Midterm

Lesson II – Gender Interest and Needs

Practical Gender Needs
While gender interests are important in gender analysis, these interests should be translated into
needs in gender planning. Similar to gender interests, gender needs are of two types: practical and
strategic. Practical gender needs, in terms of planning, are nor necessarily feminist in context. Practical
gender needs are concerned with women’s immediate needs for survival---nutrition, living conditions, health
care, and employment. These needs are formulated from women’s lived experiences, are immediately
perceived necessities, and are identified by women themselves in their specific context. They are based on
the existing gender division of labor: the needs of women as mothers and wives according to their socially
constructed roles in their society. Woman’s practical gender needs often involved their roles in the
households as primary agents in the reproductive sphere. These roles may include child care, food
provision, housework, and often augmented income for the household. Much of the practical gender needs
that development planners target involved these domestic roles. Policies and programs can reinforced
these socialized gender roles of women. For instance, aiming at women for policies on vaccination or
nutrition reinforces the status of women as caregivers. However, it may burden women assuming two roles:
as caregivers and earners. It also excludes men from the care work for their families.
The statement that practical gender needs, such as access to water, child care, and nutrition, are
women’s needs obscure the true women-specific needs many woman’s face. Access to water and proper
nutrition are universal needs. However, masking these needs under the guise of “women’s needs” may
distract women fron their true need: gender equality.

Strategic Gender Needs

Strategic gender needs are those that stem from a women’s strategic gender interest due to her
socialized gender role as a women: one who has a subordinate position in the society. These are needs
that are rooted in gender inequality---lack of political representation, the unfair gender division of labor,
violence against women, and the non-observance of equal pay. If a women’s gender interest is that of
gender equality, and the issue tackled concerns domestic violence, then the gender needs involves the
creation of laws that could protect women from domestic violence.

Strategic gender needs relate to “gender division of labor, power and control” and “may include
such issues at legal rights, domestic violence, equal wages and women’s control over their bodies.”
Addressing strategic gender needs involves an analysis of gender subordination. The structure and
relationships that allow this subordination to take place must also be challenged. By identifying strategic
gender needs along with practical gender needs, policy makers can contribute to the attainment of strategic
gender interests such as gender equality, empowerment, and equity. With this knowledge, gender policies
and plans can be formulated, and the tools and techniques for implementing them can be identified.

Challenges for the Fulfilment of Gender Needs in the Philippines

The Philippines enacts gender mainstreaming or the strategy for the inclusion of a gender
perspective in all policies and programs. However, Philippine gender literature only assumes two genders
(male and female), and that one’s sex is the same as one’s gender (biological male persons are all
masculine; biological female persons are all feminine). this thinking ignores the existence of LGBT persons,
or persons who do not fall categorically into masculine or feminine roles. Another concern is that gender
needs are equated to women-specific, practical, and strategic gender needs. Confusion also arises
because “gender” and “women’ are not defined in primary gender mainstreaming texts such as the Magna
Carta of Women. This assumed homogeneity also disregards LGBT persons’ gender needs.

Gender mainstreaming policies group women into one homogeneous category, while vaguely
defining who women are. While women do have some similar needs based on their biology, nuances are
present in the needs of women as influenced by their religion, class, race, nationality, and age. While there
are specific laws and provisions for Muslim women, indigenous women, women with disabilities, and
women from other disadvantaged groups in the Philippines, those enacting policies and laws often
assumes these woman are the same and experience similar factor that influence their access to resources,
and which issues constitute needs. This lack of clarity in addressing woman’s needs based on their roles,
biology, culture, and subordinate positions shows how gender needs may become confused.