How do you make the invisible invisible?

The title of my post today just came into my mind while I was sitting in a coffee shop just a block away from where I used to work. I was then trying to figure out how to formulate the guide questions for an interview that will be conducted with fisherfolks concerning gender issues and how these are being addressed by the co-management body (a multi-stakeholder body) that was formed in the area.

While sitting there, my mind was actually reacting to a phrase I read in one of the reference materials before me, which mentioned "... the people's organization accommodated the women ...". I don't know where my reaction was coming from but I felt there was something wrong with how that phrase was stated.

And soon my mind was drifting in reverie ... and realizing how much is revealed when we start focusing on how we think and how we state things like this.

Oh ... where was I? Ah, yah, the guide questions. :-)

That's when I started to get excited with this idea of turning the table around...that instead of trying to figure out and ask what have been the role of women and men in fisheries , in the community, in their homes ... maybe I can try another approach ... like providing an instruction for a group activity, and asking the participants to think and visualize how their situation would look like:

- without women in the picture ... an all-men crowd;

- without men in the picture ... an all-women community;

Why I thought of this title: How to make the invisible invisible? I was thinking that a simple 'sensitivity exercise' like this might help us understand more things about gender relations than any lecture about it can make.

And now I am hoping that maybe through this activity, an interested group who would like to try this exercise might help them realize and begin to recognize the significant roles each gender is taking on in different situations. And hopefully, generate more discussions between men and women about their own situation, the kind of pressure and problems they encounter, the dreams they only keep to themselves, and maybe arrive at some agreements on how they can help each other better in pursuing their desires and goals in life instead of competing against each other.

I'd love to hear your comments and opinions on these thoughts I have just written here. Don't forget to write them down in the space below under COMMENTS.