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Population and Gender. Responses to Mari Simonen Wendy Harcourt. Starting the Dialogue. Bring to the conversation my point of view on population and gender based on my recent book Body Politics in Development . My approach.
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Population and Gender Responses to Mari Simonen Wendy Harcourt
Starting the Dialogue • Bring to the conversation my point of view on population and gender based on my recent book Body Politics in Development
My approach • I want to present both a highly sympathetic perspective to the goals of ICPD and UNFPA but also a critical perspective with a view to creating dialogue • I agree that Cairo was a key process and vitally important document for women’s rights and gender and development but I have some concerns • There are challenges with the Cairo logic that need more thought both in relation to the shifting economic and political climate and in relation to what counts as progress and by whom?
Three main responses • First I present my view of what is successful and what is disappointing about the Cairo agenda • Second I raise a concern around the shift to maternal health and mortality with the introduction of the Millennium Development Goals in 2000. • Third I ask ‘where are the men?’ Why does still mean women and why does population still focus on women’s reproductive bodies in population debates rather than on other aspects of women’s social and economic contribution and male reproductive bodies.
The success of Cairo • mobilized many thousands of women’s health and rights movements • result of strategic work between women’s advocacy groups and bureaucrats • set the agenda for population and development policy for the next decade. • once tabooed topics around sexuality, sexual health were put on the table in the international arena. • a huge gain for women’s rights and gender and development • break through discussions on autonomy, empowerment, gender and cultural difference
The disappointments of Cairo • problematic for what it dared to put on the agenda and for what it did not address • not a legally-binding convention. • no money provided to follow up all the promises • the battle won over the reproductive rights agenda based on a human rights and democratic framework pushed to one side the issue of economic development. • gender, democracy and rights language at the expense of the tough discussions on the required economic, social and political changes.
Other hitches • Much harder moving from words to action ‘on the ground’ • Which and whose cultural norms are defining what is appropriate for which women? • How can bureaucracies, medical establishments and other agents foster their patients or clients’ self-esteem and knowledge to make the choices, whether or not the service is available? • What are the appropriate technologies for different groups of women in their specific life stages and cultural context • What is their own sense of what is appropriate and acceptable?
Putting Cairo into action? • Cairo without the money and political will did not have a chance to change systemic inequalities in health systems. • stringent economic policies imposed by the global economic order were not concurrent with the Cairo Agenda. • prevailing neoliberal, market-oriented approaches prevented the delivery of reproductive and sexual health for the vast majority • Reproductive health, rights and choice were subsumed in the broader macro agenda of development trade and economic growth.
To quote Rosalind Petchesky: • how can a woman avail herself of this right if she lacks the financial resources to pay for reproductive health services or the transport to get to them; if she is illiterate or given no information in a language she understands; if her workplace is contaminated with pollutants that have an adverse effect on pregnancy; or if she is harassed by parents, a husband or in-laws who will abuse or beat her if they find out she uses birth control. (Petchesky 2002)
To quote Mohan Rao • ‘under the rhetoric of reproductive rights, the rights of the vast majority of women to access to resources, the most basic determinant of health, are being denied.’ When reproductive rights are divested of rights to food, employment, water, health care or security of children's lives and taken out of the contexts of women's and men's lives, they fit in well with the neo-liberal agenda of the day.’ (Rao 2005)
The Millennium Development Goals and maternal health • MDGs a global partnership to: eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; achieve universal primary education; promote gender equality and empower women; reduce child mortality; improve maternal health; combat HIV and AIDS, malaria and other diseases; ensure environmental sustainability; and develop a global partnership for development. • Gender is considered a cross-cutting theme though there are no clear indicators as with the other goals. • maternal mortality disengaged from the more feminist lens of reproductive rights and health. • MDG is not about sexual and reproductive rights but about reducing maternal mortality and ensuring women’s well-being, health and rights.
Putting reproductive health into context, again • Problem of working around conservative funding priorities as part of shifts in national and international policies. • Leads to focus on technical operational results, ‘efficient’ use of resources and private public partnerships. • Neglects the political issue of the need for systemic change to ensure health, access and finance for health • Maternal health a political and economic policy issue rather than a technical ‘medical’ issue. • health systems have to be seen as more than just delivery systems, but core social institution that can tackle the complex issues around equity, social exclusion and gender bias.
Cairo dilemmas • On the one hand, the negotiations around Cairo led to women’s reproductive rights and health emerging as development issues • On the other hand, it was done at a time when these rights were immediately challenged by the neo liberal economic discourse and conservative governments as well as progressive groups concerned that embodied and women-centred rights would deflect from social and economic issues. • Reducing the issue to maternal mortality did little for the sexual and health rights agenda. It played into a technical discourse that pushed for service provision and health system reform which given the lack of money available led to a privatizing of many services.
It takes two to tango • HIV and AIDS did bring in a concerted focus on condoms but this was not about men’s reproductive responsibility for children, it was about the consequence of their pursuit of sexual pleasure. • The Cairo Programme of Action speaks about ‘Male responsibilities and participation’. • But, reproductive rights and health is seen as a women’s issue; it concerns their bodies, their rights. • The sexual health and reproductive rights agenda and HIV and AIDS agenda appeared to have missed the chance to work together
Where are the men? • Ironic that the reproductive health and population lobby fail to focus sufficiently on men’s responsibility for fathering children • reproductive rights in many cultures are men’s who are seen as the provider of children even legally ‘owning’ children • The construct of parenthood in these cultural contexts give women few or no rights over their own children. • Gender and development instead of looking at parenthood of both sexes is caught in seeing motherhood as the primary role of women, one that is biological and natural, missing the chance to look at how to balance between the genders the rights and power of parenthood as a social and cultural responsibility rather than a biological given.
Thank you! www.wendyharcourt.net
