GENDER IN COMMUNICATION

Usually the word gender is linked with women, feminism, development projects, NGOs. However, very few people know the real meaning of gender perspective as a reality analysis category. This means that not everybody knows the use of the notion of gender as a category to locate social players in their social context and thus be able to analyze how this context influences the role these players perform daily.

When we start to see things from a gender perspective, we can discover the differences between men and women and explain them by the social definition of what being a man or being a woman means. For example, the fact that men are assigned characteristics such as strength, power, authority and women tenderness, delicacy, weakness would have consequences in the places socially assigned to them, placing men in the public area and restricting the action of women to the private environment.

As we can realize, culture plays a very important role in the assignment of gender roles and this is why communication strategies are basic to fight inequality that comes up from these socially assigned roles. The way in which gender stereotypes are instilled in our way of seeing things is very subtle. We have an example in the publicity announcements that give an image of what is being a man and a woman in our society. To deconstruct these stereotypes it is necessary to send messages that place men and women in an equity situation.

As we know, CVR has a very important mission: rescuing truth. However, without the truth of women we would not have a complete truth. Therefore, it is necessary to take the situation of women into account, as well of their social context and the gender roles they play during the period of political violence, to be able to reach them with clear messages aiming at rescuing their voices.

It is not a secret that most of the people who witness are women. However they tell something that happened to their husbands, children, but not to them. Their role within the family is the one that becomes relevant and the violation of their human rights as individuals besides their families is not seen as such.

Having our messages reach men and women differently is in our hands. This is something very important, since it could give these women, who have been socially relegated, the possibility of being listened to, not only as carriers of others’ truth, but of their own truth.

We now present some guidelines to include the gender perspective in communication strategies:

• When we define communication strategies, we must take into account that the reception of our messages will be different if we deal with men or women.
• We must think about the preparation of materials aimed only at women.
• Mentioning always the masculine and feminine genders in the materials we prepare, for example, women volunteers and men volunteers, etc.
• Highlighting there were human rights violations that specifically affected women.
• When mentioning human rights abuses that will be investigated by CVR do not refer only to torture and forced disappearance, for example, but also purposely include sexual violence.
• Rescuing “non traditional” roles played by women during the conflict.
• When interviews to experts are made, take into account to ask specific questions regarding violence against women.
• The illustrations used must transmit an equity message: the same number of women and men; women exercising power positions; men cooperating at home; etc.
• Disseminating data differentiated by sex that will permit us to see what the situation of men and women has been in a differentiated manner.

CVR Gender Line

Lima, July 2002