Comparative Approaches to Gendered Interventions in New Zealand Mainstream and Ethnic Communities

Abstract

New Zealand is rapidly diversifying; currently almost a quarter of the population is composed of immigrants born overseas. Both ethnic minorities and women are disproportionately impacted by economic and social issues relating to business leadership, family violence, and health. This chapter describes and discusses two gendered interventions in each of these areas, comparing and contrasting approaches to targeting mainstream and ethnic communities. The BreakThrough Leaders Program aims to place women in senior business leadership positions through primarily gender-neutral skills training, endorsing New Zealand’s gender role ideal of equality. The Ethnic Women Leadership Project, alternatively, incorporates training on workplace skills as well as negotiating family demands and culturally endorsed interdependent gender roles, which are complementary rather than equal. We observed similar trends in family violence prevention. The mainstream family violence primary prevention program, the It’s Not OK campaign, promotes an individual style of empowerment and identifies traditional gender roles as harmful. An alternative approach is taken by Umma Trust, an ethnic organization working to prevent family violence in New Zealand Muslim communities. Their approach incorporates ideals of gender interdependence, emphasizing that family violence prevention is achievable without family dissolution. In the health arena, both mainstream and ethnic health interventions targeting women acknowledge differences in culturally endorsed gender roles. The Appetite for Life mainstream nutrition intervention and the Refugee Nutrition Education Program (which targets African women) acknowledge women as mothers and caregivers and recognize their unique barriers to healthy living. Comparing across issue areas, mainstream business and family violence interventions idealize reducing the prevalence of gender roles and gender stereotypes, while ethnic interventions in these areas incorporate gender interdependence and explicitly leverage gender- and culture-based strengths. Conversely, health interventions targeting both mainstream and ethnic populations explicitly acknowledge gender role differentiation as key to the intervention’s success. We conclude by discussing strategies for improving interventions by defining underlying ideologies and rigorously evaluating effectiveness.