How Can Advocacy Promote Gender Transformation?
Advocacy can:
- Interrogate the gender norms and roles that affect women and men;
- Address the causes of gender inequality;
- Create conditions that increase shared power, control of resources and decision-making between women and men; and
- Promote gender equality.
Advocacy is about action for change. Advocacy for gender-transformative health promotion can encompass a range of activities including:
- Bringing together evidence on a topic
- Writing a paper or brief
- Sharing ideas and resources with other like-minded organizations and individuals
- Scanning the environment to understand what others are doing about an issue and where the opportunities or gaps are, through the media, policy development, professional and interest groups, or informal networks
- Conducting workshops for practitioners about how to challenge norms and change practice
- Writing a letter to a decision maker
- Building a social media campaign to raise awareness and encourage supporters to take action
- Creating, circulating and/or signing a petition
- Using social media
- Writing a submission to a government inquiry
- Writing a letter to the editor to highlight concerns or correct misinformation
- Developing a media campaign
- Meeting with elected officials with responsibility for health or women’s status and/or other related portfolios