HerMainY Handbook

of gender mainstreaming practices in communications, HR and leadership

0. Introduction from AEGEE (p.3) 1. Case study: What steps are necessary to implement gender mainstreaming? (by Roanna van den Oever) (p.5) 1.1 Steps towards a change (p. 7) 2. Gender mainstreaming in audiovisual and written language (p.9) 2.1. Guiding questions and tips (p.12) 2.2. Good practice: the experience of a feminist blogger and video-maker (p.15) 3. Gender mainstreaming in human resources (p.17) 3.1 Guiding questions and tips (p.20) 3.2 Good practice: gender mainstreaming in an international NGO. (p.24) 4. Gender mainstreaming in leadership (p.25) 4.1 Guiding questions and tips (p.30) 4.2 Good practice: Defying gender roles in couple dance (p.33)

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Handbook of gender mainstreaming practices in communications, HR and leadership.

A guide for (youth) NGOs and other organisations.

Authors: Sonia Abbondio and Viola Bianchetti Supervision: Eleonora Ceschin and Elena Efremova Contributors: Lauren Foley, Roanna van den Oever, Lucille Griffon, Marta Cagnin Design: Abramov Evgenii Hermainy is a project by AEGEE-Europe, founded by the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe. This Handbook is mainly based on the content of the two main events of the Project, a training for Trainers (Moscow, March 2020) and an Evaluation Seminar (October 2020). The sole responsibility for the content of this document lies with the authors. It does not necessarily reflect the official position of the Council of Europe.

It was created thanks to the work of the trainers Sonia Abbondio and Viola Bianchetti, with the contributions of participants of the seminar.

The content of this Handbook and the whole project has been supervised by Project Director Hanna Alajoe and Thematics and Partnership Director Elena Efremova, members of boards of directors of AEGEE-Europe.

The project has been coordinated and managed by Eleonora Ceschin, member of AEGEE-Europe, with the help of Elitsa Hadzhieva, Viola Bianchetti, Alejandra Piot, Anne-Sophie Klein Gebbink, Tamara Alvarez Rodriguez.

0 / Introduction from AEGEE

Introduction from AEGEE Dear Reader, What you are going to read is a handbook of best practices envisioned and elaborated by the core team of the project Hermainy, with the contributions of trainers, participants and collaborators. Before you start going through the text, we would like to make sure that you understand why gender mainstreaming is important for youth organisations and how the handbook is linked to the wider project.

Gender mainstreaming was born as a tool to make policy and decision-making more gender inclusive and with the aim toeliminate any kind of discrimination. Today gender mainstreaming practices are applied also to the structure and all other aspects of an NGO. AEGEE in the last years has committed itself to spreading awareness and knowledge through projects and initiatives, of which Hermainy is an example.

Why is gender mainstreaming in youth organisations important? Because it is a series of measures to make a youth organisation (and not only) more inclusive, starting from a gender perspective. It's not just about quotas, or having an equal number of female and male people in the association. It is about envisioning a plan to change the way gender is perceived and put into practice in every activity of the organisation. More often than not, gender inequality is permeating the structure and communication channels of youth organisations, thus reiterating gender role models and discriminations that are already present in society. What we want to achieve through this project - and in particular by disseminating this handbook - is to spread good and simple practices about gender, and make them easily applicable in youth organisations.

Hermainy is a project funded by the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe, that has the aim of disseminating knowledge and good practices on gender mainstreaming among youth organisations. This aim is reached through the following 5 phases: 1. A training for trainers that took place in Moscow (March 2020), during which 9 participants were trained to act as multipliers on the topic and created a trainer’s toolbox for gender mainstreaming; 2. The implementation of the “Action Tour”, an online event that took place during spring 2020, consisting of 5 ambassadors delivering online workshops to local branches of AEGEE and AEGEE members, with the objective of raising awareness on gender equality and the basics of gender mainstreaming; 3. Several online trainings delivered by the trainers from phase 1 to AEGEE-locals in order to advise them on compiling a gender mainstreaming action plan; 4. An evaluation event that took place online between 9th and 11th of October 2020 called “Gender Up your Comms”, in which participants from AEGEE and other NGOs, were guided to reflect on gender mainstreaming practices and compile a handbook gathering those best practices;

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0 / Introduction from AEGEE 5. A final conference (online) during which the project team will present the results and achievements of the project, disseminating the created material such as the Training Toolbox and the Handbook of best practices.

The creation of the handbook of best practices, was envisioned by Hermainy core team as an important tool to gather and share with a wider public the results of the work done by all the people involved in the different steps of the project.

The handbook is in fact a collection of gender mainstreaming practices, in these three main topics: audio-visual and written communication, human resources, and leadership.The best practices are presented in the form of theoretical explanation, tips, case studies from the experience of participants, and guiding questions to approach and apply gender mainstreaming in the youth NGOs everyday activities.

AEGEE-Europe has, in the last 3 years, dedicated a part of its activities and advocacy work to meet the need for more gender equity inside the organisation and in society at large. Some examples are the activities and work of the Equal Rights Working Group, the Safe Person project and the SMASH project, and especially the GENDERS project (check gendersproject.eu for more info). Therefore the Hermainy project is only a piece of the wider picture: the commitment of AEGEE-Europe towards gender equality.

Eleonora Ceschin - Project coordinator of Hermainy December 2020

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1 / Case study: What steps are necessary to implement gender mainstreaming?

Case study: What steps are necessary to implement gender mainstreaming? (by Roanna van den Oever) Roanna van den Oever, gender advisor at Aidsfonds, attended the “Gender Up your Comms� evaluation event and shared with us her experience regarding the steps to take to implement gender mainstreaming.

Gender mainstreaming is one of the tools to work towards gender equality. It makes gender part of every process and every decision, in every area of an organisation. It is an ongoing process of social transformation of a political nature. This is important to remember, because we are going to face people who take a more instrumental approach.

With the risk of seeing gender mainstreaming as a tool to tick boxes and then be done.

Ticking boxes and achieving gender balance, i.e. 50:50 men and women in a team or a board, is not enough! Gender equality means we need to shift power, challenge and transform norms, broaden the heteronormative gender binary, and doing this in a sustainable way. That is why gender mainstreaming is only one of the tools and why it is political. That is why it is a process of social transformation that is probably not going to be finished within my career. And that is why we need to work on sustainability and foster future feminist leadership.

As a gender advisor, I wrote a plan for my organisation, in which I drew out the steps we should take over the course of two years in order to become a gender-conscious organisation. We want all our work to be gender-sensitive at the least. This means it has to take into account how the issue at hand affects cisgender women, men, and trans and non-binary people, differently. This is the premise of being gender-conscious. If work is gender-blind, it risks reinforcing harmful stereotypes, unequal norms, and maintaining gender inequality. We want to avoid this by applying a gender lens to all our processes and decisions throughout the organisation. This is done through gender mainstreaming:

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1 / Case study: What steps are necessary to implement gender mainstreaming? building capacity of all staff to take gender into account. This can literally be eye-opening for people. Because gender inequality is structural and normative, we often miss it. Once people learn how to look for it you cannot unsee it. Hence, the social transformation to see gender inequality and subsequently change power relations and harmful norms.

That last part is what is super interesting to me. It is fun to combine work with activism.

It is great to find more people are striving for gender equality. There is a lot of energy around this topic and we’ve built a team of gender champions from across the organisation. The champions have a strong drive for gender equality and help roll out gender mainstreaming activities in their teams. Together we form a community of practice to exchange and learn from each other. This is how we make gender mainstreaming a feminist process in itself: by looking introspectively at ourselves while also improving our external work. I encourage everyone to be activist in their work in striving for gender equality in our organisations.

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1 / Steps towards a change

Steps towards a change A law, policy or programme can either reduce, maintain or increase gender inequalities between women and men. To help designing inclusive policies, the European Commission defined the Gender Impact Assessment (GIA) as follows: The Gender Impact Assessment is the estimation of the different effects (positive, negative or neutral) of any policy or activity implemented to specific items in terms of gender equality.

This tool works in 2 steps. The first one is the analysis of the current gender-related position in relation to the policy under consideration; followed by the analysis of the projected impacts on women and men once the policy has been implemented. The final objective of the GIA is for users, that can also be the HR, to define the policy purposes, check its gender relevance, make a gender-sensitive analysis weighting the gender impact, and share findings and recommendations that could improve the inclusiveness of that policy.

Define

Plan

Act

Check

Five main challenges of gender mainstreaming (by Lucille Griffon) First of all, there are often misunderstandings on the reason why gender mainstreaming exists and what it is about. Too often, gender mainstreaming is simply understood as a tool to assess the positions of men and women in our societies. Although it covers a part of what gender mainstreaming is, I believe that this vision fails to take into consideration power structures.

We live in an unequal world where women are disproportionately being discriminated against, suffer from strong and entrenched inequalities. Thus, we cannot apply gender mainstreaming “all things being equal”, because all things are not equal. It is good to remember that the end goal remains women’s rights and gender equality. Gender mainstreaming should be a feminist tool.

Secondly, gender mainstreaming can appear as a technical, “boring” tool, which does not allow for concrete, “here and now”, types of results. It is part of the nature of the tool and people should understand that if you do gender mainstreaming correctly, you will not see “results” per se - you simply avoid making mistakes from the start.

Thirdly, gender mainstreaming has been thought of first as a public policy mechanism.

As such, it is not always adequate for NGOs work for instance. Some work is needed there to provide concrete examples of gender mainstreaming’s implementation within organisations.

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1 / Steps towards a change Fourthly, there is a need for an intersectional gender mainstreaming method. However, it is difficult to find a meaningful way to build an intersectional GM tool which is neither tokenistic, nor a never-ending checklist. If an intersectional lens is not applied to gender mainstreaming, this approach risks to re-entrench gender norms. Assuming the different “needs� and positions of women and men in our societies, without digging deeper into their lived experiences, can stereotypically reinforce gender roles and confirm gender norms.

Only by starting from an assessment of the real and complex identities of people of all genders, GM can become a tool of radical change.

Finally, gender mainstreaming, as it resolutely questions the very basis of organisations’ work, requires long and sustained efforts. These efforts should be undertaken by dedicated individuals, who have both the financial and political means to conduct their work efficiently. Human, financial resources and political will are key.

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2 / Gender mainstreaming in audiovisual and written language

Gender mainstreaming in audiovisual and written language Language, society and gender-sensitive language Language is not a neutral tool: scientists and linguists agree that language shapes the way people think and behave. In the same way, the images we choose and the stories we tell have a strong influence on how we perceive reality and how we build our relations with other people. For these reasons, a serious agenda for gender equality should start from changing the way we speak and communicate through images.

Adopting a gender-sensitive and gender-inclusive approach to language is important for several reasons. First, it challenges unconscious bias about gender roles in society and it underlines the agency of women. Second, it raises awareness of how language affects our attitudes and makes people more comfortable with expressing themselves and behaving in ways that defy what is typically expected from their gender. This lays the foundation for greater gender equality throughout society.

But what is gender sensitive language? It is a language (verbal or audiovisual) that expresses the values of gender equality, i.e. addresses persons of all genders as persons of equal value, dignity, integrity and respect. Moreover, gender-sensitive language does not replicate (unconscious) bias and assumptions about gender roles in society. Finally, gender-sensitive language does not invisibilise or omit the existence and experiences of women (for example by using the ‘male generic’ in language). Gender sensitive language is not the same as gender-neutral language, which is simply not gender-specific and considers people in general, with no reference to women or men. Gender-neutral language can be more inclusive to those who do not identify in a binary way with one gender, but it often takes the male perspective as its basis and can therefore hide important differences in the roles, situations and needs of women/girls and men/boys.

Gender representation in the media

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2 / Gender mainstreaming in audiovisual and written language The media plays a very important role in shaping our imaginaries and in influencing our understanding of society and of social norms. For this reason, advocating for a media sector where people of different genders are represented as being of equal value and respect is greatly important. Right now, this is not the case.

In family movies between 2007 and 2017, male leads vastly outnumbered female leads—71.3% compared to 28.8%. Moreover, male characters received two times the amount of screen time as female characters in 2015 (28.5% compared to 16.0%). The Bechdel Test, or Bechdel-Wallace Test, evaluates whether a movie covers the following three criteria: (1) it has to have at least two women in it, who (2) talk to each other, about (3) something besides a man. In an analysis of 8076 mainstream movies only 57.6% pass all three tests.

When it comes to the news, in 2015, women made up only 24% of the persons heard, read about or seen in newspaper, television and radio news, and only 37% of stories in newspapers, television and radio newscasts are reported by women.

Not only women are strongly under-represented and invisibilized in the media, but the way they are depicted reinforces gender stereotypes. In Children’s films, female characters are six times more likely than male characters to be shown in revealing clothing, while male characters are more likely than female characters to be shown as violent (34.3% compared to 18.6%), and twice as likely to be shown as criminal (20.3% compared to 13.7%). In children’s TV shows, male characters are more likely to be shown in professional positions such as doctors and lawyers (16.8% compared with 12.3%), while female characters are more likely to be shown in service positions (25.8% compared with 21.2%). Among characters in STEM professions, male characters outnumber female characters two-to-one (70.2% compared with 29.8%). Moreover, in popular films, male characters are more likely to be shown in positions of leadership than female characters (53.6% compared to 46.1%).

Invisibilisation and stereotypisation is even more pronounced for queer characters. In popular films, 95% of prominent characters are heterosexual. LGBTQ+ characters are more likely to be shown partially nude (34.6% vs 10.4%) and to be portrayed as more promiscuous (13.3% vs 3.1%). Even more serious, in children’s television, LGBTQ+ characters are far more likely to be shown as criminal than heterosexual characters (50.0% compared to 8.5%) and to be portrayed as having low intelligence than heterosexual characters (50.0% compared to 6.7%).

It is very easy to imagine how this kind of representation is shaping our societies and our own way of thinking and seeing other people. At the same time, the media industry does not seem to take due account of these issues. In Europe, only one quarter of media organisations (26%) have a gender equality policy or code of conduct. Some organisations adopt an approach which they suggest is gender-neutral and based on merit, meaning that they do not feel it necessary to do anything which particularly advantages women. Other respondents suggested that they did not need gender-specific actions or activities as they did not have a problem with discrimination. Only 6% of media organisations support structured leadership or management training programmes for women, although slightly more (8%) provide equality-awareness training for staff.

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2 / Gender mainstreaming in audiovisual and written language A change is coming While the mainstream media is not (yet) taking consistent action to respect values of equality and to avoid stereotyping and reinforcing bias, independent content creators and consumers of entertainment are triggering a bottom-up wave of change. In the field of magazines and printed media, titles squarely aiming at a female audience and relying on stereotypes regarding what is interesting and appealing for women have seen a rapid decline in fortunes, as women simply refuse to read publications that reflect convenient social stereotypes. When it comes to blockbuster movies, in the past decade family films with female leads earned significantly more revenue than films with male leads ($94.3 million compared to $88.0 million in 2016, as an example). This is a clear sign that consumers are hungry for more diversity in the movies that they watch and the stories they hear. Finally, in the field of advertisement, more and more female-founded brands are creating a new visual language, representing more realistic and relatable women and adopting a messaging of female empowerment and agency.

A change is happening, and you are part of it. As a member of an organisation, as a content creator or even just as a social media user, you can make a difference by choosing a certain language and certain narratives. We hope that this booklet can be useful for you to integrate more gender-sensitive practices in the way you communicate through language and audiovisuals.

Sources: Toolkit on gender-sensitive communication - European Institute for Gender equality The Geena Benchmark Report: 2007-2017 - The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media Gender Bias in Advertising - The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media The Bechdel Test The Global Media Monitoring Project 2015 Gender Equality in the Media Sector - study for the FEMM Committee - European Parliament Gender Equality and Media - Analytical report 2019 - Council of Europe - Gender Equality Commission - Steering Committee on Media and Information Society GEA - Gender and Education Association

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2 / Guiding questions and tips

Guiding questions and tips Gender-sensitive communication starts from the design phase and needs to continue throughout implementation and evaluation. Whenever you start planning a communication action for your organisation, your team of volunteers, or your own personal project, there are a set of questions you need to ask yourself. In this section, we will present a set of guiding questions and tips for each of the stages of planning a communication action.

Good luck!

Topic

How does your topic affect women and girls?

Does the topic of your communication activity cater to a specific social group? Which one? How? Can your topic be problematic for certain minority groups? How will you make sure to respect their perspective?

When designing a communication plan about a certain issue, involve those who are affected.

If you are designing a communication plan for a whole organisation, ask for the feedback of minorities which are part of your organisation, to make sure they are represented in a respectful way.

Aims and objectives

How do you set aims and objectives?

Who do you consult?

When defining your aims and objectives, rely on gender disaggregated data and data taking into account intersectional identities (race, ethnicity, socio-economic background, age, profession, education, religion) in order to identify the problem you want to solve and the change you want to trigger.

Main message

What is the main message of your communication action?

Can it be problematic for certain groups? How will you take their perspective into account?

Think about how you can challenge stereotypes through your main message. Do not implicitly address your communication to only one gender or only one social group.

Main activities

What are the main features of your communication action?

Are women’s voices heard?

Are they in positions of authority or experts?

Are they empowered or shown as victims?

Reflect on your partners and your funders: do they share your same

If your communication action is interactive, make sure that your target audience has the choice between different means for reaching out and contributing to the action (e.g. through voice, video, text, image), so that they can choose the mean which is more comfortable for them.

Highlight gender issues in your story

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2 / Guiding questions and tips values? Do they use their revenues ethically?

and narrative.

Create a framework for ethical funding, e.g. create some rules which can guide you in selecting your partners and funders.

Platforms

How do you choose your platforms?

Do you take into account the policies of these platforms in terms of censorship and inclusivity?

Are your platforms a safe space for everyone?

Make a plan to ensure that no hate speech or shaming happens on your platforms.

Make sure that your communication channels are accessible for people with visual and hearing impairments.

See the web accessibility resources of EDF - European Disability Forum.

Language used

How will you make sure that inclusive language is used across the whole action?

In your language, do you use gender in grammar? How? Do you always use gendered language or certain terms in a single gender form i.e. leader?

What message could this convey?

Check for inclusive language (see the toolkit on gender sensitive-communication of EIGE - the European Institute for Gender Equality) Avoid language that excludes any group or words that suggest superiority of one gender over the other.

Do not describe people of different genders using different adjectives and descriptive words.

Images and audiovisuals used

Who will be represented and how?

What colors and graphic style will you prefer?

How do you represent the balance between all genders in photos and advertising?

Are women visible and prominent?

Are the images inclusive and diverse?

Are women empowered or do the images reinforce stereotypical gender roles?

In a video: reflect on the choice of the voice-over artist. Is it male or female?

Why?

Choose diverse and realistic images of men and women, reflecting the diversity of our society and of your organisation.

Beware of stock images: they are often highly stereotypical. Invest in a subscription to a quality image collection.

Hire an illustrator that reflects your same values and principles.

Flip it to test it — Replace the gender of the character. If the “flipped gender” result seems strange, you may have uncovered a bias.

Take care that there are no sexist biases in the composition of the images, nor in the planes, angles, colors, lights, scenography, gestures, appearance, actions …

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2 / Guiding questions and tips Present real beings without the sexist biases imposed by prevailing beauty canons, that link the success of women to their physical appearance (young, beautiful and thin).

Narrative

What stories are you telling in your communication activities? How did you choose these stories? What do these stories tell about your society and your environment? How are women and gender and sexual minorities represented in those stories? How are you making sure not to replicate stereotypes through your stories?

Make other genders visible by preventing the male figure from becoming the reference point.

Show a balance in terms of frequency of appearance of different genders.

Present all persons with dignity, not as sexual objects, neither as subordinate beings.

Do not fall into stereotypes about family and social roles assigned to different genders (e.g. women as mothers/victims; men as providers/survivors).

Evaluation

How will you make sure that your communication does not reinforce stereotypes about gender roles?

Who will you consult in order to make sure that your communication is respectful and inclusive towards different groups?

How can you measure the success of your communication action?

Involve your target group in your evaluation.

Rely on gender disaggregated data for your evaluation.

Rely on the advice of an expert who can check the inclusivity of your communications.

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2 / Good practice: the experience of a feminist blogger and video-maker

Good practice: the experience of a feminist blogger and video-maker Lauren Foley, a feminist blogger, writer and video-maker, participated in the Hermainy project and shared with us her experience of gender mainstreaming in audiovisual communication. You can read her blog and follow her on Instagram and Youtube.

After having been involved in various initiatives during my college years, when I left college, I knew I needed something new of my own. I needed an outlet to talk about feminism and gender equality and I wanted to teach others in the process. Also, as I had no formal degree in gender studies, I knew I needed something to make me stand out and to show my passion for this area when applying for jobs and trainings etc.

I started with the idea of becoming a blogger and vlogger, but the execution took a lot longer as I was terrified to put myself out there. I bought a camera which I didn’t use for months, I bought a domain name and a website template which I didn’t use for years. I thought that I needed to have the perfect equipment and for everything to be perfect before I could start and that was one of my biggest obstacles. I didn’t need any of those things, I just needed to start. I started publishing videos online a year before my website was published. I bought a tripod for my camera and a ring light a year and a half later after starting. What I truly only needed was the confidence and even then, I didn’t really need the confidence; the confidence came from publishing a video every week and normalising it.

There is a lack of women on platforms like YouTube or in the public eye and in online spaces in general and so, there is space for more young women. People are so much nicer than you think. I get about 1% backlash and 99% positive comments. We need to be brave and trust that the confidence will come because it will. You’ll never be truly ready so you might as well do it now. When you finally do, you’ll wish you’d have started years ago and you’ll be berating yourself for not starting sooner because of how much joy it

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2 / Good practice: the experience of a feminist blogger and video-maker I have learned so much about myself and the online world since starting all of this. I’ve learned that when you put yourself and your thoughts out there, things come back to you. Whether that’s people simply interacting with your content and making conversation or people offering you opportunities because they know you have knowledge on certain areas. One thing I also found that was holding me back in terms of my content was thinking that everything I was saying had already been said before. A lot of that is true but what really helped me is thinking about the fact that not everyone has heard it before. I may be saying what someone else has said before but I may be teaching someone something for the first time and that’s an amazing feeling.

A lot of what I learned, I learned from others online. I watched tutorials on how to edit videos using iMovie and read up on what the best website platforms are and what the best times to post online are, for example. I took inspiration from everyone I followed, even if they weren’t related to feminism. I collaborated with a friend of mine who’s a tech wiz to help me design my website and get it up and running. Everyone who’s ever taken a photo for me even if they didn’t want to, I am truly grateful for. And after having attended an Impact Aimers summit in October 2016 where I got to spend three days with social entrepreneurs and other people who want to make a difference in the world, it showed me that I didn’t have to choose doing good over making a living. And that I could pursue my passion and still have a nice life without having to ‘sell out’ to a corporate job if I didn’t want to. I will forever be indebted to that group of people and they continue to inspire me to go for what I want to this day.

The amount of people I’ve met and interacted with about feminism since starting has been amazing. I’ve learned so much about gender equality issues and know that I still have such a long way to go. I’ve had the opportunity to give video-making workshops to End FGM EU Youth Ambassadors and Young Feminist Europe and I was featured in Ireland’s national Irish language broadcaster TG4’s ‘Irish in Brussels’ series which spoke to my feminist videos. I never thought I’d be in those situations doing something I’m passionate about and it all started with me putting myself out there and so, that has been my biggest achievement of all.

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3 / Gender mainstreaming in human resources

Gender mainstreaming in human resources Language, society and gender-sensitive language All around the world women work and, as any other human being, they want their work to be recognised. The equal contribution of women and men in the job market is one of the biggest challenges of our century, and it is important to analyse the current societal transformation to understand that we’re living in critical times.

When we talk about gender linked to the job market, several issues arise, but the main one is the following: all the people have their skills and knowledge, but why certain have to be judged before proving how much they are worth? As the communications sector, the human resources world must adapt too and keep up with the global situation. More than ever, societies cannot afford to lose out on the ideas, knowledge and experiences of a precise part of humanity just because they’re not fitting the standard case.

WE CAN DO IT! HR management is still broadly considered a ‘female’ occupation because women are perceived to have better soft skills than men. Nonetheless, the stereotype that women are just more naturally adept at a role that involves interaction with others need to evolve further. The issue should be seen as less binary and more nuanced: a profession shouldn’t be more attractive to some people rather than others. A profession should be attractive for each and every person: all employees coming from different backgrounds should be confident in bringing their skills, knowledge and experience, no matter their identity. By embracing broad principles, the HR world could challenge barriers, encourage and celebrate differences, creating more inclusive workplaces that benefit everyone.

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3 / Gender mainstreaming in human resources Which efforts are companies making to be gender inclusive?

In order to keep up with the current times, some HR departments decided to implement new measures to be more gender inclusive such as: Creation of new roles: Over the past 2 years, job postings for Chief Diversity Officers have increased by 35%. It’s still a new and evolving role, but the creation of C-suite positions focused entirely on workplace diversity and inclusion highlights its growing status as a business priority.

Focus on Diversity and Inclusion: The notion of diversity and inclusion is still lacking particularly in STEM workplaces. According to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, in 2016 across the world women accounted for 29.3% of those employed in scientific research and development1. While comparing the board directors of the STEM industry to other industries, we can notice that the representation of women remains low by having 17.9% women engaged2. And a last remarkable element can be seen by analysing the percentage of women being senior leaders in technology where women are only 3% of CEOs and 20% of CFOs3. It’s also crucial to recognise the breadth of minority groups facing regular discrimination such as migrants, LGBTQ+ individuals, workers with disabilities, as well as those from different socioeconomic or religious backgrounds, continue to face daily battles.

Mentoring and personal progression: more and more companies developed systems that contribute to engagement levels of employees such as appreciation reviews, mentorship, better focus on work-life balance, compensation and promotion opportunities.

Gender representation in HR According to UNICEF, worldwide: 132 million girls are out of school; Only 66% of countries have achieved gender parity in primary education; Nearly 1 in 4 girls between the ages of 15 and 19 are neither employed nor in education or training – compared to 1 in 10 boys.

The question that we need to ask ourselves is: why is this still happening ? The reasons for barriers to girls’ education are many and vary among countries and communities and can go from poverty where families often favour boys when investing in education to child marriage, or from gender-based violence to a lack of gender inclusive policies.

UNESCO Institute for Statistics, Fact Sheet No. 55: Women in Science (2019): p. 2.

Olga Emelianova and Christina Milhomem, Women on Boards: 2019 Progress Report (MSCI, December 2019): p. 15.

3 Richard Kersley, Eugene Klerk, Anais Boussie, Bahar Sezer Longworth, Joelle Anamootoo Natzkoff, and Darshana Ramji, The CS Gender 3000 in 2019: The Changing Face of Companies (Credit Suisse Research Institute, October 10, 2019): p. 15.

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3 / Gender mainstreaming in human resources Following those data, we need to pay a particular attention to how bad is gender discrimination in the world. Only in 1911 the world celebrated the first International Women’s Day. Then a big step ahead was taken in 1979 when the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Today, it has been ratified by 189 states even though some countries such as the United States and Palau have signed, but still not ratified the treaty, and the Holy See, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, and Tonga are not signatories to CEDAW. The most recent turning point was the Istanbul Convention (2011), which is a Human Rights treaty of the Council of Europe on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence. It came into force in 2014 and today it has been ratified by 34 states. Moreover, in 2019 the International Labour Organisation (ILO) approved the Violence and Harassment Convention and Recommendation, which established the right of everyone to a world of work free from violence and harassment.

At this stage, the World Bank’s recent Women, Business and the Law report measured gender discrimination in 187 countries, which means that, according to the World Economic Forum’s most recent Global Gender Gap report, at the current rate of progress, it will take another 108 years to reach gender parity in the world.

Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence.

Signed and ratified Only signed Not signed (CoE member states) Not signed (non-CoE states)

Sources: EIGE Gender impact Assessment Publications office of the European Union, A guide to gender impact assessment The World Bank, Woman Business and the law World Economic Forum, The Global Gender Gap Report 2018

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3 / Guiding questions and tips

Guiding questions and tips In order to make your organisation more inclusive, a very powerful tool is to look at your HR cycle from a gender sensitive perspective. The way you communicate, interact and work with your members strongly determines whether they will feel included and welcome. The guiding questions and tips below can be applied both to a professional environment and a volunteering environment. Remember: managing volunteers is even more challenging than managing employees, as they need to be rewarded and to take their motivation from non-monetary means.

The HR cycle which we are considering in this chapter consists of: Recruitment: how you find people for your organisation.

Entering the organisation: what happens in the first days, how are new members welcomed and introduced to the organisation.

Learning: how members acquire the knowledge, skills and tools that they need.

Becoming active: how members can take up an active role in the organisation.

Giving back: how experienced members keep their knowledge inside the organisation.

Exit: what happens when a member leaves the organisation.

All these steps can and should be considered from the point of view of gender and diversity. If you want to change your HR practices to make them more inclusive, this series of guiding questions and tips is a great starting point!

Recruitment

Where do you carry out recruitment activities?

Do you target a specific group of people? How does gender play in the definition of this group?

What activities do you advertise to potential members? Is there a gender dimension to it?

When signing up as a new member, can members freely choose how to label their gender?

Do you recruit a balanced number of members from all genders in every age-group?

Preparing your ad Make sure that you are describing the profile you are looking for in a gender-neutral manner: do not use gendered adjectives and do not assume the gender of the person you wish to recruit.

Outreach When reaching out to potential members, make sure to use different platforms (social media, LinkedIn, your own newsletter and website‌), without neglecting physical spaces (youth centres, fairs‌). Being present in different spaces and accessible through different means (online and offline) will enhance your chances to attract a diverse crowd.

Reflect upon who is represented in your organisation already and who is not. What can be the reason why certain social groups are not represented? Do you want to change that? Then you might want to target specifically people with a certain

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3 / Guiding questions and tips background, e.g. by advertising your organisation in spaces dedicated to them, or by stating that certain profiles will be given preference.

Note: the inclusion of minorities or marginalised groups should not be made in a tokenistic way. Make sure that your motivation to include them is not “to appear inclusive” and that you have mechanisms in place to make sure they can participate on the same footing as everyone else.

Recruitment process If you design an interview process, respect people’s privacy about their personal life and future plans.

In your recruitment process, value volunteering experience and non formal education (not everyone can afford a university education or unpaid internships!).

If you select through written applications, consider using blind applications.

Entering the organisation

What activities are proposed to newcomers? How do you make sure that every new member feels at ease in these activities?

Who is responsible for making sure that new members are included?

What is the profile of this person?

How do you present the culture of the organisation to newcomers? How do you make sure that this culture allows everyone to participate equally?

Do you have an inclusive policy for LGBT+ members? How is this presented to new members?

When newcomers enter the organisation, part of their induction process should consist in learning about inclusion and diversity policies.

It should be made clear that your organisation is inclusive not only “on paper” but that there are concrete measures in place (e.g diversity officer, gender mainstreaming plan). If there are still difficulties and obstacles in becoming a truly inclusive organisation, do not shy away from acknowledging that, but also make sure to state how you are trying to improve the situation.

Make sure new members can present themselves as they feel more comfortable (pronouns, clothing, make up). Do not require a dress code, especially a gendered one.

Avoid icebreaking games or bonding activities where participants need to be divided according to their gender.

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3 / Guiding questions and tips Similarly, make sure that teambuilding and bonding activities are inclusive for everyone, e.g. do not involve (only) drinking alcohol, do not require close physical contact, are organised at a time which is convenient for everyone (especially members with caring responsibilities/living outside of urban areas/for whom it is unsafe to be outside when it is dark).

Learning

Are trainings and info sessions provided to new members?

Are they inclusive?

Do they cater to different learning needs?

Do you teach different things to different groups of members? Based on what?

Is the content of your trainings and info sessions inclusive?

Are the training methodologies inclusive?

Make sure that new members attend a training on equality and diversity, including a training on sexual harassment and consent. Assess whether you want to separate the group so as to provide a safe space for everyone and opportunities to go more in-depth in the subject, or if you prefer to keep the group together so that more privileged members can see others’ perspective and acknowledge their privilege.

Design specific diversity and inclusion trainings for those working on HR: they are the most important agent of inclusion!

When designing the learning process for new members, start from assessing their needs and objectives: learning should be tailored.

Becoming active

How do you empower members from a minority group and/or a disadvantaged group to take an active role in your organisation? How do you assess and tackle the specific barriers they face?

How do you empower members from a minority and/or a disadvantaged group to take on a leadership role?

How do you show appreciation and recognition of your volunteers? When praising them, do you keep into account the identity-specific obstacles they faced to achieve a certain goal?

How do you enable people to choose

Start from understanding the specific issues and problems which a minority or disadvantaged group is facing. Do your research, privileging sources of information provided by members of that group themselves.

After having analysed the obstacles that a certain group may face, address them through practical measures.

Support them through different means: Tools and guidelines to ease their learning process and onboarding.

Assign a mentor/supervisor who they can refer to for guidance and advice.

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3 / Guiding questions and tips their role regardless of their gender?

How do you enable people to experiment different roles within the organisation?

Make sure you have a mediator in your organisation in case of conflicts.

Provide mental health support, also through the cooperation with external experts and professionals.

Do not minimise the challenges of certain people just because they do not concern everyone: if only one person in your organisation is not treated properly, your whole organisation suffers.

Make sure you are protecting your members when you run activities in external environments. Make sure that the organisations you are cooperating with share your same values and principles. Make sure that there is a mechanism in place to address discrimination or mistreatment happening to a member in an external event.

Encourage work-life balance through concrete policies. Do not praise overworking (this applies both to volunteers and employees).

Giving Back

Who are the role models in your organisation? Can everyone identify in those role models?

Who are the figures in your organisation who retain knowledge and expertise about the organisation itself?

Make sure to recognise and value the work of your members (especially if volunteers).

Put in place a feedback mechanism to make sure the work done is appreciated. Teach your members how to give and receive feedback. Feedback should be appropriate and specific on the work done by someone, not on their identity, appearance or personality.

Exit

Do you enquire on the reasons for leaving the organisation?

Do you evaluate whether a more inclusive environment would have prevented a drop-out?

How do you celebrate and thank members who leave the organisation?

Evaluate whether an exit interview or an anonymous feedback questionnaire is the best way for your organisation to gather feedback from members and participants.

Schedule a yearly audit to examine and draw lessons from the data collected through the exit process (interviews or questionnaires).

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3 / Good practice: gender mainstreaming in an international NGO.

Good practice: gender mainstreaming in an international NGO. Lucille Griffon, Women's rights and Gender Justice Program Officer at EuroMed Rights, has participated in the Hermainy project and is sharing with us her experience on gender mainstreaming in the management of human resources.

EuroMed Rights is a network representing 80 human rights organisations, institutions and defenders in 30 countries (Europe, the EU Southern Neighbourhood and Turkey). It was founded in 1997, following the 1995 Barcelona Declaration, by civil society organisations dedicated to promoting human rights and democracy within the framework of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership. EuroMed Rights’ mission is to promote and strengthen human rights and democratic reforms at regional and national levels. By creating network opportunities and encouraging civil society cooperation, EuroMed Rights aims to develop and strengthen the partnerships between NGOs located within the Euro-Mediterranean area, to spread and promote human rights values and to increase members’ capacities to reach these objectives.

Since 2004, EuroMed Rights has worked proactively on promoting gender equality in the Euro-Med region. The commitment of EuroMed Rights to the promotion of gender equality, the principles of gender parity and equal opportunities in its decision-making structures is inscribed in the network’s statutes and bylaws. EuroMed Rights aims at ensuring continued political support, organisational culture, technical capacity and accountability for gender mainstreaming within the organisation. EuroMed Rights is also committed to ensuring that its own activities are not genderblind, which could eventually reinforce a status-quo situation for women and men in EuroMediterranean countries, if not worsen the situation. Therefore, to promote gender equality both internally in its organisational policies and structures, and externally in its work on the promotion of human rights, EuroMed Rights adopts a dual strategy consisting of targeted actions on women’s rights and gender justice; and gender mainstreaming (GM).

EuroMed Rights’ gender mainstreaming strategy unfolds at three main levels. First, at the political level, which includes, for instance, matters of membership applications and concern for gender equality. At the organisational level, we appoint one person in charge of the implementation of the GM strategy at all relevant levels. For instance, in the board sits a GM political referent, there is a GM programme officer among staff, there is a gender focal point within each “working groups”.

In terms of HR and at the organisational level, GM means ensuring that new staff is sensitive to gender issues, that there is a zero-tolerance for discriminatory behaviours within the organisation and work arrangements can be made flexible. The third level relates to programmes. At this level, for instance, the staff is expected to conduct a gender analysis of their area of expertise for their programme strategies to be adopted by the board.

EuroMed Rights’ is still working on gender mainstreaming the recruitment processes, but a series of best practices are the following: In the job description, use gender-sensitive language, mention gender mainstreaming responsibilities and make sure that gender awareness is mentioned and valorised.

In the selection process, use blind CVs to avoid (un)conscious bias, use both oral and written forms of evaluation, ask questions related to women’s rights and gender equality. In the recruitment phase, quotas can be considered.

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4 / Gender mainstreaming in leadership

Gender mainstreaming in leadership When we talk about leadership, do we really know what we are talking about? Are we aware of what being a leader means and which characteristics make a good leader? And when it comes to inclusive leadership, at which stage are we now? Let’s start by understanding what is meant by leadership, by focusing on what leadership is not: Leadership has nothing to do with seniority or one’s position in the hierarchy of a company. Leadership doesn’t automatically happen when you reach a certain pay grade.

Leadership has nothing to do with titles. You can be a leader in your place of worship, your neighborhood, in your family, all without having a title.

Leadership has nothing to do with personal attributes. leadership isn’t an adjective.

We don’t need extroverted charismatic traits to practice leadership. And those with charisma don’t automatically lead.

Leadership isn’t management. Leadership and management are not synonymous.

Good management is needed. Managers need to plan, measure, monitor, coordinate, solve, hire, fire, and so many other things. Typically, managers manage things.

Leaders lead people.

Leadership is a process of social influence, which maximizes the efforts of others, towards the achievement of a goal4.

Representation of women in leadership positions Having now a clearer overview of what leadership is, we can focus on the importance of having an equal representation of women and men in leadership positions. According to Eurostat studies and researches, in Europe very few women are represented in leadership positions: in 2019 women accounted for a little over one quarter of board members of publicly listed companies (28%), and for less than one fifth of senior executives (18%).

Kevin Kurse, Great leaders have no rules: contrarian leadership principles to transform your team and business, Rodale Books, New York, 2019.

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4 / Gender mainstreaming in leadership This means that only 1 manager out of 3 is a woman, and those numbers lower even more when talking about women in senior management positions. In other words, although representing approximately half of all employed persons in the EU, women continue to be under-represented amongst managers5.

The question that arises is then: why are women struggling to be the leaders of our society? And why does it matter so much to have a gender balanced society? In the first place it is important to highlight that gender equality does not only benefit women, but it is a great advantage for the society as a whole. Nonetheless, due to a lack of education, collective awareness and support from institutions, gender equality measures are a confusing and unknown world that can drive people away6.

Moreover, the gender pay gap, abbreviated as GPG, is another consequence of the lack of women in leadership positions. GPG refers to the difference in average wages between men and women and vary significantly across the EU: for the economy7 as a whole, in 2018, women's gross hourly earnings were on average 14.8 % below those of men in the European Union (EU-27) and 15.9 % in the euro area (EA-19). Across Member States, the gender pay gap varied by 19.7 percentage points, ranging from 3.0 % in Romania to 22.7 % in Estonia (Eurostat).

EUROSTAT, News Release 40/2020 6 Eurostat, Gender Pay Gap, 2018.

7 Economy: Here defined as industry, construction and services except public administration and defence and compulsory social security.

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4 / Gender mainstreaming in leadership Why is it difficult to mainstream gender in leadership?

Coming from a patriarchal mentality, in which men had the power over society, the transition to a gender balanced world is not an easy and immediate process. Changing the trend always requires time, efforts and it can be tough and challenging. But what does society expect from someone holding the leadership? In short words, someone who can pay the way towards a goal. How? Here it is where the differences start growing as leadership can be defined in several ways, and several theories try to assign the correct methodology to be a great leader: Trait theories: Theories that consider personal innate traits, qualities and characteristics of the leader (how leaders are: personality, social, physical, intellectual, ‌).

Behavioural theories: Theories that consider the behaviour of people (what leaders do).

Contingency theories: Theories that consider the leader being the one who applies the best leadership style to the circumstance.

But now that we explored the 3 big groups of theories, which are the differences between male and female leadership? First of all, it's not that people of either gender make better leaders. Whatever gender you are, you should identify the skills that characterise you and use them to become a leader. Each and every person should be able to look at their range of qualities and decide which ones are stronger to make them a great leader.

Are we ready for a change? How can we imagine an equal world in the area of gender and leadership?

The causes for the under-representation of women in decision-making processes and positions are multiple and complex. The main reasons are: traditional gender roles and stereotypes; the lack of support for women and men to balance care responsibilities with work; the prevalent political and corporate cultures.

The continuing dominance of men in decision-making posts limits women’s voice in and ability to influence policy design at international, central and local government levels, as well as at the level of schools and communities.

Although inequalities still exist, the EU has made significant progress in gender equality over the last decades. The European Commission is keeping Gender equality high on the Agenda while working toward the SGD goal 5 to achieve gender equality by ending all forms of discrimination, violence and any harmful practices against women and girls in the public and private spheres.

2012: Directive on Women on Boards, proposal to create a legal basis to enhance the representation of women. The proposal set the aim of a minimum of 40 % of non-executive members of the under-represented sex on company boards, to be achieved by 2020 in the private sector and by 2018 in the public sector8.

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Women on Boards directive proposal /* COM/2012/0614 final - 2012/0299 (COD) */

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4 / Gender mainstreaming in leadership This directive is an important tool for achieving a greater gender balance in economic decision-making at the highest level, however, no agreement has yet been reached and the proposal has since been blocked in the Council.

2018: Adoption of the new EU strategic approach to women, peace and security (WPS) which places the WPS Agenda at the centre of the full spectrum of the EU Common Foreign and Security Policy; and the implementation of the European Development Days having “Women and Girls at the Forefront of Sustainable Development: protect, empower, invest” as core topic; 2019: College of Commissioners of Ursula Von Der Leyen (2019-2024) - The college is composed by 13 women & 14 men;

2020: Adoption of the Gender Equality Strategy 2020-2025 and collaboration with the European Institute for Gender Equality and with the Council of Europe on their Gender Equality Strategy 2018-2023.

All over the world, inequality issues exist as well, and governments are trying to work toward the 2030 goal of eradicating gender inequality. Few concrete examples can be the following: In the United States, the US Agency for International Development has an incentive programme to promote women interested in gender issues, and 44% of senior foreign service posts are filled by women, relative to 53% of all staff (USAID, 2016); In the United Kingdom, only 43% of Department for International Development senior civil service roles are filled by women, compared to 55% of the department’s total staff (DFID, 2016); In Australia, while 57% of all Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade staff are women, only 34% of senior executive service staff and 27% of heads of missions and posts are female. The organization has identified internal cultural constraints that may be hampering women from applying for more advanced positions (DFAT, 2015).

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4 / Gender mainstreaming in leadership In contrast to the low improvements made by most of the States around the world, few positive example are the ones where women are now leaders of the Government, such as in Finland where Sanna Marin was elected in 2019 as Prime Minister, Erna Solberg, Prime Minister of Norway since 2013, Chancellor Angela Merkel, serving Germany since 2005, Sheikh Hasina, Bangladeshi Prime Minister since 2009, or Jacinda Ardern who since 2017 is leading New Zealand as Prime Minister. For example, an analysis conducted on 194 countries showed that women-led nations better handled the coronavirus pandemic both infection and fatality rates were noticeably lower compared to male-led countries.

We still need to keep in mind the “quality issues”: are future women elected going to be “transformational leaders”, or are they going to mirror the leadership style of those already in power? In order for women to start fulfilling their potential and taking on more leadership roles, they should get encouraged at an early age, while in education, in order to raise awareness and encourage self-reflection. Governments should invest more in the development of young people, raise awareness on why it is important to reach a gender equal world, and provide them with the right tools to access the job market.

In the meanwhile you can contribute to reach this objective too! Through training, projects and workshops, share your vision of gender equality, build a community of practice in order to have champions to inspire and lead, and inspire young people by showing them great examples of authentic and inspiring people to follow and analysing role models of nowadays society. Push the reflection towards current issues: how to improve the political representation of women in local decision-making? How to encourage diversity in your organisation? What measures can local, regional, national and international authorities take to forward gender equality at local level? How can you make gender mainstreaming fun and encourage other groups to get involved?

You are a changemaker, inspire others to join you and shape the future of our society!

Sources: Gender and leadership emergence: A meta‐analysis and explanatory model Eurostat, 6/3/2020, Only 1 manager out of 3 in the EU is a woman Council of the European Union, 10/12/2018, Women, Peace and Security - Council conclusions European Union, 2020, A Union of Equality: Gender Equality Strategy 2020-2025 European Institute for Gender Equality Kara Cutruzzula, 24/9/2020, 6 things we can learn from how women leaders have handled the pandemic Council of Europe, 7/3/2018, Gender Equality Strategy 2018-2023

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4 / Guiding questions and tips

Guiding questions and tips Designing a programme to encourage women in your organisation to take up leadership roles needs to be very clear since the beginning and its objectives should be straightforward, easy to understand and SMART9: they should define more precisely what you want to achieve with your project and how you recognise its success.

While designing a programme to empower girls and women to take the lead, as for every other project, you should have specific elements in mind. In the following section, we will first walk you through the different steps that you need to follow and take into account while developing your project. Enjoy!

Title

How do you choose your title?

When choosing the title of your project, action, workshop, training or seminar, keep in mind the public you are addressing to and try to be as inclusive as possible.

Target Group

How do you define your target group?

Why do you focus on them specifically?

How do you attract this target group?

When defining your target group, be clear with yourself and dig deep in what are the needs of your organisation.

Always try to help your target group to thrive and find their path through some external help (mentoring, coaching, training, etc). If they don’t see themselves as leaders, show them how to change their mentality.

Keep in mind that the formal education system is not always helping young people to exploit their full potential: guide them and show them inspiring examples of people who made a difference.

Aims & objectives

What problem are you aiming to tackle, and why?

How do you make sure that your aims and objectives are relevant for the target group?

What type of leadership are you promoting through this program?

While setting your aims and objectives, always keep in mind the need you set at the beginning. Both aims and objectives should answer it in a precise and coherent way.

AIM: Broad goal, set on the long-term, that shows the final destination that

SMART Objectives: Specific (What do I want to achieve? Is the outcome clear? Why is this important?); Measurable (How can I measure its progress? Which are the quality expectations?); Attainable (Do I have the skills and necessary material to do it? How can I challenge myself?); Relevant (Why I am doing this? What is its added value?); and Time-bound (When is the deadline? How long will it last on the medium and long-term?).

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4 / Guiding questions and tips Does the program aim also at changing the style of leadership in the organisation?

you want to reach.

OBJECTIVE: Specific goal, set on the short-term, that helps you in fulfilling your aim. You can set as many objectives as you think are needed.

While defining those elements, debunk gender stereotypes and gender norms. Make your aims and objectives inclusive and accessible to each and every person part of your group.

Activities

What is the format?

What is the content?

How do you make sure that your activities are inclusive for everyone?

How do you make sure that the activities contribute to the aims and objectives?

While developing your activities, give the same value to masculine and feminine tasks.

Focus of introspection and self-reflection: it is difficult to become a leader if you don’t believe in yourself. Boost your group’s self-esteem and focus on the importance of taking care of ourselves.

Break stereotypes: make visible leadership roles by men in places that are especially feminine, e.g. cooking, caring positions, etc.

Normalise feminine and masculine traits (e.g. caretaking=feminine and feminine=shameful).

Break stereotypes on LGBTQ+ Critique the system as it is right for not allowing women or minorities groups to succeed and be leaders they are not guilty for not succeeding, they might be in an environment not allowing them to thrive.

Raise awareness on your organisation’s situation: in NGOs women are the majority but the management is mainly male. Ask yourself why, try to find solutions: having women at management positions takes more than just focusing on women.

Find a space for coaching and

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4 / Guiding questions and tips mentoring: women already in leadership positions should upliftwomen in other leadership positions, and treat other women with dignity.

Use role model examples: focus on those that are really listened to.

Collaborate and cooperate with feminist movements: they might have already worked on what you are focusing on and can help you in achieving success.

Engage with the youngest: ask children who they see as leaders.

Impact

What change do you want to make?

What are the expected results of your programme?

While focusing on the impact that you want to reach with your project, always try to focus on something concrete and accountable. How can you measure the change?

Focus on the outcomes of your project and create both tangible and intangible outputs (e.g. social media campaign, online challenge, exhibition, toolkit, booklet, etc.)

Evaluation

How do you evaluate whether you were successful or not?

How do you include participants in the evaluation of the programme?

Do you have a mechanism to gather feedback from them and improve your activities accordingly?

While focusing on the evaluation of your project, try to think broader: You could hire an anthropologist and do qualitative research.

Form a network of leaders and keep in track.

Organise time to deliver follow-up sessions and share the results of your project with a wide public.

After n.X time from the end of your project, check how many women are part of a board or are in leadership positions, and how many participants empowered other women around them.

Do gender audits (audit with a gender lens).

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4 / Good practice: Defying gender roles in couple dance

Good practice: Defying gender roles in couple dance Marta Cagnin, anthropologist, former student of the Erasmus Mundus Master Program “Choreomundus - dance knowledge, practice and cultural heritage”, participated in the Hermainy project and shared her research on gender roles in couple dance.

Couple dance, to work, needs two partners dancing complementary steps, but there is also one core rule that is taken for granted: men lead, and women follow, always and only. It is not really about the specific technique of every different dance, it is just a principle sustaining the whole practice. The idea that men should be the ones taking the lead and holding decisional power reproduces conceptions about gender that were strong at the beginning of the XXth century. Although almost a century has passed, and women now have a considerably better position in society, expectations about what is appropriate in dance have not really changed during the decades and dance schools still stick with traditional leading and following roles. The discipline is so strictly influenced by this mindset that the technique itself and many figures, with liftings and acrobatics, rely heavily on the strength and weight difference between partners. This creates an unbalanced situation where gender is what makes someone a leader or a follower.

My involvement with dance and gender roles comes necessarily connected to my queer identity. As a kid I wasn’t comfortable around dance floors because in Europe many dance styles are still associated with femininity and effeminacy, aspects of myself I did not want to be identified with or to stress and, as I just explained, couple dancing assigns you one role, based on your gender. I knew I could never fit in this picture and that others felt restricted by these rules, so, when I finally started to dance, I tried to find a way that could be comfortable for me too. I joined different groups at the same time, and all were conservative about gender roles. At first, as an outsider, I couldn’t influence much but what concerned me, so what I did was dancing in the leading role. At first some people were puzzled, but eventually everyone got used to me and my behaviour created a precedent.

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4 / Good practice: Defying gender roles in couple dance In a folk dance group where dancers were less strict about gender roles, we started teaching couple dances without necessarily dividing people by gender, but just by role.

When teaching the steps, it is important to be clear about which dancer you are referring to in order to avoid confusions, and this is usually achieved by calling ‘men’ and ‘women’. But when people can choose what role they want to dance in you have to find alternatives. For example, calling ‘leaders’ and ‘followers’ works really well and is the most common option, but we also tried to come up with funny alternative names and this decreased the perceived difference of power that words like leading and following still communicate. During a dance workshop abroad, sharing our experience, I found out that other folk groups were encouraging role change, if people felt like it, and offered the possibility to pair up regardless of gender. Giving people the freedom to choose immediately benefited some, while many were still suspicious of this queer way of dancing. But what we saw is that if given the possibility and the concrete example from more experienced dancers, a lot of people became more relaxed about switching leads and dancing with people of the same gender, and eventually started doing it more often.

Later on, while researching for my master’s thesis, I found out that the LGBTQ+ community had already and extensively worked on this, creating what is called ‘same-sex dance’ for the GayGames, an event that we could define as the gay Olympics.

Here, couples of the same gender participate in standard ballroom, tango or salsa competitions and they can switch the lead. During the time I spent on the field I got the opportunity to help the European Same-Sex Dance Association managing a dance competition, and I discovered many federated dance associations all across Europe.

Dance schools are everywhere to be found and the change that the LGBTQ+ community has tried to bring to dance roles does not necessarily have to run along the parallel rails of a gay sport event. This approach created a liberating space for non-heteronormative people but has also encouraged a hiatus with the regular dance community that never got to benefit from the improvement in equality that same-sex associations have been working on for decades. The change can be first and foremost in the way in which dance teachers and dancers think about dance roles and gender. In a new environment it will probably be gradual and it is likely to encounter strong resistance, but there are examples of realities that began changing their rules and same-sex couples are now accepted at competitive events in some European countries. This does not mean that dance roles got freed from gender stereotypes, but for sure is the sign of a change in pace and attitude in the dance world.

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