Gender Equality

Men and women experience many aspects of poverty differently and ignoring these differences risks further entrenching poverty and the subordination of women.

Introduction

What We're Doing

Publications

A major cause of poverty | Gender inequality: key facts

A major cause of poverty

Gender discrimination, or the denial of women’s basic human rights, is a major cause of poverty.

Women often have less recourse than men to legal recognition and protection, as well as lower access to public knowledge and information, and less decision-making power both within and outside the home. Women in many parts of the world frequently have little control over fertility, sexuality and marital choices.

This systematic discrimination reduces women’s public participation, often increases their vulnerability to poverty, violence and HIV, and results in women representing a disproportionate percentage of the poor population of the world.

Gender equality gives women and men the same entitlements to all aspects of human development, including economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights; the same level of respect; the same opportunities to make choices; and the same level of power to shape the outcomes of these choices.

Gender inequality: key facts

In 2009 women on average accounted for less than 18.4 % of members of parliament. At all levels and in all sectors fewer women than men are part of decision-making processes. (IPU)
Over two-thirds of the world’s 776 million illiterates are women and despite improvements, more than 55 percent of the 75 million out of school primary age children are girls. (UNESCO)
Worldwide, women earn on average only 84 per cent of what men earn in formal waged work. However, large numbers of women are concentrated in informal and precarious work, associated with low and unstable earnings. (ITUC)
Every year over 536,000 women die of pregnancy-related complications, and between 8 million and 20 million a year suffer serious injury or disability from the same causes. (WHO)
Women are half the 31 million people living with HIV worldwide. More than three in four (77%) of adult women (15 years and older) with HIV globally live in Sub-Saharan Africa – that’s an estimated 12 million out of the 15.5 million women infected with HIV worldwide. (UN)
Between 10 and 69 per cent of women report abuse by their intimate partner in every country where reliable data exist. Systematic rape has left millions of women and adolescent girls traumatized, pregnant, or infected with HIV. (UN)
80 per cent of the world’s 35 million refugees and IDPs are women and children. Men often represent the majority of causalities in conflict. However, in most humanitarian crises women’s vulnerability increases, as well as the difficulties associated with discharging their reproductive responsibilities. (UN)

Learn more

Read about Oxfam's work on gender equality

Campaigns and advocacy | Gender and emergencies | Raising Her Voice | Poor Women's Economic Leadership | Prevention of violence against women

Integrating gender considerations into all our work

Oxfam GB is addressing inequalities between men and women by integrating gender considerations into all aspects of our work, as well as through programmes explicitly aimed at promoting women's rights, leadership and participation, and reducing gender-based violence.

Read Oxfam’s full policy on gender equality.

Campaigns and advocacy

We try to put women’s rights at the heart of Oxfam's advocacy and campaigns work. We aim to engage with women as supporters, influence policy, and raise issues of humanitarian need and women's protection at the highest levels.

Women's rights policy demands have been articulated as part of Oxfam's lobbying and advocacy agenda at several high level events including a G8 summit, a Millennium Development Goals summit, the Accra High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness and the UN Commission on the Status of Women for several years running.

As part of our climate change campaign we launched the Sisters of the Planet project to engage women supporters, highlight the effects of climate change on women in developing countries, and carry out campaigning activities at the Bangkok intersessional meeting in 2009.

Gender equity is also embedded within Oxfam's Health and Education For All campaign, which has encouraged new aid commitments on maternal mortality.

Gender and emergencies

Women and children are exposed to particular risks in emergencies and their underlying status makes them particularly vulnerable in a crisis. In order for humanitarian response to be effective, increased protection from violence, coercion and deprivation is essential for both men and women.

Emergency interventions and life-saving strategies have a greater impact when they are based on an understanding of how a disaster or conflict impacts on men and women differently given their gender-specific needs, interests, vulnerabilities, capacities and coping strategies. Humanitarian interventions can negatively affect women if gender equality is not central to their design and implementation.

Beyond ensuring that all interventions are informed by a gender analysis and contribute to protecting beneficiaries from harm, Oxfam endeavours to develop strategies or programmes to address specific issues hindering the attainment of gender equality.

Programmes promoting rights and leadership

Raising Her Voice

Launched in 2008 and running until 2013, Raising Her Voice is a global programme with projects in 17 countries, that works to address both the general obstacles to women's engagement in governance, as well as the specific obstacles faced by particular groups of women in particular places. It has two common threads: supporting women's leadership and addressing attitudes and beliefs about the role of women in public decision-making.

Overall, Raising Her Voice aims to ensure that public policy, decision-making, and expenditure, as well as national, customary and traditional rights, reflects the interests of poor and marginalised women.

To learn more about the programme and read case studies from Indonesia, Pakistan and Guatemala, download the Raising Her Voice booklet (PDF 1.06MB).

To join the online community visit http://raisinghervoice.ning.com.

Poor Women's Economic Leadership

Oxfam aims to make all our livelihoods programmes more effective in eliminating poverty by promoting Poor Women's Economic Leadership (PWEL).

PWEL refers to an approach that involves women gaining the necessary economic and social power to move out of poverty. This means securing economic resources and gaining power in markets whilst changing attitudes and beliefs so as to enable equal relations with men and equality in economic decision-making - at individual, household, community, national and global levels.

Oxfam has undertaken many initiatives addressing gender inequality in livelihoods, often working with partners to promote incremental changes through literacy, credit, and production technologies work.

The main focus of PWEL has been on markets-based agriculture, to ensure that relevant programmes are inclusive of women smallholders and build their economic leadership. We aim help women increase productivity, lower risk and gain new roles in markets and market services, by advising on products to promote, markets to engage in, and barriers to be overcome.

In addition we aim to address how market institutions replicate and reinforce gendered beliefs and economic roles. This involves facilitating engagements between market chain actors such as traders, processors, exporters, government authorities and producer organisations, and market services providing finance, enterprise development, certification or agricultural extension. We aim to identify the most significant opportunities to change women smallholders' positions in market systems.

Prevention of violence against women

Oxfam has long recognised violence against women as an abuse of women's rights as well as both a cause and consequence of poverty.

Our work on violence against women is wide-ranging and covers most regions. Activities span from collaborative research and advocacy; awareness raising and support to government institutions; campaigning and lobbying for legal change; and understanding links with HIV/AIDS.

Launched in 2004 and being taken forward by over 2,400 organisations, the 'We Can’ campaign aims to deal with the violence women endure daily, both within their homes and in the larger society, in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India, Nepal and Pakistan.

Read the'We Can' campaign briefing paper: Towards Ending Violence Against Women in South Asia.

To learn more visit the 'We Can' website.