When it comes to achieving gender equality and empowering women, it's not enough to have good intentions. We need concrete ways to assess how our programs and policies are actually making a difference in women's lives. That's where the Sarah Longwe Framework comes in handy for a gender analysis.
Developed by a Zambian women's rights activist in the 1990s, the Longwe Framework is a way to evaluate the extent of women's empowerment and progress toward gender equality. It outlines five increasing levels of equality that women should be able to achieve.
Don't worry if "framework" sounds intimidating - I'll break it down in simple terms. The beauty of Longwe's approach is that it gives us a practical lens to analyze gender work, celebrate gains, and identify gaps to improve our efforts. So let's dive in!
Level 1: Welfare This basic level focuses on improving women's material welfare and meeting basic needs like food, income, and access to health services. For example, a program providing midwives and nutritional support for pregnant women would fall under the welfare category.
Level 2: Access Here, the emphasis is on ensuring women have equal opportunity and ability to access and utilize factors like education, employment, land, credit and resources on par with men. Initiatives like gender-balanced school enrollment or teaching women vocational skills enable access. In other words, this is about women having the keys to open doors previously closed to them - access is about ensuring women have opportunities to resources and services. However, having a key doesn't always mean the door will open easily. This stage is crucial, yet it's not the endpoint.
Level 3: Conscientization Here's where things get deeper. Conscientisation involves awakening – realizing that the status quo of gender inequality isn't just "the way things are" but a construct that can be challenged. It's that lightbulb moment when women (and men) understand the systemic barriers to equality and feel compelled to act. Achieving this level involves raising women's awareness of their systemic oppression and gender injustices. It's about women recognizing their rights, self-worth, and potential as equals. Transformative education programs and feminist theory discussions cultivate conscientization.
Level 4: Participation This level signifies women having an equal voice in decision-making processes that impact their lives across all development arenas. It means including women as participants and leaders in political bodies, community groups, and household decisions. Having women leaders in local government exemplifies participation. However, participation isn't just about being present; it's about being heard and influencing decisions. From local community meetings to the boardrooms, this stage is about ensuring women's voices contribute to shaping the policies and practices that affect their lives.
Level 5: Control The highest level is when women gain power over the factors of production and distribution of resources without subordination. It's about women controlling their fertility, bodies, and equitably sharing influence and privileges in all spheres. Property ownership rights and feminist economic models illustrate control.
As you move higher through these interlinked levels, women gain increasing empowerment and equality. But here's the catch - Longwe emphasized that higher levels can't be achieved until the lower levels are accomplished.
So before women can participate in decision-making, they require access to opportunities like education and employment. And women can't truly control resources unless they first develop critical self-awareness.
The framework reveals the comprehensive, systematic process required to sustainably empower women. It pushes us beyond quick fix solutions to address deeply-rooted, structural barriers.
While achieving the final level of control is the ultimate goal, every stage of progress is vital and worth celebrating. The Longwe Framework gives us a valuable tool to honestly assess our work, identify gaps, and continuously raise the bar for women's empowerment.
Imagine a project aiming to support female farmers in a rural community. Using the Longwe Framework, the project might start by providing access to high-quality seeds and training on sustainable farming techniques (Welfare). Next, it ensures women can access land and credit (Access), then conducts workshops to discuss gender norms and the value of women's work (Conscientisation). The project supports women to take leadership roles in local agricultural cooperatives (Participation), ultimately aiming for women to have equal say in how resources are allocated and profits are used (Control).
The beauty of the Sarah Longwe Framework lies in its clarity and comprehensiveness. It reminds us that empowerment is more than just improving economic conditions; it's about transforming power dynamics. This framework doesn't just apply to development professionals; it's a lens through which anyone interested in gender equality can evaluate progress and strive for meaningful change.