Women As Resources | VOICE - Amplifying Women And Girls In Crises (voiceamplified.org)
Direct Link to Full 7-Page Document:
Resources-for-Women-Final-Brief.pdf (voiceamplified.org)
The international humanitarian and aid communities have always worked in contexts where resources, funds and support systems are hard to come by, harder to build and hardest to distribute. The competing needs of numerous groups —all dire and all urgent— are complex to parse through and prioritize. However, years of practice and scholarship have repeatedly shown the stark reality that women and girls tend to both be the ones most impacted by humanitarian crises like conflicts and disasters and the ones who tend to be most egregiously neglected by donors and humanitarian agencies. In addition, women and girls are expected to contribute to their homes and communities.
This expectation is held not only by their own families but by many humanitarian agencies. Humanitarian agencies are not outside patriarchal norms and are as likely to see women as a resource in their families and communities as the contexts within which they are operating. There is a reflexive focus on how women can support the others around them, but extraordinarily little attention is paid towards understanding what resources or support women might need or towards actually providing them with those. The COVID-19 pandemic has both highlighted the extent of this attitude towards women and women-led organizations and dealt a serious blow to what little progress had been made towards centering the needs of girls and women in programs, funding practices and policies.
Unsurprisingly, the negative impacts of COVID-19 have been disproportionately harsh on women and girls. The pandemic has underscored the roles that women play and are expected to play in their families and communities. The last year and half also saw a resurgence in the prevalence of patriarchal ideas and assumptions around women’s duties and obligations within the household. Women’s unpaid and underpaid labor was simultaneously exploited more and valued less. Consequently, the view that women are resources to be utilized extends beyond the individual level to also impact on how women and girl-led organizations that work to uphold women’s causes have fared in the course of the pandemic.
Извор: WUNRN – 05.12.2021
