The Gender at Work Framework is intended for use by change agents in both organizations and communities to uncover opportunities and barriers to gender equality, to map a strategy for change and to guide evaluative efforts to mark progress. It makes visible dimensions of gender equality and the extent to which there is a shift in gendered power relations – in line with national priorities and principles agreed in CEDAW, the Beijing PFA and other guiding documents.
The analysis framework maps in the top two quadrants variables associated with an individual, with changes in noticeable individual conditions (e.g., increased resources, voice, freedom from violence, access to health and education); and individual consciousness and capability (e.g., knowledge, skills, political consciousness, and commitment to change toward equality). The bottom two clusters are related to systemic variables, with formal rules as laid down in constitutions, laws, and policies; and informal discriminatory norms and deep structures, including those that maintain inequality in everyday practices.
• Useful in highlighting the complexity of the change work that women's rights organizations undertake.
• Adaptive to change, providing space to enable people to stand back and inspect beliefs about themselves and others that they take for granted, from which they may expand understanding to inform an analysis of what needs to change and how they can be a part of that process of change .
• With strong focus on creating normative and structural change for achieving gender equality in society, this model is missing a discrete focus on development operations, the more immediate concern of development organizations.
• Little elaboration on the links between the internal and external forces affecting gender equality within an organization.
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