A thought on hortizontal inequality, gender and conflict

Shared responsibility - inland waters, Trincomalee

Here’s a brief, somewhat  academic blog – inspired by listening to Frances Stewart at a webinar organised by ODI, in the context of doing a Gender Synthesis  of the first round of panel data for the Secure Livelihoods Research Consortium.  Most of my readers  may want to escape from this rather unexpected theoretical musing on my part!

My problem is that I am not sure that gender falls into how Frances Stewart conceptualises  Horizontal Inequality, even though in some of her writing she thinks it does (1);  and even though, from an external analytical perspective there are visible structural inequalities between women and men.  So as  Stewart et al point out, gender as a group affiliation matters, because it is tightly bounded and members can’t move from one gender to another and because being a member of the group, results in levels of discrimination (ibid).  What I am not sure about is whether  “members of the group feel that being part of the group constitutes a significant aspect of their identity, and thereby group achievements contribute directly to members' well-being.”  (ibid, page 4)

Speaking for women (and I think this could also be true for men), I  am not sure how much  they have a ‘common identity’ that transcends their other identities, how much they see themselves as a  ‘group’  that is in an unequal relationship (with men) and  how much they think this is a relationship that requires changing, or indeed can be changed.  Most women probably recognise their individual experiences to be different to that of men and maybe also see themselves as socially, economically and politically disadvantaged in relation to men,  but they don’t  necessarily question the legitimacy of it. This is no doubt a consequence of how women are socialised.  So for  the most part, they would work individually at achieving some level of individual social mobility for themselves or their family, rather than mount a collective, group challenge to the status quo (which is why we need feminists and women’s organisations to ‘mobilise women’). 

Maybe this is why  horizontal inequalities of gender have not by and large  lead to social instability or conflict, or to women demanding more resource and/or political power in the same way that Frances Stewart  and others  suggest could be a consequence of other horizontal inequalities, such as ethnicity(2). 

Wonder whether this lack of a threat from women as a group is also why gender inequality so often goes unaddressed?

References
(1)    Frances Stewart, Graham Brown & Luca Mancini (2005) Why horizontal inequalities matter: some implications for measurement. CRISE working Paper no 19.
(2)    Luca Mancini (2005) Horizontal Inequalities and Communal Violence: Evidence from Indonesian Districts. CRISE Working Paper no 22.


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