Do we need to focus on gender norms to change them?

Summary:
This blue sky session will help tease out the knotty question of whether or when -- an overt focus on norms, particularly gender norms, is needed to catalyse change, and when an indirect approach is more effective. It will bring together researchers and practitioners with experience in a variety of sectors and cultural contexts and approaches to norm change from social and political mobilization, to community organizing and media campaigns. Initial contributions from the panelists will pose some key dilemmas that they have encountered in their work aimed at changing gender norms. We will then open the floor for discussion. We hope that the session will attract engagement from participants with a wide variety of experiences to push the boundaries of our collective knowledge and thinking. The session aims to generate a tool or conceptual framework for thinking through how and when an overt norms focus is effective and when an indirect approach is more strategic.

Discussion/Implications for the Field:
The session will stimulate participants to reflect on different paths to changing gender norms both directly and indirectly. It aims to draw out and systematize insights about the different types of approaches in different contexts, on different issues and with different prior public engagement on gender norms. It aims to map a spectrum of direct and indirect approaches to changing different norms, and generate a conceptual framework or tool for helping think through the approaches that are most likely to be effective in different types of settings for changing norms to promote gender equality.

Abstract submitted by:
Caroline Harper - ODI
Rachel Marcus - ODI