Taking Sides - A Gendered Approach to Family Mediation

“Neutrality / Biases Through the Lens of Gender Justice - Women will only qualify for equality to the extent that they can conform to male values and standards. Gender differences must be taken into account in order to produce substantive equality for women. In order to pursue the premise of substantive equality, we need to understand, the masculine biases written into legal doctrines, overcome our own tendencies to accept predetermined parameters laid down by law and understand our fears of exploring the possibilities of evolving alternate framework of jurisprudence and dispute resolution.”

With the realization that mediators and conciliators lack a gendered approach to family counseling, and with a hope of weaving in the notion of equitable justice to women beyond the paradigm of ‘formal equality’ we have been conducting workshops for marriage counselors in family courts across various states. The workshops have helped to bring women’s concerns to the foreground. They have also helped to create a space for interaction between counsellors from different states to share and learn from each other’s experience, and to adopt the best practices followed by certain states. And to evolve uniformity in practice. A manual prepared by us titled, ‘Taking Sides’ has been used as a resource material during the workshops. .