Lessons learned in working with women
From project experience the major constraint in working with women in the pilot areas is men. In such a strongly traditional and male-dominated society as that of the Pashtun no development initiatives involving women can even be considered without the full consent of the men. Men control all public discourse and serve as village 'gate-keepers' regulating the flow of influences affecting their communities from outside. It is imperative, therefore, that project personnel discuss all aspects of proposed development activities for women with the men first to obtain their permission to approach the women.
It is obvious that under the strict conditions of gender segregation prevailing in the pilot areas, all development work with women requires female project personnel. Being female, however, is not the only factor necessary for acceptance within the villages.
The work of the female group promoter has been greatly facilitated by the fact that she is not only Pashtun, but belongs to the same Pashtun confederation (Kakar) as the villagers. A good portion of early contacts was given over to discussions of her family tree. Common tribal affiliations have enabled her to overcome the initial suspicion reserved for strangers and have paved the way for the establishment of bonds of trust. Indeed, so strong were the social solidarities activated by such links that she was presented as an exemplary member of the community when the male chairman of the village steering committee first introduced her to the women:
"Look, she is from our tribe hut she speaks English and is working with this foreigner. She is like Benazir [Bhutto, the Prime Minister of Pakistan], whereas you are just rough mountain women".
Some of the difficulties encountered in working with women stem from the women themselves and from their unrealistic expectations of the project. To a certain extent, women have absorbed the 'recipient mentality' which also characterizes some of the male attitudes in the project areas. Associating the project with the provincial government's service provision function, they expect benefits to simply flow to them, without much effort on their part. The concept of community participation', so central to the project's basic philosophy, has often been difficult to translate hits practice.
Although participation has been stressed as an ideal and eventual goal, the project has found that a certain relaxation in the requirements of full participation in the costs of interventions has been an important factor facilitating the initiation of activities for women.
While men, for example, were expected to contribute labour and money toward the building of their community centre, women were not asked to contribute to the building of their social centres. So too, sewing machines were provided to the women free of charge. Part of the reasoning is that women have less ready cash available to make their own contributions in monetary terms and, because of lingering male resistance, are unlikely to obtain this cash from male kin.
Another difficulty arose from the individualistic orientations of the women involved in the project. Pashtun women are not accustomed to working in cooperative groups outside of those formed within, their particular households. Their interests focus primarily on their own individual needs and the needs of their own particular families. The female group promoter was therefore continually besieged with requests from individual women to help them send a family member to school, give them medicines to cure a sick child, or procure employment for one of their menfolk. Time and time again the group promoter had to explain' that the project was there only to respond to collective interests defined by the community as a whole.
Attempts to plan project activities in a participatory manner with women in the pilot areas were often frustrated by difficulties encountered by the women in formulating clear and feasible proposals for action.
They might suggest, for example, that the project construct a dispensary in their village, without any clear idea about who would staff it, how it would be maintained, and what the costs would be. To a certain extent, such unrealistic proposals stemmed from a lack of understanding about the limits of the project's possibilities and its scope of interventions. It takes time for different participants in a project participants to understand each other and work together in productive partnership.
Once planned, implementation of project activities encountered certain hurdles which had to be overcome. Some of the training sessions decided upon, for example, posed a problem both because it was at times difficult to get all of the women together and because women could not always spare the full amount of time required for attendance.
Flexibility proved to be the key in overcoming such difficulties.
The TBA training course, for example, had originally been foreseen to run for fifteen days continuously as recommended by UNICEF. Instead, however, adapted to the women's time schedule, it was held three to four days at a time spread over a period of few weeks. The same adaptative approach will be required for training in the operation of the embroidery machines that are going to be provided by the project. While an embroidery centre in Quetta runs regular training courses, both the duration (three months) and the location (in Quetta) make these impossible for village women to attend. Instead, the project identified two women with expertise in machine embroidery in the nearby town of Muslimbagh who are prepared, pending their husbands' approval, to come to the village on a daily basis (transport provided by the project) for basic training lasting 10 days.
