Gender norms and protection: navigating agency, risk and backlash 

Conflict exacerbates and creates gendered inequalities and risks rooted in gender norms. At the same time, people exercise their agency to strengthen their protection by actively drawing on, adapting or challenging gender norms as part of their self-protection strategies. These strategies are complex and highly context-specific, but share a common feature: they rely on an implicit understanding that gender shapes risk, power and legitimacy.

This report identifies six critical takeaways for humanitarian, protection and gender actors to strengthen the intersection of gender norms with protection action in the current hostile geopolitical context. It draws from research in Iraq, Myanmar, South Sudan and Ukraine, with a diverse spectrum of gendered protection actors and responses in support of communities. It identifies critical ways forward for humanitarian actors to strengthen gender-sensitive protection.

Key messages

• Conflict creates, and exacerbates, gendered inequalities and risks rooted in gender norms for people of all genders. Yet, people in crisis actively draw on, adapt or challenge gender norms as a core part of their self-protection strategies. These strategies are complex and highly context-specific, but share a common feature: they rely on an implicit understanding that gender shapes risk, power and legitimacy.
• Gendered protection risks affect all people in distinct but interconnected ways, In order to improve all people’s protection from violence, gender must be understood as more than synonymous with women and girls. However, too often, gendered risks to men, boys and LGBTQI+ people are not recognised by humanitarian actors. In highly securitised environments, there can be a tacit assumption that civilian men and boys are security threats, with little to no protective action taken. Gender-diverse and LGBTQI+ people are even more significantly neglected.
• Many communities and trusted organisations actively support people to mitigate these gendered risks through relational and adaptive strategies, which should be at the centre of protection interventions. International actors and those who sit outside of these communities must analyse gendered power dynamics if they are to strengthen people’s safety. Without a nuanced, contextually grounded understanding of how people are already engaging with gendered risks, actions are likely to fail, and do harm.
• The systemic integration of gender-sensitive protection is shaped by national and international backlash against gender equality, the erosion of norms and multilateralism. Funding cuts are integral to these politics that weaponise gender and contest its importance. The pace of cuts, along with broader reforms of the humanitarian and international system, significantly risks losing any advances and learning in the sector.
• Overall, both protection and gender are about power, making them inherently political. Their shared entry point is understanding and engaging with power to reduce civilian harm and create positive change for people. Critically, understanding and engaging with power is not an optional add-on or ‘nice-to-have’, but central to effective protection and humanitarian action.