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Gender workshop expands awareness
“If you were born again, would you choose to be a man or a woman?” Workshop participants pondered this question and others at a recent gender awareness workshop developed and led by the director of Women in International Development at Virginia Tech, Maria Elisa Christie. Christie conceived of the workshop for faculty and students working with Virginia Tech externally funded programs because “it is our responsibility to ensure that our research programs benefit women and men equally. This requires that we work actively to overcome gender biases at all levels. We may think we are sensitized to gender issues and have overcome sex-based discrimination here in the developed world, but very often, this is not the case. I thought it would be useful for university people to look at how we see gender.” Professor Sue Tolin from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, an expert in plant virology, shared some insights about achievements made through programs such as AdvanceVT, designed to promote the careers of women in science and engineering at Virginia Tech. She also pointed out that there is a long way to go to overcome gender bias at home as well as in research programs abroad. Through interactive exercises, program participants looked at the definition of gender, implicit bias, and how gender stereotypes affect our perceptions of people. The group consisted of faculty, graduate and undergrad students. Christie, whose job is to ensure that Virginia Tech-led projects in the developing world incorporate gender into their design, encouraged participants to consider that elements of a project, especially in developing countries, are always gendered. What are the gender assumptions behind the words you use—is a “farmer” always male? Who performs what task in a village? What time you are proposing for an activity? For example, if you plan a meeting for a time when the women are at home fixing dinner, they are unlikely to attend. This often means that the people with the responsibility for carrying out tasks related to research do not have the proper information or training. Participants learned that if you don’t make a special effort to consider gender, your project may not have the intended effect. For example, if you are suggesting a new technique to reduce pests in tomato crops, make sure you consider “women’s fields”—areas that only women cultivate, such as the home vegetable plot. If you teach the new technique only to the men, the women may not learn it, and pests in their tomato gardens may continue to attack the plants that men grow for sale.
Robert Kenny, who provides technical
assistance in the area of forestry for
Virginia Tech projects in developing
countries, said he would choose to be reborn
as a woman “because I’m about to become a
father to a girl.” While he acknowledged
that “women have it harder,” he is sure that
his daughter will help him see the world in
a new way. In the meantime, the workshop
helped him gain a new perspective. |
