Casos de Uso del Sistema

How is globalisation gendered? What are the changes in women’s participation in different parts of society, e.g. in formal parliamentary politics on a global gender scale? Is there a connection between economic development and political democracy for women? What is gender mainstreaming and why is it regarded as such a key institutional response for promoting gender equality and empowering women? How prevalent are these initiatives and developments in the South African human rights culture?

73 According to Walby (2004: 2) gender mainstreaming is a contested concept and practice. “It is the re-invention, restructuring, and re-branding of a key part of feminism in the contemporary era. It is both a new form of gendered political and policy practice and it is a new gendered strategy for theory development. As a practice, gender mainstreaming is intended as a way of improving the effectivity of mainline policies by making visible the gendered nature of assumptions, processes and outcomes. As a form of theory, gender mainstreaming is a process of revision of key concepts in order to grasp more adequately a world that is gendered, rather than the establishment of a separatist gender theory.” Her paper explores the potential and limitations of gender mainstreaming as a practical and as an analytic strategy by addressing key underlying theoretical issues as well as comparatively assessing the implications of gender mainstreaming in different settings. See Walby (2004).

It has globally become clearly evident that there can be no democracy if women are not full political participants. Not only must women’s empowerment be a focus for grassroots organisations, it must also be a focus for the state and the institutions of global governance. In order for an economy and a society to be productive, women as well as men need to be engaged fully, which can only effectively happen if the state, as well civil society, is democratic.

Sylvia Walby (2000: 20-28) examined the rise of women’s participation in parliaments around the world, and its association both with economic and human development and with regional and global political alliances. She explored the evidence which has emerged in support of a so-called

`productive engagement’ approach⁷⁴. According to Walby (2000: 22) since 1945, there has been a major increase in the extent to which women are elected as representatives in national parliaments around the world.

The pattern of women’ representation in parliaments is very variable between different countries.

There is a regional pattern, although there are significant variations within each region. The Nordic countries have the highest representation of women, with female parliament membership at 38.9 per cent, whilst sub-Saharan Africa is at 10.9 per cent⁷⁵. The transition to a market economy and more open democracy was accompanied by a dramatic drop in the number of women in the national assemblies. Very recently, this has been growing again, according to her.

Walby contends (2000:23) that there are two main factors behind the rise in women’s election to parliaments, namely the increase of women’s economic power, and women’s political struggles.

Furthermore there is a correlation between the proportion of women in employment and in parliament in many countries. For instance, the Nordic countries have the highest rates of female

74 This approach is distinguished by Walby from five other approaches, i.e. welfare; equity; anti-poverty; efficiency;

and empowerment. This (sixth) “productive engagement” approach combines efficiency and empowerment and sees democratisation and efficiency going hand-in-hand, for women as well as men. It is based on the understanding that a modern economy needs people to be educated and to be able to associate freely and to exchange information.

(Walby 2000: 20-22).

75 These figures are representative of the late 1990’s. For a summary of the most recent worldwide statistics on the (percentage) share of women-held seats in national parliaments, see Gupta (et al. 2005: 193) for the report of the UN Millenium Project 2005 (see table A4.4). South Africa’s statistics regarding the above-mentioned for 1990 and 2003 respectively are: 2.8% and 30.7%.

membership of parliaments in the world. In comparison, countries with low levels of representation of women in parliament also have low rates of female paid employment.

Achieving gender equality and empowering women requires technical expertise and knowledge of how to mainstream gender concerns into development policies and programs. At the 1995 fourth World Conference on Women the international community endorsed gender mainstreaming as a key institutional response for promoting gender equality and empowering women. In essence gender mainstreaming is not an end in itself but a means to the goal of gender equality. As a technical tool it can be effective only if supported by a strong political and legal mandate. At the country level legal instruments such as the Convention on the elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)⁷⁶ and others provide such a mandate. The understanding of gender mainstreaming raises complex questions as to the relationship between global, regional and national levels of governance. (Walby 2004: 23)

An adequate understanding of gender mainstreaming is often compromised by a lack of

76 CEDAW is regarded as a touchstone for realizing the potential held out by the Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s), set out by the UN. The CEDAW process has generated a wealth of understanding and experience that illuminates the nature of gender-based discrimination and clarifies the steps needed to achieve gender equality. The third MDG states: to promote gender equality and empower women, with its target: to eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005 and in all levels of education no later than 2015. While the MDG’s set out concrete, time-bound and measurable goals, targets and indicators for poverty reduction, this framework provides only the starting point for the work that must be undertaken. As the Millennium Declaration has emphasized, it is critically important that the gender equality obligations and commitments that have been made to the world's women are effectively implemented. CEDAW can be used as a lens to understand and address the gender equality dimensions of the MDG’s. (UN Inter-agency Network on women and gender equality, 2005)

77 Several new laws have been introduced and existing laws revised to make them more gender-sensitive. The Public Service Act of 1994 and the Labour Relations Act of 1995 removed discriminatory practices in public services and labour markets. Abortion was legalised in 1996. The government also passed a law in 1993 criminalising rape within marriage. Gender concerns are fully mainstreamed into the governments apparatus. South Africa does not have a separate ministry of women’s affairs, but the commission on gender equality, provided for in

countries in the world to pioneer analysis of the national budget from a gender perspective. The Women’s budget initiative was a collaborative venture of women parliamentarians and women’s organisations to make the case for relocating expenditures and revenues to more adequately respond to the needs of women. (Gupta et al. 2005:150)

It is therefore clear that, in terms of monitoring and accountability, South Africa has women’s movements that can hold governments to their promises. Gender budget initiatives serve as important monitoring and accountability mechanisms.