Action Reaction - Understanding and Overcoming Backlash Against Girls' Exercise of Agency in India
Summary:
Despite the vast range of interventions successfully working to empower adolescent girls, there are often lasting, unintended negative consequences that emerge as challenges to their effectiveness. Ranging from the denial of basic rights, to threats of violence and abuse, and forced marriages, adolescent girls are likely to face distinct and powerful obstacles consequent to their participation in empowerment programs, thereby inhibiting the program's effectiveness and, eventually, social change. Backlash is a powerful barrier to the empowerment of adolescent girls, and an inevitable element of programs that aim to create lasting behavioural and normative change in society by subverting existing power structures and gender norms. Backlash, therefore, is defined as the unintended and primarily negative response of those in positions of power to deviations of the status quo. Dasra, a non-profit organization, conducted a two-phased study into the issue of backlash. Titled Action Reaction I and Action Reaction II, these reports detail the manner in which backlash manifests both during and after interventions, as well as the various mitigation and prevention strategies that implementing organizations deploy in order to manage the issue. The reports emphasize the need for open conversation to destigmatize backlash drastically, while highlighting the importance of a holistic understanding of social change - ensuring that its quality and extent remain incremental. Understanding backlash can be a powerful catalyst to ensure that the essential task of empowering adolescent girls takes place, while simultaneously creating an environment that fosters long-lasting behavioural and normative change.
Background/Objectives:
Despite the scale of change it has catalyzed, empowering adolescent girls has also elicited negative reactions from gatekeepers around them who hold positions of power. This pushback occurs as programs encourage girls to do the much-needed task of challenging existing patriarchal power structures, thereby building agency and subverting longstanding norms. Despite this, backlash is minimally articulated or documented. Given that it can be a direct inhibitor to achieving the Sustainable Development Goal of gender equality, this study explores the unintended consequences of adolescent-focused programs, and document mechanisms and strategies that organizations use to understand and manage it.
Description of Intervention and/or Methods/Design:
Limited secondary literature exists around instances of backlash with respect to adolescent girls and adolescent-focused organizations. Given the nascent understanding of the subject and Dasra's position as an intermediary between implementing organizations and other stakeholders in the development ecosystem, the study worked with youth-serving nonprofits to understand their perspective on backlash against adolescents, as well as backlash they faced themselves. Phase one consisted of a detailed survey with 72 nonprofits in India, which inquired into cases of backlash faced by girls who visibly deviated traditional norms and gender roles. It also explored the occurrence and extent of backlash faced by the organizations from the girls' families and community members. Phase two involved a qualitative investigation into strategies deployed by nonprofits to deal with backlash. Speaking to nine adolescent-focused organizations, Dasra examined the diverse range of stakeholders, situations, and management strategies employed by organizations in cases of backlash.
Results/Lessons Learned:
Survey responses indicate that at least 85% of participants documented at least one instance of backlash towards adolescent girls. Similarly, multiple respondents were denied entry into communities, and were compelled to alter curriculum, due to their work on taboo subjects such as sexual and reproductive health. Evidence further indicates that nonprofits actively create systems and processes to manage and mitigate backlash. Organizations emphasize the critical role of community engagement, working with local stakeholders to minimize backlash. Engaging men and boys to understand the need for programs, for example, is invaluable to preventing backlash towards adolescent girls as they exercise autonomy in everyday life. This research highlights the importance of engaging with organizations to think critically about backlash to programs. It also highlights underlying issues such as the financial and personnel costs of backlash management - the burden of which can significantly deter programs as they continue to affect lasting social...
Discussion/Implications for the Field:
Working with a demographic as vulnerable as adolescent girls warrants keen foresight into the unintended negative consequences that programs may have. Understanding backlash before, during, and after program implementation can encourage stakeholders across the ecosystem to articulate challenges more clearly, and make more informed and intentional decisions towards building agency. Engaging with organizations to discuss and solve for backlash can form a cornerstone to ensuring more holistic and impactful programs - thereby ensuring that organizations are able to achieve their objective of empowering adolescent girls across India.
Abstract submitted by:
Sucharita Iyer - Dasra
Despite the vast range of interventions successfully working to empower adolescent girls, there are often lasting, unintended negative consequences that emerge as challenges to their effectiveness. Ranging from the denial of basic rights, to threats of violence and abuse, and forced marriages, adolescent girls are likely to face distinct and powerful obstacles consequent to their participation in empowerment programs, thereby inhibiting the program's effectiveness and, eventually, social change. Backlash is a powerful barrier to the empowerment of adolescent girls, and an inevitable element of programs that aim to create lasting behavioural and normative change in society by subverting existing power structures and gender norms. Backlash, therefore, is defined as the unintended and primarily negative response of those in positions of power to deviations of the status quo. Dasra, a non-profit organization, conducted a two-phased study into the issue of backlash. Titled Action Reaction I and Action Reaction II, these reports detail the manner in which backlash manifests both during and after interventions, as well as the various mitigation and prevention strategies that implementing organizations deploy in order to manage the issue. The reports emphasize the need for open conversation to destigmatize backlash drastically, while highlighting the importance of a holistic understanding of social change - ensuring that its quality and extent remain incremental. Understanding backlash can be a powerful catalyst to ensure that the essential task of empowering adolescent girls takes place, while simultaneously creating an environment that fosters long-lasting behavioural and normative change.
Background/Objectives:
Despite the scale of change it has catalyzed, empowering adolescent girls has also elicited negative reactions from gatekeepers around them who hold positions of power. This pushback occurs as programs encourage girls to do the much-needed task of challenging existing patriarchal power structures, thereby building agency and subverting longstanding norms. Despite this, backlash is minimally articulated or documented. Given that it can be a direct inhibitor to achieving the Sustainable Development Goal of gender equality, this study explores the unintended consequences of adolescent-focused programs, and document mechanisms and strategies that organizations use to understand and manage it.
Description of Intervention and/or Methods/Design:
Limited secondary literature exists around instances of backlash with respect to adolescent girls and adolescent-focused organizations. Given the nascent understanding of the subject and Dasra's position as an intermediary between implementing organizations and other stakeholders in the development ecosystem, the study worked with youth-serving nonprofits to understand their perspective on backlash against adolescents, as well as backlash they faced themselves. Phase one consisted of a detailed survey with 72 nonprofits in India, which inquired into cases of backlash faced by girls who visibly deviated traditional norms and gender roles. It also explored the occurrence and extent of backlash faced by the organizations from the girls' families and community members. Phase two involved a qualitative investigation into strategies deployed by nonprofits to deal with backlash. Speaking to nine adolescent-focused organizations, Dasra examined the diverse range of stakeholders, situations, and management strategies employed by organizations in cases of backlash.
Results/Lessons Learned:
Survey responses indicate that at least 85% of participants documented at least one instance of backlash towards adolescent girls. Similarly, multiple respondents were denied entry into communities, and were compelled to alter curriculum, due to their work on taboo subjects such as sexual and reproductive health. Evidence further indicates that nonprofits actively create systems and processes to manage and mitigate backlash. Organizations emphasize the critical role of community engagement, working with local stakeholders to minimize backlash. Engaging men and boys to understand the need for programs, for example, is invaluable to preventing backlash towards adolescent girls as they exercise autonomy in everyday life. This research highlights the importance of engaging with organizations to think critically about backlash to programs. It also highlights underlying issues such as the financial and personnel costs of backlash management - the burden of which can significantly deter programs as they continue to affect lasting social...
Discussion/Implications for the Field:
Working with a demographic as vulnerable as adolescent girls warrants keen foresight into the unintended negative consequences that programs may have. Understanding backlash before, during, and after program implementation can encourage stakeholders across the ecosystem to articulate challenges more clearly, and make more informed and intentional decisions towards building agency. Engaging with organizations to discuss and solve for backlash can form a cornerstone to ensuring more holistic and impactful programs - thereby ensuring that organizations are able to achieve their objective of empowering adolescent girls across India.
Abstract submitted by:
Sucharita Iyer - Dasra
Source
Approved abstract for the postponed 2020 SBCC Summit in Marrakech, Morocco. Provided by the International Steering Committee for the Summit. Image credit: Dasra