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- Srilatha Batliwala
- Research Fellow,Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations, Harvard
University;
- Scholar Associate, Association for Women’s Rights in Developme=
nt
(AWID);
- Chair, Board of Directors, Women’s Environment and Development
Organization (WEDO
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- Eradicating the socially constructed differences between men and wom=
en
- Eliminating all forms of discrimination, exclusion, oppression and
exploitation on the basis of gender by
- Ensuring equality – i.e. sameness (as in law)
- Ensuring equity – i.e., equal access, opportunity, voice
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- Empowerment processes that transform both gender and social relations
that
- Work in favour of women;
- Create greater equality and equity between men and women within soc=
ial
groups; and
- Create greater equality and equity between women and men of differe=
nt
social groups
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- Eradicating inequitable and unsustainable exploitation and use of
natural resources, leading to degradation of the earth’s natur=
al
environment
- Ensuring that all people have a say in the management of the environ=
ment
and its resources,
- Ensuring greater voice for those who bear a disproportionate share of
the impact of environmental degradation
- Ensuring the protection of the survival and environmental needs of a=
ll
forms of life (those who can’t be at the table)
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- The relationship between gender and environmental justice is rooted =
in
social power relations
- Social power relations determine the ability to access, assert and
realize rights to both gender equality and environmental resources a=
nd
decision-making
- Therefore, this relationship must be understood by analyzing how soc=
ial
power mediates access to equity and justice in both realms
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- Who gets what
- Who does what
- Who decides what
- Who frames the agenda
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- Differential access to or control over
- Material and natural resources
- Human resources
- Intellectual resources
- Intangible resources
- Decision-making
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- Direct Power – power over others, power to make others do what=
you
want
- Indirect Power – power to influence others’ actions /
options without direct orders
- Agenda-setting Power - power to frame the agenda, decide what comes =
to
the table
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- Class, Caste, Race, Ethnicity, Age, Marital Status, Ability
- Location – urban / rural, North / South, etc.
- Historical variables (social reform movements, colonialism)
- Economic variables (agriculture / artisan / urban services, etc.)
- Legal norms
- State policies
- Social movements – especially feminist women’s movements=
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- In the Indian context,
- Female foeticide and infanticide are on the rise;
- Persistent son preference has led to declining sex ratios;
- New forms of violence against women
- Expanding practice of dowry and dowry violence
- Persistent or increasing differentials in access to food, education, and health care<=
/li>
- Reduced access to natural resources
- New and old gendered division of labor (girls’ agricultural la=
bor
substituting boys’)
- Increase in female-headed households (farmer suicides, desertion,
migration, malingering)
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- Class, caste, ethnicity, age, race, location
- Gender
- Political and economic power at various levels
- State and global institutions
- Global power hierarchies (North/South)
- International agreements – UNFCC (UN Framework Convention on
Climate Change / Kyoto Protocol, etc.)
- Natural disasters
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- In the Indian context,
- The Forest Act (mid-1800s) and shifting of control of forests from
tribal communities to the state
- Demand for energy and water leading to displacement: e.g.,
- large dams and anti-d=
am
movements – pitting the dam-affected against the drought-affe=
cted
- Nuclear power stations and factories displacing communities
- Deforestation, soil degradation, and ecological migration due to sta=
te
policies
- Rapid urbanization and deterioration of urban environment (inadequate
shelter, sanitation and waste disposal, air pollution from prolifera=
tion
of petrol-based private urban transportation)
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- New and old divisions of labor based on gender – women must:=
li>
- Gather biomass cooking fuel
- Find fodder and grazing lands for livestock,
- Locate and fetch water supplies for drinking and other basic needs,=
- Grow / gather fruits, vegetables and tubers in kitchen gardens or
collect at opportunity cos=
t
- Lack of ownership / property rights
- Lack of decision-making power
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- Access to natural resources and environmental services has been grea=
tly
reduced by:
- Privatization, commodification, and closing of the commons in the
name efficiency, stru=
ctural
adjustment and economic growth.
- War and conflict-related displacement
- Ecological displacement and migration to urban shanty towns
- Pollution, degradation, deforestation
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- Serious health hazards and impacts (respiratory disease, uterine
prolapse from headloading, cervical cancer from lack of water for
personal hygiene, maternal and peri-natal mortality, neurological
disorders from exposure to chemicals)
- Lack of access to new ideas, information, technologies
- Invisibility or instrumentalization as potential agents of change in=
the
eyes of
- Environmental movements
- Government and international agencies
- Environmental justice discourse
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- Flower workers in Colombia – majority women - are exposed to 1=
27
different types of chemicals
- In the state of Gujarat, India, women now spend four or five hours a=
day
collecting fuelwood, (earlier, only once every four to five days
- In Africa and Asia, women work an average of 13 hours more per week =
than
men
- In South Africa, poor women are trying to produce food and fuel on
marginal lands, increasing the pressure on fragile ecosystems
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- Weak focus on environmental-gender links within women’s moveme=
nts
/ feminist movements
- Hierarchization of issues within women’s and other social
movements (due to class / gender of leadership? reproduction of soci=
al
power relations? lack of grassroots base?)
- Northern discourse – including progressive discourse – on
hot environmental issues (e.g. Climate Change) largely ignore poor
women’s priorities / perspectives
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- No female “green gene”, BUT gendered roles ensure that w=
omen
- Think more inter-generationally;
- Hold valuable ecological knowledge and skills
- Make less expedient, more sustainable choices
- Prioritize family and community interests
- More open to innovation and experimentation
- More willing and able to work together
- Can traverse the micro- and macro
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- Environment discourse framed largely by scientific experts (mostly m=
ale)
from the North
- Slant towards conservationism identified population growth as key
challenge to environmental sustainability
- Feminist analysis (WEDO, Energia), particularly from the South (DAWN,
Eco-feminism), challenged this analysis:
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- They demonstrated that
- poverty, gender inequality, high child mortality rates, and lack of
resources were the root causes of high fertility; and
- The poor, esp. women, were not responsible for environmental
degradation as much as commercial exploitation of natural resources=
and
lack of sustainable development regulations
- Move to the “women’s empowerment” approach to
population issues
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- Need to develop non-instrumentalist and non-essentialist approaches =
and
analysis
- Eschew elitist definitions of environmental and women’s rights=
- Listen to women – ask how they experience the links, what their
priorities are
- Make gender and environmental justice a more critical part of their
political agenda and strategy
- Re-cast their frameworks – e.g., expand notions of violence
against women to include the violence of ecological displacement and
struggle for natural resources
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- Local NGO MahilaSamakhya found barely 10% of drinking water hand-pum=
ps
in the district were working, and male hand-pump mechanics hard to
motivate without bribes.
- MS gained support of UP Jal Nigam – state water authority - to
train Dalit women from their women’s collectives (“Mahila
Samoohs”) as hand-pump mechanics.
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- This radically changed traditional gender and caste norms, and
stereotypes about who could handle such technology
- It broadened access for poor women to a critical natural resource (d=
rinking
water) and to a male- and upper-caste controlled technology
- The hand-pump mechanics became role models for other women and girls=
- Their new roles percolated into other aspects of community and family
power relations
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- NGO ICRA initiated a sustainable agriculture program in the mid-90s,
with focus on organic farming
- Strategy was to persuade farmers to recover and use organic cultivat=
ion
methods used by their grandfathers
- Women totally ignored as both farmers and knowledge-bearers of organ=
ic
farming
- A local drought brought to light the fact that some households, where
women had surreptitiously planted resilient grain varieties, had gre=
ater
food security and income than others.
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- A feminist staff member in charge of documentation discovered
women’s vast knowledge of seeds, drought-resistant varieties, =
and
organic farming practices, and began documenting these
- She convinced the organization to admit women to the farmer’s
groups
- Today, these women are playing a leadership role in promoting
innovation, increasing yields, influencing cropping patterns, offeri=
ng
ideas, and managing farms
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- Treat women’s participation as a matter of justice, not expedi=
ency
- Balance work on individual and systemic change, and formal and infor=
mal
institutions
- Shift emphasis to buil=
ding
women’s and community’s agency
- Build collective processes and community-level women’s
organizations with broader political agendas
- Balance work on women’s practical needs and strategic interest=
s
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- "Advancing gender equality, through reversing the various social
and economic handicaps that make women voiceless and powerless, may =
also
be one of the best ways of saving the environment, and countering the
dangers of overcrowding and other adversities associated with popula=
tion
pressure. The voice of women is critically important for the world's
future—not just for women's future."
- -Amartya Sen1
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- Environmental justice (EJ) is a holistic effort to transform the pow=
er
structures that have thwarted attempts to create ecologically sound =
and
socially equitable environmental policies.
- It attempts to redress the inequitable distribution of environmental
burdens – pollution, soil degradation, deforestation, access to
natural resources such as fuel, fodder, water,
- Increase access to environmental goods and services – clean ai=
r,
safe water, cooking and transportation fuel, waste disposal, etc.
- Root causes of Ent injustice
- Institutionalized racism;
- Commodification of land, water, energy and air;
- Unaccountable governance and regulation;
- Lack of resources and power in affected communities
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- Access to technology is both a source and effectof social power
- For poor women, both patriarchal and feudal social hierarchies inhib=
it
access to better technology, but they have the most to gain from such
access
- New and innovative technologies can transform gender power and
women’s status but rarely focus on women as primary users or
targets
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- The transformative power of approaches that consciously challenge and
seek to change social power relations – especially gender powe=
r
- The value of allying environmental and gender justice as interlinked
paths to social justice
- And most importantly, the power of a paradigm that places women at t=
he
centre of every stage of the process…. Not merely as passive
victims or beneficiaries!
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- Through empowerment processes that transform both gender and social
relations that
- Work in favour of women;
- Create greater equality and equity between men and women within soc=
ial
groups; and
- Create greater equality and equity between women and men of differe=
nt
social groups
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