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` Towards a Sustainable Scotland: Redressing the Gender Deficit. A preliminary study undertaken by Vérène Nicolas, Fellow of the Centre for Human Ecology in Edinburgh. A paper for the workshop on the Women’s Movement and Contemporary Scottish Politics. University of Edinburgh, 23 June 2001. Introduction
There has been very little research, both in Britain and more generally in Western societies, on the role of women in sustainable development. It is now widely recognised that women are amongst the poorer of the poor. They also tend to suffer particularly from bad environmental conditions. However, their potential to bring about change is still largely being ignored by policy makers. As women, we are maybe moving towards equality, but what about the “extra”, if you like, the “dividend”, that we, especially those operating and/or living at the grassroots, could contribute to achieve a more socially and ecologically just, and therefore “sustainable” Scotland? In this paper I will argue that redressing the gender deficit will pay a social dividend. I wish to emphasise that the material presented here is coming from the ground upwards; that is to say, from my personal experience as a French woman whose formative professional experience was in Ireland and who has settled for the past 4 years in Scotland. That experience has been with community empowerment and my move into the more academic dimension of this has been born out of frustration with the pronounced lack of research material that women activists and their supporters can draw upon to inform their work, redress the gender deficit and influence the policy environment. I have been struck by how little women are recognised at a policy level as a force for social change. Amongst the few papers that I have encountered, Riordan (1999) and Loots (2001), for example, help to explain why this is. Since I am interested in exploring the practical role that women play in deprived communities to achieve better conditions of life and take their full democratic place in the decision-making processes, I intend to argue here that the women’s movement can only be strengthened if we better understand why women’s contribution to sustainable development and social inclusion is unique. Background
At a recent consultation exercise organised by the Scottish Civic Forum on Sustainable Development, none of the people taking part in the “poverty and social inclusion” workshop mentioned the role that women play in deprived communities to combat deprivation and improve their environment. This underscores the key point that was established by both the Beijing Platform for Action (Section 251; “Women and the Environment”) and also the 1992 Rio Earth Summit (Agenda 21; Chapter 24; “Global Action for Women towards Sustainable and Equitable Development”). That key point is that women’s rights, the relief of poverty, and sustainability in its full socio-ecological dimensions must be tackled together. Our problems come about by these things being compartmentalised and therefore fragmented and marginalised. Our problems, including those of children, of men, of other disadvantaged groups and of other species sharing this planet, will redressed only through the development of integrated approaches that tackle the forces of domination and causes of oppression. So, how does Scotland shape up on this front? Why in the Civic Forum exercise to which I referred were women and their contributions so unpronounced? Indeed, why is the gender dimension (which hits many women in the face, day upon day) almost completely lacking in most mainstream (should one say, “malestream”?) discourse? These are questions that go beyond the immediate scope of this paper. I just want to flag them up here. What can undoubtedly be said is that all too often, women get left out of policy discourse on environment and sustainability, and equally, environment and sustainability get left out of policy discourse on women. In other words, fragmentation rules – and that’s not OK. What is the evidence for this? One example is that the landmark report – “Women’s Issues” from the Scottish Office (1998), documents progress on across many sectors, and out of forty one pages, devotes only 12 lines to the environment, and even this refers only to considerations about transport. Consistent with this, the Scottish Executive report (Scott et al. (2000)) on “Women’s Issues in Local Partnership Working” suggests that although “women are becoming increasingly important actors in economic regeneration, little is known about the extent to which local patterns of gender roles and relationships are taken into account in the planning, implementation and evaluation of regeneration strategies.” The reports concludes that this ignorance of gender imperatives “highlights the lack of a comprehensive strategy with regard to gender or equalities issues in partnership working.” A quick look at a number of recent major strategic publications corroborates the validity of this concern. Gender is mentioned little if at all, in such reports as “the Social Inclusion Strategy in Scotland” (Scottish Executive (1999)) and “A New Commitment to Neighbourhood Renewal: National Strategy Action Plan” (Cabinet Office (2001)). There is a real problem in that gender may get mentioned as one dimension of marginalisation and disadvantage but what consistently fails to receive acknowledgement is the importance of women as a force for social change and therefore the enhanced effectiveness that could be procured from the social dividend of redressing the gender deficit. Fran
Loots (2000) confirms that “the picture of women active in grassroots
movements and outside the formal political processes is found across the world
where women take on roles in different social movements or are agents of
revolutionary upheavals…. Women are indeed active in their communities and
often are at the forefront of social change.” Similarly, in her pioneering
research on women’s organisations in the UK voluntary sector, Siobhan Riordan
(1999) affirms that: “Women’s organisations have an important role in
economic and social development attracting some of the most marginalized and
socially excluded groups into mainstream policy initiatives. Research studies
are now accumulating that show how poor communities cycle upward when grassroots
women and their leaders are well supported. When women’s organising is
recognised and supported, whole communities begin to strive.” Again, a the
Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Oxfam report (May (1997)) clearly identifies
that: “The differences in women’s and men’s experience of poverty and
strategies for survival mean that they will also have different perceptions and
aspirations, and will mobilise around different issues.” It
must be said that whilst Scotland currently exemplifies many of these problems,
it is also an exciting place in which to be working at the present time. The
work of the Equality Unit of the Scottish Executive as well as a number of
women’s organisations and individuals are starting to point the way to a new
climate, and this is to be most warmly welcomed, monitored, and nourished. Aims and Methodology of the Research
As I have said, addressing all the questions of why the gender deficit has come about extends beyond the scope of this paper. What I can do, however, is to outline some highly preliminary research that I have started to undertake at the Centre for Human Ecology based on participant observation in my work with community empowerment. What I have been doing is aiming to explore, in a semi-structured manner, such scoping questions as the following:
Here I will illustrate the relevance of some of these questions by presenting three case studies that demonstrate the relationship between women, poverty and sustainable development. Each of these shows how the empowerment of women, in other words, redressing the gender deficit, pays social and environmental dividends that have very practical effects on the lives of both women and men alike. The first case study is in Ballymun, a deprived area of north Dublin. Although, outwith the borders of Britain, this case study is important as it outlines situations and patterns of involvement that are similar to the Scottish situation. It also shows how women who organise and resource their action can be a powerful force for change at a local level. The other examples draw on women’s activism in Easterhouse and on the Isle of Eigg. To deepen my understanding of the issues, I have also interviewed seven women who are either community activists or involved in research and policy development. Some of their responses are woven into the discussion below. Recently, I was also been commissioned by the Women’s Trust Fund to conduct a survey on sources of funding for women’s work in Britain. The outcomes are relevant to the exploration of obstacles that the women’s movement faces in Scotland and so I have also drawn on insights from this.
Patterns of involvement in sustainable development: Case studies in Ballymun (Dublin), Easterhouse and the Isle of Eigg Ballymun Five years ago, while I was working in Ballymun, the Irish Government decided to regenerate the area over the next 10 years by knocking down the high-rise blocks and towers characteristic of this suburb of Dublin, and replacing them by small individual houses. In order to execute this plan, Dublin City Council nominated a body of male experts (town planners, architects, councillors etc.) of whom none lived in or derived from the area. Some women attached to the Women’s Resource Centre (WRC) – a local project providing support, facilities and courses to women in the area - became conscious of the extreme importance of getting involved in the regeneration process. They first of all played an important role in raising awareness, through workshops and educational events, on what should happen in Ballymun. They were working on developing a vision for their area. One of them said: “At that time, we knew that we didn’t have the skills and jargon to engage with the officials, but we had a vision of what was good and healthy for the children in terms of safety, open-space and amenities.” They also had a vision for their ideal home, the size of the kitchen, number of rooms, facilities, light, colours and even smell! WRC women were strongly convinced that women had a much better understanding and experience of the “ecology” (e.g. household) of family and community life than all the male experts. It therefore appeared inconceivable not to include women in the regeneration process both in relation to the design of the houses and reconstruction of local communities. For one of these activists, “women are the wisdom of the community and family. They are a central element in the regeneration programme. They have a real sense of the surroundings and landscape because they are both using them everyday in some ways and are prevented from using them in other ways. They can see the weakness and strengths of the neighbourhood.” Two local women finally joined the official committee in charge of the regeneration process. Realising that they needed to improve their skills and ability to relate to the experts, the Women’s Resource Centre organised European-funded training courses for local women in architecture, design skills and social policy. The training was based on the regeneration of the area; it helped the participants build new skills and think of strategies to adopt in an area like Ballymun. The whole ethos of the course was based on people’s living environment. Parallel to this process, the Co-ordinator of the Women’s Resource Centre stood for the local elections and focused her campaign on women’s issues, the re-appropriation of politics by local people and the future of the area. She strongly believed that women needed to get involved in politics and start to give a voice to their deepest concerns. Although she only got 10% of votes in the area, she found the process very enriching. And it was challenging… “People are asking you to give them all the answers”. These
women engendered an amazing force of participation and creativity through the
whole process. The latest development in their involvement is no longer about
practicalities such as housing design and communal facilities but about
“investing in the people’s infrastructure”. They are trying to encourage
the officials to take into account the stress engendered in people by the
reorganisation of the area as well as the need to rebuild strong community links
in the new neighbourhoods. “An effective process must integrate the multiple
facets of Ballymun’s regeneration. This process needs to address how people
will make the transition and what they can do in managing their new
neighbourhood.” Easterhouse The campaign for better housing that a group of local residents led in Easterhouse in the 1980s will be familiar to most of us. Crowther & al (1999) suggest that “implicit in the account [of the campaign] is the leading role of women in collective forms of self-education and social action. (…) In this process of struggle, fuelled by anger, [the campaigners] systematically transformed their ‘personal troubles’ into ‘public issues’, making the connections not only between poverty, ill health and environmental issues but also between other communities fighting for justice at both national and international levels”. Around 1982, Cathy McCormack and Helen Martin, two community activists, joined the campaign on health and housing conditions that the Easthall Residents’ Association was running in the area. Easterhouse was built in the 1950s to re-house people from the slums of the inner city, “ironically, to address Glasgow’s appalling health record” (Crowther et al, 1999). Cathy, Helen and other residents of the area were particularly concerned with the recurrent health problems that their children were encountering from the earliest age, in particular asthma and other respiratory diseases. Cathy recalls: “I always remember my own daughter saying when she was only a few years old, ‘Mummy, see if the dampness is doing that to our furniture and my toys, what is it doing to us?’” (Crowther et al, 1999) Over the years, the campaign involved scientists, community architects and planners, health researchers and of course local politicians and other governmental officials. Interestingly the group of residents, mostly women, linked their campaign to the concept of sustainable development for which there was then a growing interest. Campaigning for healthier housing conditions was an environmental issue. The residents looked at renewable energy, in particular solar energy, as a way to get cheaper and ecological heating systems in the area. They managed to secure funding from Europe to undertake a pilot project by way of renovating around 40 houses in the area, building better insulation and installing central heating and solar energy systems. This campaign also led the residents to engage actively with local politics. Helen, at some stage, was expressing the wish to become a local councillor. She had always felt that only a local person could represent the view of the community. Similarly to Ballymun, this campaign arose out of feminine concerns for the children. Although a lot of men were initially involved in the campaign, according to one of the women activists, they gradually dropped out. When the group realised that they were going to have to acquire the skills and language to engage with the experts and Council representatives, many men got scared by the amount of learning that it would entail. “Men didn’t want to acknowledge that they didn’t know”.
The Isle of Eigg
In presenting this case study, I will draw substantially on a paper written in 1996 by Ayala Gill who was then a student at the Centre for Human Ecology. She went to Eigg a year before the residents finally managed to buy out their land and looked at the role that women had played in the campaign. Ayala argues that women’s participation in the struggle against “the oppression of land ownership” on Eigg seems to be rooted in the historical women’s movement in the Highlands, drawing on the Celtic tradition. When in 1996, after a succession of landlords, the Isle of Eigg was once again for sale, the residents of the island almost unanimously agreed that they didn’t want another laird. Through the media, “men were generally outspoken regarding the influences on their employment or security, such as the non-payment of the wages, but less so regarding the potential of community ownership itself. The result was that women appeared to be more consistently against the principle of laird ownership, whereas men tended to be more sceptical until their own circumstances allowed no alternative.” All the residents that Ayala interviewed (most of them were women) stressed that “from the beginning women [had] provided most of the organisation and motivation behind the movement towards community ownership. ‘Women run the show, men sit around, drink and talk about it!’ was a conclusion held by many women. There was an almost universal sense of greater involvement with the issue amongst women, and more despondency amongst the men. At each stage, it appears that the men have been more sceptical of the potential for change until proved wrong.” Five years on, the people are in control of their land. There is now full employment on the island and one can observe an extraordinary dynamism including environmental regeneration projects, cultural events, new businesses based on tourism etc. According to one of the female residents, women are still very involved in the running of the community. “They are doing all the voluntary work between the meetings. Men won’t sacrifice themselves for the community. They don’t like being told what to do. Also, women are always keen to learn new things. For example, many of them attended the courses we recently organised on computer skills and the Internet. Men are not so interested. They are afraid to learn new skills. They don’t want to admit they don’t know.” Patterns of involvement Although they would need to be corroborated by other examples, these three case studies seem to suggest some common patterns about women’s involvement in their community. First of all, women, or at least some women, are really at the forefront of social change. They react to a situation of injustice and most of them seem to get involved out of concern for their children’s future. Amongst the people I interviewed, a lot of them felt that children were a strong motivating force to women’s activism. One of my seven key informants who lives and works in North Edinburgh believed that this was not because women were “natural” activists; “in deprived communities, because traditional roles are still prevalent, women look after the children and are playing a caring role in the community. Men still see themselves as the breadwinners even if a lot of them are unemployed. Women will necessarily feel more concerned about their children’s needs and will easily get involved in campaigns for better schools, better health services, safer roads etc.” Another, from Easterhouse, said: “Women just do it! They don’t spend too much time thinking about things. They’ll want to solve a particular issue by getting involved in practical action”. There is a second fascinating pattern emerging here that I wish to explore. When engaging in a campaign, women immediately recognise the need for training that will help them acquire the skills and language necessary to relate equally to the experts, officials, and other “people of power”. This educational process is usually very pragmatic and directly relevant to the issues they are facing. Through this process, they will also develop confidence and self-esteem that will allow them to unfold their potential as individuals. A lot of the female community workers I interviewed or came across in deprived areas were women who had entered higher education after years of campaigning in their community. Another pattern relevant to sustainable development is the way women quickly make the link between their personal concerns and the interests of the community. In doing so, they seek to take more control over decision-making and the allocation of resources in their community. They therefore have a direct impact on the environment, through the control of the land in the case of Eigg or the improvement of housing conditions and services in the cases of Ballymun and Easterhouse. It is also interesting to observe how some of the activists wished to get involved in the formal political process, although both in Ballymun and Easterhouse, they acknowledged the difficulty and painful process of having to fight with the well-established “boys”. None of the two activists mentioned in the case studies is presently involved in politics. This seems to corroborate Loots’s (2001) finding that “in the aftermath of social upheaval women are rarely to be found in positions of institutionalised power.” This raises the usual question of how sustainable women’s action can be, especially if the political institutions are still dominated by well-educated men, not originating from the most deprived areas. The last pattern that I would like to touch on is merely an observation and would require more rigorous investigation. It is however relevant to the forthcoming workshop. All the activists I have been in contact with, have adopted and kept to very community-oriented activities. They have often founded or joined organisations that aim to advance the same issues that they originally fought. Although most of them are now in paid employment, they have maintained a strong commitment to a vision of social and environmental justice, as well as the advancement of women’s issues. Could it be that when women get involved in local campaigns they are likely to sustain their commitment over the years, and therefore potentially strengthen the wider women’s movement? Obstacles to women’s action at the grassroots Signs that women as individuals or in organisations are still deeply undervalued can be observed at all levels in Scotland. I suppose that the field of formal politics is the most obvious one and the recent elections show us, once again, that the balance for gender equality is not close to being won. Another area where the political rhetoric of mainstreaming equality doesn’t seem to have much effect on the ground, is in funding opportunities for women’s work. The research undertaken by Siobhan Riordan (2000) at the University of East London shows that “inadequate resources and the current allocation of public funds undermine the capacity of British women’s organisations to respond to the social, political and economic problems they seek to address.” Later in the paper, the author says that “despite calls to integrate women’s organisations into economic and social development, [she] found considerable evidence to suggest that they experience obstacles in accessing financial resources. (…) Interestingly, [she] was able to find very little literature which has examined and analysed the funding of women’s organisations.” The survey that I am presently completing on behalf of the Women’s Trust Fund, a small UK-based foundation, focuses exclusively on the funding available for women’s work from charitable trusts in Britain. Only a very small percentage of the income of voluntary organisations actually comes from charitable trusts. However, in a context of competition for funding as well as a serious decline of local authority support for women’s organisations, charitable trusts are heavily solicited. This survey was commissioned first of all to establish a picture of present funding opportunities for women’s work but also to look at models and processes that may help develop new funding opportunities. I have found that out of the thousands trusts listed in 1999/2000 version of Funderfinder, only a dozen actually mention women or gender issues in their guidelines, although quite a few more indirectly fund women through projects falling into their remit. When women are included in the guidelines, it is generally because they have been recognised as a disadvantaged group, but not as a positive force for social change. Family trusts can be particularly conservative. Only if one (or more) of their trustees is particularly interested in these issues have women got a chance to be included in the guidelines. Another major obstacle to the development of women’s organisations that Siobhan Riordan has outlined in her research (1999), is the power dynamic within and between women. To be fair, this is not an issue that strongly arose from my case studies and interviews with women activists. However, it seems important to mention it here as it touches on the notion of leadership which strongly affects the development of any women’s movement. Riordan reports: “The desire for equality has led many organisations to shy away from the concept of leadership and its traditional association with control and power over people. However, the funding environment is forcing increasing numbers of organisations into hierarchical forms of management as they strive to meet the criteria for public funds. Consequently, leadership development has become a critical issue within women’s organisations and individuals are striving to create new approaches to leadership using terms such as: responsive, compassionate, enabling, empowering and cooperative leadership. In rejecting traditional notions of leadership, this leaves few signposts to provide direction in how to be effective leaders.” Some organisations like Engender, the Scottish Poverty Information Unit, The Scottish Executive’s Equality Unit and some departments in Universities have done a lot of work to make sure that women’s issues are more visible in social policy. However, there is still an insufficient research base adequately to translate the issues that we all feel and experience as women into practical and effective policy development. Further research into such issues as women’s activism at a grassroots level, the specific role of women in tackling poverty and social exclusion, their practical involvement in sustainable development, their potential for restoring the environment and the funding situation of women’s organisations would strengthen the women’s movement. We need to be able to tell policy makers, “Look, investing in women will lead to social change.” Further more, we must not accept the displacement argument that the need for further research justifies not acting on what we already know. In other words, we must proceed on the basis of continual praxis of action and reflection.
New opportunities to redress the Gender deficit?It seems to me that supporting women at the grassroots should be an essential part of our efforts to sustain the women’s movement in Scotland. This is where the energy for action and the potential to redress the wider democratic deficit will come from. I would like to contribute in two ways to the discussion we will probably have on initiatives that are/should be there to build the capacity at grassroots level. First of all, in terms of funding opportunities, my research has identified promising new initiatives within the funding world at both Scottish and British levels. The Community Foundation model, for example, has the potential to improve funding opportunities through the creation of permanent endowment funds that would exclusively resource women’s work. A few Community Foundations in Britain have set up or are in the process of setting up a Women’s Fund. Community Foundations are area-based and therefore tend to be more community-oriented than traditional charitable trusts. They also tend to attract private and public donors through the creation of new funding programmes. They can therefore be innovative in their directions, and establish collaborations that did not exist before between different funding bodies. The giving-circle model, originally developed in the North America, is also presently being explored by a group of people in Scotland. The idea of the giving circle is to gather individuals who are willing to invest their personal money for social change initiatives and activists who have an extended knowledge of the issue for which the circle has been created. We may perhaps see emerging a “women’s issues giving-circle”. Lastly, the Women’s Trust Fund is planning to organise a seminar in the autumn for funders who are funding, or are potentially interested in women’s issues. Its aims will be to explore how to improve funding opportunities for women, as well as establishing new collaboration between different trusts. At some stage in the workshop, we may want to discuss if it would be appropriate to look for funding for carrying out some research on the state of funding of Scottish women’s organisations. The Centre for Institutional Studies (University of East London) and the Women’s Resource Centre in London have done an extended survey amongst women’s organisations in London. I believe the results will be published in the coming months. We may want to reflect on whether it would be appropriate to collaborate with them and possibly take part in their research at a Scottish level. The important initiative that I would like to mention here is coming from Fife. In January 2001, the Fife Women’s Network (FWN) approached the Scottish Executive’s Equality Unit to offer to run a pilot initiative in Fife as part of the national review of the Women in Scotland Consultative Forum. A multi-agency group consequently came together to work on a proposal to the Executive. It is presently lead by FWN and includes members of WEA and Engender Fife. The proposal has recently been accepted by the Equality Unit. The pilot initiative is about setting up a regional Women in Scotland consultative forum. It will involve three strands of work (for more details refer to the annex). First of all, 2 local fora will be established with the aim of involving grassroots women in the consultation process. One forum will be area-based, the other one will focus on black and ethnic minority women. We are planning to use the Listening Matters process developed by an organisation called Regenerate to involve women in these fora. If this proves to be a successful, we will be looking at extending the model to other areas and disadvantaged groups. The second strand of work will be a consultation with women’s organisations. This will involve using a “People & Parliament” type exercise with women who are already members of groups in Fife with an interest in women’s issues. The aim of the exercise will be to explore their views of the priorities for action and involve them in the regional forum. The final part of the process will involve arranging a gathering to bring together women in the local fora and those involved in organisations. This will be the opportunity to air the issues affecting women in Fife and have an input in the wider policy development process at a national level. An in-depth evaluation will be carried out after 6 months. It will then be assessed whether the regional forum model should be expanded to other areas of Scotland as part of the national WiSCF.
References
Crowther, Jim, Martin, Ian and Shaw, Mae (1999). Popular Education and Social Movements in Scotland today, NIACE, Leicester. Gill, Ayala, (1996). Community Empowerment and the Role of Women in Rural Scotland, unpublished essay, MSc Archives, Centre for Human Ecology, Edinburgh. Loots, Fran (2001), Women and Leadership Research Report, Engender, Edinburgh. May, Nicky (1997), Challenging assumptions: Gender issues in urban regeneration, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, York. Riordan, Siobhan (2000). ‘Put your money where your mouth is!’: The need for public investment in women’s organisations, Gender and Development Vol. 8, No. 1, March 2000. Riordan, Siobhan (1999). Women’s Organisations in the UK voluntary sector, Centre for Institutional Studies, University of East London Scottish Office, (1998). Women’s Issues: A Scottish Office Progress Report, Scottish Office, Edinburgh. Scottish Office (1999). A Social Inclusion Strategy for Scotland, Scottish Office, Edinburgh. Scott, Gill, Long, Gil, Brown, Usha and McKenzie, Jane (2000), Women’s Issues in Local Partnership Working, Scottish Office, Central Research Unit, Edinburgh. Women’s National Commission (1999). What’s Beijing Got to Do With Me? Women 2000: Women & Equality, The Women’s National Commission, Cabinet Office, London.
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