“Oh, God, I beg you,
I touch your feet time and again,
Next birth don’t give me daughter,
Give me Hell instead….”
Folk Song From Uttar Pradesh
(From: Because I am a Girl, The State of the World‟s Girls 2007, Plan)
Cultural Context
Gender does not simply mean
male or female.
It refers to the different roles that
society assigns to women and men.
different roles
Cultural Context
To get to the bottom of the issue of gender,
we must:
• understand and address the inequalities
that arise from the different roles of women and
men,
• the unequal power relations between
them;
• the consequences in people‟s lives, and
well-being.
inequalities
unequal power relations
consequences
Cultural Context
In many cultures, being born
a girl leads to being killed in the
womb or upon birth, being
deprived of nutritious food,
education, and the opportunity to
develop her God given potentials
to earn and to participate in
decision making.
Cultural Context
There are an estimated
100 million missing girls
because of the practice of
female foeticide. Millions of
girls and women suffer from
violence due to abuse, rape
and effects of war.
.
Five binds ensnaring women that continue
to shape contemporary culture by Kathleen Hall Jamieson in “Beyond the Double Bind”
• Women can exercise their wombs or their brains, but not both.
• Women who speak out are immodest and will be shamed, while women who are silent will be ignored or dismissed.
• Women are subordinate whether they claim to be different from men or the same.
• Women who are considered feminine will be judged incompetent, and women who are competent, unfeminine.
• As men age, they gain wisdom and power; as women age, they wrinkle and become superfluous.
Millennium Development Goal 3
Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women
“With implementation lagging,
progress is lagging…”
•it is still a woman‟s face we see when we
speak of poverty, of violent conflict and social
upheaval, of trafficking in human beings, and
increasingly a young woman‟s face when we
speak about HIV and AIDS.
Ms. Noeleen Heyzer, the Executive Director of UNIFEM
Targets
1. ½ between 1990 and
2015 the proportion of
people living on less that
$1 per day
2. ½ between 1990 and
2015 proportion of people
suffering from hunger
Goal 1
Eradication of extreme poverty
and hunger
Gender Gaps To Date
70% of those living on less
than $1 a day are female.
Girls and young women are
not fulfilling their potential &
this is impacting on the
world’s poorest economies
in particular. An extra year
of education can boost a
girl’s eventual wages by
between 10 and 20 percent.
Targets
3. Ensure that by 2015,
children everywhere,
boys and girls alike, will
be able to complete a full
course of primary
schooling
Goal 2
Achieve universal primary
education
Gender Gaps To Date
This target will not be
reached if initiatives that
encourage girls to remain in
school are not implemented.
62 million girls are out of
school.
Targets
4. Eliminate gender disparity
in primary and secondary
education preferably by
2005 and to all levels of
education no later than
2015
Goal 3
Promote gender equality and
empower women
Gender Gaps To Date
In Asia, at least 60 million
girls are missing from the
population;
96 million women aged 15-
24 can not read or write;
In Sub-Saharan Africa, two-
thirds of newly infected
youth aged are girls and
females;
Targets
4. Eliminate gender disparity
in primary and secondary
education preferably by
2005 and to all levels of
education no later than
2015
Goal 3
Promote gender equality and
empower women
Gender Gaps To Date
82 million girls in developing
countries who are aged 10-
17 will be married before
their 18th birthday. In India
and Nepal more than 50%
of the girls between these
ages marry before the reach
18 years old;
Targets
4. Eliminate gender disparity
in primary and secondary
education preferably by
2005 and to all levels of
education no later than
2015
Goal 3
Promote gender equality and
empower women
Gender Gaps To Date
Worldwide, some 14 million
girls between ages 15-19
both married and unmarried
give birth each year.
Pregnancy is a leading
cause of death for young
women at this age;
In most Asian countries,
only 45% of girls are in
secondary schools.
Targets
5. Reduce by two-thirds,
between 1990 and 2015,
the under-five mortality
rate
Goal 4
Reduce child mortality
Gender Gaps To Date
Despite girls’ natural resilience
at birth, more girls than boys
die before the age of five in
many parts of the world. An
important factor here is that
the preference of boys is a
major concern in the two most
populous countries on earth,
and these countries are in Asia
– China and India.
Targets
6. Reduce by three-
quarters, between 1990
and 2015, the maternal
mortality ratio
Goal 5
Improve maternal health
Gender Gaps To Date
Complication from
pregnancy and childbirth are
the leading cause of death
among young women aged
15 to 19 in the developing
world.
7. Have halted by 2015, and
begun to reverse, the
spread of HIV/AIDS
8. Have halted by 2015, and
begun to reverse, the
incidence of malaria and
other major diseases
Goal 6
Combat HIV/AIDs, malaria
and other diseases
Gender Gaps To Date
Young women have less
knowledge than young men on
HIV in the first place.
Reversing the spread of AIDS
is dependent on reducing the
infection rates of young
women and tackling the
gendered behaviour which
determines women’s lack of
choice in decision about sex.
Actions to Promote Gender
– Women’s participation promoted in national
Poverty Reduction Strategies
– Actions taken to promote greater involvement
by women in public life
– Wider use made of sex-disaggregated data for
planning, monitoring and impact assessment
– Gender budget initiatives used to inform public
policy and allocation of resources
– Reforms of legal systems and land and
inheritance laws favoring greater security and
protection for women
(From: Leaflet as a result of a collaborative effort by UNDP, UNIFEM, UNFPA, The World Bank and the OECD/DAC Network on Gender Equality)
Actions to Promote Gender
(From: Leaflet as a result of a collaborative effort by UNDP, UNIFEM, UNFPA, The World Bank and the OECD/DAC Network on Gender Equality)
– Legal and social programs, including for sexual and reproduction health rights, give women and girls greater protection from violence and sexual harassment
– Promotion of social change supporting greater autonomy for women and more equitable sharing of burdens in the domestic economy
– Needs and rights of girls and women given greater priority in reforming and improving public services
– Girls and women enabled to gain greater access to technical training and information and communication technologies.
Gender as a Gift from God
Self Reflection:
Do these actions really address the
issue that is before us?
What guarantee do we have, that in the
next five years or so, the issues that
are before us today would have been
minimized and that real progress would
have been achieved?
Gender as a Gift from God
“The starting point of the Christian view of transformational development is the
Gospel
It is our reflection about reality from the Bible: the relation of God to the world, creation, humanity, history, future, all open up challenges to human action particularly Christian action.”
Dr. Vinay K. Samuel in his article, “Transforming Cultures: A Gospel Agenda”
Gender as a Gift from God
“Any Christian response to human need, poverty and
suffering must arise from the Gospel of our Lord
Jesus Christ and must be thoroughly shaped from the
whole world view of the Gospel narrative…..
God‟s grand design of creation in Genesis creates an
order – a moral order and social order in which
humans fulfill the responsibility of stewardship of all
creation..” including relationship between men
and women
Dr. Vinay K. Samuel in his article, “Transforming Cultures: A Gospel Agenda”
Gender as a Gift from God
God‟s created order destroyed by the Fall was redeemed by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us…there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 3:13 and 28
Gender as a Gift from God
If we look at Gender from the
vantage view of male and female
completing the image of God, then
gender can be viewed as a gift . that helps us know and .
understand deeper who God is .
and His character and His .
relationships with His people.
Gender as a Gift from God
“Perhaps it is no wonder that the women were first at the cradle and last at the cross. A prophet and teacher who ……
• never nagged at them
• never flattered or coaxed or patronized
• never made arch jokes about them
• never treated them as „The women, God help us!‟ or „The ladies, God bless them!‟
• rebuked without querulousness
• praised without condescension
• who took their questions and arguments seriously
Dorothy Sayers said of Jesus‟ high regard for women
Gender as a Gift from God
A prophet and teacher who…
• never mapped out their sphere for them
• never urged them to be feminine or jeered
at them for being female
• had no axe to grind and no uneasy male
dignity to defend
•took them as he found them and was
completely unselfconscious.
Dorothy Sayers said of Jesus‟ high regard for women
Our Christian Response
Reflection
Why must we as a Christian
community be genuinely
concerned about gender equality
and the empowerment of women
and girls?
Our Christian Response
1. We need to deal with the cultural constructs
of our various context.
2. Refute strongly-yet sensitively those cultural
biases that devalue a girl child and a woman
as an invisible part of society
3. Recognize and optimize the unique gifts
women and men bring to the body of Christ
4. Affirm our commitment to participate in the
building of God‟s Kingdom on earth by
translating our convictions into visible
programs of action.
What then is our Christian Response to the Issue of Gender?
Our Christian Response
UN Millennium Development Goals…
1. Ensuring postprimary education for girls
and young women.
What then is our Christian Response to the Issue of Gender?
former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has repeatedly said,
“Study after study has taught us that there is no tool
for development more effective than the education
of girls and the empowerment of women.”
For us in World Vision, we see to it that all our sponsored
children, without any gender bias, get at least secondary
education.
Our Christian Response
UN Millennium Development Goals…:
2. Guaranteeing sexual and reproductive
health and rights.
What then is our Christian Response to the Issue of Gender?
Christian churches and NGOs can advocate for the
improvement of health systems and facilities. For one, the
church can use its moral ascendancy to change traditional
gender norms and practices as well as deeply entrenched
attitudes and behaviors related to gender roles and
women’s status.
Our Christian Response
UN Millennium Development Goals…:
3. Ensuring equal rights.
What then is our Christian Response to the Issue of Gender?
The church should lead in campaigns to abolish
discriminatory laws and practices relating to women and
girls. Where laws protecting them already exist, the church
should advocate for their enforcement.
Christian communities must be able to create models of
gender equality in our homes.
Our Christian Response
UN Millennium Development Goals…:
4. Improving employment opportunities and
working conditions, especially for poor
women.
What then is our Christian Response to the Issue of Gender?
We should advocate for passage of laws that guarantee
equal employment opportunities for women. We
should, likewise, work for repel of laws that
discriminate against women.
The Christian community should support the creation of
and support family friendly policies i.e. paternity leave
Our Christian Response
UN Millennium Development Goals…:
5. Combating all forms of violence against
women and girls.
What then is our Christian Response to the Issue of Gender?
The Christian church should be at the frontline of fighting
all forms of violence against women and girls.
• create safe places for women
•Hotlines
•organizing neighborhood watch groups
Our Christian Response
UN Millennium Development Goals…:
6. Improving women’s representation in
political bodies, especially at the local
level.
What then is our Christian Response to the Issue of Gender?
The church should actively participate in political exercise
to ensure election of women and pro-women candidates.
Ensures that women occupy leadership positions in the
church.
At the local or community level, churches, church-based
institutions and Christian non-government organizations
can establish alliances to champion the participation of
girls and young women in policy and decision-making.
Conclusion
We need to affirm and celebrate the gift of Gender.
Female + Male = Image of God
or vice versa
Male+ Female = Image of God.
What then is our Christian Response to the Issue of Gender?
Gender is an amazing gift
(Jean Bearden and Lorie Schleck, Affirming And Celebrating The Gift of Gender)
Conclusion
We need to affirm and celebrate the gift of Gender.
Female + Male = Image of God
or vice versa
Male+ Female = Image of God.
What then is our Christian Response to the Issue of Gender?
As a Christian Community our framework for
analysis, the direction for our strategy and
action to transform cultures must be rooted
and founded by the Gospel Agenda – God‟s
purpose for creation.
Conclusion
We need to affirm and celebrate the gift of Gender.
Female + Male = Image of God
or vice versa
Male+ Female = Image of God.
What then is our Christian Response to the Issue of Gender?
As God‟s image bearers, we are the light of this
world. Matthew 5:16 issued us this call to action,
“Let your light shine before men, that
they may see your good deeds and
praise your father in heaven.”
Conclusion
Dr. Melba Maggay said it aptly in her book Transforming Society,
“We bear witness, not only by what
we do, but more by what we are, a
redeemed people whose personal
sanctity and corporate dealings
reflect God‟s own concern for
justice and righteousness in the
world.”