Sustainability and Rural Women in the UK

Research announced by my university this week had some good and bad news - whilst they say that high carbon emissions are not a requirement of high life expectancy (citing Costa Rica and other nations), low carbon emissions pretty much always correlate with poor life expectancy etc.

The sustainability issue is the focus of the Rio+20 summit later this year, but I can't help but think it will be raised at the CSW as I see it as intricately tied to the livelihoods of rural women in all countries. Whilst my previous post touched on how the environment is key to women in African nations, environmental issues are definitely important for rural women in the UK to.

In a time of funding cuts, it's difficult for a rural woman in the UK to prioritise sustainable transportation methods as bus services are reduced. Less buses (and more expensive tickets) not only impacts on carbon emissions, but also on the employment and social opportunities of rural women. The council in the above example say they targetted evening and weekend services - clearly with the premise of the working week running 9-5 Monday to Friday - but women in the UK are more likely to be part-time employment which often requires working outside of the usual 9-5. Women are also more likely to be in insecure work (and make up a greater proportion of those claiming job-seekers allowance) with the gap between women and men growing since 2008.

These statitics are reiterated for rural women across europe and this same report highlights the importance of women in the process of sustainable development. The male dominated rural networks can exclude women from decision making processes simply by being places that they don't want to be. Rural women need to be given a voice for sustainable development in their communities.

Thoughts on the Rural Environment

"The world’s population is going to stop at nine billion and go down. It’s an enormous achievement. And it’s largely an achievement of women, and particularly poor women who have been able to get hold of contraceptives or say, 'No'. Literacy is the best predictor of this. As soon as you see tiny improvements in female literacy, women gain more control of their own lives and you see dramatic falls in fertility." - Danny Dorling,  2010

Women in rural areas, in most countries, often face more barriers in getting an education, in getting access to contraception and thus controlling the size of their families. I'm simplifying here, but the basic human geography mode suggests that without education, the labour value of people is their main asset, and so the more children you have the more labour your family work force can do. So there may be little impetus to overcome these barriers.

But what sort of labour are these families doing? In Kenya, where I did my fieldwork, and in Ghana, where I taught English a few years ago, the vast majority of families were reliant on agriculture for their subsistence. So much so that in Ghana we wold be covering lessons for Ghanaian teachers because they had gone to tend their farms that day. In Kenya, labour has a strong gender divide: men are in charge of the animals (though women sometimes took charge of chickens and goats) and women do the majority of the agricultural labour. In terms of how these contribute to feeding the family, it's fair to say the majority of the food came from the women's efforts. And it is those who depend on agriculture for daily living that are hit hardest by a changing environment. The whole East Africa region has suffered with drought, and when the rains do come the soil is degraded and large gulleys form, dividing up the village.

These environmental issues have some similarities and some difference to those faced by rural populations in the UK...

56th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women

After lying dormant for a while I will be picking up this blog once again - this week I heard the fantastic news that this spring, I will be once again going with WAGGGS (World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts) to UNHQ in New York! This time I will be taking on a mentor and training role within the delegation, and I'm excited for a trip to London this Tuesdey to discuss the event.

The priority theme for CSW 56  will be:
"The empowerment of rural women and their role in poverty and hunger eradication, development and current challenges"

Doing a research project in a rural Keyan village back in March 2011, and then spending June through to September living in a small village in the Norfolk countryside has given me a flavour of the impact of geography (particularly rural v urban) on achieving gender equality.

One such issue is gender based violence and whilst a WI study in the UK, has shown that the amount of violence against women is comparable in rural and urban areas (though other studies have shown certain types of violence to be higher in urban areas) there is a distinct lack of relevant services in rural areas shown by the Map of Gaps project. The area I lived in over the summer has 0 such services.

In Kenya, violence against women is arguably even more of a concern. This 2003 report on progress towards UN goals in the Convention on the Elimination of Violence Against Women (CEDAW) demonstrates that pervasive cultural norms are a significant barrier to easy implementation of such aims. Female Genital Cutting has been outlawed in the country since 2003, but in rural areas the enforcement of such laws is difficult - and often not a priority.

And it is here where the environment and sustainability is a becoming an increasing concern...till the next post.