Women in Forestry: Dilemmas of a Separate Women's Organization

Abstract

This paper discusses women's organization within forestry in Norway. As a separate women's organization, Women in Forestry (JiS), which aims to increase women's influence, faces several dilemmas and challenges. One of the main dilemmas is that by founding a women's organization, gender is made visible and put into focus, while its ultimate aim is to make gender irrelevant and the organization redundant in the future. Based on interviews with founders and representatives of JiS, and with women active in forestry, written documents and the magazine The Forest Owner, the study analyses the strategies that the organization pursues to deal with this dilemma. Strategies that reduce their particularity and increase their universality include avoiding a feminist label, seeking alliances with men and having a diverse group of members.

Gender representation on Canadian forest sector advisory committees

“…Forestry and forest management are gender-neutral. This explanation is difficult to reconcile with findings in both developing and post-industrial countries that have emphasized the distinctive gender relations in forestry activities-from logging to management (e.g., Haugen 1998, 2000;Agarwal 2000Agarwal , 2001Lidestav and Ekström 2000;Reed 2003;Arora-Jonsson 2004;Brandth et al 2004; Report of the UNECE/FAO Team of Specialists on Gender and Forestry 2006). Indeed, feminist scholars have long agreed that gender relations are often the most strongly embedded in the culture when they are the most invisible or difficult to conceptualize formally (Smith 1987, Acker 1991, McDowell 1994, Brandth and Haugen 2000.…”

“…In contrast to Pitken (1967) and Wellstead et al (2003), feminist scholars emphasize a link between who sits at the table and how decisions are made (Dahlerup 1988, Sinclair 1994, Alston and Wilkinson 1998, Davidson and Black 2001, Halvorson 2001, Brandth et al 2004). 3.…”

“…Concern about the male-dominated culture in forestry has focused on workplace and management situations (e.g., Haugen 1998, 2000;Lidestav and Ekström 2000;Reed 2003;Arora-Jonsson 2004;Brandth et al 2004; Report of the UNECE/FAO Team of Specialists on Gender and Forestry 2006) rather than community-based decision-making bodies. It is difficult to use the data from this study to confirm or deny how the organizational and occupational cultures of forestry may have influenced women's effective participation.…”

“…Both men and women on these committees are used to operating within male-dominated organizations so that the social relations of gender are systemically excluded and their effects remain unacknowledged. Evidence from Scandinavia suggests that making gender a non-issue appears to be a more-or-less conscious strategy by women in forestry organizations to get access to and be accepted in the field (Brandth et al 2004). 5.…”

“…The problem is "not that women's interests and men's interests are opposed-frequently they coincide-but rather it is to conduct their business as though they are always in synch" (Sinclair 1994). Forest management operates within an organizational and occupational culture that is highly gendered and biased towards male norms and thus reproduces gender inequality-even if unintentionally (Davidson and Black 2001, Halvorsen 2001, Brandth et al 2004, Report of the UNECE/ FAO Team of Specialists on Gender and Forestry 2006). So even though women serve on advisory tables, as minority representatives, women are faced with male occupational and organizational cultures that shape the extent to which women's participation is effective.…”