Our affirmation

As Christians, we affirm that all human beings are created in the divine image. Women and men are equally valued and loved by God and invited to become part of the new, redeemed humanity. Jesus, our savior and example, valued and loved every person he met, including those who for reasons of gender, nationality or occupation were excluded by the religious establishment of his day. As ministers of Christ's love our calling is to work in ways that empower people, especially those who are excluded in our societies today.

Our Goal

In MCC's mission statement we declare that we "strive for peace, justice and dignity of all people by sharing our experiences, resources and faith in Jesus Christ." We try to model healthy, mutually helpful relationships between men and women and to develop new structures in which women and men can grow toward wholeness. Our goal is to work together for the overall well-being of humanity--women, men and children.

The Need

Women throughout the world are often confined to domestic duties, or the informal sector of low-skilled, poorly paid jobs. Women suffer from unequal access to education, work of their choice and decision making roles. Many women struggle daily with the effects of poverty and abuse. By most measures of relative status, women are substantially disadvantaged compared to men. According to United Nation's statistics, women perform 67 percent of the world's work, earn 10 percent of the world's income, are two-thirds of the world's illiterates and own less than one percent of the world's property. The current widespread situation, caused by entrenched cultural and historical patterns, requires correctives.

History of MCC Structures

In 1973, an MCC binational Task Force on Women in Church and Society began working on women's issues. This grew out of a strong feeling that Mennonites and Brethren in Christ needed to deal with a history of discrimination against women and would need to work deliberately to change established practices in the church and within MCC itself. In 1982 the Task Force became the Committee on Women's Concerns, with a staff person in the United States. A Canadian staff person was appointed in 1984 with a Canadian national advisory committee formed in 1987. MCC now has a Women's Concerns Committee in both the United States and Canada, each with its part-time staff person and mandate or mission statement. MCC Human Resources monitors gender issues among MCC staff and provides resources to workers through orientations, workshops and literature. In 1992 Overseas Services asked Peace Office to include in its peace and justice work the monitoring of women's issues within overseas programming.

Experience of Overseas Services

In our work overseas we use our experience and skills to deal with gender issues in the cultures in which we serve. Some of this work, intentionally or inadvertently, includes women as target groups. When we seek to form partnerships with those who are most oppressed and struggling for change, those who are not otherwise being helped by their government or other non-governmental organizations, we often find our partners are women. When we look for people who are willing to work together for the common good, willing to take risks on experiments to help their families and build community we often find women's groups. Some MCC overseas work of this kind includes training teachers for girls' schools, establishing agricultural projects, and creating jobs that empower women, generate income and give women access to credit. The projects may or may not be designated as women's development, but our partners are often women.

The second category of our work with women sees women less as needy objects of our service and more as resources to solve problems that emerge from a gender analysis. A focus on gender issues rather than on women as target groups examines the structures and attitudes that maintain the imbalance of power between women and men. Some MCC overseas work reflects this gender perspective: MCC workers collect women's agricultural knowledge for the benefit of the whole community, work alongside local women's groups as they do abuse counseling, conduct self esteem workshops, educate about AIDS, support women's Bible studies and the projects that emerge from them, and assist family planning and other health work.

MCC workers are more cautious in working in this second category. Challenging existing structures can seem culturally imperialistic. Yet we seek to encourage situations in which women can take responsibility for decisions that affect them. For example, when female producer groups in a partner organization are accountable to male managers, or women in a partner church are excluded from leadership roles, we seek the overall well-being and dignity of all humanity, women and men.

Our goal is to work in these situations with humility, transparency and mutuality. We live with people we serve. We form trusting relationships with partner churches and NGOs, and we seek to learn from them. When we are open to our friends' and partners' challenges of our own cultural blind spots--our ageism, racism, individualism and our own sexism--then they are more open to hearing our observations about gender and power.

Evaluation

Our language reflects our desire to be faithful followers of Christ before successful relief and development workers. Evaluations of our work tend to be anecdotal and impressionistic rather than rigorously researched. We are reluctant to do impact studies because relationship-building is hard to quantify. To evaluate the effectiveness of our work we rely on our own and others' observations of our work within the context. We gain theoretical insights from the studies conducted by our partner NGOs and other available research. We strive to hear what women are saying about the projects that affect them. We recognize a tension between our concern for justice and our tendency to impose our own cultural biases on others. While some voices are calling for clearer criteria for evaluations of our work on gender issues, we also hear a strong reluctance to impose external evaluation standards.

Our Commitment

The initiative for projects and positions that focus on gender issues and work with women has come from a variety of sources--individual MCC worker interest and experience, partner NGO requests, partner church priorities and MCC team objectives. This has led to a wealth of work with women and with gender issues. We commit ourselves to continue to ask who is most oppressed and marginalized and to use our energies, skills and resources to meet their needs. We commit ourselves to become more sensitive to gender issues and to seek culturally appropriate ways to challenge unjust structures and prejudicial attitudes. We commit ourselves to learn from those we serve "In the name of Christ."

Drafted by Gwen Groff, Peace Office
Adopted by MCC September, 1994