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Water, Mirror of Inequalities: The Importance of Gender in Water Management Loreley Garcia Federal University of Paraiba/BRAZIL
Address: R. Jose Augusto Trindade 299 apto.104 Joao Pessoa/PB 58039-020 Brazil loreleygg@gmail.com
ABSTRACT This article discusses the symbolic association between the concept of the feminine and the element water. We point out the role attributed to women in the creation of the new ethic of water management, adjusted to the necessities of the 21st. century. The Goals for the Millenium (U.N.2000) stress gender equality as a condition for the implementation of the sustainable management of water resources. The participation of women in river basin committees, making decisions on water destination, guarantees the effectiveness and sustainability, preventing mistaken politic decisions regarding equitable water partitioning. Gender equality guarantees the access to water resources to all, as well as confers to all responsibility in the preservation of ecossistems. The water scarcity, mainly in the rural environment, impacts more women and girls considering that, in most cultures, the sexual division confers them the tasks of searching, transporting, handling and storing the water. KEY WORDS: water, sexual roles, imaginary, gender, sustentability Among all the elements of nature, none has the symbolic reach of water. Many are its meanings, mutant and antagonistic; life and death, reflection of the soul, the eyes of the world, the abyss of the flood, the calm of lakes, shadowy swamps and crystal fountains, water flows in the sap, dilutes, dissolves and destroys. It forms, being itself, an element without figure. Modern civilization, rooted in capitalist or socialist industrialism, pollutes water and destroys all the life that exists in her. By killing the element essential to life, we contribute to the destruction of life itself. This affects men, not by just the obvious inviability for biological life, but also for the psyche. The destruction that takes place on water compromises the symbolic dimension, the psychic heritage and imagery that water is to humans (Bruni, 1994:64). Being the image of its own self-consciousness, a natural mirror, water reflects man. Our schizophrenic relationship with water is a reflection of the crisis of civilization, whose vision and understanding of life and worldanchor in a predatory model of development, the kind which that requires a total partition between being and nature.
To create a new culture of water implies new values and behaviors with nature. Mythic water has ecological, social, economic, political and cultural values. Its existence is connected to ours, its maintenance depends on sharing responsibility in the preservation of ecosystems, this requires new habits, new lifestyles in the world. To create this new culture of water is imperative to reorient social relations, especially in terms of gender relations. WATER AS A POLITICAL FRONTIER AND PHYSICAL REALITY Over the next 20 years, water will be the most important strategic resource, and is essential to sustain life, it is a prerequisite for achieving sustainable development. To have control of water ensures energy, economic development and health, but can also be a source of socio-political conflicts. Throughout the twentieth century, world population has tripled, increasing by six times the demand for water. Trans-frontier waters, which have always been a source of tension in the twentieth century, now anticipate wars fought over water. Water is a security concern for many countries, in armed conflicts, water becomes a weapon, a dike can destroy and flood enemy areas or reservoirs and wells can be contaminated in a conflict. Even more so, the thirst that faces the civilian population is more lethal weapons. Besides the conflicts, cooperation over water has marked the world stage, the sharing of rivers and cooperation between nations, have shown that water can not be treated in a unilateral form. According to Ghosh, we are surrounded by conflicts over water intensifying over the century, in parallel to conflicts over oil. Conflicts over water are paradigms of war of a global nature with many cultures and peoples of ecosystems against privatization (Shiva, 2002). The conflicts often come about through centralized decisions in the economic system undemocratically removing people from productive activities, threatening the water and bringing cultural insecurity and ecological crisis (Shiva, 2002). In late 2002, the global scenario involved 1.1 billion people (18% of the world population) without access to drinking water and 2.6 billion (40% of the population) without basic sanitation. In the congress Millennium Summit in 2000, governments pledged to halve the number of people without access to safe drinking water by the year 2015.
The UN introduced the theme of Gender in the Millennium goals, and there are applications here that exist for water management because clearly the distortion of access to water is correlated with the distribution of decision-making power. The flow of this inequality is only corrected with the guarantee of gender equity and the active participation of women. The Millennium Goals bind women's participation to the preservation of the environment, water management and sanitation. At the Johannesburg Summit (Rio +10), the commitment was made to promote gender equality and empower women through the National Water Plans. Such a measure, on the one hand, would ensure the sustainability of water use and environmental conservation, and on the other, through empowerment, ensure women's access to resources and allow more control over their lives. Women must be included in public plans and policies as active managers of water resources. Since the 80s, with the International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade (1981-1990, Dublin), it is clear the importance of involving women in water management and sanitation. The International Conference on Water and Environment in 1992 (Rio 92), recognized the central role of women in the provision, management and maintenance of water:
"Women have a vital role in environmental management and development. Their full participation is therefore essential to achieve sustainable development." "Access to water is a fundamental human right and essential for achieving gender equality, sustainable development and poverty reduction.(Chapter 18, Agenda 21)
The Conference on Desertification in Nairobi (1993), also points to the relationship between women, water, environment and development. The International Water Conference in Bonn (2001) incorporated this proposition for the management of water resources of the planet. In 2002, the Summit on Sustainable Development (Johannesburg), governments shouldered that: "... Capacity to build support of water and sanitation infrastructure and development of
services, ensuring that such infrastructure and services ... are gender sensitive.
In the year 2003, the International Decade for Water for Life was proclaimed. The goals for the decade 2005 to 2015 should focus on implementing programs that
ensure women's participation in development projects. Development projects are effective when they incorporate the aspirations of the people involved that benefit from their actions, and determine their contribution and participation in decisions about such benefits. The sustainability of development projects requires knowledge gender role differences where they will be executed. But why the focus on women, among all those excluded from the world? The reasons are several, among them we highlight the UN Report (Corso, 2007), which shows that among the poorest people in the world, approximately 70% of those who have no access to water and sanitation, are women. It is estimated that the lack of access to land may be underlying gender inequality in access to water. Women own less than 2% of the shares of private land in the world, this fact combined with the lack of access to water, shows that land ownership appears as a precondition to have access to water. In most of the world, supplying water is the task of women. In Asia and Africa, poor women have to walk up to 6 km per day in search of water, use up to 8 hours a day in the struggle for water, carrying cans of up to 20 kg on the head every day, endangering their health with the weight. Each day, 6 million children are affected by diseases from dirty water and unhygienic conditions; it is women who bear the burden of care for these sick. The girls do not attend school when there is lack of water in bathrooms, about 10% of African women drop out of school at puberty for that reason. The differences between men and women are of particular importance when considering the toilets, especially after puberty, they need privacy and dignity. Data from UNICEF (1998) indicate the existence of 50 million girls out of school, engaged in collecting water and firewood. The lack of toilets and lack of water exposes women to risk their own health and safety, since they need to search out more distant and desolate places. Not only health and safety are compromised by the lack of water, but the time they spend in search of water, prevents engagement in other activities, whether in school or in productive activities to generate income. In this scenario, access to clean water means better health, less harassment, better school attendance of girls, access to better jobs and increased self-esteem. In most cultures, women are responsible for the use and management of water, sanitation and health. They hold a stock of knowledge accumulated over years that can locate, transport, store, and distribute water in the home, garden and to small animals. It
is they who educate children about water use, hygiene and health. The experience and knowledge of women are fundamental to environmental management (UNEP, 2004). Using a gender perspective and incorporating the knowledge of women about the environment, augment the chances for sustainability. According to FAO (2003), lack of knowledge about the preservation techniques used by the populations of the semi-arid regions, setting priorities that set aside the users, caused major technical failures, and rejection by local communities. Sharing the knowledge and skills in management of traditional communities, to manage resources fully and efficiently, can mitigate the effects of water degradation. When water is scarce, women and girls pay dearly. Wars and conflicts exacerbate water scarcity, and aggravate the negative impacts of water scarcity on women. The effects of natural disasters such as floods and earthquakes on women is disproportionate as a result of gender inequalities, they have high mortality rates in disasters, have no access to warnings about the dangers and risks. Often their mobility is restricted by cultural and social constraints, sometimes confined to the limits of the house and unable to go out in public without a man, and they are the most vulnerable when disaster strikes and disasters. Despite the crucial role they play in conserving water, they are excluded from decisions about the design and location of water facilities, which are defined without the participation of those who are most impacted by the works. They have responsibilities in relation to water, but have no voice or power in decisions about the services they need. Ensuring equitable access to water allows women to use the resources and opportunities for income generation, minimize poverty and combat gender inequality. The Organization for Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has observed an increase in the feminization of agriculture. "This phenomenon is attributed to wars, pandemics, and male migration to urban areas. However, though there is a growing number of female-headed families in rural areas of developing countries, even if they cultivate the land and are providers for the family, they do not have the legal right to the land and as a result, water. The FAO report states that women are responsible for half of the worlds food production and in developing countries; this number could be 60 - 80% of all production. Despite this fact, the role of women in agricultural production is devalued, dismissed as "helpers for the man's work. Even as such, food security depends on the subsistence production undertaken by women.
A rural woman's life worsens with water shortages or the its price becomes more expensive. The same process that capitalizes on water commoditizes corporal labor and devalues it. Eliminating the community system of drinkable water, you lose access to natural resources, so the collective knowledge about the traditional use and management of water tends to disappear. Development projects must incorporate the aspirations of the people involved and benefiting from the actions, who will determine their contribution and to participate in decisions on water services and sanitation. Before the establishment of projects, you need to understand gender roles to enable the sustainability of the project. Another close relationship established by studies over the decades of the 80s and 90s occurs between unsafe water and lack of sanitation to poverty. Whereas water is a key factor for development, the goal is to ensure water for all, the need is crucial for a change in management. Water is linked to poverty, hunger and malnutrition, in underdeveloped countries, the degradation of water increases the cycle of poverty and degradation, not only of the environment but other spheres of life. Equitable management of water to overcome misery implies the equal participation of genders. To ensure water as a human right for all, the projects of international agencies had to review their attitudes and redefine goals and methodologies in development projects. In the 1970/80, there was the proposal "Women in Development", in order to integrate them into development projects. On this occasion, women were still regarded as passive recipients of projects to generate income. Initiatives came that were able to bring improvements to health, source of income and resources in the short term, but not able to change the unequal relationships between genders. These projects disregarded the multiple roles of women and the elasticity of their working time, which led to the failure of many initiatives. In the late 80's, the focus for the Gender and Development Project includes the elimination of inequalities between men and women as a basic condition for development. This perception remains in projects and activities of NGOs, international agencies and UN bodies. ELEMENTS SENSITIVITY Gender is a relational concept that refers to differences between roles, rights and responsibilities of men and women. Gender arbitrates what it is to be a man or a FOR THE SUCCESS OF PROJECTS WITH GENDER
woman, what qualities, behaviors and identities appropriate each that must be acquired in the socialization process. The gender relations are hierarchical and restrain women, are oppressive, limiting self-determination of life and the body itself, access to rights, and power and control of resources. Inequalities of power are associated with disparities in access to goods and resources. Water management enables the understanding of the variety of ways in which the lives of men and women are built in categories. The experience of women in the world is marked by discrimination, constant violation of their human rights and relations mediated by the axis of stratification, such as race, caste, class, age and marital status or position in the family. To achieve gender understanding it is necessary to examine systematically the impacts that development produces differently on men and women regarding sexual division of labor and devaluation of work, ask how a specific activity, decision or plan affects women and men (Parker, 1993).
"The functions, traditionally viewed as feminine, created a gap in the management of resources for women, especially with water. The equal participation of women in decisions about the allocation of water resources will ensure access for all to benefit in areas of water scarcity. "(Parker, 1993)
We believe that socio-economic analysis without gender perspective is incomplete. From there you can plan better, capturing the differences between the genders in community relations and how to use resources, including water. It should be noted that families headed by women have less bargaining power than households headed by men. Disregarding gender analysis, projects wind up reinforcing the inequalities between men and women, increasing disparities. According to Wijk-Sijbesma (2001), the gender perspective ensures the participation of men and women, and increases the chance of success, as demonstrated by the study of IRC in 88 communities. The 15 projects, designed and implemented with the participation of women, were more sustainable and effective than those where they had no involvement. Gender inequalities explain the forms by which individuals elected to respond to changes in the management of water resources, choices and different options. Women organize
themselves differently, facing specific obstacles in order to participate in projects, users and committee meetings. The chances of poor women to be elected to positions on committees of water is minimal, because they have less time available than others. Families headed by poor women have poorer health, and remain absent from decision making forums or conferences, not benefitting from improvements in the community (Cleaver, 1998). There is an expectation on the part of agencies, that they be inspirational, (even while working a triple shift), responsible for the organization and movement while jeopardizing other tasks. We can see that for the planners, they have free time and endless availability to coordinate and organize actions. In fact, a community is made up of individuals and groups who command different levels of power, wealth, influence and ability to express needs and interests, often competitive. Resources when they are scarce, put the poor at a disadvantage in the distribution, but it is the unequal power relations that put women at a disadvantage. Gender analysis helps to allocate resources to the different needs of women and marginalized groups. Water projects, gender and development can not do without careful observation of power relations in communities, identifying priorities and interests, and divisions between generation, religion, class and gender. The opinions that contradict the more powerful groups can not be expressed if there is no guarantee of fairness in hearings. We should consider the difficulty that women have to speak in public, since they have less access to formal education and can be inhibited in front of the husband or father. Men are more focused on public activities, they end up having more experience to build arguments and deal with situations and strangers. Moreover, cultural norms require that decisions are taken by men, therefore, neither the sexual division of labor, nor gender discrimination in resource rights are dealt with in public. Discourse and ideology play key roles in the reconstruction and legitimacy of institutions and authorities which format the space for political action of women. So gender and water projects need to criteriously elaborate the means of operation in participatory processes. It is a condition for the success and effectiveness in the use of water facilities and sanitation that there is women's participation in site selection and technology facilities, and also an assumption of responsibility for operation and maintenance.
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Effective water management needs democracy, transparency, and representation of the needs of people, especially for the main users of water in the world - women. Ensuring access to water, means to have access, an average of 20 liters / person / day within a circumference of a one kilometer walk from the home. This means creating a new culture that considers water a public good, a right, not a commodity traded on the open market. As a public good, water must be managed to meet social needs and environmental sustainability, and not the greed of profit. As discussed, gender inequalities have powerful and differentiated reverberations between men and women when there is a lack of water (Sanjay 2004). To Ghosh (2007), the unequal access of men and women to water, increases the fragility of the environment. Although the woman is responsible for the management of domestic water supply, sanitation and health, her role in water management is neglected. The lack of access to land underpins the limits of women's access to water and is therefore key to the poverty that affects families headed by women. To participate in water management means more power and rights over it, and to challenge the divisions of land resources and water values, and beliefs and norms about the division of labor and female identity. Public policies that ignore the particular needs of women, or their contribution in water management, are doomed to failure. Increasingly, there is a growing recognition of women and community as innovators of techniques for conserving biodiversity and combating desertification. Gender roles change over time and circumstances, because there is no special knowledge ascribed to one sex, but rather a cultural and behavioral construction, which varies in space and time. WATER AND ECOFEMINISM From the ecofeminist perspective, we can understand the problem of water pollution. This approach emphasizes the analysis of human relationships with nature and between different categories of human beings as manifestations of sexism, racism and environmental classism. Ecofeminism proposes to overcome this condition by a strategy of water justice, ecological democracy, green economy and a culture of partnership where power and water are free. In Ecofeminism, the interconnections between women, water and energy, among other eco-social problems gain prominence. More than a junction between feminism and environmentalism or between women and
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nature, the ecofeminist approach is based on the premise that the way to deal with nature is inseparable from the way that we treat each other. Industrial society is anchored in the idea that water is the place to deposit the trash. But how can this idea be compatible with the need for clean water for survival? We know we need water for human consumption and for environmental health, yet we continue to transform the sources of drinking water into sewers. For Val Plumwood (1993), this dichotomy that separates pure water / waste water, is associated with the dualisms norms that are at the root of Western thought and culture. This dualism will be the key to understanding the schizophrenic relationship that we have with nature. Plumwood (1993) describes the oppression of human beings and nature as a system of oppressive structures based on the hierarchical dualisms that structure Western thought and culture and finds its origin in Platonic philosophy. Not explainable as the action of a single system, nor patriarchy, nor capitalism, nor anthropocentric view. Examining the various forms of oppression, especially the intersections of race, gender and colonialism the dualisms are contrasting pairs constructed to explain the forms of oppression, especially the intersections of race, gender and colonialism. Plumwood (1993) discusses the oppression of Western culture over nature, whose origins would lie in the development of the concept of the dominant male, holder of reason, which in turn is conceived as the opposite of nature and its associated women, body, emotions and reproduction. Feminists argue that oppression of women in Western culture is characterized by its association with emotion, body and nature (Ortner, 1974: Gray, 1979; Griffin, 1978; Spretnak, 1982; Steinem, 1992). This is an incomplete explanation, as other cultures and civilizations oppress women without roots in Platonic philosophy. The conceptual relationships between women and body, women and people of color, women and nature, or water, serve to emphasize the inferiority of these categories. Hierarchical dualisms manifest themselves politically through socioeconomic structures and identity, the dualism of gender and nature focuses on the intersection of the privileges in terms of race / class / gender / species / sex (Gaard, 1997; Plumwood, 1993). The ecofeminist hypothesis is that the treatment of women in Western culture links itself symbolically, psychologically, economically and politically to the treatment
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of nature. Our relationship with water is based on the errored linear model and puts lives at risk. The linear model works through the assumption that one can extract continuously the energy of nature, water, poor people, people of color, women ... to exhaust them completely and move on to other prey elsewhere, in an operation wasteland that disregards the limits of the resources, ecosystems and the planet itself. The same model that depletes energy produces continually waste, noise, electromagnetic radiation, flooding, pollution (Mies & Shiva, 1993). To survive, we need to change the relationship of culture with water, and this wont happen unless we process three types of change simultaneously: the changing of formal democracy for an expanded governance, the changing of economic profits accounting for the that of human needs and ecosystems, and the overcoming of cultural beliefs which are incompatible with the dignity and freedom of all.
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