Proposal #28: Gender whatever.
I propose that it should not be compulsory to send a gender-balanced delegation but rather a suggestion of preference. Furthermore the selection of leaders should not be based on the gender.
Rationale
The gender should not be the decisive factor for choosing participants or leaders as in that way there is a risk that CISV is excluding people because of their gender or making their decisions being gender biased.
Respectfully submitted, Karo (Ger)
{In the village invitation system, NAs are requested to find either a male or a female leader. If they do not comply, they are penalized with somewhat less invitations in the next year through the "hosting point system".}
{In the village invitation system, NAs are requested to find either a male or a female leader. If they do not comply, they are penalized with somewhat less invitations in the next year through the "hosting point system".}
17 Comments:
Dear Karo.
I mostly disagree with your point.
Firstly, about the kids. It is important to maintain the gender ratio of several reasons. Some countries will have trouble finding one gender (in Denmark, usually boys would be hard to find) and then fill a delegation with the other (also, more traditionally minded countries may want to only send boys) which would ruin the atmosphere and give the participants a very (even MORE) stereotypical impression of each country.
Secondly, I would agree with the penal system as it is now, because it is important that kids of both genders have role models of their own sex. True, I have had a great village with only one male leader, but he did feel lonely. For the dynamics of the leaders' group, it is essential to have at least an almost balanced ratio. Actually, I think there should be rules about the gender ratio in staffs as well, so all members of the leaders' group have staffies of their own gender to go to.
There.
Hi,
I'm ambivalent on this point. One one hand we are excluding a (small) number of people who would describe themselves as 'trans-gender' or whose biological sex is not their felt gender.
However, having said that, I also believe that a balance in gender should be maintained in a village. I'm not sure though that the penalty system is the right way to ensure this. I'd rather send a delegation with the wrong gender of the leader than not sending that delegation at all.
Volunteer-Organisations who deal with kids and youth somehow find it traditionally difficult to find male leaders. Maybe we can pay respect to that fact by not wanting a 50/50 ratio but a ratio that is a little bit more true to reality or possible volunteers.
Hi,
I think your proposal includes two different issues. One is the gender selection, the other is the penalty system.
I personally think the gender equilibrium in a camp is an important thing for the good atmosphere of it. Of course I agree with Bastian. We can change the 50/50 ratio. Why not?
I also think a simple suggestion to the NAs would not succeed in fullfilling the goal.
On the other hand I am traditionally against punishments and penalties in CISV. We should adapt our rules and requirements to the practical cases which may occur.
Gender equilibrium is an important structural part of a camp, as it is the 11 yo age and the presence of a group of JCs (and by now the 4 weeks duration).
One question is: why strong nations like Italy or Brazil or Sweden or USA should increse their total number of delegations instead of spending that energy on different projects and/or the developing of new NAs around the world?
Luca
I feel there should be gender rules regarding delegates, for the reasons mentioned, but i feel regarding adult group is different.
I mean even with rules that most of the time are not respected, we cannot assure gender balance, so just get rid of them (as in summercamps) and let the sending countries choose just the BEST leaders available (not the best one of one sex).
This should be true for village leaders, village JC, seminar camp participants... anything beyond the age of delegates...
Of course the NAs will be than responsabile to not send of the same type of activity all same sex... but try to keep an overall balace...
first i totally agree with bastian.
one reason for me to post this proposal was the idea of getting rid of the penalty system cause i dont believe that a person, chapter or na should be punished because of a "wrong" gender. in youthmeetings for example the gender is not compulsory (also for the 12/13 year olds) and so far i have not heard about too unbalanced camps or problems caused by this freedom.
the reason for this i think is that everyone wants to send balanced delegations so they try to do that, they just dont get punished if they dont succeed.
i do think that it is good especially for kids to have a relatively balanced group but i also believe that we shouldn't put too much weight on that as (just as an example) kids in their "not-cisv-"lives with friends or at school dont always have the a gender balanced environment and i dont think that this is bad or wrong or difficult for them. that is why i dont see why it is so important in a cisv camp.
still i would recommend as stated in the proposal to have a suggested preference (which would in this case be 50/50).
i agree that this might be convenient especially for the selection of leaders and adult delegates.
first i totally agree with bastian.
one reason for me to post this proposal was the idea of getting rid of the penalty system cause i dont believe that a person, chapter or na should be punished because of a "wrong" gender. in youthmeetings for example the gender is not compulsory (also for the 12/13 year olds) and so far i have not heard about too unbalanced camps or problems caused by this freedom.
the reason for this i think is that everyone wants to send balanced delegations so they try to do that, they just dont get punished if they dont succeed.
i do think that it is good especially for kids to have a relatively balanced group but i also believe that we shouldn't put too much weight on that as (just as an example) kids in their "not-cisv-"lives with friends or at school dont always have the a gender balanced environment and i dont think that this is bad or wrong or difficult for them. that is why i dont see why it is so important in a cisv camp.
still i would recommend as stated in the proposal to have a suggested preference (which would in this case be 50/50).
i agree that this might be convenient especially for the selection of leaders and adult delegates.
I would comment situation from other point of view. If we think that balanced camp (of participants) is positive thing to creat good atmosphere, then leaders and staff group should be balanced too. The reason, that kids making their acting model looking at the adults and if the group of leader is mostly one gender based they will have just one gender based acting model, and some of them even couln't find the acting model or just comunication partner by onself.
laura said:
"if the group of leader is mostly one gender based they will have just one gender based acting model"
this implies that people act according to their gender. and that the kids should act according to their gender as well. which is something i don't agree with. for me, it is totally unimportant which biological sex someone has and i do think we should just choose the best/most qualified leaders and jcs and not send someone we're not quite comfortable with, just cause he is a guy. which is what is happeining at the moment.
and if i were a kid and the coolest jc happened not to be of my sex, i am sure (s)he would be a role model for me anyways.
Great Discussion!
I think that this proposal goes deeper than including transsexuals and achieving a gender equilibrium:
With our current set of rules in CISV we are supporting a classic gender-based world-view: Males are different from Females, each have their different roles in society, their different strengths and weaknesses.
Should CISV sustain this classic gender-based society, or can CISV camps model an environment where people are treated the same, whatever their nationality, age, ethnicity, color of skin AND gender may be?
Hi everyone
I'm against this proposal for practical reasons.
I've been staff on village were 50% of the leaders were nordic females, and 50% were latin males.
And I must be honest... we spent more time trying to manage the leader's natural gender instincts, maximized by ethnic issues than planning the village.
I really like what this proposal brings up. I agree with the principle of it, though I recognize the probable need, in some of our programmes, to stick to some traditional rules of cultural generalisation (national nights, gender, etc).
I think that the most relevant thing of this proposal is to bing up the issue, as Nick said, of "supporting a classic gender-based world-view".
In light of this discussion, I recommend an inspired, fabulous and very great article that was published on Local Work Magazine 2004 (I think). It was written, I think, by Lisa Andersson, Kate Turner and Felix Trautmann. it's great.
I'll find it somewhere and post it here later.
society very often labels us being either male or female not looking on the difference of the biological sex and the gender identity.
the question is why we in cisv so often do exactly the same starting with choosing our participants and leaders by their biological sex because we want them to be role models.
are we role models because what we are biologically? i personally dont believe in that.
i think it is really interesting to see how in new york (and i am sure its not the only place) gender is something you can change.
shouldnt we as cisv with all our aims and philosophy be open enough to try and follow this in not labeling our participants and expect them to act "like a man/woman"?
(i also recommend wikipedia "gender" for basic info and different studies and theories about gender)
Beautiful.
Nano, I agree with you. The reason we need oversimplified generalisations of leader-profiles (gender, nationality) is because we don't have a strong enough leadership training to make the leaders able to facilitate any group regardless their personal instincts.
For example, it is obvious that National Nights are a type of prejudice and fundamentally silly stereotype - almost contradictory with the principle that we're all the same.
No delegation represents their life-style, just the stereotype of their countries. But we still need it on villages because our facilitators are not CAPABLE of promotion cultural shocks and exchanges without clear, generalistic, oversimplified stereotypes or conceptions of culture.
we need to pretend that our differences more extreme to prove the point that we are not different at all. Ironic, eh?
Hello,
I think, sex and nationality are two completely different issues. For example, nationality is not a requirement (it is possible to send a Brazilian/German/whatever delegation without any participant and/or leader carrying the Brazilian/German/whatever nationality).
And I think we should be more careful with the use of the words "sex" and "gender" which I thought were not synonymous. "Sex" relates to the biological difference and this is what is required for the leader (biologically female/male). Gender on the other hand relates to the social role. Whether or not one meets the female/male role, i.e. the society's construction of female/male, or to what degree (or which society's), should not be relevant in the selection of a leader. Or should it?
Eli
Hello Eli,
Sorry if I wasn't clear enough, I didn't really mean that gender and nationality are similar issues. I just meant that they share the problem of being, in CISV, over-simplyfied issues due to leadership development problems.
Cheers
Dear Devils,
Just to add to this interesting discussion on gender (of which Marcos pointed out to me that it was going on on Devils, thank you)....
Even though gender role and gender identity seem to be rather preset at birth, it is very important for children to have enough situations in which they can practice their gender roles in order to fit their gender identity. This counts for children that feel feminin, act feminin and have the biological make-up of a female for example, but also for children and young adults that have a more fuzzy concept of their own gender role and identity (trans gender, a-morph gender, cross gender childeren). Let me point out though that the latter is a very uncommon phenomenon which we will have in CISV as well, but only in very rare instances. All children though, no matter what their gender role or identity is, need to develop this further IN CONTACT with members of the other and their own sexe. Ever wondered why little girls often claim that boys are stupid? Or why little boys say girls are boring? It is not because they are not interested in the other sexe yet. It is a mere result of their own gender identity not having set firm base yet. In order to develop this they need to mix and mingle with the sexes. This is one point why it is mportant to offer children the opportunity to mingle, relate to and form friendship with children from the other sexe.
Another important issue is role modeling. Children look up to strong adults who have a leading role (A role) in the goup. Many times in our society these leading figures are male (A-males). Let's show our CISV children that male as well as female leaders can be strong and healthy role models, both in their own typical way.
Question: when it comes to exclusion, who do we feel are excluded in CISV more? Boys or girls? Men or women?
Caecilia van Peski(the Netherlands)
chair EDR
I'm sorry, but this discussion is getting a bit off track, I think.
I believe in gender equality and in a world where gender just doesn't matter, but isn't a village supposed to be a little earth in itself?
So in order to reflect the world as well as possible, having a 50/50 ratio is a really good idea. This also explains why the Western countries are over-represented in CISV - so are they in the world - measured by political and cultural influence, of course.
And for at kid to find her/his own personality, isn't it better to have as different role models to choose from as possible?
In Denmark at least, too many women in the edicational sector cause boys to drop out of their educations because they're fed up with having to act like girls.
Face it, people. No one is better than the other, but girls and boys are GENERALLY different.
Post a Comment
<< Home