According to Neumann (2005), both women and men have different
rights and responsibilities over the environment due to the complex way of role in household,
community, and society. Those are socio-culturally understood as gender roles and
relations (Overå, 2016). It often becomes an issue of academic discourse that, do women have a distinct relationship with the environment than men? Or do women use the environment in a more sustainable way than men? Various myths and fables related to women and
environmental relationships have emerged in the different time periods. This
writing presents the common narrative in regards to women-environment discourse as
well as their consequences on the implementation and outcomes of environmental
conservation projects.
Women-environment discourses have
been served by echoing ideas or myths about gender and their relationship with
environment and development. Several popularized notions, for instance, women
are closer to nature, women have higher morale, women are inherently more
peaceful than men nature, etc. have been institutionalized within the field of gender
and development narratives (Cornwall et al.,
2007). Women and their roles often appear in gender
narrative as both heroines and victims. During the early 1980s’ women’s natural
role, subsistence, domesticity, and environment were entwined as a female domain
in which women were taken as victims of environmental degradation as explaining
their role to walk far distance to gather fuelwood (Leach, 2007). At the end of that decade women also appeared as the environmental caretaker. Mainly these assumptions were common with Women in Development
(WID) prospective and after that in Women, Environment, and Development (WED) prospective
which was translation of previous WID. The myths women as primary users and
managers have been largely advocated by ecofeminists as ecofeminist narrative
(ibid).
There was a strong alliance
between the WED and ecofeminist where they advocate the notion of women as
“closer to earth or nature” in a conceptual sense. They sought to place the
position of that notion within the development narrative (Cornwall et
al., 2007). Ecofeminists and feminist’s environmentalist Mies, (1986) argues that the strong
connection between women and nature as both co-operate with their bodies with
the earth for production and creation which is referred as “Mother Earth” myths
(Leach, 2007). Ecofeminists also argue that violence against nature and against women is
associated with industrial development and scientific revolution. It has been
argued that western imperialism and colonialism promoted masculinity as
well as rationality which created harm to both nature and women. Therefore,
environmentally sustainable and egalitarian development can be achieved through
the recovery of feminine principles Mies and Shiva 1993 as cited in Leach (2007). In feminine principle, women are
observed as all sources of life. As they are subsistence farmers, they are
also the caretaker of biodiversity Shiva 1988 cited in (Overå, 2016). In this respect, ecofeminists' arguments have
served to inspire a large range of social and environmental movements, for
instance, the “Chipkko Movement” in India.(Agarwal, 1992). Shiva (1988), draws this movement as an iconic
feminine environmental movement as indicating women as active agents in
movements of environment protection and regeneration (Leach, 2007).
Consequences of such “received wisdom”
The popularized notion “women as naturally closer to nature” has not been
remained without opponents. It is argued that emerging dynamic social context
and social construction of resource access have created environmental
problems more complex (Leach, 2007). For example, if women gather wild resources,
that might reflect their lack of access to income from trees on private land
and fuelwood head loader might have failed to negotiate with her husband to
purchase fuel as others (Agrawal 1992;
Rocheleau 1988 cited in Leach, 2007). Women-nature closeness and women’s role for
environment conservation has been largely promoted by donors and NGOs so that
they could be brought into broader project activities such as tree planting,
soil conservation (ibid). Moreover, politicians and bureaucrats generally
use such assumption as ‘stylized fact’ and catchy massages for their benefits (Cornwall et al.,
2007).
In the Gambia, the study of Carney (1993) reveals that development intervention not only
creates an opportunity for women but also creates additional work burden.
Traditionally there was a highly gendered division of work. Since the period of
early eighteenth women had rights of wetland and they have cultivated rice in
the lowland, whereas men had been involved in cultivating millet, sorghum in
the upland. But during the early decade of twentieth-century government
and other development agencies implemented the irrigation schemes aiming to
increase the productivity in agriculture through the men’s involvement in
year-around work. By placing men in charge of technologically improved rice
production, the donor hoped to encourage male participation in rice cultivation. As
a result, the conflict between men and women over the distribution of work and
benefit have been occurred (Carney, 1993). Moreover, men have used different customary
rules and started to claim surpluses (Carney, 1993, Neumann, 2005).
This shows that such social institutions and negotiation created by the development
agencies might create a situation in which women lose the control over
resources and products.
Another example from the study of Rocheleau (1988), shows that conservation
program which assumed women as active environmental agents always might not
work. In Kenya, soil conservation project women were digging the terraces, not
for the conservation but they were doing it to keep good relation with the donor
for the relief funds (Rocheleau 1988
cited in Leach, 2007). Moreover, in Indonesia in the context of
negotiating resource access of Lampung’s political forest shows the importance
of conjugal partnership (Elmhirst, 2011). In this case, to get access to resources,
individuals should have legal partnerships. Marriage in this context can be seen
as a way of reaching the rights to the property. This evidence shows that at the
community level, the cooperative arrangement of both women and men can achieve resource
access and sustainable livelihood.
It is obvious that women are significant actors in environment and they
have vital relationship with nature but we can’t ignore the men’s presence. Considering
women as the sole actors of environment protection and resource manager, environmental policies and programs would not develop the sustainable solution.
Because the role of men and the cooperative effort of both men and women is also
vital in environment conservation. On the other side, the myths and narratives
related to women and the environment could provide a path for policies and programs
in certain contexts but not all and every context. Thus, reinterpretation and
contextualization of the problem are required. According to Hirschmann (1967),
in Cornwall et al. (2007) such myths play a useful role to motivate and
sustain for development actors, it needs to reinterpret and should be based on
context. Furthermore, the concept of gender is always connected race, class,
ability, nationality, etc. so these aspects should be considered while making
and implementing environmental conservation programs and policies.
AGARWAL, B. 1992. The Gender and
Environment Debate: Lessons from India. Feminist
Studies, 18, 119-158.
CARNEY, J. 1993.
Converting the wetlands, engendering the environment: The intersection of
gender with agrarian change in the Gambia. Economic
Geography, 329-348.
CORNWALL, A.,
HARRISON, E. & WHITEHEAD, A. 2007. Gender Myths and Feminist Fables: The
Struggle for Interpretive Power in Gender and Development. Development and Change, 38,
1-20.
ELMHIRST, R.
2011. Migrant pathways to resource access in Lampung’s political forest:
Gender, citizenship and creative conjugality. Geoforum, 42, 173-183.
LEACH, M. 2007.
Earth Mother Myths and Other Ecofeminist Fables: How a Strategic Notion Rose
and Fell. Development and Change, 38, 67-85.
OVERÅ, R. 2016.
Gender, Myth, and institution. Curriculum
of critical perspective on environment and development.
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