Demand for gender budgeting
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: July 14, 2014 -

One fundamental essence of gender budgeting is acknowledgement of the disparity between males and females in terms of socio-economic and political status and opportunities. Before analysing gender budgeting and the growing demand for the same, we need to have a clear understanding of what constitutes gender.

Gender is understood to be those culturally and socially constructed roles, responsibilities, privileges, relations and expectations of women and men, boys and girls.

Because they are socially constructed, they can change over time and differ from one place to another. Sex, on the other side, is the biological features of male and female people.

It is what we are born with, and does not change over time or space. If there should be gender budgeting for socio-economic upliftment and political empowerment of the female population, Government needs to think about both gender and sex when formulating policies and allocating budgets to implement the policies.

In respect of sex, Government needs to ensure that policies and programmes are available and adequately financed to address the different biological needs of women and men.

In respect of gender, Government needs to have vision of the types of roles, responsibilities and relationships that it wants to see in the State for women and men, girls and boys, and plan, fund and implement policies and programmes to move toward realizing the imagined vision and pre-set goal.

In a lay man’s term, gender budgeting or gender budget can be understood as a gender sensitive budget or gender responsive budget. No doubt, there is wide, if not unassailable, gender disparity in India where females constitute 48 per cent of the total population.

One underlying basic argument for women empowerment or for that matter introduction of gender budgeting is, females are not sub-human. In another word, women are not inferior to men in any way.

Of late, the demand for gender budgeting is becoming more and more vocal. Many women activists, scholars and civil society organisations have been lobbying hard for introduction of gender budgeting in the State of Manipur. The demand is backed by two well articulated inter-connected arguments.

First, gender budgeting can address the plight of underprivileged women, and second, gender budgeting can check crimes against women and children through economic empowerment.

These two arguments sound logical and have their own merits. The arguments assume greater significance if one takes into account the soaring crime rate against women and the collateral damages done by the conflict situation.

In majority of the male dominated societies, the socio-political structure is such there are a number of gender specific barriers which prevent women and girls from gaining access to their rightful share in the flow of public goods and services.

And Manipur is no exception. Nature of inheritance practised in Manipuri society is a case in point.

Unless these barriers are addressed in the planning and development process, the fruits of economic growth are likely to completely leave out 50 per cent of the State’s population.

However, as stated above, the Government should have a vision for the future of the society in general and female population in particular.

The Government should also have a clear goal on the intended relationship between men and women, boys and girls if gender budgeting should be meaningful enough to serve its purpose.

This vision and the goal should serve as the guiding principle in formulating development policies and programmes.

State budget should be in line with the development policies and programmes guided by a long term vision, and not the other way around.

The demand for introduction of gender budgeting has its own merits but we are not sure if the State Government has any vision regarding gender disparity or gender equality.