8

Repudiation of all physical, cultural and philosophical & religious justifications for macho-patriarchal beliefs, rules and practices

Promotion and institutionalization of genuine respect between the sexes

Promotion of equality of opportunities for all individuals regardless of sex or gender preference

Attainment of Equality view as institutionalized standard and, upon this premise, focusing on work for Holistic Harmony between the sexes.

  1. Total Human Development and Harmony Through Synergism

  2. Holistic Health Care and Medicine

  3. Deep Ecology and Harmony with Nature 

  4. Sense of History and Sense of Mission

  5. Civics and Democratic Governance

  6. Culture as Community Creativity

  7. Light-Seeking and Light-Sharing Education

  8. Gender Sensitivity, Equality & Harmony

  9. Reconstructive/Restor-ative Justice

10. Associative Economics, Social Capital and Sustainable Development

11. Synergetic Leadership and Organizations

12. Appropriate/Adaptive Technology

13. Mutual Enrichment of Families and Friendships

14. Human Dignity and Human Harmony: Human Rights and Peace

15. Aesthetics Without Boundaries: 'Art from the Heart'   

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‘An Initial Take 

on Gender Mainstreaming'

By Azl Alarcon

A LITTLE MORE than ten years ago, I remember being asked during a workshop what the term “gender” means to me.  With full honesty I replied, “I think it’s being aware of who you are and having a clear understanding on what makes you distinct from and similar to other people”.  I wasn’t sure then whether I gave a “right answer” to that question but that moment made me wonder what this term truly means, defined based on one’s personal experience rather than the text-book definition about it.

Then came a time when I got involved in a program to introduce gender and development in coastal communities.  I would say that my colleagues then were more confident (than I was) and gave me responsibilities in line with initiating gender mainstreaming activities among project sites and within the organization itself.  Later on, I was even asked to manage and coordinate a conference, a learning workshop actually, on this line of work.

To give me more confidence, I read a lot, talked with people who were engaged in this line of work, participated in several “gender mainstreaming” activities so I would have a better idea on how to “mainstream” gender in our work.

Implementing the program became a journey wherein we continued to take each step with the “destination” only becoming clear and articulated along the way.  However, intuitively, we seem to know what to do.

'It's Just Work; Don't Take it Personally!'

During the initial stage, there were several batches of participants who attended Gender Sensitivity Workshops. We also gathered data using the different tools for gender analysis and had regular sessions to know how we were faring in our work.

Assessments and reflection sessions were conducted based on very specific objectives: to know and understand the situation in the communities and identify possible “gender issues” that need to be addressed by the NGO. We also wanted to see how we understood the underlying concepts to what we were doing.

From the data we have gathered, what emerged was a new picture on the roles men and women partake in the community as well as within households.   Some sensitive issues also began to surface, i.e. hearing stories of domestic violence in some coastal communities, child abuse, and whispered stories of women being abused.

Aside from what we were consciously doing in our work, there was a parallel process happening in the communities and within the NGO itself.   Changes were happening.

Talking about those “green jokes” became venue to reflect on whether these jokes tend to put down either men or women or not.   Issues on “multi-tasking” and “multiple-burden” for both men and women personnel became part of the discussion during meetings.

Those were moments when we started to talk about things we tend to ignore before; a time when we gave more consideration when assigning tasks to allow individual staff to become responsible both at home and at work.

This was also the time when program staff could bring in their kids at work and even during workshops, with the other staff providing support in caring for the kids instead of getting irritated at the “makukulit na mga bata” in one’s work place.

The Work: Political and Personal Continuum

What started as an effort that was considered purely as work (trabaho lang to) became something personal.    It turned out that being gender sensitive does not only apply in relating with the people in the communities, and being aware of particular issues of women that may be different from issues affecting men in the community. We found out that being “gender sensitive” made each one of us become more aware of our own needs, and began to understand why men and women respond differently to various situations.

It was like peeling off layers of onion skin wherein something new is getting discovered continuously. It was a never-ending learning.

In one of the learning conferences held mainly for sharing of experiences in gender mainstreaming, the last session became an open sharing of experiences among the staff to talk about our insights and how each one felt in being involved in gender mainstreaming. Some of the things shared that I can still remember now were the following:

• that one can never separate the personal from work and the political when we talk of gender.

• that facilitating the process of gender awareness and working towards gender empowerment, both men and women need to get involved and benefit from it.

• that there is a need for a different level of facilitation skills for those who will be involved in gender mainstreaming at the project and community.

Come to think of it, we didn’t know about these things when we started.

But I can see it now that we weren’t blind when we embarked in this journey.  We knew deep in our hearts that being a man or a woman should not limit us from doing and attaining what we want to achieve.  I think it helped a lot that from the start we believed that addressing gender issues is not a battle between the sexes.  I think it is a battle involving all sexes and gender against factors that hinder us from becoming the best of who we are, from achieving our most cherished dreams in life.

Mainstreaming gender is only a way, a means to make us more aware about this and help us realize what we hope to achieve –  a better life for all of us.