'Leaving No Girl Behind'? Interrogating Gender Norms and Adolescent Agency in Pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

对青年妇女和女孩进行“投资”已成为许多发展行为体的普遍关注点，例如，促进她们入学可以改善她们的福祉和社会地位，推迟结婚可以实现性别平等。可持续发展目标（SDG）也体现了这一方法，例如关于性别平等和增强妇女权能的目标5。这一目标通过呼吁两性平等进入机构（如教育、工作、保健）和妇女在决策过程中的平等代表性来解决这些问题。然而，这种对性别平等的理解排除了男子和男孩在使性别不平等永久化和面临自身障碍方面的作用，例如，成为经济提供者的社会压力。全球南方背景下的男性气概在这些接近性别平等的方法中往往被同质化为暴力或压迫。在这项研究中，关键是要了解以前侧重于女孩的发展方案如何定位和影响男孩，以及这是否最终维持了性别不平等。值得注意的是，可持续发展目标议程中没有明确提到LGBT+人群或问题。通过以非跨性别包容的方式仅沿着“女孩（和男孩）”的路线提供节目，LGBT+人群面临的具体不平等被掩盖和延续。研究需要考虑如何实现性别平等，对非二元人群的需求敏感，并认识到如何在LGBT+人群不被承认的情况下解决这些问题。注重女孩的做法提出，个人和社区是实现增强妇女权能的关键，而忽视了社会行为、公共服务、经济市场可能加剧两性不平等的方式。确定青年人因其性别认同和社会地位而直接和间接面临的结构、体制和社会障碍至关重要。这可能涉及教师/教学大纲可能含蓄地阻止女孩从事某些职业，缺乏公民教育，或政府很少为基础设施提供资金，使性健康诊所更容易获得。因此，有必要探讨性别平等目标的含义，因为该目标放弃了将性别理解为政治和经济机构所维护的关系。除此之外，研究必须找出新自由主义背景如何塑造这种思维、这些想法从何而来以及谁从这种思维中受益。也许，“不让任何人掉队”的做法-寻求包括最边缘化的人-被解释为关注个人，而不是改变未能包容所有人的机构（教育、卫生、就业）。为了了解“不让任何人掉队”的方法如何界定两性平等，研究可以调查“不让任何人掉队”背后的意图，例如这一做法是如何形成的，哪些民间社会或积极行动者参与了议程的制定，以及谁决定谁是“最掉队的人”。这并不是说在促进青少年性别平等方面没有良好做法的例子。这项研究必须探讨所有性别的年轻人如何从以前的发展干预措施中受益，以及如何将这种做法应用于基于可持续发展目标的方案和政策。在指出上述关注女孩的问题时，研究可以指出实现性别平等的替代方法，这是持久的，对所有性别和年龄的人都产生了积极影响。最值得注意的是，所有性别的年轻人如何看待其社区中的性别不平等以及如何努力减轻这种不平等。

'Investing' in young women and girls has become a popular focus for many development actors on the idea that, for example, promoting their enrolment in school can improve their wellbeing and social status, and delay marriage, which can achieve gender equality. This approach is also shown by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), such as in their Goal 5 for gender equality and women's empowerment. This goal addresses these issues by calling for gender equal access to institutions (such as education, work, healthcare) and the equal representation of women in decision-making processes. However, such an understanding of gender equality excludes the role of men and boys in both perpetuating gender inequality and facing their own barriers from it, e.g. societal pressures to be an economic provider. Masculinity in Global South contexts are often homogenised as violent or oppressive in these approached to gender equality. In this research, it would be key to understand how boys were positioned and effected by previous development programmes that focused on girls, and whether this has ultimately maintained gender inequalities. Notably, there is no explicit reference to LGBT+ people or issues in the SDG agenda. By providing programming solely along the lines of 'girls (and boys)', in a non-trans inclusive way, the specific inequalities that LGBT+ people face are obscured and perpetuated. The research needs to be considerate of how to bring about gender equality that can be sensitive to the needs of non-binary people, and also recognises how to navigate these issues in contexts where LGBT+ people are not recognised. The approach to a focus on girls proposes that individuals and communities are the key to achieving women's empowerment, and overlooks the way in which social behaviours, public services, the economic market can reinforce gender inequality. It is foundational to establish the structural, institutional, and social barriers that young people directly and indirectly face according to their gender identity and social status. This can involve the ways that teachers/syllabi can implicitly discourage a girl from pursuing certain careers, lack of citizenship education, or little government funding towards infrastructure to make sexual health clinics more accessible. Therefore, it is necessary to seek out the implications of a gender equality Goal that foregoes an understanding of gender as relational and maintained by political and economic institutions. Alongside this, the research must seek out how a neoliberal context has shaped this thinking, where these ideas came from, and who benefits from this thinking. Perhaps, the 'leave no one behind' approach -seeking to include the most marginalised people - is interpreted as a focus on individuals as opposed to changing the institutions (education, health, employment) which fail to be inclusive of all people. As to understand how the 'leave no one behind' approach frames gender equality, the research could investigate the intention behind the 'leave no one behind', such as how this was formed, what civil society or activist actors were involved in forming the agenda, and who decides who is the 'most left behind'. This is not to say that there are no examples of good practice pertaining to promoting gender equality amongst adolescents. This research must look into the ways that young people of all genders have benefitted from previous development interventions and how this practice can be applied to SDG-based programmes and policy. In pointing out the aforementioned issues of focusing on girls, the research can point to alternative ways of bringing about gender equality which is long lasting and positively impacts people of all genders and ages. Most notably is how young people of all genders conceive of gender inequity in their communities and the attempts to alleviate this.