McCormick+Schmitz Handbook for value chain research on - PACA

The rules tell us how things get done. In addition to <strong>for</strong>mal rules and regulations, rules
in the institutional sense cover norms, <strong>value</strong>s, traditions, customs, and in<strong>for</strong>mal
practices. They can be explicitly stated or simply understood as the way things are
done in this place.
The activities are what is done. In gender analysis, it is important to know what men
do, what women do, and what is done by both men and women. For example, in a
particular garment factory, men may do the cutting, women the ironing, and both men
and women the sewing. In another, only men work the night shift while both men and
women work the day shift.
The resources are the process’s tangible and intangible inputs and outputs. Such
resources may be human (labour, education, skills), material (food, assets, land,
money), or intangibles (in<strong>for</strong>mation, political clout, goodwill, contacts). The analysis
examines what men and women put into the process as well as what they receive in
return <strong>for</strong> their activities. One commonly used type of gendered resource analysis
looks at male and female workers’ inputs in terms of education, skills, and labour, and
the resulting monetary rewards. This is the sort of analysis that underlies many of the
findings of “unequal pay <strong>for</strong> equal work”.
Gender analysis also looks at people, not so much as individuals, but as they fit into
different categories. Each category represented in a <strong>value</strong> <strong>chain</strong> can be broken down
into male and female: managers, support staff, fashion designers, production workers,
homeworkers, traders, transporters, etc. It then becomes relatively easy to identify
institutionalised patterns of inclusion and exclusion, as well as opportunities <strong>for</strong>
progress.
Finally, gender analysis has to do with power, i.e., with who determines priorities and
who makes the rules. Power is rarely equally shared throughout an organisation.
Some have much more power than others. They have the authority to interpret or even
to set goals and objectives. They also have very practical power to assign workers to
shifts, to determine the length of each shift, to set production targets, and to discipline
those who fail to abide by the rules. Those with little power may find themselves on
the receiving end, with little choice but to comply. One of the tasks of gender analysis
95