Gender and Environmental Management
Loading...
Date
2006
Authors
Maina, L. W.
Owino, George Evans
Otor, S.C.J.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
School of Environmental Studies and Human Sciences,
Kenyatta University
Abstract
The terms gender and development converge in various ways among them
the consideration of varied roles that both sexes can play in development,
the gendered distribution of benefits accruing from development together
with how these benefits (and costs) affect men and women. Environmental
sustainability is equally a gender issue because both men and women are
beneficiaries and conservers of the environment. Though programmes targeting
the proper use of the environment have in many cases ignored the value of
integrating genders identities, the rationale 'for the inclusion of both men and
women is not an issue in contention. The essence of being male or female within
society has several dictates. On one level, it represents different social and cultural
experience and secondly, it indicates particular access and control over both
natural and social resources.
The gender approach to development has emerged within the last four decades.
Before that, past approaches to development gave no attention to gender as a
factor. Consequently, the roles of men and women in development were not
carefully assessed while development was perceived as something that happened
to a nation rather than a process requiring conscious integration of various actors
and mobilization of social inputs. More importantly is the fact that women's role
in development was practically ignored. Brett April, in Wallace, (1991)documents
that in the 1950s and 60s, women's interests in development were subsumed
under the concerns of human rights and women were viewed as objects to protect
rather than consult. Through the 1970s,women's key positions in the development
process became more apparent especially in the realm of population and food. In
this paradigm, women emerged as useful resources to integrate into the
development process. Since the 1980s, women have been progressively viewed
not just as relevant players, but also as key agents and beneficiaries in all sectors
and at all levels of the development process. These changes have occurred with
the growth of a better understanding of gender roles.
Similarly, the perception of the relationship between gender and the environment
has also evolved. Traditionally, women have been portrayed paradoxically as
one with nature, close to nature and at conflict with nature. These views have
had both negative and positive implications. In many cases, women's socially
constructed roles have brought them in direct conflict with the environment and
earned them blame for improper use of the same. According to Sontheinier (1991),
persistent images of women carrying heavy loads on their heads, cultivating on
sloppy terrain, harvesting various products and trading on forest products have
served to reinforce already existing gender inequalities and stereotypes that do
not favour women and their inclusion in environmental management programmes.
Thus, the relationship between gender, environment and sustainable development
can be said to be one ridden with dichotomous dimensions and complexities.
These dimensions centre on among others the fact that men and women have
divergent roles in society, which dictate their patterns of the use of the
environment; women and men's control over resources especially in Africa varies
with women being constrained in different ways so as to emerge as an ecologically
marginalized group; women and men's participation in development and
environmental management is not equally acknowledged; women as opposed to
men are disadvantaged in the provision of ecological management training; and
lastly, environmental policies often tend to subsume women and men under one
group and assume similar effects on them, which is not really the case. As such,
opportunities for the formulation of sound environmental and development
policies are often lost, which translates into continued women marginalisation
and feminisation of poverty.
Description
Book Chapter