SID-WID Talks! Post review by Wendy Harcourt

These first contributions to SID-WID Talks! indicate there are differences but a strong sense of what it means to be a feminist today depending on where one lives. This gives hope for the new UN gender entity now being planned. The trick is to get the balance right between feminist visionary ideals and economic and social policy that can lead to real change in the current climate of financial, climate, food and care crises. On the one hand there is great opportunity because the economic models are now folding in on themselves and people are looking to alternatives that take on board concerns that feminists have been advocating for many decades. On the other hand there is a climate of fear that suggests that we can only just hang on to the current feminist agenda, and any change can only be minimal, with no money or security to ensure anything but basic needs, if those, are met. Development based on economic growth has compounded in the MDGs is facing a major systemic challenge. Until now feminist values have not been central but marginalized. SID-WID Talks! however shows the optimistic side to this complex challenge. The new UN gender entity offers the possibility for real change. With a strong agency unafraid to promote a feminist agenda we may find a new development unfolding. It will not just be a matter of counting women in, nor seeing women as the ones who can bale out the system. If money is put into education, health, local economies and sustained livelihoods based on gender justice that respects women’s roles as leaders, as those who care for others, the environment and the future then we may see real change. There are many cases of how poor women in fragile and conflict ridden countries not only survive major crises but carry their communities forward. We need to build a development grounded on those stories and strengths. Gender justice calls for a much more in-depth understanding of the links among the political, social and cultural arenas, ones that women intuitively can make in a holistic rather than narrow approach to development.

Coming up is the 15 year review of Beijing the Fourth World Conference on Women that set the milestones for women’s empowerment and gender equality for the last years, ones that were far more profound than the MDGs and a Programme of Action that is still to be met. The review process needs to be a bold one to kick start real change in development thinking so that gender issues become part and parcel of development on all levels.

We invite contributors in the next SID-WID Talks! to bring their thoughts about what they hope the Beijing +15 review can bring.

Wendy Harcourt
SID Senior Advisor and Editor Development

Click here to read the SID-WID Talks First Round contributions of Ana Agostino, Fatma Alloo, Raewyn Connell, Manisha Desai, Lois Woetsman and Jacqueline Pitanguy.

Written by: Federica Lomiri

Filed Under: Featured, Gender

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About Federica

Socio-economic analyst for developing countries. Membership Officer in SID.

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