Mainstreaming Gender Equality Policy into Programming
Subverting the Mainstream for Gender Equality: Thinking about the practitioner's role

Franz Wong and Andrea Papan
Tuesday 25th July 10:00 UK Time 

Franz Wong has worked in development for over 30 years and as a gender specialist and researcher in various capacities since 2002.

He holds a PhD from Development Studies, University of Sussex where he researched gender mainstreaming in Oxfam GB. He also has a Masters in Environmental Studies (York University) where he focused on gender and participatory communications with field research in Palestine. Franz has worked for KIT (Amsterdam), the Global Center for Gender Equality at Stanford University as well as Oxfam GB. He has undertaken gender and development research and consultancies with a range of multilateral organizations, research organizations, bilateral agencies, and NGOs in the majority world and the global south. Much of his work has been on gender mainstreaming across a variety of programming areas in agriculture research for development, financial inclusion and public health. Franz has published on gender mainstreaming and gender training and is most proud of his work starting and co-leading the Professional Development Programme for Gender Trainers, which reclaimed gender training as a feminist knowledge project.

Key Learning Objectives: 

• Facilitating critical self-reflection and open, safe and engaged dialogue amongst practitioners on preconceptions of ‘what is gender mainstreaming?’ 
• Together sharing strategies to ‘subvert the mainstream’ for gender equality. 

Recommended reading: Milward, K. , Maitrayee Mukhopadhyay and Franz F. Wong (2015) Gender Mainstreaming Critiques: Signposts or Dead Ends? IDS Bulletin. Volume 46, Number 4 Beijing+20: Where Now for Gender Equality. pp. 75-81.

Download the PowerPoint presentation here: GEP KSS:Suberting the Mainstream for Gender Equality: Thinking about the practitioners role

KSS Activity

Think about:

• An example of a gender gap in your work (e.g., gender differences in accessing DFS)​
• How gender is constructed through negotiations and practices in, for example, the financial sector? Who are the bankable?​
• How is this understanding of gender produced and reproduced in organizations and systems through gendering processes? ​
• How can these insights change the way you work and what changes are you seeking?​

Share your reflections in the online discussion or comment section under this article.

What can we do to be subversive?

Know the industry and its persuasion and anticipate. Tell-tale signs: fads (HCD, AI, norms), binary thinking and problem analysis (problem tree). What are your signs? 

Know GAD history of ideas, for which you as IDS alumni have inherited (step 1: go back to our MA readings, they are gold).

Think methodologically e.g., while there may be new methods to engage, what are the theoretical premises? What’s sub text? e.g., using the BMGF GI criteria as a tool and GT being about “reducing gender gaps/barriers in agency or control over resources”. Implications for transformative potential and the history of GAD ideas? 

Engage in collective critical thinking and reflection processes eg., participatory gender training.

Where multiple hats: don’t always need to be the development fixed, especially as a gender specialist.

If you wish to host your own Knowledge Sharing Session under the theme Mainstreaming Gender Equality Policy into programming, please fill in this form or contact us.