I Thought I Was Done with Maths at School but I Am Still Counting
I Thought I Was Done with Maths at School but I Am Still Counting
Exploring the impact of numbers in advocating for gender equality
I wasn’t good a maths at school. I struggled and still struggle with numbers. They never seemed very intuitive to me. Yet, I know we need them.
They help illustrate and understand beyond our personal experience.
They highlight patterns and shifts.
I still prefer a story to a graph, but I understand that a graph also tells its own story.
Maybe my fraught relationship with my Higher Maths exam (Highers were the A-Levels of the Scottish School System) made me interested in how much of the gender equality debate is argued through numbers.
Counting has long been an integral part of the gender equality conversation. Gender mainstreaming loves to count and tick boxes. Gender representation projects love to show us change by, well, counting.
When I worked with NGOs we created complicated matrixes to measure numbers of women at training sessions or registering land titles, women in leadership positions and women in non-traditional jobs. Counting.
On one side, I see why we need numbers. I have been in the business of creating data. I see how it helps to paint a picture of reality. For example, did you know:
A one-point increase in a country’s score on the Women’s Political Empowerment Index results in an average 11.51% drop in that country’s emissions.’ (Data from research by WECAN)
That 76 % of speaking time in COP 26 climate negotiations was taken up by men (Data from UNFCCC).
Despite record attendance at COP28 (20,188 unique Party delegates), women's participation equated to only 34% of delegates. (From research by WEDO)?
But I also see its downsides. Because this encourages us to see equality as 50/50, when the way inequality is embedded into our system is so deep, so jagged and so complex, that it is impossible to cut the world in half and say done.
What is more surprising about numbers is the way they point out gender inequality - not only by the data they produce - but in the areas where there is no data at all. What we consider worthy to measure and what we do not count at all. For example, there is a data gap on the gendered impacts of climate (see here for example), very little information about women’s bodies - on everything from car crash test dummies to health - read Caroline Perez’s brilliant book about this - or see her gender data gap newsletter on Substack).
I have also seen data employed as a precautionary measure. For example, a few years ago, I was producing a workshop report for an NGO in Myanmar about a workshop with women farmers. In the final review of the paper, I was instructed by a concerned NGO Director to add a footnote to almost every sentence. This was intended to validate the statements shared by the women farmers - so they would be taken seriously. The lived experiences of the women farmers - were not considered persuasive - in fact, they seemed risky. But backed by other ‘objective’ data he considered they were ‘trustworthy’ enough to be published.
It showed me data can be a tool which supports those with less power to convince those with more power to listen. But it also showed me deeper changes in mindsets and social understanding will always outweigh numbers. Because I do not want to have to footnote everything I write and say for the rest of my life. I do not want to have to ask survivors of oppression or abuse to footnote their experiences, as statistically backed by research.
There is a false security in a number which allows us to believe in it. It offers an authority which may help create change but it won’t create the meaningful and deep-rooted equality we ultimately need. My understanding of gender has come from getting comfortable with the complexity of socialisation, power structures and the stories which show patterns of discrimination and struggle. It is in these messy realms that data doesn’t serve. One person’s experience is still an experience, even when not recorded in a survey or measured by the justice system.
In traditional archetypal models, the containers of straight lines and counting belong to the male archetypal constructs. And the un-contained, chaotic, non-linear structures, are considered feminine. For example, in Hinduism - Shiva is stillness, consciousness itself - he is the man sitting in meditation, while one of his counterparts - Kali - is a wild, chaotic, dancing life force. And when we count gender equality - I feel like we try to make this complex, intimidating and uncomfortable subject meek. As though if we organise and contain it - it might be easier to face.
Numbers assume gender equality can be eeked out of us, that we should comply, like good children, to the concept of equality. We can see those figures rise or fall, we can be assured that tick boxes are ticked. Yet, even if we did reach 50/50 we would likely still be off balance. We could find the data showed women to be included, registered and at the table, but the world still feels unequal.
The numbers are important - but only if they allow us to see the messiness of it, the injustice and the complexity of what we are working with. To not try to tidy that up, but to use that to find solutions which address the embedded questions of gender, which are caught up in being human.
And like I said. I wasn’t good a maths at school. I struggled and still struggle with numbers. Yet, when I see numbers being used in an argument I pay attention. Because numbers can be used as bullets: to prove a quick point and to win.
But I also notice the ways that sometimes it is not the numbers but the person talking about the numbers, which determines whether we pay attention. And that says more about the power structures in our society than the data ever could.
Thank you for reading Notes from Saving the World.
This is a place to share experiences that connect our personal stories to our collective stories. Our inner journeys to outer journeys and our transformations to bigger global change.
I write about the systems we live in through the lens of my personal and professional experiences of twenty years working in the aid sector.
I hope my stories might add some texture to these topics and help connect your lived experiences to our global narrative. And ultimately - feel a bit less alone.