Valuing the Work of Women - A WOW! e-Brief

 

WORLD NEIGHBORS AND WOMEN'S LABOR

By Kylie McBride, WOW! summer intern

Photographs by Natalie Elwell/World Neighbors

In many areas that World Neighbors works in, it is unrealistic to believe that women can receive adequate education, significantly improve their health or participate in income generating activities without first addressing the number of hours women work each day without pay. Without reducing the workload of women to some extent, in many areas they will simply not have the time or energy to join a savings and credit group or attend training on money earning activities. This is why, often, one of the first things World Neighbors programs address with regard to gender is women’s work loads. One method of helping community members realize the vast difference in workloads that men and women have is 24 Stones. 

 

In this exercise examining workload, men and women are given 24 stones, each stone signifying one hour of the day. They are asked to place the stones into piles that represent the time spent on various activities, such as farming, doing household chores, sleeping and so on. What the men and women realize is that women’s work piles are usually much larger than the men’s.

 

According to Natalie Elwell, World Neighbors associate vice president for gender, men are typically stunned and even ashamed. After the exercise, World Neighbors staff initiate discussion about how the community could benefit from changing the existing situation. Changes often follow this eye-opening method. After participating in 24 Stones, many men offer to carry some of the burden of collecting water, fuel and food for animals, resulting in a more equal distribution of labor between the sexes.

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In addition to raising awareness about the workload gap, World Neighbors programs work to secure better food availability and water for the communities they work in. This lessens the amount of time and energy everyone in the community needs to devote to these responsibilities, but significantly helps women’s workloads.

 

Rural women produce more than half of the world’s food and are responsible for up to 80 percent of food production in developing countries. Through sustainable agriculture, World Neighbors works with communities to develop forms of food production that are economically viable, ecologically sound and supportive of rural culture. This often means that World Neighbors promotes use of traditional seeds and reducing or eliminating chemical pesticides and fertilizers. Improving food production and storage methods frees up many of the hours that women would have otherwise spent on cultivating, gathering and preparing crops.

 

In conjunction with better food availability, World Neighbors and its partners often introduce community-based natural resource management programs. This is an approach centered on people that integrates the conservation of a natural resource base, such as water, soil or trees, and development in order to tackle issues of poverty, hunger and disease. World Neighbors promotes an understanding of the environment as a shared resource. For example, use of and conservation of resources should involve group decisions and commitment so that all benefit in the long term, including future generations.

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Reducing women’s unpaid workloads also implies addressing the health of children and other family members. Women are the primary caregivers of the sick, and globally, women and girls provide up to 90 percent of home health care. Cause of public health concerns can include no sanitation facilities, lack of access to clean water and a high incidence of diarrheal disease and malaria, all of which affect the healthy development of children. Every day 5,500 children worldwide die from diseases caused by drinking water and eating food contaminated with bacteria, and 800,000 children die annually from malaria. World Neighbors community health programs address these issues, and by improving the health of children and others, lessen the burden on the women who care for them.

 

In addition to decreasing the workloads of women, World Neighbors supports efforts that help women earn income. These can include savings and credit groups, training on locally appropriate skills like fattening guinea pigs or functional literacy training that can be used at the market. For example, in Guatemala, World Neighbors provided the IK-Luna Women’s Group with revolving credit as well as capital to set up a handicraft business. In addition, World Neighbors helped the women secure seeds to start a coffee and tree nursery. They provided training to help the women care for the nursery and to plant their own gardens and cultivate subsistence crops, like tomatoes, onions, lettuce, cilantro and other local favorites.

An added benefit is that helping women generate income ultimately improves their status in the community and in the home. Many decisions about the distribution of resources are made by men and women within the family, involving negotiation and the exercise of power. Control of resources is determined, in part, by what financial contributions each individual gives to the household. Women, unfortunately, earn much less income and contribute fewer physical assets than their male partners, which often makes them less influential in making household decisions regarding resources.

 

For example, consider the case of Cheli. She does not get enough to eat because her husband is in charge of distributing the daily grain ration, and he believes that the current ration size provides enough for everyone. According to tradition, her husband eats first, followed by the male then female children, and lastly, Cheli. Often there is not enough food by the time it is her turn to eat. In her culture, husbands and wives do not discuss household decisions, so Cheli's husband is unaware that there is a problem. Women’s assets often provide some independence and power in household decisions, especially those regarding food, education, health and children’s clothing. By participating in multifaceted programs, Cheli and other women like her begin to feel more empowered to involve themselves in decision making, and their husbands are more inclined to listen to their perspectives and understand the benefits of sharing decision making.

 

The work World Neighbors performs in its partnering communities helps women gain independence. By working to increase women’s skills and confidence so that they are able to participate in community and family decision-making and leadership, World Neighbors ensures that work will ultimately lead to more equitable divisions of labor and wages.

Read more . . .

 

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Women's Work: An Overview

Learn More and Get Involved

A WOW! e-Brief

Work of Women @ World Neighbors

August 2007

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