Feminist Evaluation and Gender Approaches: There's a Difference?
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Abstract
Background: Feminist evaluation and gender approaches offer evaluators distinct ways of thinking and applying evaluations. A Namibian case narrative demonstrates how feminist evaluation and gender approaches, among others, resulted in a useful and used evaluation.
Purpose: The purpose of this article is to provide readers with a historical overview and description of feminist evaluation and gender approaches and is intended for those who are interested in understanding these approaches to evaluation.
Setting: Southern Africa.
Intervention: A nonprofit that advocates for sex workers safety and the decriminalization of sex work.
Research Design: A comparative framework is used to describe feminist evaluation and gender approaches. The evaluation employs qualitative methods that explored the reality of sex work and sex workers through both semi-structured and exploratory questionnaires. The approach was guided by feminist evaluation, gender approaches, and to a lesser extent drew on several other evaluation approaches.
Data Collection and Analysis: Interviews and document reviews were used to collect data and content and thematic analyses were used to analyze data.
Findings: Feminist evaluation and gender approaches should be viewed as distinct approaches. Their use should be of interest both to evaluation scholars and to those who design, implement and/or use evaluations.
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