SDG 5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.

The Supplementary Income aims at an inner development that fosters both both in men and women the more action-oriented “masculine” mental abilities (planning and action); and the feminine more receptive ones (sensing and intuition.) Kooistra saw the solution to gender discrimination in allowing both men and women to become androgynous.

The receptive qualities are fostered as we each listen to our inner self to determine in which way we wish to develop. The more active aspects of our minds, planning and action, are nurtured as we act upon what is communicated to us by our inner self. The integration of the two is further developed as we listen (receptive aspect) and give feedback (active aspect) during the small group discussions that determine which goods and services can be offered through the Plan.

Kooistra believed that discrimination against women came about because men and women tend to predominantly use different mental faculties in their day-to-day lives and that caused fear and alienation between them. He spent much time looking at ways in which these differences could be overbridged by empowering men to use the intuitive/feeling/sensing parts of their minds and women their planning/acting capacities. This he felt was the only way to truly build gender balance.

In addition, Kooistra emphasized the need for gender parity in the choice of development workers in each region; and in the choice of those who in discussion groups move up to subsequent levels of the decision-making pyramid.