Gender

Citation:

Weller, Ines. 2017. “Gender Dimensions of Sustainable Consumption.” In Routledge Handbook of Gender and Environment, edited by Sherilyn MacGregor, 331–44. London: Routldege.

Author: Ines Weller

Annotation:

Summary:

Sustainable consumption and production patterns have been prominent issues from the very start of the sustainable development debate. In fact, Agenda 21, the plan of action adopted at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in Rio de Janeiro stated that ‘the major cause of the continued deterioration of the global environment is the unsustainable pattern of consumption and production, particularly in industrialized coun-
tries . . .’ (UN 1992:31). Although the urgent need for fundamental changes in consumption and production patterns, which would transform societies and push them in the direction of sustainable development, has been recognized since that time, particularly in the Global North, there are still very few signs that any such transformation is taking place. World energy consumption grows unabated as global carbon emissions continue to rise. The fundamental inequalities between the Global North and South also remain, despite very high rates of growth in the newly industrialized and developing countries of the Global South in particular (IEA 2013). In this context, and especially in the context of sustainable patterns of consumption and production, the attitudes and behaviours of private citizens and consumers, their perceptions of environmental problems, and associated use of resources all play an important role. Hitherto, however, these debates have neglected the significance of gender, gender relations, and gender justice for sustainable consumption.

In this chapter, I will focus on debates and research in Germany/Western Europe. I begin by introducing the definitions, objectives, and areas of responsibility of various actors for sustainable consumption. This compact overview focuses in particular on the relationship between production and consumption as gendered societal spheres. I then move on to consider the tension that exists between the theory of privatized environmental responsibility, on the one hand, which criticizes tendencies to overstate and moralize the power of private consumers to shape change and, on the other, women as change agents for more sustainable consumption. The next part of the chapter is organized around the distinction, which is useful for analyzing the gender aspects of sustainable consumption, between explicit and implicit gender dimensions. With reference to feminist theorist Sandra Harding (1986), I draw together the individual and structural levels of gender as explicit gender dimensions. Both of these are for the most part based on statistical data and empirical findings, particularly concerning gender differences and, in this respect, link to ambivalence between the analysis of gender and gender hierarchies, on the one hand, and the reproduction of traditional gender images and dichotomies on the other. The discussion focuses in particular on the symbolic conceptual level of gender, which I consider in detail in relation to a specific example. The background is the feminist critique of the claim of the natural sciences to objectivity (Orland and Scheich 1995). Drawing on the example of a study on the volume of food waste, I draw attention to several gender-related ‘blank spaces’ and gaps in the data that have been produced in this field. This emerges more clearly from closer consideration of the treatment given to male-coded production and female-coded consumption. (Summary from original source)

Topics: Development, Environment, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Justice Regions: Europe, Western Europe Countries: Germany

Year: 2017

Citation:

Banks, Nina. 2020. “Black Women in the United States and Unpaid Collective Work: Theorizing the Community as a Site of Production.” The Review of Black Political Economy 47 (4): 343–62.

Author: Nina Banks

Abstract:

This analysis discusses the lived experiences of Black American women as the basis for a new theoretical framework for understanding women’s unpaid work. Feminist economists have called attention to the invisibility of women’s unpaid work within the private household but have not adequately considered the unpaid, nonmarket work that women perform collectively to address urgent community needs that arise out of racial and ethnic group disparities. As such, racialized women’s unpaid, nonmarket work continues to be subject to invisibility. This analysis reconceptualizes Black women’s community activism as unpaid, nonmarket “work” and illustrates that the community is a primary site of nonmarket production by Black women and other racialized women. The community is an important site where racialized women perform unpaid, nonmarket collective work to improve the welfare of community members and address community needs not met by the public and private sectors. The analysis elevates the community to a site of production on par with the household, thereby calling for a paradigm shift in feminist economic conceptualizations of unpaid work. This new framework enables us to examine intersectional linkages across different sites of production—firms, households, and communities—where multiple forms of oppression operate in structuring peoples’ lives. Compared with additive models of gender and race, this intersectional approach more fully captures the magnitude of racialized women's oppression.

Keywords: African American women, unpaid work, community work

Topics: Economies, Care Economies, Feminist Economics, Gender, Women, Intersectionality, Race Regions: Americas, North America Countries: United States of America

Year: 2020

Citation:

Hoogensen, Gunhild, and Kirsti Stuvøy. 2006. “Gender, Resistance and Human Security.” Security Dialogue 37 (2): 207–28.

Authors: Gunhild Hoogensen, Kirsti Stuvøy

Abstract:

In the debate on human security, the leading question for many is ‘where do we go from here?’ Through this article, the authors contribute to the discussion by exploring both the extent to which gender approaches have been relevant to the human security debate thus far and how they can offer some directions forward. They argue that gender approaches deliver more credence and substance to a wider security concept, but also enable a theoretical conceptualization more reflective of security concerns that emanate from the ‘bottom up’. The authors therefore incorporate gender theory to develop human security as an epistemological perspective to security studies. Gender theory claims that security must be linked to empowerment of the individual, as well as to the capabilities to create positive environments of security. They employ the tool of resistance as one crucial example of human agency in security. Practices of resistance, in the latter’s various empirical forms, are present in all social contexts. Such a perspective on security directs attention to the practices of agents and provides a basis for exploring contextually dependent insecurities and securities.

Keywords: security, human security, gender, resistance, dominance/non-dominance

Topics: Gender, Security, Human Security Regions: Americas, North America, Europe, Nordic states Countries: Canada, Norway

Year: 2006

Citation:

Stockemer, Daniel, and Michael J Wigginton. 2020. “The Gender Gap in Voting in Post-Conflict Elections: Evidence from Israel, Mali and Côte D’Ivoire.” Conflict Management and Peace Science, 1-23. doi: 10.1177/0738894220966577.

Authors: Daniel Stockemer, Michael J. Wigginton

Abstract:

In this article, we first formulate some theoretical expectations about the development of the gender gap in voting in post-conflict situations. Second, we test these expectations on five cases, including two civil wars, the Ivorian Civil War (2011) and the Malian Civil War (2013–2015), and three major international Israeli conflicts, the Yom Kippur War (1973) and the First and Second Lebanon Wars (1982–1985 and 2006). We do so by comparing women’s and men’s turnout before and after a conflict using individual voting data and find that the sum of the nine factors we identify (i.e. duration of war, type of warfare, end of fighting after ceasefire/peace settlement, change in workforce participation, international involvement in the peace process, international development aid, the militarization of politics and female social movement activism) explain changes in the gender gap in voting after the conflict in three of the five cases we study.

Keywords: Gender gap in voting, post-conflict situation

Topics: Gender, Men, Women, Militarization, Political Participation, Post-Conflict Regions: Africa, Asia, Middle East Countries: Côte D'Ivoire, Israel, Mali

Year: 2020

Citation:

Arndt, Channing, Rui Benfica, and James Thurlow. 2011. “Gender Implications of Biofuels Expansion in Africa: The Case of Mozambique.” World Development 39(9): 1649–62.

Authors: Channing Arndt, Rui Benfica, James Thurlow

Keywords: biofuels, 'gender', growth, poverty, land abundance, Africa

Annotation:

Summary: 

We use a gendered dynamic CGE model to assess the implications of biofuels expansion in a low-income, land-abundant setting. Mozambique is chosen as a representative case. We compare scenarios with different gender employment intensities in producing jatropha feedstock for biodiesel. Under all scenarios, biofuels investments accelerate GDP growth and reduce poverty. However, a stronger trade-off between biofuels and food availability emerges when female labor is used intensively, as women are drawn away from food production. A skills-shortage among female workers also limits poverty reduction. Policy simulations indicate that only modest improvements in women’s education and food crop yields are needed to address food security concerns and ensure broader-based benefits from biofuels investments (Summary from original source).

Topics: Economies, Poverty, Gender, Women, Security, Food Security Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: Mozambique

Year: 2011

Citation:

Salleh, Ariel. 2010. “Green New Deal - or Globalisation Lite?” Arena, no. 105 (May): 15-9.

Author: Ariel Salleh

Annotation:

Summary:
"In response to the global climate crisis and the breakdown of international financial institutions, green new deals are being discussed in local, national, regional and international settings. But the word ‘deal’ gives the lie to new, for these are mostly trade-off packages designed to hold together the narrow political arena of business-as-usual. The Transatlantic Green New Deal, the Global Green New Deal, as well as British and Australian versions, look rather like a revved-up Hobbesian social contract, drafted in the realisation that life under global capitalism is more ‘nasty, brutish and short’ than ever before. The outline of the contract is on the table, but only one voice is represented in the text. Class difference appears only as an employment statistic and the systematic exploitations of race and gender that underpin the global economy are ignored. The neocolonial South, the domestic North, and material nature at large, remain sites of subsumption in green new deal discourse" (Salleh 2010, 15).

Topics: Economies, Environment, Climate Change, Gender, Post-Conflict, Race Regions: Americas, Europe Countries: Australia, United Kingdom

Year: 2010

Citation:

Roy, Sajal. 2018. “Women and Disasters in South Asia: Survival, Security and Development.” Gender, Place & Culture 25 (2): 315–16.

Author: Sajal Roy

Abstract:

Women and Disasters in South Asia: Survival, Security and Development is an edited collection that investigates primarily how gender and politics are shaping post-disaster reconstruction and development processes in South Asian countries. Most of the disasters included in this collection are profiled in Indian case studies, including the Indian Ocean tsunami as witnessed in Tamil Nadu (2004), the earthquake in Gujarat, (2001), the super cyclone in Odisha (1999), the flood in Bihar (2008), the Cloudburst in Ladakh (2010). A few chapters extend beyond India to examine events such as the floods in Pakistan (2010) and post-tsunami reconstruction in Sri Lanka (ongoing since 2004). The book captures both women’s vulnerabilities and resiliencies in post-disaster setting, demonstrating that women and men experience disasters differently due to the social construction of their socioeconomic positions, gender roles and relationships with government and society.

Topics: Economies, Poverty, Environment, Climate Change, Environmental Disasters, Gender, Men, Women, Post-Conflict Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka

Year: 2018

Citation:

Resurrección, Bernadette P., and Rebecca Elmhirst, eds. 2020. Negotiating Gender Expertise in Environment and Development. Routledge.

Authors: Bernadette P. Resurrección, Rebecca Elmhirst

Abstract:

This book casts a light on the daily struggles and achievements of ‘gender experts’ working in environment and development organisations, where they are charged with advancing gender equality and social equity and aligning this with visions of sustainable development.

Developed through a series of conversations convened by the book’s editors with leading practitioners from research, advocacy and donor organisations, this text explores the ways gender professionals – specialists and experts, researchers, organizational focal points – deal with personal, power-laden realities associated with navigating gender in everyday practice. In turn, wider questions of epistemology and hierarchies of situated knowledges are examined, where gender analysis is brought into fields defined as largely techno-scientific, positivist and managerialist. Drawing on insights from feminist political ecology and feminist science, technology and society studies, the authors and their collaborators reveal and reflect upon strategies that serve to mute epistemological boundaries and enable small changes to be carved out that on occasions open up promising and alternative pathways for an equitable future.

This book will be of great relevance to scholars and practitioners with an interest in environment and development, science and technology, and gender and women’s studies more broadly.

Annotation:

Table of Contents:

Introduction: Troubling Gender Expertise in Environment and Development: Voices from Feminist Political Ecology

Part 1: The Politics of Identity and Boundary Marking

1. Strategic Reflexivity in Linking Gender Equality with Sustainable Energy: An Engineer in the Gender Profession
By Rebecca Elmhirst and Bernadette P. Resurrección
In conversation with Joy Clancy

2. Is Epistemic Authority Masculine? Reflections on Gender, Status and Knowledge in International Agricultural Research and Development
By Bernadette P. Resurrección and Rebecca Elmhirst
In conversation with Gordon Prain

3. Epistemic Crossings of a Marine Biologist through Gender Encounters
By Bernadette P. Resurrección and Rebecca Elmhirst
In conversation with Maeve Nightingale

4. Beyond the Business Case for Gender: A Feminist Political Ecologist in the FAO
By Rebecca Elmhirst and Bernadette P. Resurrección
In conversation with Clara Mi Young Park

5. Challenges and Dilemmas of Integrating Gender in the Field of Environment and Development at SEI: Metrics and Metaphors
By Andreea R. Torre
In conversation with Natalia Biskupska, Marisa Escobar, Laura Forni, Emily Ghosh, Ha Nguyen, and Lisa Segnestam

Part 2: The Politics of Knowledge in Environment and Development Realms

6. The Politics of Feminist Translation in Water Management
By Bernadette P. Resurrección and Rebecca Elmhirst
In conversation with Seema Kulkarni and Margreet Zwarteveen

7. Embodied Engagement with Gender and Agrobiodiversity: Leveraging Transformative Moments in Multidisciplinary Teams
By Rebecca Elmhirst and Bernadette P. Resurrección
In conversation with Marléne Elias

8. Please Genderise My Log Frame: Interactions with Technical Specialists for Gender Mainstreaming in Environment Projects
By Bernadette P. Resurrección and Rebecca Elmhirst
In conversation with Annette Wallgren And Victor Tsang

9. The Gender Professional as Ethnographer: Working for Equitable Forests
By Rebecca Elmhirst and Bernadette P. Resurrección
In conversation with Carol J. Pierce Colfer

10. Disaster Risk Governance and Gender Professionals: Command-and-Control and Re-Doing Gender
By Bernadette P. Resurrección and Rebecca Elmhirst
In conversation with Maria Holtsberg, Napapan Der Kinderen, and Hilde Jakobsen

11. Lifting the Barriers of Integrating Gender in Livestock Production
By Bernadette P. Resurrección and Rebecca Elmhirst
In conversation with Nicoline De Haan

12. We Build the Power in Empowerment: Feminist Activism at the Forefront of Environment and Climate Change Arenas
By Bernadette P. Resurrección and Rebecca Elmhirst
In conversation with Kate Lappin

Part 3: The Power of Gender Champions

13. Supporting Gender Experts: A Donor Perspective
By Bernadette P. Resurrección and Rebecca Elmhirst
In conversation with Maria Von Berlekom, Eva Johansson, Orawan Raweekoon and AnnaKarin Norling

14. Gender Equality Work At USAID: Mandatory as Applicable
By Kai Spratt And Charles 'Will' Lewis II

Afterword: Gender Expertise, Environmental Crisis and the Ethos of Care

Topics: Agriculture, Development, Environment, Climate Change, Environmental Disasters, Gender, Women, Gender Mainstreaming, Infrastructure, Energy, Water & Sanitation

Year: 2020

Citation:

Hans, Asha, Nitya Rao, Anjal Prakash, and Amrita Patel, eds. 2021. Engendering Climate Change: Learnings from South Asia. New York & Oxon: Routledge.

Authors: Asha Hans, Nitya Rao, Anjal Prakash, Amrita Patel

Abstract:

This book focuses on the gendered experiences of environmental change across different geographies and social contexts in South Asia and on diverse strategies of adapting to climate variability. The book analyzes how changes in rainfall patterns, floods, droughts, heatwaves and landslides affect those who are directly dependent on the agrarian economy. It examines the socio-economic pressures, including the increase in women’s work burdens both in production and reproduction on gender relations. It also examines coping mechanisms such as male migration and the formation of women’s collectives which create space for agency and change in rigid social relations. The volume looks at perspectives from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal to present the nuances of gender relations across borders along with similarities and differences across geo-graphical, socio-cultural and policy contexts. This book will be of interest to researchers and students of sociology, development, gender, economics, environmental studies and South Asian studies. It will also be useful for policymakers, NGOs and think tanks working in the areas of gender, climate change and development.

Annotation:

Table of Contents:

1. Gender, Climate Change and the Politics of Vulnerability: An Introduction
Nitya Rao, Anjal Prakash, Asha Hans, and Amrita Patel

PART I: Vulnerabilities

2. Vulnerabilities of Rural Women to Climate Extremes: A Case of Semi-Arid Districts in Pakistan
Ayesha Qaisrani and Samavia Batool 

3. Gendered Vulnerabilities in Diaras: Struggles with Floods in the Gandak River Basin in Bihar, India
Pranita Bhushan Udas, Anjal Prakash, and Chanda Gurung Goodrich

4. Of Borewells and Bicycles: The Gendered Nature of Water Access in Karnataka, South India and Its Implications for Local Vulnerability
Chandni Singh

5. Vulnerabilities and Resilience of Local Women Towards Climate Change in the Indus basin
Saqib Shakell Abbasi, Muhammad Zubair Anwar, Nusrat Habib, and Qaiser Khan

6. Climate Change, Gendered Vulnerabilities and Resilience in High Mountain Communities: The Case of Upper Rasuwa in Gandaki River Basin, Hindu Kush Himalayas
Deepak Dorje Tamang and Pranita Bhushan Udas 

PART II: Adaptation and Wellbeing

7. Wells and Well-being in South India: Gender Dimensions of Groundwater Dependence
Divya Susan Solomon and Nitya Rao

8. Gender, Migration and Environmental Change in the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna Delta in Bangladesh
Katharine Vincent, Ricardo Safra de Campos, Attilan N. Lázár, and Anwara Begum

9. Women-Headed Households, Migration and Adaptation to Climate Change in the Mahanadi Delta, India
Sugata Hazra, Amrita Patel, Shouvik Das, Asha Hans, Amit Ghosh, and Jasmine Giri

10. Gender Dynamics and Climate Variability: Mapping the Linkages in the Upper Ganga Basin in Uttarakhand, India
Vani Rijhwani, Divya Sharma, Neha Khandekar, Roshan Rathod, and Mini Govindan 

11. Shaping Gendered Responses to Climate Change in South Asia
Asha Hans, Anjal Prakash, Nitya Rao, and Amrita Patel

Topics: Agriculture, Displacement & Migration, Climate Displacement, Migration, Economies, Environment, Climate Change, Environmental Disasters, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Infrastructure, Water & Sanitation Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: Bangladesh, India, Pakistan

Year: 2021

Citation:

Erzurum, Kemal and Berna Eren. 2014. “Women in Peacebuilding: A Criticism of Gendered Solutions in Postconflict Situations.” Journal of Applied Security Research 9 (2): 236–56.

Authors: Kemal Erzurum, Berna Eren

Abstract:

Women are the most suffering part of populations in conflicts. They are required to fulfill different responsibilities during and after conflicts. Considering this fact, participation of women at peacebuilding efforts in postconflict areas has been considered as sine qua non requirement. However, active participation of women at these efforts, particularly decision-making activities, has been hampered due to diverse reasons. The barriers that block women involved in peacebuilding processes as decision-makers should be reexamined and eliminated by eradicating inequalities. In this article, gender-based violence, underestimated plight of women in conflicts, gendered approach of peacebuilding efforts, and the barriers in front of women's active participation in decision-making processes are examined.

Keywords: women, peace, peacebuilding, conflict, decision making, gender

Topics: Conflict, Gender, Women, Peacebuilding, Political Participation, Post-Conflict Regions: Africa, Europe Countries: Bosnia & Herzegovina, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone

Year: 2014