Gender

Citation:

Brown, Rebecca. 2010. “Unequal Burden: Water Privatisation and Women’s Human Rights in Tanzania.” Gender & Development 18 (1): 59–67. doi:10.1080/13552071003600042.

Author: Rebecca Brown

Abstract:

Access to water is a critical component in advancing the human rights of women. Although privatisation of water services continues to be pushed by donors such as The World Bank, the available information shows that privatisations are not increasing access to water for poor women. This paper examines the human right to water and why this right is critical for women and girls. It then discusses privatisation, and the tension between contractual obligations and respect for human rights. Finally, it explores some strategies and successes from women’s involvement in the struggle against water privatisation in Tanzania.

Annotation:

Topics: Gender, Women, Girls, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Infrastructure, Water & Sanitation, International Financial Institutions, Rights, Human Rights Regions: Africa, East Africa Countries: Tanzania

Year: 2010

Citation:

Bennett, Vivienne. 1995. “Gender, Class, and Water: Women and the Politics of Water Service in Monterrey, Mexico.” Latin American Perspectives 22 (2): 76–99.

Author: Vivienne Bennett

Annotation:

This article investigates how the women-led protests in Monterrey, Mexico that occurred at various points between 1970-1985 impacted water infrastructure legislation and reflected gendered aspects of Latin American urban social activism. Bennett situates her argument in literature linking gender and class as forces of double exploitation for poor urban women, as well as literature that differentiates between women protesting on the basis of practical concerns for social reproduction versus protests which are oriented around class or gender-based discrimination. When faced with problems related to their access to water, Monterrey’s housewives responded by banding together in their neighborhoods and establishing strategic plans of escalation that began with negotiation and culminated in disruption of government processes. Bennett argues that these women’s protests were a major factor in encouraging the “Water for All” national infrastructure project (which was passed incongruently during a period of restricted social expenditures) and ultimately in reconstructing their identities as proactive agents of change.

Quotes:

“...the protests contributed to the formation of new identities for women as the women of Monterrey made themselves the “active subjects of social change” instead of the passive objects of state decisions about public services.” (94)

“Although women in Monterrey participated in the protests out of their practical gender need for improved water services, the fact of their participation meant that they were proactive instead of passive. Even if they were not consciously striving to create new gender roles, their participation in the protests contributed to a reformulation of their identities as citizens that has been going on for some time in Latin America” (94)

Topics: Class, Economies, Economic Inequality, Gender, Women, Gender Roles, Infrastructure, Water & Sanitation Regions: Americas, North America Countries: Mexico

Year: 1995

Citation:

Ahlers, Rhodante and Margreet Zwarteveen. 2009. “The Water Question in Feminism: Water Control and Gender Inequities in a Neo-Liberal Era.” Gender, Place and Culture 16 (4): 409-426. doi:10.1080/09663690903003926.

Authors: Rhodante Ahlers, Margreet Zwarteveen

Abstract:

The current neo-liberal moment in water policy appears to offer possibilities for realizing feminist ambitions. Several feminist scholars see the individualization and privatization of resource rights as offering possibilities for confronting gender inequalities rooted in, and reproduced by, historic and structural male favoured access to productive resources such as land and water. But we seriously doubt a progressive feminist potential of neo-liberal reforms in the water sector. We focus on water used for agricultural purposes, because neo-liberal water proposals are premised on taking water out of agriculture to uses with higher marginal economic returns. A first set of doubts involves water as a specific resource, largely because of its propensity to flow. Rights to water are less fixed and more prone to be contested at various levels and in different socio-legal domains than rights to other natural resources. The second set stems from our disagreement with the ideological underpinnings of the neo-liberal project. It reflects our concern about how water reforms articulate with wider political-economic structures and historical dynamics characterized by new ways of capitalist expansion. Furthermore, mainstream neo-liberal water policy language and concepts tend to hide precisely those issues that, from a critical feminist perspective, need to be questioned. Feminist reflections about tenure insecurity and social inequities in relation to water clash with the terms of a neo-liberal framework that invisibilizes, naturalizes and objectifies the politics and powers involved in water re-allocation. A feminist response calls for challenging the individualization, marketization and consumer/client focus of the neo-liberal paradigm.

Annotation:

In this article, Ahlers and Zwarteveen undertake a feminist analysis of water policies and politics by studying agricultural water management in Latin America. They frame their argument in a conceptualization of water rights that refers to people’s relations and negotiations with others and with their environment, rather than on technical legal definitions. Neo-liberalism is understood as a force whose impacts on women and on social equity are largely obfuscated by efforts by policy makers to depoliticize, de-contextualize, and universalize water management issues. In light of the the current momentum of neo-liberal policies in the developing world, the authors challenge inherited feminist thought focussed on endowing women women with individual land / water rights, on the grounds that individual rights are more vulnerable to neo-liberal dispossession than usufructuary rights (especially for women) and on the fact that individualized conceptualizations of water have little relevance to the relational and negotiated informal water management structures that dominates in many developing societies.

Quotes:

“In theory and principle, ‘inside’ the neo-liberal water domain, all actors are equal or need to become equal… In line with this view, liberal gender or feminist strategies tend to focus on ‘equalizing’ and ‘including’ women… Such ‘equalizing’ measures and the underlying analysis overlook and ignore the social, cultural, and historical dimensions of gender inequities. Women cannot merely be added on to a Water Users Association with a title in their hands after male members and officials have been gender sensitizes, expecting entrenched structural inequalities and diverse world views to merge into a single harmonious agenda.” (417)

“The normative emphasis on the autonomous individual as the primary agent, or the separate self-model of neo-liberal policy and of some feminist narratives alike, is problematic in that it conceives of gender relations mainly as antagonistic and conflicting. The social dependencies that are intrinsic to water ownership should be neither denied nor romanticized but require a sound relational analysis that recognizes both collaboration as well as conflict, and that can be used to identify sources of security alongside sources of vulnerability in terms of water. Gender relations are neither solely harmonious nor antagonistic, but involve common interests as well as conflicting ones, emotional dependencies alongside economic support.” (418)

“Gender relations and identities interact with other social identities and relations. It is probably no exaggeration to say that the only thing most female irrigators have in common is their lack of formal rights and powers, but little can be concluded from this commonality in terms of gendered interests or needs. Gender is seldom the primary or most important axis along which water responsibilities and identities are divided, nor can water needs and interests be easily categorized on the basis of gender. What women and men do, need and want in relation to water is only partially shaped by gender, and is a function of complex social and political dynamics.” (419)

“Particularly in relation to the water sector, it is important for a feminist project to explicitly situate its analysis in the structural transformation currently taking place, embedding gender dynamics in the world historical process of privatisation.” (419)

Topics: Civil Society, Development, Environment, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Infrastructure, Water & Sanitation, Rights

Year: 2009

Citation:

Ahlers, Rhodante. 2005. “Gender Dimensions of Neoliberal Water Policies in Mexico and Bolivia: Empowering or Disempowering?” In Opposing Currents: The Politics of Water and Gender in Latin America, edited by Vivienne Bennett, Sonia Dávila-Poblete, and María Nieves Rico, 53-71. Pittsburgh, PA: University of  Pittsburgh Press.

Author: Rhodante Ahlers

Annotation:

Increased industrial and domestic demand for water, waning supplies of fresh water, in conjunction with global economic liberalization trends have prompted international development bodies to shift towards defining water as a commodity rather than a basic human right. Ahlers uses cases from Mexico and Bolivia to illustrate how increased privatization and use of market mechanisms perpetuates and legitimizes institutional and social barriers women face in formal and informal access to water. The “one-size-fits-all” approach to privatization currently favored by transnational neoliberal institutions solidifies and exacerbates existing gender inequalities and ignores culture-specific values of water.

Quotes:

“An emphasis on individual and formal rights for women disregards the complexities of local definitions and practices of rights not reflected in state law or recognized by state institutions, with serious consequences for those social groups dependent on the primary titleholder.” (60)

“As multiple values of water are attributed simultaneously, reducing water to a mere economic, monetary value is alienating. Water users move in a constellation of multiple and intersecting inequalities that both limit their scope of choice or force them into making certain choices. Their choices are not solely informed by cost benefit analyses but also by empathy, solidarity, and collective action.” (60)

“Where before the collective served as a buffer, now the individual has to solve her or his problems without community support. Women in marginalised households who do have titles need to sell their land and/or water for a pittance to sustain their families. Those women without titles are cut off from the informal avenues of access to land and water altogether. Formalizing water rights, therefore, could very well discriminate against women’s access to property rights, rendering obsolete their investments in labor, knowledge, and networking. Furthermore, the buyers in this water market are all male, which raises the concern that not only do market mechanisms reproduce gender inequities, they exacerbate them.” (65)

“As the debate over water privatization continued, male and female farmers began to withdraw from dealing with the state, insisting on the protection of their local usos y costumbres … the increasing alienation from the state is taking water users to a traditionalist refuge, one that could well conceal and reproduce gender inequalities.” (68)

Topics: Civil Society, Development, Economies, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equity, Globalization, Rights, Human Rights, Property Rights Regions: Americas, North America, South America Countries: Bolivia, Mexico

Year: 2005

Citation:

Dinye, D. 2012. “Gender and Labour Force Inequality in Small-Scale Gold Mining in Ghana.” International Journal of Sociology and Anthropology 4 (10): 285–95. doi:10.5897/IJSA11.063.

Author: D. Dinye

Abstract:

Gender inequality is an inevitable concomitant of the innate poverty in humanity, a situation to which the Ghanaian society is no exception. This paper explores the underlying elements of gender inequality pertinent to women in the small-scale gold mining sector in Ghana drawing inference from a case study of the Tarkwa-Nsuaem municipal assembly area in the western Region. The contribution of women to the small-scale gold mining sector and through that poverty reduction is immense, notwithstanding a number of factors that alongside militate against their well being. The drawbacks have to do with the unregulated, dangerous and insecure conditions of the small-scale gold mining operators that for the most part, tend be discriminative against women. These are in areas of the health, income and capacity building package benefits to their labour force. The policy implication is the need for government to institute gender-sensitive workplace regulatory policies and programmes to be adhered to in the small-scale mining sector in the country. It should be the responsibility of the municipal and all the relevant regulatory authorities to ensure that the designated policies as well as the attendant rules and regulations are enforced.

Keywords: small-scale mining, women, poverty, gold miners

Topics: Economies, Economic Inequality, Poverty, Extractive Industries, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Governance, Livelihoods Regions: Africa, West Africa Countries: Ghana

Year: 2012

Citation:

Dawson, Angela J., and Caroline S. Homer. 2013. “How Does the Mining Industry Contribute to Sexual and Reproductive Health in Developing Countries? A Narrative Synthesis of Current Evidence to Inform Practice.” Journal of Clinical Nursing 22: 3597–609. doi:10.1111/jocn.12191.

Authors: Angela J. Dawson, Caroline S. Homer

Abstract:

Aims and objectives

To explore client and provider experiences and related health outcomes of sexual and reproductive health interventions that have been led by or that have involved mining companies.

Background

Miners, and those living in communities surrounding mines in developing countries, are a vulnerable population with a high sexual and reproductive health burden. People in these communities require specific healthcare services although the exact delivery needs are unclear. There are no systematic reviews of evidence to guide delivery of sexual and reproductive health interventions to best address the needs of men and women in mining communities.

Design

A narrative synthesis.

Methods

A search of peer-reviewed literature from 2000–2012 was undertaken with retrieved documents assessed using an inclusion/exclusion criterion and quality appraisal guided by critical assessment tools. Concepts were analysed thematically.

Results

A desire for HIV testing and treatment was associated with the recognition of personal vulnerability, but this was affected by fear of stigma. Regular on-site services facilitated access to voluntary counselling and testing and HIV care, but concerns for confidentiality were a serious barrier. The provision of HIV and sexually transmitted infection clinical and promotive services revealed mixed health outcomes. Recommended service improvements included rapid HIV testing, the integration of sexual and reproductive health into regular health services also available to family members and culturally competent, ethical, providers who are better supported to involve consumers in health promotion.

Conclusion

There is a need for research to better inform health interventions so that they build on local cultural norms and values and address social needs. A holistic approach to sexual and reproductive health beyond a focus on HIV may better engage community members, mining companies and governments in healthcare delivery.

Relevance to clinical practice

Nurses may require appropriate workplace support and incentives to deliver sexual and reproductive health interventions in developing mining contexts where task shifting exists.

Keywords: developing countries, mining, nurses, sexual and reproductive health interventions

Topics: Economies, Extractive Industries, Gender, Health, HIV/AIDS, Reproductive Health, Livelihoods

Year: 2013

Citation:

Cuvelier, Jeroen. 2011. “Men, Mines and Masculinities: The Lives and Practices of Artisanal Miners in Lwambo (Katanga Province, DR Congo).” PhD Diss., Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.

Author: Jeroen Cuvelier

Abstract:

This dissertation deals with the phenomenon of artisanal mining in Katanga, the southeast province of the Democratic Republic of Congo. In the course of the past decade, thousands of people have moved to the Katangese mining areas with the aim of finding new sources of income and developing new strategies to be able to cope with the continuing economic depression in their country. Making use of simple tools such as shovels and pickaxes, artisanal miners or creuseurs have started digging for copper and cobalt ores, which are in great demand among mineral traders and metal producers. While copper prices have been on the rise as a result of expanding infrastructure in rapidly developing countries such as China and India, cobalt prices have also boomed, largely as a result of the growing demand for cobalt-based rechargeable batteries, which are used in various electronic devices such as cell phones, laptops and camcorders. Due to the fact that, in Katanga, the artisanal mining sector constitutes a genuine male stronghold, artisanal mining is an excellent field to examine the relationship between work and masculinity. The main argument of this dissertation is that large groups of Katangese men have engaged in artisanal mining because they are eager to redefine the relationship between work and masculinity. Although, primarily, they go to the mines to earn themselves a living, they also use their stay in the mining areas to experiment with new ways of being a man. Unlike their fathers and grandfathers, who were able to prove their manhood through the performance of wage labour for one of the many companies in the region, contemporary Katangese youngsters are forced to try their luck in the informal economy. Many of them feel attracted by artisanal mining, because they believe that, in the mines, they will be able to make a lot of money within a short period of time. Moreover, they are convinced that, thanks to their work in the mines, they will be able to develop typically masculine qualities such as physical strength, bravery and technical knowledge. Thus, it can be argued that Katangese men use their stay in the mining areas to construct new masculine identities

(abstract from Ghent University Academic Bibliography)

Topics: Displacement & Migration, Migration, Economies, Extractive Industries, Gender, Men, Masculinity/ies, Gendered Power Relations, Livelihoods Regions: Africa, Central Africa Countries: Democratic Republic of the Congo

Year: 2011

Citation:

Cohen, Roseann. 2014. “Extractive Desires: The Moral Control of Female Sexuality at Colombia’s Gold Mining Frontier: Moral Control of Female Sexuality.” The Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology 19 (2): 260–79. doi:10.1111/jlca.12098.

Author: Roseann Cohen

Annotation:

Summary:

During the 1990s, Amparo [an artisanal gold miner] mined along the heavily dissected terraces and floodplains of the Nechí River basin in Northeastern Antioquia and in the foothills of the San Lucas mountain range along the departmental border with Bolívar.

In this essay, I rely on Amparo’s narrative to examine the relationship between extractive accumulation and the moral control of female sexuality at a Colombian gold-mining frontier. Her narrative offers a commentary about life and work at the frontier as experienced by a nonwhite single mother at male-dominated mining camps. Amparo describes how she negotiates access to mines and maintains control over the products of her labor, albeit with limited success. In particular, Amparo’s participation in the gold-mining economy demonstrates how familiar scripts of gendered virtue (i.e., “proper” wife, single mother) and the contrary figure of the sexual deviant (i.e., loose woman, sex worker) play a role in the subject formation of artisanal miners and the ongoing dispossession this labor force experiences. I argue that the state’s emphasis on moral deviance among artisanal miners displaces extractive desires onto the bodies of laboring women, creating a resource-rich frontier where the moral control of female sexuality shapes pathways of dispossession and accumulation.

(Cohen, 2014, p. 260).

Topics: Economies, Extractive Industries, Gender, Women, Gender Roles, Gendered Power Relations, Livelihoods, Sexuality Regions: Americas, South America Countries: Colombia

Year: 2014

Citation:

Chaturvedi, Neilan S., and Orlando Montoya. 2013. “Democracy, Oil, or Religion? Expanding Women’s Rights in the Muslim World.” Politics and Religion 6 (3): 596–617. doi:10.1017/S1755048312000648.

Authors: Neilan S. Chaturvedi, Orlando Montoya

Abstract:

Of the 45 Muslim majority countries in the world, 42 have signed the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. While this does indeed signal a motive to improve women’s rights, there is wide disparity in terms of which countries expand rights and which do not. Social science literature suggests that in addition to economic factors like wealth and oil resources, or political factors like the quality of democracy in the country, Islamic culture may be at odds with the Western conception of women’s rights. We posit that Muslim countries are unique in this regard due to religious pressures that often conflict with conventional measures of human rights. Using data from the Cingranelli-Richards Human Rights Dataset and the Religion and State Project, we find that Muslim countries that restrict the influence of fundamentalist religion in the government and population improve women’s economic and social rights.

Topics: Democracy / Democratization, Economies, Extractive Industries, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Political Participation, Rights, Women's Rights Regions: MENA, Asia, Middle East

Year: 2013

Citation:

Charrad, Mounira M. 2009. “Kinship, Islam, or Oil: Culprits of Gender Inequality?” Politics & Gender 5 (04): 546-53. doi:10.1017/S1743923X09990353.

Author: Mounira M. Charrad

Abstract:

Gender inequality in the Muslim world has become the object of high drama on the international scene. Ghostlike images of women wrapped in burqas and begging in the streets of Afghan cities swept television screens in the United States following 9/11. The number of articles on Muslim women in English newspapers has increased exponentially in the last few years. Although the popular press and the media continue to emphasize seclusion and subordination in their description of Muslim women, scholars have written extensively and persuasively to debunk the myth of the Muslim woman as a victim, passively suffering the subordination imposed on her. Starting in the 1970s and continuing to the present, a rich literature has argued that as elsewhere in the world, Muslim women have not only resisted subordination but have actively shaped their own destiny (e.g., work by Leila Ahmed [1992], Nadje Al-Ali and Nicola Pratt [2008, 2009], Elizabeth Fernea [1998], Nikki Keddie [2002, 2007, 2008], and Fatima Sadiqi and Moha Ennaji [forthcoming]).

Annotation:

Quotes: 

“I have ascribed women’s subordination in the Muslim countries of the Middle East to the kinship/politics nexus. I have pointed to a form of kinship that relies on bonds among men. I have focused on a long history of “kin-based solidarities” in the political system (Charrad 2001, 2007a). This history has led to the development of powerful patriarchal networks that tend to perpetuate gender inequality in law, politics, and the economy.” (547)

“History suggests that the “atypically strong patriarchal cultures and political institutions” that Ross (2008, 107) attributes to oil in fact predate oil economies in the Middle East. Several oil-producing countries in the region have a long history of strongly patriarchal structures and political institutions. Examples include Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the Gulf Emirates, Libya, and Iraq. Oil was discovered in societies that were based on tribal or kin ties, with strong patriarchal networks invested in the control of women. These tribal or kin ties became the basis for the political system, and the oil economy later was grafted onto these social structures. In some cases, patriarchal networks were kept in place or were even reinforced by colonization, as in Algeria.” (548)

“The theory I have offered indicates that political systems that build their power on kin-based patriarchal networks tend to curtail women’s rights, whereas those that have historically evolved to be relatively autonomous from such networks tend to favor more women-friendly policies (Charrad 2001, 1–13 and 233–41; 2007a).” (548)

“Ross’s argument is not sufficient to explain the differences in the Maghreb... On the basis of a strict adherence to Ross’s pathway, one would expect Tunisia, where women have achieved greater political participation, to have a smaller oil industry than Morocco. However, this is not the case. In fact, while Tunisia has oil rents at the relatively low rate of $61 per capita, Morocco has none at all… Yet Tunisia has witnessed greater female political participation and ranks higher on the Gender Rights Index than does Morocco. Neither oil nor Islam explains this difference.” (549-50)

Topics: Economies, Extractive Industries, Gender, Women, Gender Roles, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Political Participation, Rights, Women's Rights Regions: MENA, Asia, Middle East

Year: 2009