Site navigation

Gender Justice

Date of Adoption: march 2007
Policy Serial No: POS 2.6

Gender justice gives women and men the same rights and entitlements to all aspects of human development, including economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights; the same level of respect; the same opportunities to make choices; and the same level of power to shape the outcomes of these choices. However, the achievement of equal rights for women and men may require that they receive different treatment.

Issues2

Gender is a social construct. It defines the roles, rights, responsibilities, and obligations of women and men, especially in relation to each other and to children. It is also a key factor in the regulation and understanding of sexuality. The way that society interprets and judges gender roles, rights and responsibilities is a key determinant of women’s and men’s socioeconomic position. For example, the choice of occupations for men and women is influenced by accepted social norms and stereotypes. ‘Outsider’ perspectives about gender roles and their visions for development can often exacerbate inequalities.

  1. More men than women hold formal positions of power. There are very few female representatives at the highest level. Only 14% of countries have achieved the target of 30% women in national parliament set in the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action; however, women are beginning to be better represented at local government levels.

Women have less access to and control over economic resources andassets and often receive less remuneration for their work. Accordingly, global trade and investment policies can affect men and women differently. The work of poor women and children (usually girls) is often physically burdensome and leaves them with little time for other activities.  When poor women and girls need to walk long distances from home to collect water and other essential resources, they can be vulnerable to violence. Fewer girls than boys receive an education and almost twice as many women as men are illiterate.

  1. Sexual and reproductive health problems are the leading cause of death and disability for women. Most are preventable. If a woman is able to determine the number, timing and spacing of her children, she has more opportunity to pursue productive community and individual activities and to secure stable employment and higher wages.
  2. The number of HIV positive women relative to the number of positive men has been steadily increasing and now numbers are about equal. The ability of women to practice safe sex and to access HIV testing, treatment and care services is often restricted by imbalances in decision-making power, gender-based violence, economic insecurity and cultural taboos. The vulnerability of men to HIV is strongly influenced by cultural ideas about masculinity.
  3. Gender inequalities increase women’s vulnerability in disaster (natural and human induced) situations. Eighty percent of the world’s refugees are women and children, and violence against women, including rape, has become commonplace in conflicts worldwide.
  4. The approach of mainstreaming gender has generally failed. There are a number of reasons for this: its emphasis on ‘integrating’ women rather than challenging power structures; its inadequate attention to the need for context specific information, particularly the dynamic multi-faceted relationships between gender and culture; its marginalising of ‘women specific work’; its loss of specialists training and knowledge; and its inadequate commitment of resources to mainstreaming across the development sector.

Oxfam Australia Principles

Oxfam Australia takes a rights-based approach to its work. It believes that everyone has human rights and that these are inalienable, universal, indivisible and interdependent. Oxfam Australia recognises that gender is socially constructed in ways that disempower women and those men who do not conform to dominant gender norms. Gender rights are human rights and for every human right there is a corresponding obligation to fulfil, protect and respect that right. These obligations have traditionally fallen on the state but are increasingly being extended to non-state actors such as corporations and non-government organisations.

Applying a rights-based approach to gender, Oxfam Australia will:

  1. Base its work on a common understanding that gender justice is fundamental to overcoming poverty and suffering.
  2. Work with women and men to raise the status of women and girls to achieve gender justice.
  3. Value the work and roles that women perform.
  4. Identify and address the differential impact of development programs on women and men that results from the power imbalance between them.
  5. Recognise the need for context and community specific responses to programs that target gender inequality.
  6. Within our commitment to fundamental human rights, acknowledge Indigenous perspectives, contexts and lived experiences.

Oxfam Australia will act to:

  1. Use gender analysis to plan and assess programs and to monitor their outcomes.
  2. Model best practice in gender justice and ensure that our internal ways of working reflect our commitment to this.
  3. Protect people from discrimination based on gender and sexuality.
  4. Ensure that staff have specialist training and are provided with sufficient resources to implement this policy.

Consequently, Oxfam Australia calls on governments, NGOs, bi-lateral and multi-lateral donors, international decision-makers, educators, businesses, and the media to:

  1. Adopt a rights-based approach to issues of gender and sexuality.
  2. Develop gender plans that include specific gender analysis and/ gender audits to monitor and evaluate the implementation of their programs to ensure they achieve gender justice.
  3. Analyse power relationships between women and men and actively challenge dominant discourses that perpetuate gender injustices.
  4. Support women in achieving leadership positions in their communities and ensure that the voices of women are heard and acted upon in decision-making forums and the media.
  5. Provide specific support for women’s organisations that are promoting and upholding women’s rights.
  6. Encourage men along with women to act as change agents to address gender injustice and confront sexism.
  7. Abide by the international conventions on women’s rights as defined in key UN instruments, in particular the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).
  8. Prioritise work towards women’s empowerment as detailed in the Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA) 1995, and further actions and initiatives required to overcome obstacles and to achieve the full and accelerated implementation of the BPfA as identified in Resolution S-23/3 of the UN General Assembly 10 June 2003.

1 This policy is to be read in conjunction with Oxfam Australia’s Position Policy, POS 2.5 HIV and AIDS, June 2006. See  http://www.oxfam.org.au/about/policy/POL/2_5.html

2 Sources: Grown, C., Rao Gupta, G., Kes, A. (2005). UN Millennium Project Task Force on Education and Gender Equality; UNDP. (2006). Gender and Trade: Women and Employment available at http://www.eldis.org/trade/Gender_trade_employment.htm, last accessed July 2006; UNFPA (2005). State of World Population 2005: The Promise of Equality; Oxfam International. (2004). Trading away our rights: Women in the global supply chain.