The CSIPM Women Working Group has been renamed to Women and Gender Diversities Working Group in order to reflect all its members’ experiences and needs.
Rationale behind updating the working group name
The term “Gender” features in the title of the current CFS voluntary guidelines under negotiations, and this working group is actively involved in the process. The term has also come to be accepted in several existing UN documents and policies. Opening up the denomination of the working group to the existing diversities in gender and sexual orientations aligns with a human rights approach.
Renaming the WG is as well a way to visibilize people, who do not identify within binary cis-heterosexual* norms. The revised name does not undermine women in any way, who are the original constituency of this working group. This exercise is to articulate and broaden the realities, of women, as well as from ALL other gender and sexual minorities beyond gender and sexual binaries being it lesbians, trans persons, gays, intersex, asexuals, queers or any other respective minorities not reflected under this enumeration.
It is important to note that the women’s constituency, is well defined and will not change due to this process of changing the name of the WG.
Historic viewpoint
The group was called “Gender WG” at some earlier point. Later on the group came to be called the ‘Women’s WG’ as it got associated with the demand for recognizing women’s land rights during the negotiations on the CFS Guidelines on Land Tenure. This was also emphasized during the agroecology process. However, we evolved, adopting now a strong intersectional approach ingrained in all our analysis and therefore a revision of the WG’s name will justifiably reflect that.
For more information regarding the Working Group visit this link.
*Very simplifed definitions : Cis-gender stands for a person whose gender identity and expression match the biological sex assignation at birth. Heterossexuality stands for sexual behavior between persons of the opposite biological sex (women<>men).