Julie
is  a member of SI Hobart, Tasmania. She is one of SISWP Programme
Coordinators and a regular SoroptiVoice Blog writer (Click here and here to read her other blogs). In this blog post she explains
how, in the course of her work, she came to develop the hands-on participatory
games as a way of getting insight into the community’s knowledge, attitudes and
practices in regard to traditional roles of men and women and about gender
discrimination… and how to change the situation. The first game is called “The
Gender Blender Game” which was later adapted as a game to raise awareness of,
and eliminate violence against women and girls, called “The Gentler Gender
Game”. The Gentler game was introduced to Soroptimists in a workshop at the
SISWP Conference in Greymouth, NZ in May 2012.

 

I’ve survived two
potentially life-threatening childbirths and the subsequent daunting task of
breastfeeding… so what next?… help other women to survive, of course.

And I knew then,
exactly what I could do to help.

I am lucky that the objectives of what I do professionally
and the objectives of Soroptimist International are the same, i.e. to improve
the welfare, health and status of women and girls. What I learned , developed
and applied during the course of my work I can bring across and share with
SISWP to apply to the various
projects/programmes and vice-versa.

The Gender Blender Game and the Gentler Game had its humble
beginnings in the late 1990’s as an indirect outcome of a safe-motherhood
project in South Kalimantan. As part of a the  project 
I conducted a series of twelve focus group discussions among mothers of
children under 5 years old in six villages. The objectives were to gain insight
into their knowledge, attitudes and practices in regard to reproductive health
in general and about family planning and breastfeeding in particular so that I
can develop an appropriate health promotion programme.

A typical group comprised 6 – 8 women and they each would
have their youngest child with them, either hanging around behind mum or at
their breast, suckling. We were all sitting in a circle on a woven mat on the
floor made of wooden slats in what we would call the living room. Through the gaps on the floor I can see
the brown murky water of Barito River
that passes through Banjarmasin.
The bathroom and toilet is a floating bamboo platform with some woven bamboo
screen, located behind the house which also serves as the laundry and the
dishwashing area.

Following my discussion guide, I asked the same series of
questions and here are their answers to one of them. One by one in turn they
said: “six, 4 alive, 2 died”, “eight, 5
alive, 3 died”, “five, 4 alive, 1 dead”, “seven, 6 alive 1 died”, “this is my
first child”, “nine, 6 alive, one miscarried”, “just two as yet, both healthy”,
“three, all healthy.” The question to the answers was “How many children do you have?” to which we’d normally answer, for
example …“Four, 2 girls, 2 boys” or “Three,
all girls” etc. but apparently not among these communities. It is commonly
found in all my travels throughout the archipelago that at least one child has
died in infancy or were stillbirths.

Sadly, in many cases the next pregnancy or
birth, it may not be the baby who will not survive, but the mother. When asked
how they feel about losing their babies, they all said that it is sad, but they
are all consoled by the belief that the babies will
go straight to heaven. They will be there waiting for their mothers when it’s
their turn. They will reach out and pull the mothers up, the mothers who
carried them in their wombs, who gave birth to them. Unfortunately,
the combination of lack of obstetric/neonatal emergency aid and the belief that
the baby will go straight to heaven may have led to more infant deaths because
less than full effort is made to obtain emergency help. 

The leading medical/immediate reasons for maternal deaths
are severe bleeding after
childbirth, infections, hypertensive disorders and unsafe abortions. Other
contributing factors are known as the “three toos” – too young, too many, and
too close – having babies under the age of 20 (too young); having more than 4 –
5 babies (too many) or having them under 2 years interval (too close).

Maternal deaths
and infant deaths are very closely linked. If a baby dies at childbirth, the
parents would then try to get a ‘replacement’ far too soon and risks the
mother’s life. If the mother dies, the baby’s chances of survival beyond the
first year are slim. Now why am I talking about this? What has it all got to do
with the Gender Games? Well, here is the connection.

Why do these
women have so many children? Unlike myself, after two traumatic childbirths, I
said “two is enough.” But not these women, they had no say in it. They had no
say in how many children they’d like to have….even after 6, 7 or 8 children.
These are the social factors contributing to maternal mortality: gender
inequity –  these women don’t have the
ability to make the decisions even when it impacts on their wellbeing and
survival…. And it is sad to realize that sometimes all it takes for empowerment
is mere information and knowledge.

So I thought what can I do?
How can I develop something that is both a tool for information gathering that
at the same time serves as an information dissemination opportunity and a
catalyst of change? That was how I came to develop the first game “The Gender
Blender Game”. 
As part of the game, participants learn the difference between what is
physiological and biologically strictly male and strictly female, i.e. the
reproductive system; and that the XY chromosomes determines the sex of the
foetus. During the trials, this fact alone empowered a mother of five girls, and
whose husband wanted a boy, to say: “If that’s the fact (about the sperm) than
I am not having any more children unless my husband can guarantee that the next
baby will be a boy!”. In the same vein, having learned that fertility also
depends on both parties, another woman chimed in: “Then it may not be Mrs. Aminah’s fault after all that she is has no
children after so many years. It may be her husband who is infertile. He had no
right to divorce her for that reason.”

The Gentler
Gender Game was one of the workshops at the 2012 SISWP Conference of Clubs in
Greymouth. There were 25 Soroptimist sisters who participated in the try out.
Each one was given several “flash cards” containing attitudes and behaviors in
regard to traditional, social and domestic situation vis-à-vis male-female
relationships, e.g. wife beating, early marriages, polygamy and other forms of
violence against women that are currently prevailing in their respective
communities.

This adapted version is designed to reveal to
the community members the inequities in the relationship between men and women
(and girls), to enable them to identify and recognize acts of violence against
women and girls in the home and in the community.

How the game is
played: 

Game
participants are asked to categorize the cards into three categories: very common, seldom and never happen in the
community and then discuss among themselves the results of the categorization
to get a consensus. After some discussion, the facilitator assists participants
to take note of what items are in the respective categories and take some time
to reflect on them. Then participants are asked to re-categorize the cards into
what are “acceptable”, “not acceptable” and “what constitutes
criminal acts”. They were asked to discuss and voice their opinions. After
sufficient discussion, they were asked to select what they think are the ideal
situation, what are acceptable
and what are not acceptable. The flash cards provide a safe vehicle
for participants to project and articulate their opinions and to start a
healthy, introspective discussion.

Based on
their observations and experience; and by drawing on their own conclusions, the
participants were able to recognize gender inequities and violence against
women and girls in the home and community and their detrimental implications
and consequences.   The realization and
recognition of the existence of violence against women is the first necessary
step in order to enable and empower community members (both women and men)
themselves (not outsiders) to decide and start to gradually change the
situation to eliminative violence against women.

Soroptimist
sisters got right down to it, they literally got down on the floor, laying out
the flash cards and a lively discussion ensued. There was a lot of debate and
difference of opinions of what is prevalent and what is not, and what is
acceptable and what is not. New flash cards were added (e.g. forced marriages).
At the end of it, all seemed to have enjoyed the game and a mother-and-daughter
team from the UK wanted to take it back home and
apply it.

I have
applied this game in villages, among university students, among women in urban
setting, and now among Soroptimists and the feedbacks have all been positive.
My mission is to have this game be adopted and applied widely around the globe.  So I invite you to try it and spread the word!

For
more info contact:  jmarsaban@gmail.com