words until the election to power of Ronald Reagan in the USA and Margaret Thatcher in the UK as the 1970s came to an end.
This policy framework, with its ‘marketisation of the state’ through the substitution of the profit-driven market for a democratically elected state that holds itself accountable to the electorate as the guarantor of the well being of people and the protector of the environment, and its emphasis on privatisation and reforms that diminish the role of the state, has been reinforced by trade liberalisation and the new trade agreements enforced by the WTO. A consequence of trade liberalisation that has immediate relevance for the implementation of the MDGs in the Caribbean is the loss of government revenues resulting from the reduction in tariffs and the sale of profitable government assets. How are governments to finance primary health care and basic education when they are under pressure to reduce their sources of public finance? To the extent that all the goals relate to the role of the state, one must ask how feasible it is that states weakened by the requirements of policy frameworks of neo-liberalism and whose revenues are reduced by privatisation and trade liberalism can be expected to achieve the goals and targets of the MDGs? Women and the MDGs From the perspective of women, the context in which these Goals are being discussed contains the twin demons of religious and economic fundamentalism, both of which have at their core the subordination and exploitation of women’s time, labour and sexuality for the benefit of patriarchal power on the one hand, and capitalism on the other. I cannot imagine a less ‘enabling environment’ for the promotion of policies and programmes for the achievement of women’s equality and empowerment – as well as for all MDGs, dependent as they are on this central goal.
On the other hand, since all the goals (with the exception of the last) relate to biological and social reproduction, women’s equality and empowerment are critical to their achievement. This provides women with a strategic opportunity for engaging in the policy dialogue around goals that have come to occupy a privileged position in the processes of socio-economic planning and in the policy dialogue between governments and donors. The inclusion of goals and targets of major interest to women in the MDGs provides a strategic talking point for assessing the barriers to the achievement of goals, and to the extent that women’s subordination and exploitation represents a major barrier to the achievement of most of the goals and targets, the MDGs can provide a tool with which to hold both donor agencies and governments accountable.
Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Goal #3, has many problems, in particular its totally inadequate Target (#4) of “Eliminating gender disparity in primary and secondary education” and its Indicators.
While the Indicators on education and literacy represent major achievements for women everywhere, the Caribbean experience shows how inadequate they are as indicators of empowerment, where they have certainly not translated into higher access to employment, incomes, decision-making positions in the public domain, or political office.
Women in CARICOM countries have already achieved the Target, yet can hardly speak of equality, equity and empowerment in a situation where • poverty persists, • violence against women continues unabated, • where there is increasing hostility against women (possibly generated by these very achievements in education and employment), • where the spread of HIV/AIDS is the second highest after Sub-Saharan Africa and spreading most rapidly among women; and • where only two CARICOM countries (Barbados and Guyana) provide for abortion services that are accessible, safe and affordable.
Moreover, despite efforts to change this, there is still a great deal of sex-role stereotyping in the school curriculum that limits the options of girls.
Regarding the indicator on the number of women in parliaments, as an indicator of women’s empowerment, it depends on the circumstances under which women candidates take part in elections. In CARICOM, with few exceptions, the few women who run for and win seats owe their preferment to the men who make the decisions within the political parties: women who challenge male privilege are not likely to be 7 among these. Once in office, women (and men) tend to cede their own power to that of their government and are unlikely to have the freedom to demonstrate empowerment and agency, especially in relation to gender issues.
UNIFEM has proposed additional indicators, but they are still inadequate and would have to include others such as access to control of land, equality before the law, incidence of domestic violence and rape, and access to health services that embody the ICPD Programme of Action principles.
There is much more to gain from paying as much attention to the gender dimensions of the other goals as that of Gender Equality. Particularly for women in CARICOM countries, goals #1 (eradication of extreme poverty) and #6 (combating HIV/AIDS) should be of much greater concern. One obvious problem with the targets and indicators of these goals is that they are not disaggregated by gender, although the gender dimensions of all are clear.
Poverty eradication Poverty reduction programmes must take into account that “outcomes of poverty are embedded in processes and relations of gender”. For example, programmes must provide low income housing, access to water and sanitation, health services that integrate primary health care, maternal and child health, family 8 Dawn Informs planning, cancer detection, services for the detection and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS, free and compulsory primary education, day care programmes, and women’s access to credit, land and skills training. They must also ensure that the minimum wage legislation extends to domestic workers and other categories of low-income work.
Because of the primary responsibility that women have for the care of children, the elderly, the sick and disabled, women’s income-earning capacity is more limited than that of men. Women’s poverty is therefore more severe than mens’, and carries more serious consequences for vulnerable groups.
The tendency of governments and donors alike to “collapse gender concerns within the wider category of poverty as it enables the use of a fairly depoliticised and needs-based discourse as requiring focus on women within poor households, rather than gender disadvantage per se” masks the uneven distribution of power and resources within households. Caribbean women know that when a man is present he receives the major share of food in the household, and his needs take priority. The link between gender equality, women’s empowerment and food security is critical in poor households: while Caribbean men can (and do) walk away from household responsibilities when they are not in a position to offer financial support, women stay and will do whatever it takes to “put food on the table”.
Combating the spread of HIV/AIDS Central to the spread of HIV/AIDS is the issue of sexuality and women’s sexual and reproductive rights: no amount of education can protect a woman from exposure to the virus if she cannot negotiate safe sex.
Young women and girls are particularly vulnerable when they engage in sex with older men, especially those in positions of authority, like clergymen, teachers and employers. According to a UNAIDS Fact Sheet of February 2001, in Trinidad & Tobago HIV rates are reported to be five times higher in girls than boys aged 15-18 years, and this is probably true of other countries in the region.
Women’s sexual and reproductive rights must be the cornerstones to any effective programme for combating the spread of HIV/AIDS, even if this is presently excluded from the Goals and Targets and Indicators.
Other goals/targets of special concern to women • Reduction of under-5 mortality rate (Goal #4) • Improved maternal health (Goal #5) • Access to safe drinking water (Goal #7, Target #10) and • Improvements in the lives of slum dwellers (Goal #7, Target #11) To limit the indicator for the Target #5 of reducing maternal mortality rates by three quarters to the “proportion of births attended by skilled health personnel” is to ignore the importance of women’s access to maternal and child health services, including family planning services. In the context of deteriorating public health services and the hostility of the by the current US Administration to the inclusion of abortion within family planning programmes and even to the use of condoms, this indicator is particularly inadequate.
Steady improvement in the provision of public health services throughout the 1960s-70s has been placed in jeopardy with the pressures on states that came with the spread of neo-liberalism. It would be important to assess the status of public health services, especially in the context of pressures to liberalise trade in services.
There is a similar risk to public water supplies.
It is difficult to reconcile the pressures of powerful governments on poor countries to privatise water and liberalise trade in services while appearing to support the goals and targets of poverty reduction, access to safe drinking water and improvements in the lives of slum dwellers.
Strategies to ensure that gender inequalities are identified and addressed in the MDG monitoring process and national government policy responses include not only better statistics but a strong women’s movement to monitor those officials who are mandated to monitor, and linking MDG work with gender budgets.
Given that the MDGs are weak on the Goal of Gender Equality and that the gender dimensions of the other goals are almost invisible, those committed to the advancement of women’s equality and empowerment need to consider putting their efforts into developing strategies for monitoring and measuring progress toward the achievement of the Beijing Platform of Action, rather than abandoning it for the MDGs. After all, the BPA is theoretically consistent (which the MDGs are not), it includes all the MDGs and already has a constituency of support.
Work will have to be done to make links between the MDGs and BPA in terms of targets and indicators, and new indicators such as violence and time use, may have to be added.
When others talk MDG, we must think BPA, and substitute the Best Plan of Action (BPA) for the Most Distracting Gimmick (MDG).
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