There have been some amusing articles in the foreign press and on the Internet about how the current global crisis is driven by testosterone and male egos. Men are being blamed for impulsive decisions, over-competitiveness (“I’m bigger than you” or the local funny variation about who shoots higher when it comes to one of the body functions), and the reckless search for quick profits.

One blog by Anthony Mirhaydari (blogs.moneycentral.msn.com) describes “testosterone-fueled follies” in Iceland, which resulted in the entire country declaring bankruptcy, and how two national banks driven to insolvency by men are now being rehabilitated by women. “Men,” the MSN blog quotes a government minister, “make the mess, and women come in to clean up.”

The articles are meant to be humorous, but there’s an element of truth to all this, reminding us of the gender dimension in the current crisis. Note that if men seem to have dragged us into this mess, it’s also men prescribing the cures. The recent G-20 Summit, which brought together leaders of the world’s most powerful countries, was largely male, and so were the financial advisers to these leaders.

Yet when a crisis does strike, at the household and community level, it’s the women who take the brunt of it all, finding ways to support the husband and children and many other relatives.

Hard to harder

The burden on women becomes heavier as you go down the economic ladder. Rich Filipinas agonize, over roast beef and red wine, about how the worth of their investment portfolios of stocks and bonds has dropped by a few million pesos and now they will have to postpone that vacation in Europe.

Going around poor communities, I’ve found that women have absolutely no interest in the plunging stock markets. Life, they say, can’t get any more difficult than it already is. Yet over the next few months, the global crisis will actually make life harder for the already hard-up (appropriately, in Filipino, the “mahihirap”). The job market, already tight, will dry up even more, both domestically and internationally. I’m already getting reports of Filipinos returning from overseas, with contracts terminated prematurely.

The gender dimension comes in because when men lose their jobs, they’re usually pickier about taking on another one. There’s ego involved here, with men less willing to take jobs which they feel are below their station. Women, on the other hand, are more willing to take up “menial” jobs, especially because such work is often an extension of their domestic duties: becoming a domestic helper, or doing the laundry. Filipinas, too, are more entrepreneurial: even the poorest women will go into all kinds of buy and sell. Again, in urban poor communities, I’ve found women repacking condiments into the tiniest packages, for example, four or five peppercorns or two pieces of banana blossoms, which make them more affordable to their neighbors. The same thing is done with soy sauce, fish sauce, soft drinks, even medicines.

It’s the women, too, who will find ways to scrimp and save, and this goes beyond the budgeting for groceries. As a medical anthropologist, I know only too well about “illness hoarding”: women are more likely than men to postpone seeking medical help even when they’re seriously ill because they do not want to incur more expenses for the family. It all goes with the “pagtitiis” value — enduring pain and suffering for the sake of others.

Gender Gap Report

I wanted to relate all this to the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) latest Gender Gap Report (GGR) released last Wednesday. Since the WEF began doing these reports in 2006, the Philippines has consistently ranked 6th as the most gender equal out of more than 100 countries, including both developed and underdeveloped ones. Among the underdeveloped countries, we’ve ranked 1st since the report was launched.

My friends in gender and development are incredulous. Those involved with urban poor communities sometimes even become indignant, having seen how difficult the lives of the women are, and how the men batter the women financially, emotionally, physically.

But a careful reading of the introduction to the report explains that the countries are ranked on the relative access of men and women, within each country, to resources and opportunities. The WEF recognizes that some countries are richer than others, with vast resources that make all kinds of services available, but that may not necessarily translate into gender equity. The United States, for example, may be economically and politically powerful, but it ranked only 27th in the GGR, much lower than many industrialized countries as well as several poorer countries like the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Mozambique and Cuba. This is because even in such a rich country like the US, there is a gender gap, with women at a disadvantage especially in the areas of political empowerment (still no woman president after 232 years) and health and social services.

The GGR also focuses on outcomes, rather than inputs. This is why we fared so well. In terms of male/female ratios in literacy rates, life expectancy, school enrollment at primary, secondary and tertiary levels, corporate senior officials and managers, we ranked 1st among all countries. We didn’t do as well with women in parliament (ranking 50th out of 130 countries) and women in ministerial positions (ranking 97th) but with the number of years we have had women heads of state, we ranked 6th globally.

The focus on outcomes is an important weakness of the GGR. There’s a presumption that the outcomes come out of equitable access to resources, which may not always be the case. Our own two women presidents rose to power more as a function of class than gender equality. And if there are more and more women now in managerial positions in the Philippines, it may come out of reverse discrimination: many companies now see males as unreliable and therefore prefer women, who are not only more patient and hard-working, but might be willing to work for lower wages. Likewise, more boys drop out of schools because they are more privileged, allowed to do what they want to do while girls are indoctrinated to stay in school and study hard so that someday they can go abroad and lift the family out of poverty.

I agree that the GGR can be useful for tracking changes. For example, they note that the female-to-male ratio for women in ministerial positions (Cabinet officials) has dropped to 10 percent from 33 percent and so has wage equality, women’s and men’s wages for the same kind of work, which has dropped to 75 percent from 83 percent.

Our government and non-government policy planners and program implementers should study the GGR to see how they might inject some gender sensitivity into their crisis plans, making sure women gain even more access to resources, not just to help out the men, but themselves as well.