Research addresses the “gender paradox” of policy action, rectifying inequities and expanding beyond pre-existing political assumptions.
Cookson ’23, (Tara Patricia, Assistant Professor of Gender, Development, and Global Public Policy @ University of British Columbia, Nina Ebner, Doctorate @ University of British Columbia, author, feminist geographer, Yardain Amron, University of Columbia, Canada, Graduate Degree in Human Geography, Kritika Kukreja, University of British Columbia, Canada, “Social protection systems and gender: A review of the evidence”, Global Social Policy, p. 15, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/14680181231180507 // MZ)
As Smith (2022) recently noted, there is ‘unprecedented attention to the gendered effects of pandemics, in terms of not only health effects, but also the disproportionate social and economic impacts on women, yet little progress in rectifying these inequities’ (p. 202). Addressing this ‘gender paradox’ requires strategic manoeuvres on the part of feminist advocates, researchers, practitioners and policymakers (Smith, 2022). Advocacy for social protection that addresses gender inequality from a systems perspective is a welcomed advance, not least because it demonstrates a move beyond the erroneous assumption pervading development practice for over two decades – that cash (transfers) can solve all problems. Language can be performative (Ahmed, 2012), however, and simply calling a social protection system gender-responsive or gender-transformative does not make it so. Meanwhile, existing social protection systems may already have institutional features and benefit packages that advance gender equality, albeit implicitly. There is a need for action-oriented research that identifies what is already working in specific contexts and what might be adapted elsewhere, in addition to that which identifies gaps and problems. One of the high-level observations of this landscape analysis is the leadership of development institutions in the existing research. At the same time, we identified a need for studies driven by a qualitative interest in understanding process, politics and outcomes, particularly through the perspective of existing and potential social protection beneficiaries. Such research could go a long way towards creating feminist, nationally appropriate roadmaps for social protection systems.