Message 3: Juana Vera on the Why's

Juana Vera from Peru responds to the question: "why is it important to mainstream a gender perspective in agricultural water management?”. In her response, Juana highlights the issues of gender hierarchies in access to resources as well as social differentiation created by confronting interests and status, as playing a role in inhibiting access. She also mentions the differences in the types of roles played by men and women in agriculture, and the perceptions of agriculture as being a primarily male occupation.

Answer to question 1: Why is it important to mainstream a gender perspective in agricultural water management?

1) In spite of the fact that water is a vital resource for all living beings and embedded in all social, economic and political dimensions of society, most approaches for planning and managing water are technically biased, top-down, hierarchical, and gender blind. Management of water for agriculture is mostly seen and understood as a male domain, which has brought a biased vision and interpretation of the role of women and men in this sector. Women have been confined to domestic and reproductive roles (even though, since decades, the women are engaged in agricultural and livestock related work, their work is often and always seen as ‘softer’, ‘unskilled’, non-productive’, ‘invisible’) and men to a productive and public role. This way, access and rights to productive resources were allocated to men, credit and other facilities were allocated to men, and knowledge and training was directed to men.

2) Over the past two decades women’s role in agriculture and recently in the management of water for agriculture had been critically discussed from different perspectives.

From a neo-liberal approach it is increasingly emphasized that women are needed to keep irrigation systems and local economies afloat. An important underlying reason for international water development agencies to push for ‘gendered accountability and control’ mechanisms and recognition of ‘female clients’ lies in the conceived need to more firmly incorporate rural peasant economies and community livelihoods in national and global markets. Much emphasis and hope of neo-liberal approaches is vested in families and communities as the prime focus of local organization and management.

The feminist approach explain the causes of invisibility of women in agriculture and their subordination as a result of patriarchal and male dominated societies, which determines women’s lack of access to land and water property rights and independent entitlements. As a result, increasing women’s control over resources is as an important avenue for gender equity.

The gender perspective emphasizes that women’s disadvantaged position in water management must not be treated in isolation, since both, women and men are involved in different ways and in differentiated roles in the water management. Men and women, and not only women, are victims of their biased ideologies and discourses. Their every day practices in water management issues demonstrate that both are equally capable and knowledgeable and should have the same right to decide and have access to and control over resources. How water is managed is the result of the confrontation and negotiation of the interests, power relations, knowledge, and values between women and men, among women of different ethnic and social status, and among men of different ethnic and social status. However, sometimes women and other disadvantaged groups need to be empowered in such a way that they can negotiate with their counterparts as equals. The challenge then is to find means and resources that can empower them, raising their negotiating capacity.

3) Globalization is affecting even the most remote rural areas of the world. The new trends impose to the states to modernize and actualize their water policies and laws. New forms of water allocation and rights are discussed and negotiated, and the necessity on including marganalised and discriminated actors emerge on the international agendas and national debates. In this process, female water users are seen as instrumental agents in the re-conceptualization of water and water rights, as commodities are subject to the rules and value of the market. Drawing women into markets and meetings is how the neo-liberal approach can be summarized, something that. ‘Inclusion’ of women in formal decision-making bodies and in markets is seen to be simultaneously good for women (or gender equity) as for the performance of irrigation systems and can be achieved by removing educational and legal barriers.. Once the barriers to women’s full inclusion have been overcome, they can compete and act ‘as equals’ with others to access and control water.

This trend is a good opportunity on putting the gender equity issue on the national and international agendas of new water policies and laws. Hopefully, these changes are not only the result of the necessity of a structural change with equal features, but mainly as a result of a conscious analysis of the different local social (gender) structures and practices; which implies collaboration and mutual support among those different actors promoting gender equity from different perspectives.