manual: women workers' rights and gender equality - International ...

Step 5
• At the end of this session, emphasize that in terms of equality everyone should have equal access
and control over resources and benefits. It is important to draw a clear conclusion from this and the
previous exercises on gender equality promotion. Summarize the key messages and illustrate the
current imbalances between the workload, decision making power and income of women and men by
showing the card with the weighting scales. Ask participants for other issues or fields where there are
imbalances between the position of men and women.
• In the round-up conclude that gender equality promotion leads to a higher quality of life for all.
Gender equality refers to the equal rights, responsibilities, opportunities, treatment and
valuation of women and men in employment and in the relation between work and life. Gender
equality includes:
• the same human and workers’ rights
• equal value and fair distribution of:
- responsibilities and opportunities
- workload, decision making and income
Notes for the trainer
The following are the most important points in this session:
1. Men and women should have equal access to resources, i.e. equally use them
2. Men and women should have the same decision making power, i.e. both should decide how to use a
resource
According to the Oxford Dictionary a resource is a stock or supply of materials or assets. In other words:
a resource is everything people need to carry out an activity like: tools to work on the land, food to eat,
education to learn, etc. Persons are also regarded as resource, because a friend or a community
member can be very useful in, for instance, solving a problem or getting information. Organizations can
be a resource in the sense that they can provide technical inputs or give credit, for example. Resources
are used by people.
People can enjoy a resource, meaning that they get a benefit from it. A benefit is something that helps
people or gives them an advantage, like an income, food for eating or sale, knowledge, power, status or
recognition.
The welfare of the family will improve if more benefits come to the family. Emphasize that not
only money but also knowledge will improve the welfare of the family. If you know more you have
easier access to different kind of services for instance, just because you know where to go.
During the discussion after placing all cards under the man, woman or couple, the participants have to
find out whether men and women have equal access to the resources. The access to most of the
resources is the same to man and woman; this means that a lot of cards will be placed under the
couple. For instance: both man and woman can switch the light on and off so they have equal access
to electricity.
However, it can happen that men and women both have access to a resource but they do not
equally benefit from it because the decision making power is with the other person. For instance, a
woman is looking after the livestock, so she is doing the work but often it is the man who decides
to sell a cow and sometimes he is the one who gets the money and decides how to spend it.
This shows that using the resource or providing the labour for the resource does not automatically
mean that that person is also controlling the resource (meaning: to decide what to do with the
resource). You can use this example to start the discussion and ask the participants to think of
other similar situations.
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