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3 March 2005Remarks by Susan V. Berresford at the Global Philanthropy Forum
I'd like to underscore the theme of this conference: the importance of donors' support for innovation—specifically, the breakthroughs in development theory and practice that came about as a result of philanthropic support for researchers and practitioners focusing on women. The stories of their breakthroughs hold lessons for all of us.
As recently as the 1970's, people who influenced thinking about development --ways to raise poor families' incomes as well as levels of health, literacy and education -- almost totally ignored gender. National plans to advance well-being focused largely on building hard and soft systems — roads, schools, health clinics and related human services. To the extent that those planning these programs in what people called developing countries asked beneficiaries what they needed, wanted or thought, nothing seemed wrong with talking almost exclusively with men. Men were the perceived community leaders. That was the way of the world. There was little recognition that excluding women from program planning and design might hinder effectiveness.
Then in the 1970's, led by some remarkable and courageous women and men, a new generation of male and female feminists gained recognition in both poor and better off countries. The ultimate practical application of their ideas brought significant and lasting change that benefits us all.
Here is an example: Feminist scholars studying household income in poor countries began asking whether it makes a difference if new income is earned or controlled by men or women in the household. Few had asked this question before or related the answer to program design. The assumption was that since the man was deemed head of the household, he would contribute increased income to household needs.
Surprise! Research showed that women used new income for children's food and education and household improvement far more than men. Men used a far greater proportion of their earned income for their own leisure and pleasure. So there seemed to be a sound argument for targeting income programs on women
Feminists also asked whether, in poor countries, there were gender differences in payoff from investments either in income programs, health programs or education programs. Does one have a far larger multiplier effect in society than the others? Most investigators were unclear about the correlation of these investments and often focused on income since the resulting cash increases could be used freely and "wisely" on such things as education. Some believed education for men was key because their earning power would rise and help the entire family (given their supposed role as head of household).
But there was another surprise: Education, particularly the education of women, turned out to have the highest leverage, boosting women's confidence and leadership in the community, along with their children's health and well being. Thus began a focus on women's education and its multiplier effect throughout communities.
A third example is family planning. Advocates and supporters of family planning believed that making contraceptives readily available to women would steadily reduce birth rates, especially when combined with national policies to reduce the rates. Feminist researchers had a hunch that this wasn't the whole story. So they began focusing on women's attitudes toward family planning.
They found that even after contraceptives were available and incentives to use them in place, some women continued to ignore them. Research showed that many women had troubling reproductive health problems, such as infections, and scars from early sexual practices. Some women cared more about curing or relieving these vexing problems than reducing family size. As a result, programs ignoring these personal needs just weren't going to be popular with everyone. The research also showed that many women could not overcome their husband's concerns that male or female contraceptive methods would diminish sexual prowess and pleasure.
These and other findings related to reluctance to use contraceptives led feminist researchers and activists to develop and refine work in this area. Ultimately they helped change a number of realities, including the way many family-planning services were offered. As a result, family planning was increasingly conceived as one element in a broader approach to reproductive health care, one that emphasized choice among contraceptives, attention to reproductive and sexual health generally, and male and female counseling about sexual relations.
Those are just three of many examples where breakthroughs in development thinking came from innovative feminist research and activism. The research looked past simple assumptions and stereotypes and got into the real details of people's lives.
Today, all this seems like common sense. But at the time, each body of new knowledge was a breakthrough that stimulated program innovation and change. As a result of these and other breakthroughs, gender differentials became an accepted aspect of analysis. Although they are still too often ignored, more and more they are considered legitimate, interesting lines of inquiry by many scholars and practitioners.
What is the connection between these innovations and our field — philanthropy?
Work of this kind was fostered and funded originally by philanthropists — not by government, not by mainstream university budgets, not by established fellowship programs or the private sector. In fact, most mainstream support sources turned away from this work. At the start, only a few pioneering funders, including the Ford Foundation, supported the few pioneering feminist scholars and their activist partners.
Thanks to innovative donors, working with activists and researchers, women were finally brought into the picture as influential, distinct and dignified beings. It was recognized that it mattered how women were treated and that women's and girls' attitudes and behavior influenced the outcome of important programs. Such recognition became a powerful rationale for increasing the number of women in governmental decision making, for educating women and for women having "a place at the table." These ideas also led to the creation of funds that support women's empowerment around the world.
So not only do women matter (something that is now obvious), but philanthropy matters as well. When new ideas emerge, they are often dismissed as absurd, wrong or even dangerous. That is true in many fields beyond the role of women in development. New ideas often generate fear and resistance, and there are always some people who try to marginalize new ideas because the ideas challenge established authority and/or social mores.
One of the quintessential examples of this phenomenon is captured wonderfully in the movie "Kinsey," which traces the remarkable legacy of Dr. Alfred Kinsey, a scientist at Indiana University. The courageous support of the Rockefeller Foundation and Indiana University for Kinsey's groundbreaking work on male sexuality was controversial and risky in its time. His second study, of women's sexuality, was even more explosive. It shattered the myth of women's sexual "purity." It replaced the myth with the reality of women's sexual lives, including premarital and multiple-partner sex. The work on women unleashed a vicious public attack on both Indiana University and the Rockefeller Foundation. Both came under ferocious political and public pressure to close down Kinsey's work.
We should remember this courageous example of early academic and philanthropic support for work that revealed facts then on the margins of respectability. Kinsey's early research, controversial as it was, influenced services and attitudes for decades. As one of the characters at the end of the film shows, Kinsey's research saved people's lives, liberating them from oppressive norms that even drove some people to suicide.
So let us remember that some of the best philanthropic work is done by spotting ideas still on the margin and by backing the innovators who develop and test them. Some, such as those I have described, blossom and change thought and behavior around the world. This is philanthropy making a difference. But it takes imagination and courage.
I have known the enormous pleasure of this kind of giving. I have been lucky to work in a foundation that sought out innovators and valued all people in society. Women have been a special focus of our work.
I hope you have had this experience too. And I hope you will continue work of this kind. If you haven't, give it a try. It has enormous rewards for the donor and society.
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