Hello Everybody. I am Maria Elisa Christie.
I am the director of the Women and Gender in International Development here at CIRED: Center for International Research, Education and Development at Virginia Tech.
Shriya Sathaye is my Graduate Assistant supporting in this discussion series. She is from the Grad School of Engineering.
So this is our final event of the whole academic year. So I am gonna try to move, skip some of these things.
But I do want to say that we are really happy to get you Dr. Rebecca Williams to join us and I'll say more about her later.
Also, want to apologize that we scheduled this accidently to overlap with Eid, which is one of the most important holidays and we will make sure it doesn't happen again.
I do wish a Happy Eid to all of those of who celebrate!
So, as of this morning we had 44 people registered and they are from many different countries and many different organizations, universities, etc. that I have a list of here.
And then something happened, and I think there was some kind of a glitch and a problem that many people are not getting in.
But please note that our event will be recorded and will be available on our website later, probably by the end of the next week.
And by staying on now, you are consenting to being recorded. So you can turn off your camera if you do not wish to be recorded, you do not want your pinning to be recorded.
Okay, I do want to take a moment and reflect on Virginia's land and labor recognition.
Virginia Tech acknowledges that we live and work on the Tutelo / Monacan People’s homeland, and we recognize their continued relationships with their lands and waterways.
We further acknowledge that the Morrill Land-Grant College Act (1862) enabled the commonwealth of Virginia
to finance and found Virginia Tech through the forced removal of Native Nations
from their lands in California and other areas in the West.
Further our Labor Recognition also acknowledges that -
Virginia Tech acknowledges that its Blacksburg campus sits partly on land that was previously the site of the Smithfield and Solitude Plantations, owned by members of the Preston family.
Between the 1770s and the 1860s, the Prestons and other local White families that owned parcels of what became Virginia Tech also owned hundreds of enslaved people.
Enslaved Black people generated resources that financed Virginia Tech’s predecessor institution, the Preston and Olin Institute, and they also worked on the construction of its building.
And we haven't pinned this but you can look this up on I don't know if you have it there but I will put up an updated link on the Inclusive VT page
Okay, so we are going to get to the talk right away. It will be an approximately 25 minutes and then approximately 20 minutes of Q&A.
So you can put your questions in the chat and we'll keep track of them in a Google Doc.
Or after the presentation, you can raise your hand to reach out and speak.
And now allow me to introduce our speaker -
Dr. Rebecca Williams, otherwise known as Becky Williams is Assistant Professor at Grand Valley State University, she specializes in gender and development, and explores the evolving landscape of gender within development initiatives.
With a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Ecology and a graduate certificate in Gender and Development, she brings a unique interdisciplinary perspective to her research.
But I want to say that the reason Becky is here because I made an her acquaintance a few years ago when she worked with CIRED on the InnovATE’s Rural Livelihoods Study
that examined causes of violence in Honduras and how these causes affect youth, crime, rural livelihoods, and migration, among other factors.
And then, we also worked together on the Women and Gender in Development Virtual Conference that we organized, where I gave her a crazy assignment of -
Your role is to make this engaging. Even though with Covid, it had gone online and I was very concerned that it would not be engaging.
So she was critical to the wonderful success of the event with her creative and meticulous planning that made the virtual series very engaging, interactive and fun!
And that's still online at wgdconf.org
Okay, so having worked extensively in international settings, including as an Environmental Educator Extensionist with the Peace Corps, Dr. Williams delves into how large-scale agencies like USAID address gender dynamics.
Her current project focuses on understanding men's roles and environment efforts and the influence of masculinity on development strategies. In her work, Dr.
Williams highlights the importance of recognizing and addressing gender complexities within global development. All of the details. Are available, okay, the time in the talk.
With the capital and the women's empowerment How do you large scale development agencies approach many masculinities and gender-based project programming and women's empowerment initiatives.
So please welcome Dr. Thank you, Williams. Okay, and go ahead and share your screen.
Thank you.
Alright. Okay, can you see my screen okay? Brilliant. Alright, thank you so much, Mary Lisa, for having me in the in Virginia Tech.
I, I was telling Maria Lisa earlier, my niece is actually graduating from Virginia Tech this semester.
So I also have that connection. Yeah.
Thank you, I'm saying notes. You don't have your that's not the one we were seeing before.
Yeah.
Oh, it's my notes. Okay. Let's try that again then. Give me like, 85,000 options to choose from here.
Yeah.
See.
There we go. Sound look better? Okay. All right, brilliant.
Right.
So I wanted to talk a little bit today about, one of my research projects. This is really a higher level document analysis and I'm conducting.
And so I want to talk a little bit about why I wanted to look into. So I've, been working in the area of development and development practice since 2,009 when I joined the Peace Corps after that went into my PhD and so I've been fortunate in the development landscape to have many roles.
And the development landscape to have many roles as a volunteer, as a development practitioner, as a researcher and really, as a development practitioner, as a researcher and really researcher and really research is where my role continues to be now.
However, even when I back when I joined, to be now. However, even when I back when I joined, you know, the Peace Corps, we were trains to be now.
However, even when I back when I joined, you know, the Peace Corps, we were trains in, you know, how to look out for men specifically.
I was in Honduras, which is still the second most dangerous country in the world outside of active war areas.
And I remember even our, service that we were told, you know, like, hey, if you are walking down the road and you see a group of young men, you know, go to the other way because, you know, you don't know what they're doing, you know, especially if they're outside of a bar and all this.
So we have this, this pervasive mentality of how we see young men, when we're talking about developments, but I've lived in Honduras for many years and then there's this other side of men that we talk less about.
And that's, you know, the men who are, fathers and, you know, trying to take care of their families that also experience loss, you know, 95% of homicides and hunters go unsolved.
There's high levels of crime and and you know men are also dealing with these issues on top of you know some others and so this I'm I have found over the years there's a lack of complexity and looking at men and we tend to treat men as this large homogeneous group.
So what is the true view of men? Is it, you know, in Honduras, is it the men who joined the gangs or, you know, experience high levels of loss and that we attribute with domestic violence or is it men who experience lost themselves or trying to grow crops and feed their families or take the extremely dangerous trip to the United States to try to enter in as irregular migrants to find
labor to send money home. And so what is actually going on with men and what, how are we looking at them in the international development context.
So, I was hoping to get into beyond USAID, but for now, the majority of what I've been looking at has been, within USAIDs context.
Because they are one of the major world funders of development assistance and you know all of my funding that I've had and all of my projects, even my research is all been funded by USAID.
And so they, are the ones I looked at first, but I have plans to expand this research.
This is preliminary, research. So as we all know, if we're attending this particular event, we know what gender is and a gender according to USAID is looking at roles, responsibilities, rights, entitlements and obligations and power relations.
But what is general actually look like in practice and USAIDs practice? And so If you look back on the 2020 2012 USAID policy, they talk about gender a lot, obviously in this policy they really are focusing on women.
With a hundred 68 distinct you know mentions of women girls female 342 total where we see very little talk about men being male boys or men in general.
We only see 92 mentions of that. And then I look later at the 2020 policy, which is not the most recent.
There's actually one more recent one that I'll talk about in a minute here. And I wanted to see if there was any difference.
And so we see this slight uptick. And the way that. Usaid is talking about men.
So we have more mentions of men and boys and being male and fathers, but we still see this in just massive disproportionate difference in the way that we're talking about in these gender strategies, we're really, really focusing on women and women's needs, which is necessarily a bad thing, but I'm gonna get to, to, why, what my concerns are about this.
So really this is a natural progression or I think a natural outcome of the wood waggad, time periods where we, you know, very first started out with Esther Bowser up, you know, saying, like, hey, like women, let's get women into the workforce, you know, when we are doing development work, we're really not thinking about women's economic needs and how
that could help, you know, with, you know, their bargaining power. Then the household and all this.
Then there was this recognition of well, there's women have more going on that we haven't thought about.
We haven't looked at the reproductive sphere and all the work women are doing there. All the unrecognized work in agriculture, for example, that, women do all the time.
And then into the more gad focused or we need to look at roles and norms and. And broaden out to the cultural and social aspects of gender and how that influences men and women's differential access to resources and opportunities and so on.
And then we've actually moved into this. More into an empowerment movement, which is kind of where we are, kind of still hovering in this idea of women's empowerment in practical and strategic needs and how do you fit those.
And so when this the entire field of women, gender and development really did start with a focus, an intentional focus on women because of, you know, the lack of attention on women that has been, you know, historically before that.
And the patriarchy, the influences of all that. So it's kind of, it's not terribly surprising that we really are focusing on women, but I do think that there are some consequences to that.
And this is one of them. In my work in Honduras, I, have done a couple of large projects on gender based violence researching it.
And this really stuck with me. I went to the spatter women shelter in Honduras and had a lovely conversation with with the woman who was the director and you know she was going through all these amazing things that they were doing.
They they house women for 3 months, they taught them education skills. School, like how to read, you know, how, tell them about their rights and took their kids as well and it provided them with psychological care.
And so really just intentional, very deep care of, these women who are victims of gender based violence for 3 months.
And then I asked, okay, well, what happens at the end of the 3 months? And she paused and said, well, they go home.
And I said, well, are you, are you doing any work with the men? And she said, no, nobody funds work with men on violence.
And I said, I was like, really? She's like, no, there is no money to work with the men.
And she told me, she said, sometimes I feel like we're actually doing a disservice.
We're actually making things worse because we teach women all of these things that they need to know to really thrive and know their rights and then we're sending them right back home into the same situation that they left without ever addressing what's going on with men.
And that really stuck with me and it's also something that I have observed in many different country contexts that I work in.
I work, I'm focusing this presentation on Honduras and in Latin America, but I've also worked in, in the African continent in both the Sahel and Saharan Africa as well as Southeast Asia and I kind of see this theme coming up over and over again.
And so when we look at masculinity specifically, our gender, the USAID gender policies really don't talk about masculinity, just very little.
We actually saw a decrease in that between 2,012 and 2,020. Now there is a new 2023 policy that now has this like call out where they talk about boys men and masculinities.
And this is the first time I had really seen an intentional effort in USAIDs policy level documentation on how they address the needs of unique needs of men and boys.
So this is actually very encouraging. However, when I went through that document with a very detailed focus, I did not see any real difference between that one and the 2,020 policy other than the box that acknowledges that this is something that we need to be looking in.
So, this really made me want to know like what, is going on with been a masculinity in the development sphere, you know, how does, you know, the lack of focus of, of masculinities, how does that affect women's empowerment efforts?
And then, you know, you know, what does that have to do with, you know, what we're trying to do and empowering women in their practical strategic needs if we're not doing the the same kind of work with their amalgamal counterparts.
And so, right now I've looked at 6, all of you USAIDs, country, development cooperation strategies, which they do in collaboration with their country partners, as well as the regional, documents.
So I looked at 61 documents and conducted a analysis. This is very preliminary and there are some limitations.
Obviously these are policy-level documents and I chose policy level documents because the funding follows the policy. However I have plans in the future to go much deeper into other USAID documentation, like, work national level work plans and, you know, to get a deeper dive into how the different people who are receiving USAID funding are utilizing it.
I also would like to increase this into other large-scale agencies, not just USAID, but look at kind of the broader spectrum of the top donors and how they are looking at gender.
So, of the series of the where the 61 different countries that had country to development cooperation strategies.
When you look at how they are talking about men or if they're talking about men in their gender strategies, it immediately drops from 61 31.
So immediately half of the gender strategies are not addressing men or masculinities as part of their gender strategy at all.
So within these 31, we have a different development objective. So the, the large scale thematic areas that, USAID works in.
So in the education sphere, we, we only have a discussion of men and masculinity in 12 countries.
In health, only 11. An economic growth 6. And governance 5 and security for and an agriculture 2.
That's really interesting. So when you actually look at the language that they're using here, too, I think this says a lot about how we are looking at this particular topic.
So I'm across these different development objectives. When we look at health, we have 5 countries that basically are referring when they're talking in the tests are referring to both men and women.
And so what I mean here is like for example giving equal opportunities to flourish and become productive citizens. So we're really talking about just like addressing both men and women in these initiatives.
Similarly, obviously the very similar thing in education where there's 8 countries that refer to both men and women and they're really talking about men and women and they're really talking about equitable education outcomes for boys and girls.
More of a focus on boys as boys have been seen to in some places, especially Latin America, the Caribbean that are going to school less and less often.
So we see, you know, a bit of a focus on trying to get boys back in school in school.
But again, we're just talking about boys and girls, right? Similarly in governance, I'm talking about champions for gender equality, looking at this language of both men and women.
An economic growth focusing on the jobs that women and men want. And agriculture, talking about reducing barriers to credit for men and women.
And in security, this one is one of the more interesting ones in Jamaica, looking at how males and females are pulled into, acts of violence, which is one of the few places that we see this focus on gender, and acts of violence rather than being victims of, violence.
When I looked at the language and around engaging men as gatekeepers to women's empowerment.
Which it kind of goes back to, the discussions around power through. Of course, there are some complexities to power through in the conceptualization of that.
However, one interesting aspect of power through is the idea of gatekeepers. As part of, you know, of women's empowerment.
So interestingly, we only see this in 2 domains in health and in governance and it's really largely focused in in the continent of Africa and specifically on health.
And you can see that this has a lot to do with engaging men and boys as family planners. And this came out of a lot of challenges in the health field and getting family planning as being a kind of a normative part of culture when men feel like that's a responsibility of women and they don't necessarily take a responsibility for family planning.
Push on family planning and trying to get men involved in their responsibilities there. And that's really what we see throughout.
The engagement is gatekeepers and health. And we have here, this is actually one of the only times they use the language gatekeepers to ensure that both men and women can adopt healthier behaviors.
Similarly when it term comes to governance, we have engaging men and boys as allies in terms of gender-based violence.
So it's interesting that these are kind of the the health is really really the focus of bringing in men and masculinities and then in South Africa regionally there's a little bit of a focus here on engaging men in terms of the producing gender based violence.
What about looking at masculinity specifically or how men really define themselves as men, how they see the roles and the norms of being a man in society, there's only 5 countries that address masculinity in their gender strategy.
And those, often times are have to do with getting, men and boys into education, especially those that are at risk.
We see trying to reduce the lure of crime or negative influence. And governance there is also a focus on trying to understand how men and boys get pulled into conflicts.
And so we see that there's go that their strategy is to take a better gender lens and understanding, external conflicts.
And then in economic growth, we see a little bit of activity in Honduras with men serving as gatekeepers to women's participation in the economy.
So some talk about, and this is the only nation, the only national strategy that I have seen that focuses specifically on new forms of gender equitable and nonviolent masculinity.
So really addressing masculinity itself as part of gender programming. You don't really see that in any other of the country strategies.
So, recognizing that men and their roles and responsibilities, there are some specific needs of men.
There's only 5 countries that look into that. So we see, again, this focus on trying to keep boys in school.
We have trying to get young men into the workforce and this kind of ties back to this vilification of young men that we have, we've been seeing.
I've seen this in a lot in Latin America and the Caribbean specifically. Other places as well.
Again into security. And in Jamaica and Tunisia where there's a lot of unrest in terms of trying to avoid, you know, men being pulled into, you know, extremism and other types of violent acts.
And in terms of addressing men's roles in specifically for the promotion of women's empowerment, we only see that in the health sphere.
And that really is reducing the perception that advancements by women equate to a loss of power for men.
And again, this is one of the only places where I see this recognition that that men and masculinities and their roles has an influence on how women's empowerment initiatives are received.
And this is another really important one. It's in terms of focusing on men and boys to equalize power around health outcomes.
So, so I kind of blaze through this because I do, we kind of started a little late and I wanted to have some, a good amount of time to kind of talk about, your thoughts and things on this.
So there's some preliminary, things that I wanted to bring up. As I look through these documents and have started looking into other, national level, internal documents, you know, USAID, everything is posted so you can download all the countries different documents and stuff.
As I've been going through, we see that gender is still largely synonymous with women. Throughout the vast majority what I've seen when we're talking about gender it is focused specifically on women and women's needs.
We see very little of men's involvement in gatekeepers. And when we do, it's almost always related to health and sexual reproductive outcomes.
We rarely see a masculinities or men as gatekeepers being addressed in other domains of development.
It's rarely involved as a key factor in sustainable development and women's empowerment and men and boys unique needs are really only focused in the education sphere and trying to get men and boys back in to the school system and especially at the secondary and tertiary levels.
So there were some slight changes in the 2023 policy that, you know, makes me think that maybe the winds are shifting.
Slightly towards looking more at men and vascularities in their role. However, There is still a lot lacking in terms of the recognition of the need to work with men.
On masculinities and specifically around gender-based violence, you know, back to the very beginning quote that nobody funds work with men on violence.
There's some recognition of the role of men and boys. And how masculinity is is a pull or a push factor it will list livelihoods but I know like I work a lot in in Honduras and we really are trying to combat the lure of gang and market trafficking activity as an alternative economic strategy.
Especially for young boys where they don't see that they have a lot of options in the workforce and you know, I work largely in rural, Honduras and, you know, the mentality is, you know, there's no point in going to school because I can't get a job.
There's nothing to do around here. The crops are failing. You know, there's, with the effects of climate change, there's a lot of this, unrest, a lot of political instability.
And so they see their choices as maintain a status quo. Continue to try to do what I'm doing.
Migrate to the United States and hope that you can get in across the border and get a good job or, get involved with the gigs and Narker traffickers.
And I have seen this myself many times, and things like. Communities where the gangs or the nca traffickers are that really are the ones providing security and food.
In one place they were the the NARCA traffickers were building a new school for the community.
In another town they were building a new Catholic church for the community. And so again, like this, this, Oh, lack of recognition of how men perceive themselves and their role in society, how they identify as men, how they how that then influences what they see as their options.
And then again, a very little recognition of the role of masculinity, in the gender transformation of women.
However, there are some really important questions that come out of this as well. So for me, I've been thinking a lot about, you know, what, does it mean that we're in gender and development, but we're not necessarily looking at Okay.
How you know how many are involved here what are the consequences of that when is it important to involvement as gatekeepers and this is a conversation that I've had with a lot of people who work in engineering development.
Where the, the mentality in that many of us have is like, well, over time it has been men who have been the recipients of development aid largely.
And then, you know, what what we're trying to do in and is kind of right the ship when we're talking about gender and development and that's why we oftentimes will focus on women and there is a big push against trying to bring men into that conversation because the there is a concern.
That will take away from the focus on what women really need. And I think that's an important conversation to have.
However, I would also argue that not bringing this conversation at at a wider and larger scale, you know, Are we sustainably, you know, is is this development sustainability?
Is this, are we actually moving towards more equity? For women. And then also, you know, how are we addressing man and masculinity across thematic areas?
Should women's empowerment initiatives always include a component of working with. Men and How do we, and this is the last one is probably the most important, how do we address many masculinity.
Without taking a focus and funding away from important, women's initiatives. So I would also really seriously do not want to see.
Money taken away from really important work being done with women, without really thinking through, you know, the implications of that.
So, I saw in the immediately the question about the Cdc's and the RDCSs.
And so, the, yeah, I have actually started digging in. And to, and I've been using Honduras as the case study, but I have started digging into the different reports, and budgets and things along those lines to see.
How the budgetary allocation and how the different projects that are passed through money specifically are addressing gender differently.
And so for example, like the consortium models or money that goes to the universities and then the projects come out of those pots of money they do look slightly different in terms of who depending on who is on that project, what their background and gender and development is and if they are taking masculinity and consideration.
However, at least in the what I've looked at so far in a still have a lot of digging to do, it's still very, very dominant that it's really focused specifically on women with very little focus on men and masculinities except for in health and education, which are the 2 areas that I see that's coming out a little bit more.
So, so I think that the interesting thing to think about there is, you know, where does policy lead?
How does the the language in the policy affect the financial, the budgetary and so on? And there was, I myself worked on an AID project where we couldn't the way that our funding was framed, we couldn't branch out into this other area because we were locked in to, you know, the M and E plan and the, you know, the way that it had been structured in the call for proposals.
So, so I kinda wanted to open this up for some thoughts on the role of men and masculinities in.
Gender developments and like what exactly, you know, if you think that there is a space for that or if it takes away from other important.
Conversations. So I went really fast because I was concerned about time when we started a little bit late and really.
So maybe, also was like, don't put too long. So I would love to.
Open it up to some questions. Conversation.
Thank you. Thank you very much. And actually you did perfect.
Yeah, all right, great.
And we have a small group, so I'm hoping you can get a good conversation going. I don't think we have.
Another question. Did you do you feel that she addressed? Your question.
I'm gonna I'm gonna go on to the next question here from Manami. Would you like to go ahead and unmute yourself and ask your question?
Yeah, sure. Thank you so much. This was a really great talk and I learned a lot and I know a little or I've not my field, but just from what I've read, I'm in the field of science and technology studies and development intersections and I'm an assistant professor here.
So thank you for this talk. And you know, I was really familiar with the girl effect, especially in relation to energy development and renewable energy and that sort of this neoliberal push to you know if you just give a girl energy or education she's gonna just change the world.
You know, we're not going to focus on politics. We're going to focus on the sort of, you know, hopeful grassroots transformation.
And at the same time, from my understanding, men are stereotyped to be like incipiently violent or terrorists or drunkards or alcoholics or you know whatever like they're just not worth putting our efforts into.
And I was wondering if there was sort of this racialized component to it. If if you're familiar with it, I don't know if you can answer this about equivalent you know, attention paid to masculinity as gatekeepers in various fields and the global north.
You know like with with domestic violence which is also an issue up here too and whether this lack of attention in for men is somehow asymmetric.
You know, with relationship to what's going on. In the so called global north western countries.
Yeah, what a great question. So I'll comment on a couple of things. I think the, girl effects phenomenon is really interesting.
But when you take a step back and look at that and I again, I see this all the time in in Honduras, you know, where women are able to they are able to move the bar and a lot of senses when they when their partner is in the United States or you know especially when there's migration involved right where women are by themselves and their whole communities in in Honduras for example where it
is predominantly women because the men of all migrated right. And in some sense, it does, let you know, you know, I think the research is clear that it does move the bar for women.
However, they're having to do that on top of all of their other normative responsibilities. And so, you know, I wonder one of the other things that really bothers me in the development field and it's a different presentation but one thing I think we needed to be looking at a lot more and it's kind of related is mental health, right?
And the mental health of the people that we are working with as well as the mental health and development practitioners, is not a conversation that we ever have, in my experience in development.
So kind of like going along with that, you know, It's kind of a catch 22 a little bit in terms of the grill effects and what I see is that when men then come home is when you start getting this backlash effects of men reasserting their power, you know, reasserting their role as the as the head of the household and then that can result in backlash in terms of domestic violence, of women losing.
you know, the income sources that they may have gotten while men were gone. And so, you know, to me that's we're still talking about in the girl effect.
We're still talking about a lack of focus. On shifting men's mentalities, which really worries me.
And I do think that you, in your comment here about, men of the Global South are stereotyped as terrorist records inherently violent I mean I definitely I really do see that and I also hear all of the discourses and I've seen it myself the mentality of like, well, now that the wife is making it income.
The husband just stops to try and stop doing anything and then you know you have the woman who's doing all the household responsibilities and the economic and there and in some senses are almost disempowered by the empowerment process because now they're having to do everything and their husband just like throws up their hands and checks out.
And so to me that is another signal that, we're not addressing the other side of that equation in terms of shifting the way men see their roles.
And I do think that there is a corollary with the global north. I mean, I think in the global north, we have more of an awareness.
And I think it depending upon your community and culture in the global north. You know, you know, for, you know, I grew up in a house that was very gendered, but you know, my niece's household was not at all.
And so there's, I've seen some shifts in, in terms of that, especially with the younger generation.
However, I do still think that we don't treat. The phenomenon of domestic violence as a 2 sided issue.
And I don't mean to sight it in any in any way in terms of like blame my women.
I mean that there's 2 that the perpetrator is not being addressed in in this larger discourse.
I mean, basically we really focus on database violence on getting women out of bad situations, which is extremely important and should still very much be our priority.
But then how do we shift the overall situation if the men are never you know, held accountable or brought into, you know, programs that can address, you know, how their masculinity is.
Displaying in terms of violence and alcoholism and things like that. Does that answer your question? And I do, I also think it's very racialized.
I do think that, this is an intersectional issue as well as just a gender issue.
And I think that is it is also an intersectional issue in the global south. Which I don't I personally don't think that intersectionality has really gotten into development work just yet.
Okay.
But I see, you know, Maria Lisa really liked a picture that I had in my presentation.
It's on the flyer of the man with the little boy. Well, that is an indigenous, community where in Honduras where men are very involved with their children.
But you go to the Mestizo area right down the road and you would never see a guy, know hanging out with his son in that same way.
So and that is intersectionality right that is like the indigenous male verse in this area versus you know and so I think I do also think that one thing we need to really be thinking about in development is not putting men in a category that's just men.
Right. Because we also have stratification. Within that group, we had champions within that group, but we're not talking about it using that kind of language.
Yeah, thank you. Yeah.
Thank you so much. That was great. Thank you.
Mary, better hand on May, would you like to on you?
Yes, good morning. Hi, I'm Mary. I'm an international student from Nigeria.
I don't know if you remember me, Dr. Maria Lisa. I won't send a message.
I'm with Doctor, Professor Lloyd Bankcrowder. So I have a contribution and also a question.
Yeah.
Use it for my, I've, you're using my experience as a women from Nigeria.
If you're using men as a good keepers to any empowerment program towards women, I don't think I'm talking for my experience now because men in Nigeria against equality of women with them.
Yeah.
Do you understand? They always dominate, dominates. They always want to be in charge.
So if they are in charge of any program towards the empirements of women. I don't think it's Josh.
Effective, all successful in any way because You women, like, human, in Nigeria. We are in charge.
You don't need that Qatar sector, but we are not recognized because they believe that our roles is part of our roles to be able to take off the family.
This part of our own is bringing in morning. But it's not a recognize anyway. So in another way that puts in charge any program relating to women, they will make sure that they benefit from me more than we might.
So you'll never get people to me. I don't think it's the right way.
And, to my question, presently I'm taking feminist theory as a Cool. And I believe that, feminism.
Up to apples to look at situation using gender lens. Termin is rich and Patsy not S. You see things like to help people in general.
We believe that we are first human being before we are men or female or any other gender. So I have this question.
About gender, You know, gender, well, to women have been the most pronounced. Both in Nigeria, there are some men too that are faced with gender violence.
How can this be addressed because men cannot come out and say they're being beaten by their wife?
Yeah, yeah.
No. Oh, I was wondering that, how come this be addressed? How can we make men to come out and tell all their problem what they are facing.
Yeah.
You know, there you go that I'm the head of the family. How can I talk and say my wife is beating me?
That's all. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, what a great question. So, so one clarification I wanna make, is, I do not think that, men should be, gatekeepers from empowerment.
Yes.
My, concern is that men believe that they are, you know, like you were saying, like men, they don't want women to you know to go through empowerment processes like they, they want women to stay within their roles and responsibilities.
And so from that perspective, I'm saying that men are behaving as gatekeepers. And, and that's where we get, some situations where, you know, women really struggle to buy, to get past that, that role of men and, in that thought process of men as gatekeepers.
So what I'm saying is is that when we have women women's empowerment initiatives, we also have to work towards changing the viewpoints of men on women in terms of like their view that women should stay in the home and should do the XY, and Z.
But what I largely see is that we work with the women themselves. We work very hard and intentionally with the way.
Without ever talking to the men. And that's something that I have been concerned about. And in the communities that I work in, it has resulted in a lot of backlash.
Whereas there are also some communities that I'm familiar with and some things that I've read where when when the development agency intentionally works with men on masculineities and the way they view themselves.
And the way that they view their role within the household and within the community and I've seen this there's a lot of work on nutrition in agriculture specifically on this topic as well.
That you see a different kind of shift. Within the household then a man being very resistant to a woman entering the workforce or controlling her own money or whatever that case may be.
So, so I really think it's a like to me I've just been seeing like over and over and in the literature as well this by only focusing on women that were not moving how men see their entire roles in the society.
And so we're kind of just fighting back. In a way that I don't know is always being productive.
In terms of the domestic violence where, we're men are against domestic violence. Yeah, that's a big conversation that we're not having any, really not having in a lot of spheres and it's an issue in the United States in the global north as well.
So that is very very tied to masculinity and if a man says like they're being verbally or physically abused by a woman, then there is this, it is really a taboo.
To actually come out and talk about that. So we we have that issue in the global north as well as in the global south.
And in terms of what to do about that, I mean, I I still think that. That thinking about, you know, how we see one another.
Yes.
I think you mentioned as humans first before, you know, we look at gender. Yeah, that's kind of the same mentality is how do we How do we have conversations where we are shifting what we consider to be manly and what we consider to be feminine, for example.
So that a man who is going through is experiencing an abuse can, you know, can speak out and can get assistance without being.
Yes.
You know, othered really. So I don't have a great answer to the question because it is a really big issue.
Yeah.
You know, worldwide that we haven't We haven't really been seriously talking about on a large scale.
Yeah, thank you.
Does that answer your question? Yeah, yeah. I saw Valerie's hand, I think it's up next.
Good. Exactly.
It's okay.
Okay, wasn't sure how to unmute myself. Sorry about that. So no, I just wanted to kind of, let me follow up with what Deborah was mentioning in the chat.
I think it might be really helpful to maybe do some KIIs or some of the development organizations.
Even though it's not. If it's explicit in the higher level documents. I should probably introduce myself.
I'm a senior technical advisor for nutrition sensitive and gender sensitive agriculture from Catholic belief services. And so, so and I've been with them for about 12 years now and I would say that if you did like AIs with some of our implementing organizations, you would probably end up seeing and hearing a lot more.
Not as much as we definitely. There's definitely a lot more on women interventions, but like CRS, we do a lot around couples.
And couples communication and that's bringing them together. To tackle talk about rights and then talk about communication skills.
Decision-making aspects, but together as a couple versus one or the other.
Yeah, which is very interesting way to approach that. Yeah.
And we, we have 2 different approaches for that. And then we also have a peaceful masculinity course.
That we've been working with in some of our programs and I know like world vision has been doing masculinity work for a long time.
And other organizations. So I just think I think if you want to a lot of this is funded by U.S.A, but some of it's not.
So it'd be interesting to kind of like del deeper into those because we might be as implementers even though it's not so explicit in their high level.
Yes.
We seem to doing some of it here. Even out also. Oh.
Yeah, absolutely. And it's funny, you're from Catholic Blue Services because the 2 organizations that I've been looking into that do the most work around.
Is Catholic Relief Services and Care International. Who both have taken very intentional, larger scale approaches, them in a masculinities, that I've not necessarily seen reflected in some of the other, state funded development agencies.
So I did, do 28 can form interviews in Honduras specifically, with, organizations and largely in the western part of Honduras, but in 5 different municipalities.
And I saw the exact same thing. Now with the exception of Catholic police services and care international, a little bit of work by world vision.
But I did, yeah, I did 28 key inform interviews in Honduras specifically. And that's the country that I plan on going into a very deep dive where I'm looking at budgets as well as work plans, for all of the different projects within the country so that I can really dig into like what you're saying with the difference between what happens at the policy level.
And then once the funding gets allocated, how that shifts as you get down, towards the other levels.
One of the reasons why this made me so interested is because I received so much push back. From development agencies, including USAID, in trying to do any, in, any purposeful integration of men and masculinities on a project level or on, you know, on a larger project scale.
I've experienced a lot of pushback against that. So within the Honduran context, and I actually my colleagues and I are working on a publication on this.
I did this with the, Jose and Honduras. But you know, when we, when I went around and we started talking about, I'm specifically looking at men and masculinity in terms of gender based violence, there was none none of the organizations were working with men.
With the exception of category services and CRS, but even in Honduras, they weren't doing very much with men.
But.
They were really, really focusing on women. So I agree with you, Valerie. And I, that is my plan is as I continue with this research is to expand, the different organizations that I'm looking at as well as going into a deeper dive into what they're doing on the ground level.
And maybe part of it is also focusing on Latin America because the funding mechanisms for Latin America are very limited and different than kind of the Africa.
And so there's a lot less like development organizations can do around gender in Latin America. Just because of the limited amount of funding that goes there.
Okay.
Yeah, and some of the some of the presidential transitions too really affects you know what you know when when Trump was in the administration versus when Biden is in the administration and Obama's administration.
You also get the Mexico City protocols and things like that that really change, you know, what you're able to do in the field.
And I think that that is not something I've integrated into my research bug would be interesting to do is to look and see how how that shifts over the different political changes that we have.
And that's USAID specific, obviously. But I think that would be interesting to look at too.
And yes, CRS in terms of working with men and gangs, you know, and I haven't looked a lot.
I should have, I should specify that I primarily work with in rural communities. So my own research when I'm looking at the approaches to gender-based violence have largely been in the Perry urban and rural areas of Honduras, not like to go, Sugar, P, San Pedro, S, they're really, really big cities.
However, I did work with some, you know, youth houses and things like that that were, telling me some very similar things, except that there is some funding to work with gangs.
I think that's a very challenging area to work in, but that is one area where they are, I think, working on masculinities, but not in terms of masculinities as we're looking at gender in women's empowerment it really has to do with like getting that out of gangs.
Yeah. Jacqueline, I think I saw your hand.
Yes.
Yeah, I'll be quick.
We've only got like 5 min.
What have you said? Limited time.
Yeah, we have about 5 min, but I'll make my responses briefer.
Okay, thank you very much. Becky for your presentations. I'm so, so sorry.
I just came towards the tail end. But I could grasp what you have. Just presented. I'm very proud of you.
You're doing very good work because this is the approach to gender that we are looking for. I keep telling people that there's no way we can we can we can ensure women's empowerment without involving men.
Because on this planet we leave more men and women. We are not living in a vacuum. So you're doing a very good job.
And maybe to add on to what the others have said. Someone say they, do a couple, couple couple.
Yes, yes, then, role plays. Can be very good. Road place can be very good.
Oh yes.
And getting gender champions in the community to give those who are doing Good work. Those can encourage other people to do that.
Then in terms of, What is it? Who are facing domestic violence? Yeah, people are there suffering a lot.
But we also encourage to create male forums.
Yeah, places where men can talk about masculinity. I think it's very important.
Male forums. Yes, they can talk freely about that. And your approach is excellent because people are getting, tackling this gender issue.
In a very wrong way. To the point that when you even look at publications Someone is talking about gender, but you look at entire publication, they are just talking about women.
You know, you have to compare the 2. To find out where the issues are. And then lastly, women's empowerment, it comes from, it is intrinsic.
It is intrinsic. We have to deal with things like self esteem. Self-confidence, your ability to relate with others you have a network.
You know, you can make a decision and act on it. But people are misinterpreting like it is about these extrinsic factors.
Yes, those ones can help you get from 1 point to to the next point, but you need to work in.
Walk on the inner self. That's how I understand. Women empowerment. And unless we do that.
There is no women empowerment and unless we Okay, also sensitize the men. They need to be since because I've been in sensitization meetings where you you tell the men these are the issues and they understand it is very important.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. Yeah, and we're I have seen like really substantial changes within specific communities. It has been, women and men working together and sometimes men actually shifting the way that they see their wife and the way that they see their role and that becomes a model for other people in the community.
So, that idea of sensitization. So I certainly, you know, just to make one broad statement, you know, there are people working in this area.
Obviously, as some people have mentioned, like dig in to kind of some of like the deeper stuff. And I do think that that's really important.
I plan to go much deeper into seeing what's going on. But I also do have concerns that we're not talking about this in the field.
In terms of how these things are related. And, you know, our approaches. 2 men and women and how, you know, how that plays out on the broader scale.
And I kind of think that a lot of the things that we are seeing, are, are some of the outcomes of not.
Trying to shift how men see themselves and their roles as well as what we're trying to empower women internally and through economics and through, you know, social mobility and so on and so forth.
So, so yeah, so I do have a lot more research to do and I'm hoping, you know, eventually I'll be able to, put together, put out something that is really a lot more complex than what I presented today.
But I also think that policy drives funding and, you know, where our funding can, like to my very first quote, nobody funds.
Work with men on violence is, you know, one of the indicators of that. Di saw that you had your hand and I know we only have 2 min left, but if I can answer it quickly, I'm happy to.
I don't.
And while these on meeting, I'm gonna shout out to my niece, Elena, who's graduating from Virginia Tech. And she's on the line.
So it's like shout out to Virginia Tech a husky graduating in April. Yeah.
Yeah.
So I don't need an answer, Becky. I just think it would be really helpful to deepen the analysis that you've provided by looking at more his more of a historical view you mentioned changes based on administration and that's 1 piece, but also I think that there was an enormous amount of work.
When we were putting literally billions of dollars into HIV prevention that looked at masculinities and men's involvement in different ways and that I'm trying to understand some of these.
Trends but over time in different sectors I think would really make a difference and provide a more nuanced analysis.
So thank you.
Yeah, I completely agree. I appreciate that. So before I try to actually publish paper, I'm gonna go much, much deeper on this.
Yeah.
And I will say that I think that the legacy of that, what you're talking about in the health field is why we see all of the action around masculinity is really in the health field.
Is a is a legacy of the HIV and AIDS. Mobilization and, like you said, like how that has shifted over time with the different administrations and so on.
So yeah, I think that taking in that historical aspect would all but also deepen as well as going down into the documents themselves.
So that's my, I honestly that's my don't want to be doing over the summer.
Sounds good.
Alright, that was wonderful. Thank you so much everybody for participating. It is 1 30 and I can say that we'll have a great line up next year.
We already are talking to several people and if you have any recommendations for speakers we already are talking to several people and if you have any recommendations for speakers you know me that as well.
Thank you so much. Becky for your presentation and you've always done great work and good luck and.
Any time, and teaching and everything in your new job there too. Lots of great research.
Thank you and thanks everybody for engaging in the in the discussion because it is it is a very controversial discussion and so I really appreciate everybody taking the time to share their thoughts and all that.