Frequently Asked Questions: Gender Equity in and through Education in Emergencies

Sex refers to physical and biological characteristics that distinguish females and males, for  example: sexual and reproductive organs, chromosomes…etc. Most people have either male or female characteristics, but some people have a mix. People who have a mix of sexual characteristics are called intersex. 

Gender refers to the socially constructed roles, responsibilities, and identities for women and men and how these are valued in society. They are culture specific and they change over time. Gender identities define how women and men are expected to think and act. These behaviors are learned from family, schools, religious teaching, and the media.

People whose sex and gender are aligned (ex: assigned female at birth + identifies as a woman) are cisgender. People whose sex and gender are not aligned (ex: assigned male at birth + identifies as a woman) are transgender. Some transgender people may also identify outside of binary gender categories of man or woman, using terms like non-binary, genderqueer, or genderfluid to describe their gender identity.

Since gender roles, responsibilities, and identities are socially learned, they can also be changed. Gender, together with age group, sexual orientation, and gender identity, determines roles, responsibilities, power dynamics, and access to resources. This is also affected by other diversity factors such as disability, social class, race, caste, ethnic or religious background, economic wealth, marital status, migrant status, displacement situation, and urban or rural setting.

Gender equality refers to the equal rights, responsibilities, and opportunities of women and girls, men and boys, and gender-diverse people. Equality does not mean that women and men will become the same, but a person’s rights, responsibilities, and opportunities will not depend on whether they are born male or female. Gender equality implies that the interests, needs, and priorities of all genders are taken into consideration, recognizing the diversity of different groups of women,  men, and gender-diverse people. Gender equality is seen both as a human rights issue and as a precondition for, and indicator of, sustainable, people-centered development. 

Gender equity refers to fairness and justice in the distribution of benefits and responsibilities between women and men, according to their respective needs. It is considered part of the process of achieving gender equality in terms of rights, benefits, obligations, and opportunities. To ensure fairness, strategies and measures must be available to compensate for any discrimination that prevent women and girls, men and boys, and gender-diverse people from otherwise living equally. 

Gender-responsive interventions address the different situations, roles, needs, and interests of women and girls, men and boys, and gender-diverse children and youth in the design and implementation of activities, policies, and programs. A program, policy, or activity that is gender-responsive addresses gender-based barriers, respects gender differences, enables structures, systems, and methodologies to be sensitive to gender, in order to achieve the program objectives and outcomes.

Gender-transformative interventions seek to target the structural causes of gender inequality, as well as the unequal power relations and discriminatory social norms, leading to lasting changes in power and choices people have over their own lives and positively transform
the root causes of gender inequality for women and men, girls, and boys and gender-diverse children and youth.

For example: A common challenge for girls in crisis-affected contexts is the lack of safe, gender-responsive water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) facilities (bathrooms, changing rooms, showers…etc.) in schools. A gender-responsive approach to addressing this challenge might include:

• Consulting learners and teachers of all genders on the design and construction of new WASH facilities to ensure that they’re appropriate and meet their needs.
• Building and maintaining WASH facilities that are gender-separated and include girl- and boy-friendly toilets that are clean, lockable, private, and located in safe places with close proximity to learning spaces.
• Ensuring that learners and teachers of all genders are aware of and respect the differences between girls and boys facilities
• Providing menstrual hygiene materials/dignity kits and safe spaces for girls to clean and change their menstrual pads. 
• Training learners, teachers, and school staff on menstrual hygiene management and safe and appropriate use of WASH facilities

A gender-transformative approach would include the initiatives above, and would also seek to transform the underlying causes of gender inequality. For example:

• Working with girls to ensure they understand their bodies and menstruation and feel confident and empowered to support each other to attend school during this time.
• Engaging with parents and caregivers to address taboos around menstruation and to encourage them to send their girls to school while they are menstruating.
• Working with men and boys and teachers to ensure they understand menstruation and support girls attending school while they are menstruating.  
• Working with men and boys and teachers to prevent violence and harassment around WASH facilities.
• Working with policy makers to ensure that gender-safe WASH facilities and gender norms change initiatives are included in all plans and budgets for schools. 

Gender equality is a critical component of education in emergencies. The impact and experience of crisis and conflict is profoundly different for women and girls, men and boys, and gender-diverse people. They face different threats and risks, and have different responses and coping mechanisms for dealing with the effects of crisis and displacement (see question 8 for examples of different gendered challenges). Gender inequalities can affect people’s access to resources and the benefits they gain from those resources, the social roles they play, the things they care about, and many other areas of their lives. 

Emergency situations exacerbate existing gender inequalities, such as child, early, and forced marriage, gender-based violence or preference for educating boys over girls. Failing to address these inequalities can result in unequal access to education and can increase the gender gap. 

Despite these compounding challenges, emergencies can also present a window of opportunity to overturn gender inequalities. Taking into account the learning needs, capacities, priorities, and different conflict experiences of women and girls, men and boys, and gender-diverse people can ensure that education programming is safe, relevant, and accessible for all learners. It can also provide opportunities to promote gender equality as part of a sustainable recovery process. 
 

Identities like age, gender, disability, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, language, class or caste, citizenship status, and religion overlap and interact. Individuals and groups may face different and compounding forms of exclusion and discrimination as a result. For example, an adolescent girl with disability, living in a rural or conflict affected context is likely to be more disadvantaged than another girl without disabilities or a girl with disabilities living in a stable context. 

Age: People of all genders experience different challenges and opportunities at different points in their lives. These age-related experiences interact and intersect with experiences of gender. For example, an adolescent girl experiences different risks and barriers to education than a very young girl. Adolescent girls experience greater risks of gender-based violence and early and forced marriage, have higher burden of unpaid care work and domestic labor and are often prioritized least for education.

Disability: Girls with disabilities are the most excluded group of children at all levels of education. Harmful stereotypes about the potential and abilities of girls with disabilities contribute to the incorrect perception that they are not worthy of an education. Girls with disabilities are typically the last family members to receive resources, including those necessary to attend school. They are more likely to experience sexual and gender-based violence and may be less able to speak out against abuse or less likely to be believed when they do speak out. They are more likely to be placed in restrictive educational settings and have less access to supports and services that might address their educational needs than boys with disabilities.

Promoting gender equality is everyone’s responsibility. 

It is education practitioners’ and policy-makers’ responsibility to make sure that education meets the needs of all people, that their rights are protected, and that those most affected by a crisis receive the support and protection they need. Gender norms affect learners' access to and experience of education (see question 8 for examples). In order to ensure that education interventions are safe, relevant, and appropriate, it’s important that harmful gender norms are addressed throughout the planning, implementation, and assessment of education interventions. Failing to account for gendered barriers and challenges in education risks exacerbating pre-existing inequalities or creating new ones. 

Additionally, everyone benefits from gender equality, so everyone should play a part in working towards it!
 

Preventing gender-based violence is everyone’s responsibility. 

Education is protective and can play an important role in reducing gender-based violence. Quality education can provide physical and psychosocial protection from the risks that arise in crisis environments, such as sexual and gender-based violence, exploitation, child, early or forced marriage, or forced recruitment into armed groups and organized crime. 

Providing sexual and reproductive health and rights education, as well as violence prevention interventions, can also provide learners with critical information and empower them to make informed choices about their health and relationships and prevent school drop-out due to violence, pregnancy, or menstruation. 

However, schools cannot be taken for granted as safe spaces, particularly during conflict and crisis. Learners who are in school are still at risk of experiencing gender-based violence in and around schools. For example: 

• Schools may be used or targeted for military purposes, or damaged. 
• School facilities may present new protection risks (ex: poorly lit, non gender-segregated latrines without locks.)
• Women teachers and learners may be targeted by armed groups that oppose education for women and girls. 
• Learners may experience gender-based harassment and violence on the way to and from school or from staff or other learners while in school. Although girls and boys are affected by physical, psychological and/or sexual violence in and around schools, unequal gender norms place girls at a much higher risk of experiencing sexual violence and exploitation (such as sex-for-grades) and more likely to be blamed for it happening.
• Teachers may use corporal punishment (which disproportionately affects boys).

In addition to protecting schools from attack and misuse, steps must be taken to prevent school-related gender-based violence and establish gender-responsive education and safe and protective classrooms.  Girls who are married, pregnant girls, or young parents need special support to return to school and complete their education. 
 

No and no! Girls, boys, and gender-diverse children and youth have different gendered needs. It’s important that we provide targeted support to address those needs. For example:

Girls:

• Are more likely to drop out of school because of early marriage, early pregnancy, the burden of unpaid care work and domestic labor etc. 
• Are less likely to be prioritized for education by parents over their peers and siblings who are boys.
• Are more likely to experience gender-based violence in and around schools and more likely to be pulled out of school by their parents for fear of unwanted pregnancy or sexual abuse.
• Need comprehensive menstrual health and hygiene support to consistently attend school during their periods (ex: sanitary pads, dignity kits, soap, period-friendly bathrooms, information and education). This is a specific challenge for older girls who have been held back and are in primary school after puberty.
• Are less likely to be called on or given leadership roles in class. More likely to be expected to perform domestic or cleaning tasks during school. 

Boys:

• Are more likely to drop out of school to take up paid employment
• Are more likely to be recruited into armed groups or forces 
• Are more likely to experience corporal punishment

Gender-diverse children and youth:

• Are at high risk of experiencing gender-based violence, harassment, and bullying
• Are less likely to see themselves represented in teaching and learning materials
• Are often unable to openly acknowledge their gender identity at school (use of pronouns, issues with uniform requirements, etc.) due to legal and institutional ramifications

One size fits all programming misses out on the nuances of girls’, boys’, and gender-diverse children’s and youth’s education experiences and can exacerbate pre-existing inequalities. By providing targeted support for children and youth of all genders, we can ensure that education is safe, relevant, and accessible for all. 
 

No. Reaching gender parity (50% girls and 50% boys) is a good start, but there’s a lot more you can do to create a gender-equitable learning environment for all learners. To create a more equitable learning environment, consider:

• Conducting focus groups with children and youth of all genders to determine what barriers to education they’re facing and work with them to find solutions
• Hiring more female teachers and/or teaching assistants
• Providing continuous teacher professional development on gender-responsive pedagogy
• Assessing teaching and learning materials and revising them to remove harmful gender stereotypes or norms. If this is not possible, even making teachers aware of problematic material and how to address it can be helpful!
• Engaging with communities to encourage them to send girls to school, and to collectively address any safety concerns on the way to school
• …etc. 

Check out the INEE Guidance Note on Gender for more practical strategies on gender-responsive education in emergencies. 
 

In many contexts, girls are disproportionately excluded from and disadvantaged in education. They face additional barriers by virtue of their gender (see question 8 for examples). Targeted support, such as distributing menstrual hygiene materials or providing stipends to encourage caregivers to send girls to school etc. can help to address these barriers. This additional support does not privilege women and girls or take away from men and boys. It simply seeks to remove the additional barriers girls face and enable them to participate at the same level as their male peers. In fact, gender-responsive education programming that focuses on girls, often benefits boys as well. For example, all learners benefit from improved WASH facilities, safer schools, and better trained teachers. 

In some contexts, boys do underperform and drop out at higher rates than girls. In these situations, it is also important to provide targeted support to boys. Some examples of specific support for men and boys include:

• Awareness raising on positive/responsible masculinities
• MHPSS for men and boys
• Boy’s groups and peer learning circles
• Support for men and boys who have experienced sexual violence
• Comprehensive sexuality education (CSE)
• Training on positive parenting for fathers and male caregivers
• Mentoring and role models to encourage aspiration and academic ambition.

There are many excellent resources for supporting men and boys education access and learning in emergencies, such as:

• Manhood 2.0, Equimundo
• Many Ways of Being: Sex Education Curriculum, Equimundo
• Caring for Boys Affected by Sexual Violence, Save the Children
• Boys for change - moving towards gender equality, Save the Children
• Boys’ disengagement from education, UNESCO

Additionally, the INEE Gender Working Group is currently in the process of developing a toolkit for supporting men and boys in gender-equitable EiE. 
 

Addressing entrenched gender norms can be challenging. You may encounter local beliefs, customs, and practices that oppose gender equality. You may experience resistance to or pushback against gender-responsive programming. Change may be slow and incremental. But don’t despair! There are a many things you can do to promote change:

• Collaborate with local actors: Work with women’s rights organizations and advocates to identify key barriers and decision makers, to advocate for gender equality within communities, and to ground key messages in the local context and language.
• Collaborate across sectors: Talk to colleagues working in other sectors. They may be able to share tips, information, and examples of good practice that you can adapt for your programming.
• Identify examples of positive non-conformity: Find within the community families and teachers who are already modeling the behaviors we seek to change and build on this. Focus on the positive benefits of change and the ways in which gender equality benefits all. 
• Support teachers and school leaders: Support teachers of all genders to enter and remain in teaching and school leadership positions, support teachers to access professional development equitably; work with teachers to ensure they treat boys, girls and gender-diverse learners fairly and equally.
• Engage with parents and caregivers: Support women and men caregivers to participate in school management committees/parent teacher associations, encourage caregivers to enroll daughters as well as sons.
• Engage with community “gatekeepers”: Traditional, cultural, political, and faith leaders have an important role to play in promoting gender equity.
• Use evidence-based approaches: Adapting approaches which have been tried and tested in a variety of contexts provides the best basis for achieving the results we are aiming for.
   

Check out the Gender Collection for more information, key messages, and a list of resources on gender equity and gender-responsive education in emergencies.

Check out the LGBTQIA+ Collection for more information, key messages, and a list of resources on sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sexual characteristics (SOGIESC) and supporting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual, and agender (LGBTQIA+) people in emergencies.