A recent project inspired me to share this list. I am working on the gender mainstreaming of a multiannual, multinational project that will work towards medium term change across a broad set of actors. If that sounds super vague, that’s intentional – I’m sadly unable to share information about the project details.

What I can share however, is that the donor is a prominent institutional funder, of a wealthy, coloniser government. As the Gender Equity and Social Inclusion expert on the team, I ensure everyone is committed to shared gender values.

However, I’ve found myself having to demonstrate to multiple teams within the donor the value of a gender-equitable, truly inclusive, and gender-mainstreaming approach to the project. There’s been an ongoing and troubling misunderstanding about what gender mainstreaming includes, which prompted this infographic. I wrote it for others to use as an advocacy tool for a gender mainstreaming approach in their projects. I used a (more diplomatically-worded) version of this for the client, and it got my point across, so I thought it’d be useful for others to embed the correct values in their framework.

Here is what I believe gender mainstreaming is and isn’t, and as you can see there are a lot more in the ‘isn’t’ column – and the things it’s not are quite simple. In my experience, it takes a level of self-awareness, humility, and willingness to do the right thing to really get on the road to gender mainstreaming, which unfortunately not many people want to do.

What else have you observed that should go onto this list, especially for the ‘is’ category, that would be useful for an institution unfamiliar with the idea? What else should I add to the ‘isn’t’ list?

[Image credit: Emma Leonard]