International Labour Organization
SEAPAT
South-East Asia and the Pacific Multidisciplinary Advisory Team

What is gender analysis?

Tool: Participatory Exercise in Gender Analysis: Women’s Confidence

The following tool is a participatory exercise that may be used when conducting gender analysis with the participation of client communities. It helps analyse the degree of women’s confidence and empowerment.

Purpose: To measure the degree of women's participation and self-confidence, and changes that occur over time.

Time: 30 to 45 minutes

Audience: Primarily community members; also useful for trainers, project staff and community members.

Materials needed: Three cards depicting a woman with varying degrees of confidence:

• a woman too timid to enter a group meeting
• a woman joining a water group but too shy to participate
• a woman bold enough to talk challenge and ask questions

1. Prepare a simple pocket chart, placing one pocket under each of the three cards. Alternatively, pictures can be placed on the floor.
1. Give each participant a piece of paper, pebble or seed, and ask them to use it to vote on which image most reflects their feelings.
1. To determine the change in self-confidence that may have occurred over time, two sets of the same pictures can be used to depict the level of confidence before the project intervention and after.
1. Encourage discussion about what changes men perceive in women, what changes women perceive in other women, what contributed to the changes, and what have been the consequences of the changes. Before and after photographs of the situation can be used to indicate changes over time.

[Adapted from Deepa Narayan and Lyra Srinivasan, Participatory Development Tool Kit: Training Materials for Agencies and Communities, World Bank, Washington, D.C., 1994]

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For further information, please contact the South-East Asia and the Pacific Multidisciplinary
Advisory Team (SEAPAT) at Tel: +63.2.815.2354 or Fax: +63.2.812.6143
E-mail: seapat@ilo.org