Gender and Power: who makes the decisions?

In 2003, Oxfam’s partner the Manchester Women’s Network (MWN) were commissioned by Manchester City Council to find out how local women and men were – or weren’t – being involved and represented in community decision-making structures.

The audit looked at decision-making bodies at the local ward, intermediate and city-wide levels, beginning by analysing current meeting attendance and contributions, as well as the minutes of meetings held over the previous year.

This was followed by a series of workshops, meetings, questionnaires, focus groups and face-to-face interviews with 16 different groups and 132 individuals from the community to look at who did or didn’t participate in community organisations, and why. 

 

What did the audit find?

Although some of the results weren’t surprising – such as the fact that men remained the decision-makers at the top – others threw up new information that could have slipped below the radar of a less thorough audit.

For example, the research found that even when women were present, they didn’t always speak up.  One senior local regeneration decision-maker was so surprised by this that he gave a grant to a local women’s network for work towards women’s empowerment.

What came next?

More information about the project, including more ideas on how to include gender in community engagement, can be found on the GEM project website.

 

ReGender is supported by the Big Lottery Fund.