Newsletter / January 2023 / Mavi Kalem Internal Capacity Building Activities

Strengthening the Gender Equality Approach

In 2022, we conducted a series of workshops to strengthen the gender equality approach of our teammates working with women and to raise their awareness about gender inequality. Starting from January, we met every week for ten months and talked about the news and books we read, the podcasts we listened to, and the movies we watched that week.

We discussed these examples, in which we encountered different verbal and cultural patterns, in terms of gender roles. Our individual experiences and observations have led us to interpret the same examples differently. This spontaneous diversity within the group supported us to be more open to the different stories we encounter in our work with women. Discussing the reflections of gender roles on language, behavior and culture enabled us to be more attentive in our meetings and activities with women. It has increased our awareness of the different forms of expression and behavior of violence, especially when working with violence against women.

Our teammates who participated in the workshops express how they benefited from the study as follows:

“My words, my perspective on events have changed. Now I can express my thoughts without fear. If there is sexism in my environment, I find the power to intervene.”

“I think we have the same thoughts and goals as people working in this field. In this study, I had the opportunity to better observe that we are all exposed to discourses based on gender inequality in different forms due to the different places we live in, ages and clothing.”

“I didn’t evaluate the movies and TV series I watched and the books I read from this perspective. The topics and discussions we shared here enlightened me. Now I can watch a movie that we watch with family or friends from a gender perspective and I can express this.”