A Framework for All Women
The Framework has been designed around the Scottish Human Rights Commission’s Toolkit, (https://www.scottishhumanrights.com/projects-and-programmes/human-rights-based-approach/).
This Toolkit is based around 5 principles, referred to as the PANEL principles.
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Participation
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Accountability
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Non-discrimination
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Empowerment
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Legality
These principles offer a process in which to explore Human Rights and identify when they are not being fulfilled, what change is required and who is responsible for ensuring this takes place.
Combining the Toolkit principles with a gender lens approach ensures we understand the specific impacts of human rights violations on women, what women need to ensure equality and how these violations can be addressed.
What is a Gender Lens Approach?
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for the purposes of the Framework, a gender lens refers to an approach or perspective that focuses on understanding how gender stereotypes and perceptions of men and women, influences or impacts a situation, policy, decision, or issue. This lens is often used to analyse and address gender disparities, roles, and inequalities, considering how people of different sex / gender experience and interact with the world differently due to social, cultural, political, and economic factors.
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When using a gender lens, we should consider how gender impacts things like:
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Access to resources: For example, in economic or social policies, a gender lens would assess how women and men are differently affected or treated based on their sex / gender.
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Power and decision-making: A gender lens can help examine women's access to power and influence in political, business, or social environments, often revealing differences in men and women's experience in leadership or authority.
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Health and well-being: It can explore how access to healthcare, social services, or safety nets varies by sex / gender, addressing specific needs or challenges faced by men and women.
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Cultural norms and roles: This perspective also looks at how cultural expectations and social norms shape the lives of people based on their sex / gender, potentially leading to unequal opportunities or experiences.
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In essence, a gender lens aims to identify sex / gender-based inequalities and address them by considering the unique challenges and opportunities experienced by men and women.
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The Framework uses both of these to guide participants through the PANEL principles to specific look at the needs of women through a series of worksheets. The worksheets have been developed to prompt groups to think about specific issues for women, but they are not meant to be prescriptive. Groups can adapt them to suit their needs. We only ask that the members of GWVSN are acknowledged.
“One of the most important things to say about the gender data gap is that it is not generally malicious, or even deliberate. Quite the opposite. It is simply the product of a way of thinking that has been around for millennia and is therefore a kind of not thinking. A double not thinking, even: men go without saying, and women don’t get said at all. Because when we say human, on the whole, we mean man”.
Caroline Criado Perez, Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men.