Disability, Society and Theology: Voices from Africa

Chapter Fourteen: Gender and Disability Challenges Within the Church

Gender and Disability: Challenges within the Church CHAPTER FOURTEEN Gender and Disability Challenges WithintheChurch Josephine Sinyo Introduction F or me as a woman with a disability, the topic of gender and disability deals with the “life sentence” for my lot! Mark my words, I did not say death sentence, for that’s a dead end. A life sentence implies that we are alive yet trapped, judged and sentenced for being women with disabilities. This paper will discuss what has been described as the dilemma of difference by policy makers in gender and disability issues. It will emphasize that, whereas the relevant “difference” in the context of gender is largely one of attitudes; the “difference” in the context of disability has some foundation in reality. Much of course, depends on how this difference is viewed. If it is not something inherent but defined in relation to some privileged norm (egg “maleness” or “able bodiedness”), the problem is not difference per se but the privileged norm. A commentator stated that: “viewing disability as normal rather than deviant” would mean that workplaces and qualifications, community programmes and standards generally, would reflect the needs of persons with disability as well as the non-disabled majority.Therefore, this paper will not only discuss the usual gender disparity issues, but also the disability limiting challenges that confront persons with disabilities in relation to Gender. Disability, Society, and Theology: Voices from Africa Gender Analysis in Creation During creation God created everything and stated that it was good. Strangely enough Adam was the only one of all other living creatures that God had created that was not good and God had to create a woman to be his helper. God further gaveAdam strict instructions on what to eat and not to eat. God did not give such instructions to Eve. After failing to follow God’s instructions Adam blamed Eve. Surely Adam was not good. Certainly God is all present, all knowing and all powerful. Yet, God went out of his way to ask Adam where he was after disobeying God’s instructions. Of course Adam was hiding because he had not done a good thing. If anything, God knew where Adam was. This question was meant to determine Adam ’s position with God because he had been influenced and fallen to deception and lost authority just by compromising his stance. Indeed the emptiness that Adam experienced then is being manifested even today amongst our men. A male person struggles for identity as a “man” to the extent that, in this endeavour, some cling to the beer bottle, guns or abuse of women. In search for their manhood , some males have opted to become women! Only a man affirms a man; the male gender need to know and relate with God the Father and almighty now than ever before. Essential Concepts in Gender And Development Women in Development (WID) The Women in Development (WID) concept first manifested itself in the early 1970s as an approach to include women in development . Research and information collected through the UN Decade for Women (1975-85) highlighted the existing poverty and disadvantage of women and their invisibility in the development process . Different policy responses and interventions focused on women as a separate group, resulting in women’s concerns being “added on” and peripheral to mainstream development efforts. WID policies and interventions have to a great extent concentrated on women ’s productive work. The failure to make an explicit link with their reproductive work often adds to women’s workload. Focusing on 210 Gender and Disability: Challenges within the Church women in isolation means that unequal gender relations in various social and economic settings remain unaddressed. Gender and Development (GAD) The Gender and Development perspective emerged in the late 1980s as an alternative to the then prevailing Women in Development or WID approach. Unlike WID, which focused on women only, and called for their integration into development as producers and workers , GAD focuses on the interdependence of men and women in society and on the unequal relations of power between them. The GAD approach aims for a development process that transforms gender relations in order to enable women to participate on an equal basis with men in determining their common future. The GAD approach emphasizes the importance of women’s collective organization for self employment. Sex vs Gender Sex refers to the biological differences between men and women, which are universal...