Understanding the women and water relationship (IWC5 Presentation)

5th Biennal GEF conference 26-29 O1
Understanding the women and water
relationship
Seema Kulkarni
SOPPECOM, Pune,
India

5th Biennal GEF conferenc2
 Is water a women’s question?
 Why is it so?

Why women and water
 Water is a crucial means of production and
source of life
 All socially disadvantaged groups therefore
need to have access to means of production
 Equal citizens argument
 Women’s presence in the water related work
is high

Gender Analysis- An exercise
 Analysis of activities around water: who does what?
– Farming, Domestic, Other paid jobs, politics
 Analysis of water resources: who owns what?
– Access, ownership; Control: the power to decide whether
and how a resource is used
 Analysis of benefits and incentives
– who controls/has access to the benefits outputs of
production
– Analysis of who decides the rules- power structures

Women and water- relationship- special
one
 Access/control
 Activities
 Rule making process
 benefits

Right to Water
Water entitlements
Water technology and infrastructure and
Voice or decision making in the water
related institutions are mostly vested in
men (some)

Water knowledge
– Mostly technocentric where infrastructure and its
management are seen as central
– Women’s water related work is invisible in the
current water paradigm
– Women, dalits, gender relations or equity in
general do not feature as part of the core debates
of water thinking

Tracing history- key trends
 Women as victims of degradation of nature
and water scarcity
 Women as privileged knowers
 Women as solutions to the problem
 Theoretical underpinnings in the ecofeminist
thinking- essentialist and material basis
 Feminist environmentalism and feminist
political ecology- dynamic relationship of
women with nature and women as diverse

Tracing history ….
 The 80’s were characterized by emerging advocacy
in women’s leadership in environmental action.
 Emphasis on special relationship with nature
 This had a tremendous impact in setting
development agendas. Women were seen as
privileged knowers and therefore the solution to the
problem rather than merely victims.

Ecofeminism
 Both these were informed by the varying trends in
the ecofeminist thinking
 close connection between women and nature based
on a shared history of oppression by patriarchal
institutions and dominant western culture as well as
positive identification by women with nature.
Ecofeminist thinking had various strands within it-
essentialist, ideological and material basis for
domination of women and nature

How are women visualised
 Women first seen as the victims affected by
the environmental crisis
 Then seen as the solution because of their
natural roles as care takers and nurturers

How it translated into programmes
 Because women are the victims and because they
are also the privileged knowers they need to be
integrated into environmental regeneration
programmes- participation leads to efficiency
 Soil building planting trees, afforestation
programmes, nurseries, energy efficient stoves
community water management projects –increased
burden on women’s work without challenging
existing division of Labour

Dominant assumptions
male and female sector
 Women are home makers, nurturers and carers of natural
resources and hence they should be seen in those very roles in
the water sector.
 Women’s domain therefore remains that of domestic water
sector- collecting and using that water for the welfare of the
family.
 Men’s domain is seen in the productive sphere or the irrigation
sector. This is considered as a natural extension of their work
of value addition and surplus generation.

Approaches for gender water
advocacy
 Welfare
 Instrumentalist
 efficiency

Emerging Critiques
 The 90’s saw a lot of critiques of these
ecofeminist and WED approaches- older
concerns of women’s relationship with nature
have now been recast in terms of their
property rights

Feminist Environmentalism
Feminist environmentalism emphasized the
material aspects of gender-environment
relationships. Interests in particular
resources and ecological processes are
shaped by the roles and responsibilities that
men and women are engaged in on a daily
basis-(BinaAgarwal)

Feminist Political ecology
 Feminist political ecology draws on works from
political ecology and from various lessons in the
gender and environment debates.
 It draws attention to questions of gendered
knowledge, access and control over resources and
the engagement between local struggles and global
issues.(Rochleau et al)

What did they highlight?
 Women’s relationship with the environment
emerging from the social context of dynamic gender
relations challenging the notion of a natural affinity
 They unpacked women as a homogenous category-
relationships with nature differ for different categories
of women

 Shifting of focus from roles to relationships these
critiques pointed out relations of tenure and
property , and control over labour resources
decisions shape people’s environmental interests
and opportunities
 Both these critiques highlighted the property
relations and the need to look at informal practices
and arrangements in property that underlie the
formal arrangements.

 They also challenged the notion that women’s
participation is equivalent to benefit for women.
Saving the environment can become an additional
burden for women thereby reinforcing regressive
gender roles or not challenging existing gender roles
 They highlighted the need for progressive or
enhanced gender equity

New approaches
 Equity and empowerment

Where do we go from here
 What will our goals be?
 How will we achieve them (different
approaches equity, welfare, efficiency)
 What are our major constraints in doing so
(gender intersects with caste, class other
social differences- so can we build shared
interests?)

Way forward
 Assess the status of women’s access to
water and decision making across diverse
social groups- GEG-Levels of contestation
across domains
 calls for a restructuring of the water sector
on sustainable, equitable and democratic
lines

Understanding the women and water relationship (IWC5 Presentation)

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