4: Bringing gender into engagement

A gendered engagement approach considers which groups might be affected by your policy. This will help you target those you want to hear from.

Policy engagement activity can be seen as a spectrum, at one end informing the public or those groups affected by a policy, and at the other, targeting diverse experience and inviting co-design of policy options. The IAP2 spectrum captures this range. You will need to work out what type of engagement fits your project at different points in the policy process, and overlay your engagement with a gender lens.

The Office for Māori Crown Relations – Te Arawhiti provide guidelines for engagement with Māori that spell out the range of engagement options, from inform, to empower. Te Puni Kōkiri can sometimes help with practical advice and assistance through its regional offices.

When you can’t canvas women, look for people who work with women, either service providers or advocates. This can include NGOs and population agencies such as the Ministry for Women. You could also conduct a literature search and/or look for outcomes of previous consultation.

Here is a list of NGOs who have expressed an interest in participating in engagement with government agencies on women’s issues.

If you choose to consult with women directly, here are some things to consider:

• Consult with women as women. Be specific that you are consulting women to understand the experience of women. If women are consulted because they fit the demographic of other informants (e.g. being a migrant or Māori or rural or an engineer etc.) they will be ‘wearing that hat’ and are less likely to volunteer gendered information.
• Provide safe ways for women to have their say e.g. women should not have to disclose personal information to give their opinion on policy.
• Look for women outside of Wellington: Wellington women are not representative of ‘NZ women’, tending, for instance, to be more likely to be in full time paid work.
• Women are more likely be a primary caregiver so childcare may be an issue. Arranging for childcare or finding times that suit mothers’ availability is more likely to increase attendance.
• Consider women at different ages and stages. Women of different age groups and cultures can have different perspectives and values. These may impact on acceptability and social license of a policy. Be aware that one woman from a culture does not represent all.

Prompts for questions in consultation include:

• Barriers to access services, barriers as a result of a gendered role.  
• Impact of competing responsibilities (e.g. unpaid care versus paid work)
• Safety concerns
• Household and family resource distribution
• Is change needed?
• What should government’s role be?
• What should government’s concern be?
• As a woman how have you experienced…
• As a mother how have you…
• As a carer…

As the situation of women is not static, you should seek to understand new ways of doing things and emerging trends such as shared care, shared parental leave, flexible working etc.

As you consider your responses to the questions above, you may want to capture your thinking in the downloadable worksheet below.

Download the worksheet