Recasting Citizenship for Development - File UPI

Women and Water Policy 253
part of mainstream thinking, it might be difficult to forge the agenda of
gender equity in irrigation.
Understanding Differences among Women
Grouping women as a category is a fallacy that needs to be tackled. It is
important to understand that women are not an abstract, homogeneous
category, and come with large differences across class, caste and tribe in
the Indian context. Women from oppressed castes and tribes face a dual
oppression—as both women and members of the caste/tribe to which
they belong (Joy and Paranjape 2005; Kulkarni and Rao 2002). These differences
in social relations amongst women undermine any notion of
groups formed through a homogeneity of common interests as women.
While the notion of homogeneity has its relevance in the broader context
of addressing patriarchy, various experiences indicate that grouping
women as a category vis-à-vis their relationship to water or other natural
resources has only been counterproductive.
Once this difference is understood, we will see that water needs vary
across caste, class and tribe. Defining equity thus becomes a complex
process. It calls for the unpacking of women as a category. For Dalit women,
for example, social taboos prevent access to drinking water. The needs of
women farm owners are considerably different from those of women wage
labourers, or those from landowning households deriving water rights
through their husbands. For non-land owning Dalit and adivasi women,
water needs could revolve around water-based enterprises like fishing or
share-cropping.
Gender Division of Tasks is not Static
Until recently, much of the gender planning around natural resources
has been placed in the context of women’s current tasks of collecting
fuel, fodder, water and related survival tasks. Gender planning undertaken
through these conceptual frameworks has largely focused on reducing
the time spent by women on these survival tasks. In the water sector, women
are thus seen as spending hours collecting water for domestic use. Various
studies (for example, Swaminathan 1997) do point to how women’s tasks
revolve around the collection of water and the impact that this has on