International Evaluation Academy Week: Four Voices, One Truth: Naming Patriarchy in the Practice of Evaluation by Donna Podems, Sonal Zaveri, Svetlana Negroustoueva, Weronika Felcis

Date: Friday, January 2, 2026

Hi, we are Donna, Sonal, Svetlana, and Weronika– feminist evaluators living and working across three continents. Over the past two decades we’ve met as teachers and students, colleagues, volunteers, and board members in VOPEs and global evaluation networks. Our paths have been very different—spanning national, regional, and international spaces. Each of us has taken a unique route—whether through paid roles or voluntary leadership, inside institutions or on their margins. Our experiences aren’t identical: we’ve faced support and resistance, recognition and erasure, opportunity and constraint in various combinations. Yet, as we shared our stories, we began to see recurring patterns in how gendered power influences evaluation.

Hot Tip: Treat omissions as data

A basic feminist question is: What is missing when we discuss “the future of evaluation”?

• Which inequities are named, and which are not?
• Whose experiences would make those gaps impossible to ignore – and are they present?
• When gender isn’t specified, whose comfort or status is being safeguarded?

Lessons Learned: Different journeys, repeating patterns

Across several networks, we found that women often gravitated toward roles that aligned with their values—collaboration, care, flexibility, and community-building. These roles were appreciated and even celebrated, yet they rarely connected to the pathways that lead to paid assignments, visibility with donors, or influence over institutional decisions. The work we did mattered deeply to the functioning of the network, but it did not move us closer to the kinds of opportunities that shaped the direction of the field. The deeper paradox was that the very roles where women’s leadership was strongest were often structurally disconnected from the places where resources and formal authority were held.

In many other institutions, gender equality was emphasized in strategies and speeches, but feminist evaluation approaches were labeled “emotional” or “unrealistic.” Recommendations based on gender data were softened, delayed, or quietly set aside. The gap between public commitments and internal decisions was striking.

Cool Trick: Use your own path as evidence

Try this quick reflective exercise:

• Map your roles in evaluation over the past few years: paid positions, volunteer roles, board memberships, and committee involvement.
• Note where you feel most valued, most visible, and most stretched or drained.
• Ask, what does this pattern indicate about who is expected to serve, who has the authority to decide, and how gendered expectations might influence opportunities and recognition in my context?

These help an evaluator to recognize the suppressive systems and structures that their own story exposes.

Rad Resource: Four Voices, One Truth and the Feminist Evaluation Model (FEM)

In our article “Four Voices, One Truth: Naming Patriarchy in the Practice of Evaluation” (2026, forthcoming), we connect our narratives to the Feminist Evaluation Model (FEM). FEM starts from one overarching principle:

Use evaluation to support transformational change for women and advance gender equality.

• Co-creation and power sharing with participants and stakeholders
• Identifying and challenging gender inequities in both content and process
• Incorporating diverse perspectives and valuing lived experience as knowledge
• Fostering co-learning rather than one-way “expert” teaching
• Confronting and redistributing power in how evaluation is designed and used
• Applying systems thinking to reveal structural and institutional inequality
• Grounding inquiry in feminist values such as care, justice, and solidarity
• Using intersectional analysis to understand how gender interacts with race, class, age, location, and other factors
• Mobilizing evidence for change, not just for reporting or compliance (Podems, 2024;2026).

If you are part of a VOPE, evaluation unit, or global network, we invite you to discuss the article and FEM principles with colleagues and ask:

How do our own structures reflect patriarchal norms – and what would a feminist redesign of our governance, mentoring, and decision-making look like?

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