Household Gender Integration and Separation

Household

Meaning and composition of household varies from place to place.

Households are key units of production, reproduction, consumption, and survival strategies during crisis (Ellis, 1998).

Davidson (1991) notes, conceptualization of household are not without inherent difficulty, especially with regard to specifying membership criteria, activities, and boundary.

A household includes all the persons who occupy a housing unit. A housing unit is a house, an apartment, a mobile home, a group of rooms, or a single room that is occupied (or if vacant, is intended for occupancy) as separate living quarters

Households and Livelihoods

A good starting point to understand households and livelihoods is to ask who owns what? Who does what? Who gets what? Who do they do with it? Who is doing things together? With whom what things?

The way by which one earns enough to pay for what is necessary is called livelihoods (Longman Contemporary English dictionary).

A livelihood comprises the capabilities, assets and activities required for a means of living (Keith J. Rennie and Naresh C. Sing, 1996).

Frank Ellis (1998) states, a livelihood encompass income, both cash and kind, as well as the social institutions (kin, family compound, village and so on), gender relations, and property rights required to support sustain a given standard of living.

A livelihood includes access to, and benefits derived from, social and public services provided by the state such as education, health, services, roads, water supplies and so on.

According to Norman Long (1997), livelihood implies more than just making a living (i.e., economic strategies at household or inter-household levels). It encompasses ways and styles of life/living. Therefore, it also includes value choice, status, a sense of identity as well as other modes and types of social persons.

Household consumption

Whoever you are and wherever you live, you are part of a household. Households and their consumption patterns affect everything from biodiversity to water use, climate change to waste. How you – and everyone else – live your life at home is an environmental issue of global importance.

Household and Gender

Gender refers to the different roles, rights, and responsibilities of men and women and the relations between them.

Gender does not simply refer to women or men, but to the way their qualities, behaviours, and identities are determined through the process of socialization.

Gender is generally associated with unequal power and access to choices and resources.

The different positions of women and men are influenced by historical, religious, economic and cultural realities. These relations and responsibilities can and do change over time.

Gender Integration and Separation in Household level

Gender differences arise from the socially constructed relationship between men and women.

Gender differences affect the distribution of resources between men and women and are shaped by ideological, religious, ethnic, economic, and social determinants.

Control over household resources – particularly women’s control of resources – is determined not only by social and cultural institutions but also by factors such as women’s access to labor markets, paid employment, and other productive resources.

Bargaining power

Bargaining power can work as an alternative approach to gender integration in household level. Determinants of bargaining power include:

(1) control over resources, (2) factors that influence the bargaining process, (3) mobilization of interpersonal networks, and 940 basic attitudinal attributes.

Individuals can also mobilize personal networks to improve their bargaining power. Membership in organizations, access to kin, and other social networks, and “social capital” may positively influence a person’s power to affect household decisions.

Household, Gender and Area of Activities

Normally women are confined in the following areas of activities:

Women’s productive or labour power Women’s reproduction Women’s sexuality Women’s mobility Property and other economic resources Social, cultural, and political institutionsThe mentioned activities are dominant by men

(patriarchy).Even the language bears the character of patriarcy.

Do Education and Development Bring Equality Between Men and Women?

Not necessarily. Patriarchal bias continues to dominate everywhere and women’s movement and women’s studies, practitioners remain in battles against these stream.

HISTORY is nothing but HIS STORY. And not HER STORY. We need HER STORY for getting complete picture of the world.

What is Gender Relation?

Relations based on Gender are called Gender Relations. “The term gender relation refers to the relations of power

between men and women which are revealed in a range of practices, ideas, representations, including the division of labour, roles, and resources between women and men, and the ascribing to them of different abilities, attitudes, desires, personality, traits, behavioural patterns and so on. Gender relations are both constituted by and help to constitute these practices and ideologies in interactions with other structures of social hierarchy such as class, caste, and race. They may be seen as largely socially constructed (rather than biologically determined), and as variable over time and place.”

Like gender, GENDER RELATIONS ARE NOT SAME IN EVERY SOCIETY, NOR HISTORICALLY STATIC. THEY ARE DYNAMIC.

This understanding challenges that within HOUSEHOLD, GENDER RELATIONS are harmonious, and without conflict.

What is Gender Division of Labour?

All activities can be divided into three categories: • Productive• Reproductive• Community• Productive refers to that activity which produces

goods, and services for consumption and trade. Work done in factories, office, farms fall in this category.

• Reproductive is of two kinds – biological and social. Biological refers to giving birth, while social refers to caring and nurturing activities.

• Community work refers to all those activities necessary to run and organize community life.

Gender Division

Gender division of labour, therefore, operates not only in reproductive activities within household but in productive and community activities as well.

Gender division of labour is now considered as a key concept to understand how gender inequalities or asymmetries are kept in place and reconstituted.

Household and Water

A Rural Household generally has a tubewell (drinking water, sanitation, other water related activities).

A pond or several ponds around a household (fish nurturing, duck rearing, bathing, and other water related activities).

Small home gardens for vegetables, where water is necessary.

Livestock and kitchen unit of a household, where water is vital.

A household is a small bio-unit, where without water it cannot function.

Household and Water

Daily Basic Water Requirement for drinking, sanitation, bathing and cooking.

Water Requirement for plant kingdom around a household.

Water Requirement for biotic life around a household.

Water for environmental needs of a household.

Household – A Small Bio-Unit

Household - a bio-unit is inherently related with water.

Water stress, water excess, pollution, etc. will have adverse impact on this bio-unit.

Natural resources in and around a household are water dependant.

Environmental health, ecological balance (which are water related) of these natural resources will ensure the life of a household.

A household level hydrological cycle is an important component to understand household life and water related activities.

Household – A Small Bio-Unit

Hydrological cycle at household level is nothing but interaction of water in air and soil medium in a small scale of house unit.

Effective water management may be achieved in a wider scale if all water issues are addressed at household level.

At household level, the major burden of work load goes to women.

Women’s multiple roles at home level need to be recognized for proper water resources management.

Household – A Small Bio-Unit

Water is a purifying, regenerating, creating and destroying element and is closely intertwined with women’s roles as bearers and nurturers of life, and collectors and managers of household water.

Water crisis has become a part of our everyday's life. Drought, floods, impure drinking water and health hazards, privatized or decentralized community based water management, or new paradigm of IWRM in the context of increasing poverty, and the challenge of globalization, etc. have made water truly multidimensional with a variety of social actors.

It is necessary to try to solve water issues at household level considering active participation of women and men in water management and decision making.