Blurb about gender

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The issue on gender has never been a confusing issue for me. Even at a very  young age I was quite confident being female (although not so feminine) though I remember knowing that it was not always considered a good thing. No one actually told me that being a girl was somehow considered being less, it was something I picked up on just being around the males in my family and friends and in school. Although not my father, but most fathers in the community where I grew up would often scold their sons for "crying like a girl". "Take it like a man", he would say. Incidentally, I’ve never been told to take anything like a woman. What would that mean, take it like a woman?

Commonly, the female gender is associated with emotion and sensitivity. These are not bad traits. They’re not necessarily good traits, they’re just traits. Yet being emotional and sensitive is most often construed as being weak and womanly. I learned at a very young age, just through observation in my community and in school, that crying revealed weakness.

When my Boss asked me to write an in-house paper on Integrating gender,

I started to wonder how to write it and what to write about gender, particularly in the basic education. Then I started to read about statistics and other facts about situation of girls and women in the Philippines and what education could do about it. After doing some research I made a personal audit of how I see and understand gender and also on a broader sense, the issue that education have on gender. Some of the points here are present in the in-house paper I collated for BEAM Project. I thought of sharing it to all of you.

“Gender” does not refer to the biological differences between males and females; the term “sex” covers this distinction. “Gender” refers to the social roles, responsibilities, and behaviors that are believed to belong to men and women; for example, “men as income earners” and “women as child caregivers.”  Gender roles are created by the society and are learned from one generation to the next.  Because gender roles are socially learned, they can be changed to achieve equity and equality for women and men.  For instance, we can change the gender roles of “women as child caregivers” to “women as income earners,” “men as income earners” to “men as child caregivers,” or, better yet, “men and women as income earners and child caregivers.”

Education is a powerful tool for promotion of Gender and the empowerment of women. To be able to do that, it is also important that a strategy on integrating gender perspectives, through mainstreaming, in the basic education system be developed. Ensuring gender equality for girls and boys do not only mean that they have equal opportunities to enter school, but as well as to participate in and benefit from the range of subjects or other learning experiences that are offered in classrooms and schools. Through gender-sensitive curricula, learning materials, and teaching-learning processes, girls and boys become equally equipped with the life skills and attitudes that they will need to achieve their fullest potential within and outside of the educational system regardless of their sex.  To achieve such development, teachers should be given assistance in developing a gender sensitive approach in teaching and learning and creating an atmosphere and environment that is gender sensitive and integrating gender equality in all aspect of learning.

In the Integrated Survey of household conducted by NSCB in 2004, there are 717,000 women teachers and 241,000 men teachers, accounting to more than 70% Women of the total number of the teachers. By merely looking into the figures and numbers, one can never determine where disparity and gender inequality lies, because disparity is reflected in the number of men and women in the senior management level in the Schools Districts, the Division and Regional Level. Gender Parity is something that has to reflect not only in the ratios of enrolment, but in all aspects of education system including management. The management level of basic education is a critical factor that needs to be looked into in terms of gender mainstreaming because it is in this level where that affects creation of policies and its implementation. Leadership and management is an important factor in ensuring a gender sensitive environment and approach to teaching and learning process. A focus on gender mainstreaming among and within administrators of basic education will help increase learning outcomes for children.

Achieving gender equality also means that teachers and school administrators need to move away from looking at children collectively as “students” or “pupils” and to focus more on the specific situation of “girls” and “boys” within the classroom and school to ensure gender equality in learning for both.

Promoting gender equality is important in all levels of education system, through promotion of Gender equality in the administrative and senior management level. It is the means by which we can ensure not only that the basic needs of girls and boys are met, but the teachers as well. Making sure that teachers are happy and is equipped in delivering a gender-sensitive approach to teaching-learning process, increases the opportunity for students to achieve their full potential and realize their human rights.

To achieve these, a common understanding should be developed among stakeholders in education, that there is no simple solution for reducing the gender gap in many aspects and promoting gender equality in education. This is a complex problem requiring complex solutions. Leadership and commitment seem to be important. There needs to be gender equality in the administrative level of education system to support gender focused reforms in the education system. This includes a strong general policy on gender parity which is reflected in the distribution of authority and leadership between male and female administrators.