Message 16: Juana Vera with examples

Dear participants,

I would like to corroborate the comments of Gina and Violet with some examples on why it is difficult to mainstreamed gender in water management.

1. Most of the promoters or workers in this area are men, and most of them are very reluctant to integrate gender in water management. I remember in one of my studies one of the directors said: we work in water management about externalities (production and income rising) and not about the intimate life of women, and the what has to do gender with water management?. Here a big misunderstanding about the concept of gender.
2. In other workshop directed to technitions I observed the attitude of some of them (specially water engineers). They listen the workshop and they also participate very good, but later on they made comments between them, that the gender relations in the Andes will never change, because they are built on well balanced and complementary relationships. The gender mainstreaming is a necessity of the funds agency and occidental point of view.
3. What wrote Violet is right about the attitude of gender activists or promoters, who usually take over all the responsibility on integrating gender in the project, without interacting with their male colleagues. Even these attempts cause a lot of negative impacts on women in the rural areas. These activists tend to protect and act as mothers and lawyers of the farmer women, because they see them only as a victims and subordinated groups by machista society. Women are not only victims and passive actors, they are active and can be empowered on developing their agency on looking for their own solution of their problems.

Juana Vera