Title
Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment in the Work of WCS in the Andes-Amazon and Orinoco Regions
Author(s)
Lehm, Z.; Lara Delgado, K.; Espitia, M.A.; Zapata-Ríos, G.; Segovia Salcedo, M.C.; Dalgo, P.
Published
2021
Abstract
In the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) Andes, Amazon, and Orinoco Program, we have
an initiative, Minka, to share work experiences and knowledge. Its aim is to strengthen the
capacities of WCS and its partners and is organized in communities of practice, one of which
is the Working Group on Communities.
This compilation is the product of a Minka-sponsored webinar on June 6, 2018, which
consisted of the following speakers: Galo Zapata Rios of WCS in Ecuador with his research
on the participation of women and children of the Shuar people in hunting activities, Kantuta
Lara Delgado on the work of WCS in Bolivia with the Indigenous Council of Tacana Women
(CIMTA), Paulina Dalgo on WCS’s work in Ecuador with the Ecuatorian Amazon Waorani
Woman Association (AMWAE) and María Antonia Espitia on WCS’s work in Colombia with the
Bocas del Carare Enterprenour Women Association (ASOMUCARE). Zulema Lehm, author of
this introduction, made an analytical synthesis of the experiences presented.
At the webinar, the Communities Working Group decided to compile the presentations, so
each author wrote an article and an additional article on economic income among households
of the Tacana indigenous people in the Bolivian Amazon was added. This set of articles is
organized in two parts: the first, which presents research with a gender focus, and the second,
with the systematization and identification of lessons learned in processes of action and
support for the empowerment of women in areas of WCS work.
Galo Zapata Ríos’ presentation recalls Margaret Mead, a famous anthropologist from the
United States. Between 1920 and 1930, she worked with indigenous populations in Papua
New Guinea. In her book Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies she demonstrated
that the division of labor between men and women was not dependent on the nature of sex,
as was widely believed then and still nowadays is, but was dependent on culture. Shifts in the
division of labor and the roles assigned to men and women between societies of different
cultures, which she studied, showed this variability. Similarly, Zapata’s article demonstrates
that, although hunting is generally assigned to men exclusively, this differs in the case of the
Shuar people because both men and women, as well as boys and girls, participate in it.
Findings such as Margaret Mead’s, ratified by this case study, lay important foundations for
gender theory and feminist studies. From this it is established that:
a. Gender relations (those between men and women) are different according to culture
and are bound to change over time. This points to the fact that unequal relations
between men and women do not have a biological or natural reason and are not
immutable and eternal.
b. Concurrently, a culturally determined division of labor and assignment of roles translate into knowledge systems and practices that differ between genders, and also between
generations.
c. The expansion of value systems throughout the world has permeated the different
indigenous cultures, and in many cases has coincided with or succeeded in
overdetermining the positions that men, women and youth hold in society, confining
women to domestic spaces and establishing men’s monopoly of public spaces, where
decisions are made.
d. In our countries and in their Amazonian territories, despite the efforts made, marked
inequalities prevail between men and women in terms of health, education, economic
income, access to land and other factors of production, exposure to risk, violence, etc.
The research by Zulema Lehm and the WCS social team in Bolivia on household income
shows how the contributions of biodiversity and women are rendered invisible by studies
that highlight monetary income and economic costs while ignoring non-monetary activities.
It puts on the table the discussion about the contributions of biodiversity and well-conserved
ecosystems, as well as the unpaid and care economies, mostly in charge of women.
The experiences of WCS working with Tacana women in Bolivia, Waorani women in Ecuador
and fishermen’s wives in Colombia, presented in this document by Kantuta Lara, Paulina
Dalgo and María Antonia Espitia, show the strategies developed by WCS in the region and
the lessons learned.
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