Women - men - gender. - Bibliothek der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung

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STRUCTURING GLOBALIZATION SOCIALLY
Gender Policy in Asia
FES Gender Equality Project Asia
In Germany, it is said that Valentine’s Day is the
clever invention of the fl orist retail trade and
women are welcome guests at pubs on a daily basis.
In India, last year, a visit to the pub by a group of
young women students ended with them being
beaten up by a mob of 40 men and being dragged
out of the pub by their hair. The police remained,
by and large, passive. On Valentine’s Day following
this incident, this religious fundamentalist group
threatened women with violence, forced marriage
and a beating, if they were to give up their traditional
code and indulge in love or revel in their
sexuality. In the case of India, and in many other
countries of Asia, there are laws for women’s advancement
and for gender justice, but these are
rarely implemented. The old social norms are
stronger. In private and public life, the inherited
norms govern all societal institutions, from the
family to the security forces.
It is already clear that in some Asian countries the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), seeking,
to provide better opportunities to girls, pregnant
women and mothers will not be attained. In the
concerned countries, the shortcoming is not discussed
publicly.
Women’s Quotas in Parliaments
The good news is that every year spells progress in
terms of formal equality. The gender indicators of
the Human Development Report 2008 show that
especially in South Asia, the formal option for
political participation of women is evolving positively,
especially in Sri Lanka and Pakistan, because
national quotas for women have been introduced
in parliament. In daily life, however, patriarchal
power relations continue to be fi rmly entrenched.
And it remains to be seen if the current instable
political situations, do not jeopardize the current
quota regulations. Nevertheless, the women’s quotas
in national parliaments in South and South-
East Asia create a better starting point for committed
women. They are a long way off still from
guaranteeing comprehensive, equitable and high
quality policies for women and families, but they
certainly enlarge the political sphere of infl uence
for women.
In many Asian political parties, it is not the best
idea, which emerges after lengthy internal debates
and is then accepted, rather it is nepotism, hierarchies
rooted in age and sex, illegal party fi nancing,
or the infl uence of established clans or families
that dominates. There is a lack of women politicians,
who represent all classes. This is where the
Friedrich Ebert Stiftung steps in with its activities.
An important platform for developing new ideas
on gender and women’s advancement and for discussing
these with political decision-makers is the
regional “FES Gender Equality Project Asia”. The
aim is to develop a gender sensitive consultancy
module through cooperation between the FES and
partner organizations.
Here, the FES is pursuing a dual strategy: on the
one hand, the project is pursuing target group oriented
women’s advancement programmes and so
supports for example the demands of women trade
unionists, or initiates an exchange of best practices
on gender specifi c challenges facing the leadership
within political parties. On the other hand, the
project compiles knowledge for gender-sensitive
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