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Helen Anthem, Fauna & Flora’s Gender Specialist, assesses progress towards Sustainable Development Goal 5 – Achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls – and looks at some of the steps that we are taking to help accelerate that process at one of our project sites in Kenya.
Today, March 8 2024, is International Women’s Day and the theme this year is “Inspire Inclusion”.
Whilst there have been many gains, not least in the conservation sector where the need to include women is increasingly recognised, progress towards gender equality is slow. Gender, the socially constructed roles, behaviours and expectations associated with being a man or a woman, is one of the most fundamental organising factors of society and a primary source of inequality. At the current rate of progress, it will take 286 years for the world to achieve gender equality, according to UN Women’s most recent report.
Gender inequality is a barrier to addressing biodiversity loss. Despite evidence that women’s effective participation in decision-making leads to better conservation, women still tend to participate less in, and benefit less from, conservation initiatives. Often, women are seen as secondary users of natural resources. They are helping their husbands, who are viewed as the primary actors. More power is given to men; their use of natural resources, their knowledge, their experiences and their views. Women themselves often uphold these inequalities, having internalised the notion that men are the primary actors and that theirs is a support role.
Participants in a Participatory Markets System Development (PMSD) Workshop. Pemba, Tanzania. © Timur Jack-Kadioglu / Mwambao Coastal Community Network
This Participatory Markets System Development workshop in East Africa provided women with a platform to voice their opinions.
At the current rate of progress, it will take 286 years for the world to achieve gender equality, according to UN Women’s most recent report.
Helen Anthem
Senior Technical Specialist – Gender, Livelihoods & Governance
At the current rate of progress, it will take 286 years for the world to achieve gender equality, according to UN Women’s most recent report.
Helen Anthem
Senior Technical Specialist – Gender, Livelihoods & Governance
Defining true inclusivity
So, for us as conservationists, what does it mean to be inclusive of women? For a start, it means more than simply having women, and indeed other marginalised groups, present in the room. They have to be able to fully engage and influence their fellow committee or board members, and this means challenging the social norms that prevent them from doing so. Social norms are the unwritten rules within a society that shape how people behave and how they expect others to behave, and gender norms are those that relate to the expected behaviours of men and women. We learn them early in life, we internalise them, and we may not even be aware that our behaviour is affected by them.
Being truly inclusive of women means considering gender norms, and the behaviours and power relations that perpetuate gender inequality and, where possible, seeking to transform them or at the very least not reinforce or exacerbate them, within the realms of our work. Fauna & Flora has secured a grant from the UK government’s Darwin Initiative for a project that aims to address this issue at a grassroots level, working with two community conservancies in Kenya.
© Gurveena Ghataure / Fauna & Flora
Saada Abu, a radio operator from Kiunga Community Wildlife Association in Kenya.
Promoting gender equality in Kenya’s conservancies
I was recently lucky enough to visit Kenya and meet some of the project participants. A female board member of one conservancy told us “Men on the board intimidate the women, especially if they [the women] are co-opted. They [men] say you are only nominated and not elected. They interrupt and…” As she was speaking, she was interrupted by two male board members who said this is not true.
Despite their interruptions, the men I met in Kenya are taking meaningful action to be genuinely more inclusive of women. They are from communities where some people still hold very deeply entrenched views around men and women, their roles and the relationships between them. The fact that they are voluntarily engaging in the project is itself to be lauded. Through the project we are encouraging men, and women, to reflect on their own personal values, attitudes and beliefs and the unwritten rules they live by, and we are supporting them to sensitively challenge those that are harmful, both within their own lives and within their communities.
Women in conservation tech programme workshop run by WILDLABS / Fauna & Flora / OPC in Ol Pejeta Conservancy, Kenya. © Stephanie O'Donnell
Kenyan participants in the Women in Conservation Technology programme, which is creating a regional network of women working in the conservation technology community across East Africa.
Positive signs of progress
Already we are seeing signs of change. One female board member told us “Women are getting recognised. The chairman…nowadays he recognises women and gives them a chance to speak in meetings.” Another woman, from one of the communities within the conservancy, shared that she is now planning to stand for election to the conservancy board: “Honestly, I have gained courage and the confidence to speak and express my opinion in front of people… It’s important for women to amplify their voice; that is the only way they can overcome the challenges and discrimination they go through.”
Whilst it is women who are most affected by unequal gender relations and harmful gender norms, it is important to recognise that men are also affected. For example, they are expected to be big and strong and to provide for their families. Boys, apparently, do not cry.
For most people in these communities, household work and looking after children is very much a woman’s role. Some women don’t allow their husbands into the kitchen for fear of being accused by his family and neighbours of bewitching him. One man whose wife recently had a baby told us: “Since [the project started] I assist my wife in all chores to help her recover well after delivery. I fetch water for the household and I don’t care what my peers say. When I started, [they] mocked me by taking photos of me carrying water and doing household work, just to share with other men. Because I was doing the right thing, I did not care … up to today I still assist my wife in washing clothes, cooking and even taking care of my children.”
Bahari Moja marine litter management initiative cleaning up Kenya's coastline. © Bahari Moja
Women from the local community participate in a Bahari Moja marine litter management initiative aimed at cleaning up Kenya's coastline.
Beyond inclusion
Gender equality is not just about women and it is not just about the numbers. Including women does not necessarily mean we are being inclusive. Promoting gender equality requires action from both women and men. Women’s exclusion from Kenya’s conservation sector is historical and, in some cases, deeply rooted. But there are encouraging signs, as underlined by a recent feature in The Guardian profiling Maasai women who are inspiring the next generation.
With time, and with the support of men and women from the communities that the conservancies represent, we can help catalyse changes in attitudes, behaviours and the gender norms that perpetuate inequality, and create environments that enable women’s meaningful inclusion. As one male board member told us: “We cannot continue like this forever. We must change!”
Women from the villages nearby the Lolldaiga Hills Farm, Kenya collect wood from fallen trees and branches. Juan Pablo Moreiras / Fauna & Flora
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