Gender Equality and Women’s empowerment Ranjani K Murthy and Kanchan Lhama, 2016 COE Workshop “Assessment of effectiveness of equity-based evaluation methodologies and tools to measure impacts on gender equality and empowerment of women” 18-19th June, 2016
Gender Equality (Kapur, 1993, Facio 2009) Formal Substantive
Formal equality The concept of formal gender equality is premised on the principle of the sameness of women and men, and assumes that if women and men are given the same opportunity and are treated similarly as men, equality will be achieved. It does not take into account the power relations between men and women or biological differences between women and men which need to be taken into account
Substantive Equality The substantive equality approach recognises that women and men have to be treated differently, and that their disadvantages to begin with have to be addressed to achieve equality (Kapur, 1993). Interlocking identities are recognised. Akin to equity
Empowerment (Rowlands, 1998) Power to Power with Power within
Empowerment – other definitions Kabeer, 2001, 2009: resources, agency and achievements- ability to make strategic choices Murthy and Rao, 1997: Institutional change in favour of women and other marginalised groups
Interlocking identities Gender class caste religion ethnicity age abilities Sexual orientation
What is the overlap and difference? Equity and GEWE Differences Substantive equality is similar to equity Single identity GEWE questions development paradigm Institutional change Empowerment- does not entail a comparison, equity does Process as important as outcomes Interlocking disadvantage better addressed in GEWE
What is the overlap and difference? Equity and GEWE Equity is good for empowerment but not enough At times women are in privileged economic condition but not empowered Empowerment is necessary for equity but not enough Women need to be empowermed and have access to information to make use of opportunities Some forms – like to VAW do not fall into the ambit of equity