1) The Asian Fisheries Society first addressed gender issues in fisheries in 1990 but little progress has been made in achieving gender equality. Gender blindness and inequality reduce the quality and value of fish for all. 2) All changes in fisheries are "gendered" as evidenced by cases like the Canadian cod fishery collapse which impacted women and men differently and the transition of mussel farming in India from a women's enterprise to one dominated by men. 3) To properly address gender issues, the focus needs to shift from just "empowering women" to tackling economic participation and political empowerment gaps, which require challenging prevailing systems of power and privilege.

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Global Symposium on Aquatic Resources for Eradicating Hunger and
Malnutrition – Opportunities and Challenges
AFSIB, Mangalore, 4-6 December 2012
Change Challenges Gender-Sensitive Development
Meryl J Williams
Honorary Life Member, Asian Fisheries Society (meryljwilliams@gmail.com)
Gender blindness and inequality reducing fish value
The Asian Fisheries Society Indian Branch first looked into gender in fisheries in 1990, here in
Mangalore. You held the Women in Fisheries in India Workshop. Incidentally, Dr. M.C.
Nandeesha, who was then the Secretary of AFSIB, suggested the workshop topic and
spearheaded its organization. In the Preface to the proceedings, Dr H.P.C. Shetty, the then
Chairman, said “even though the integration of women in the fisheries mainstream is already on
the move, there is still ample scope for further substantial growth.”
How right he was! If we were frank in judging global progress, we would say barely any has
occurred; if we were brutally honest, and if we had the information to prove it – which we don’t
– we’d say “we’ve gone backwards.”
Two young researchers recently pointed out why this matters.
Gifty Anane-Taabeah, a young woman researching cage aquaculture in Lake Volta, Ghana told
the IIFET panel on Gender in Fish Supply Chains in July this year that “gender equality thinking
should not focus just on the numbers of women and men in fish supply chains”, but should aim
“to empower women and men in supply chains to boost overall productivity.”
Based on her studies in Lake Selingue, Mali, West Africa, Charlotte Tindall, from the UK, said
at the 8th Asian Fisheries Forum Gender Symposium in Kochi that “one of the major
consequences of the gendered vulnerability and control over resources is the low quality of fish
reaching the market, translating into lower incomes throughout the chain.”
What they are saying is that gender blindness and gender inequality reduce the quality and value
of the fish - for everyone.
Let me return to AFSIB’s 1990 Workshop. The Society did not start looking at gender inequality
in a vacuum. At the time, India had more and better educated women coming into the workforce,
and a high demand for quality fish products. But most importantly, just 10 years before the
Workshop, all countries agreed the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination Against Women. It said: "...the full and complete development of a country, the
welfare of the world and the cause of peace require the maximum participation of women on
equal terms with men in all fields.."

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But this bold vision has had little impact in the fisheries sector, including, of course, aquaculture.
I am going to challenge you to go out and change that. Change your thinking and do something
about the gender gap in fisheries. This will not be easy. The World Economic Forum’s 2012
Global Gender Gap Report says: “No country has closed the (overall) economic participation gap
or the political empowerment gap.” But there is some hope because, the Report also says,
countries have closed almost all the gender gap in health and almost all the gap in education.
All fisheries change is gendered
The fact that fisheries and aquaculture are going through major changes also offers opportunities
for action. We see: the rapid transition from hunting to farming fish; the limits of wild fish
production reached more than 20 years ago; fish as the most traded food; the geography of fish
production changed; highly competitive markets; and fisheries space being overtaken by more
lucrative uses such as ports, resorts and offshore windmills. Throughout all the change, how you
are affected usually depends on whether you are a woman or a man.
All fisheries change is gendered, as I want to show with a few examples.
The collapse of the Canadian cod fishery is one of the best studied cases of crisis impacts on
women and men. Barbara Neis, Nicole Power, Marilyn Porter and others said that the collapse of
the cod stock more than 20 years ago caused severe social distress, especially for families in the
inshore Newfoundland fishery. They felt the effects years in advance of the more public crisis in
1992 when the offshore part of the stock, which was fished by large vessels, collapsed.
Researcher showed that women’s and men’s social status was upset differently; the daily tasks of
women and men, in fishing and in the home, changed; and conflicts and violence at home
increased. The same sorts of patterns have happened after fisheries crises in other countries.
Another example is from mariculture in southern India. Ramachandran of CMFRI described how
mussel farming on the Malabar coast first developed as a women’s enterprise, thanks to the Self
Help Group movement. Sea cage culture of fish developed as men’s business. But when mussel
farming became profitable, Ram found that men started to take over and the women’s groups
found they had no legal rights to their farm sites. By contrast, Ram says, men’s rights to cage
sites are seen as part of normal economic affairs, and so were legally protected.
Daniel Nishchith and Aichini de Silva studied women in fish processing factories in India and
Sri Lanka. The factories need educated workers to understand the quality processes. Daniel and
Aichini both found that the factories kept costs low by hiring single women who aksed for fewer
benefits. Women received lower wages than men, their working conditions allowed little
bargaining power and exposed them to health hazards and sexual harassment.
A famous example of gendered change that affects whole communities involves fisheries,
aquacutlure and massive mangrove destruction in El Oro province, Ecuador. First, artisanal
fishers (including cockle collectors, who were mainly women) lost vast fishing areas to shrimp
farmers. Shrimp diseases decimated the shrimp industry but a new conflict has arisen. This one is
between members of new local associations who hold 10-year community-managed concessions
and the independent cockle collectors. The concessions were partly from a suggestion of a now-

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defunct women cockle collectors association. Cockle collecting still is identified with low-status
women’s work and thus stigmatised, even though women and men now do it.
A final example is mangrove replanting. Farisal Bagasit, Alice Ferrer and their colleagues all say
that women are the mainstay of environmental conservation activities such as mangrove
replanting. They have strong evidence from projects in the Visayas, Philippines, where women
tend to have stayed the course in replanting schemes.
OK to “empower women”, but don’t mess with inequality
These few cases show gendered outcomes and gender inequity. But what is being done – or not -
about change and gender inequity?
The global fisheries response, to be diplomatic, is very muted. No mention of gender or women
in the 1995 Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries and no attempt yet to fix this up in the
various technical guidelines. The new FAO Small Scale Fisheries instrument being developed
will address women. But gender is more than about women in Small Scale Fisheries.
Gender is just not on the global fisheries agenda. Outside fisheries? Yes, gender equity is one of
the 8 Millennium Development Goals. As a result, women are mentioned in the fish related
articles of the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development plan of action. But this has not
led far. Last year, the FAO Workshop on Future Directions on Gender in Aquaculture and
Fisheries said “a common vision is needed to guide actions as a starting point...”
Fisheries development assistance has only given light support for gender. I suspect that sound
proposals and good ideas are missing for gender projects are one of the reasons. My friend and
colleague Poh Sze Choo said last year at the World Women’s Congress in Ottawa: “some of the
development projects that were designed to “empower women” were rather turning the women
into “beasts of burden” by adding to their existing workloads, without taking any away.” In some
exceptional cases (and I have visited some here in India run by CIFA and CIBA) understanding
and putting women’s needs first can prevent projects making women into “beasts of burden.”
Research in gender and fisheries has been thin on the ground. In addition, many of the famous
gender and fisheries researchers have gone on to bigger and better funded issues. Some were
even snubbed in fisheries; their advice was not welcome when it challenged the prevailing
thinking. Some topics on gender and other social research have been taboo. For example,
countries dealing with the social fallout from individual transferable quota schemes do not
encourage gender research.
In fact, I am struck by the parallels with the poverty vs income equality research debate. Six days
ago in the New York Times, Chrystia Freeland, a columnist, says that think tanks in the US have
been encouraged to work on “poverty” because their donors feel good when they show their
concern for the poor; but, she says, “income inequality” is taboo, because it raises the sensitive
issue of the wealth of the donor. In fisheries, we are encouraged to worry about “empowering
women”, but not to look into more sensitive inequality topics such as masculinities in fisheries,
feminisms, power relationships and the fundamental social and economic settings. The fundamental

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settings include the balance of responsibility between women and men on reproductive functions like
raising caring children and the next generation of fishers, caring for the elderly, and volunteer and unpaid
work.
Raewyn Connell, an eminent Australian sociologist wrote in her 2005 paper called “Change among the
Gatekeepers”, that it sounds utopian to invite men to “end men’s privileges and to remake masculinities to
sustain gender equality…. Yet this project is already underway.”
And she is right! I have listened to many men in this room talk about their support for the careers and
aspirations of their wives, daughters and girl students. I’m sure they are also helping out more at home in
ways their fathers would never have imagined.
We do have other positive signs. Thanks to fisheries advocacy groups (for example ICSF – the
International Collective in Support of FishWorkers), researchers, societies and some national
agencies (such as ICAR), the visibility of women and gender in fisheries is on the rise. Hard
facts and figures help. In its 2012 “Hidden Harvest” report, the World Bank says that 47% of
workers in the fisheries (excluding aquaculture) workforce are women – that is half.
The AFSIB and the Asian Fisheries Society have been promoting gender and fisheries events for over 20
years. On shoestring budgets, we have barely kept the fires burning. A few other societies, such as the
International Institute of Fisheries Economics and Trade, have put their toes in the water. Professional
societies have important roles to play in helping understand what is happening and what can be done to
foster greater gender equality. But if research, development and advocacy were doing more on gender in
fisheries, then the societies could hold stronger gender events.
The gender events are also still weak because the mainstream fisheries and aquaculture agencies
do not yet address the larger gender equality issues. They prefer the safer topic of “empowering
women”, and stay clear of men’s issues, power and political issues, and the fundamental social
and economic problems. Yet, I remind you, the Gender Gap Report says that the big gender
inequalities are in economic participation and political empowerment. These are the gaps that
policy, development, advocacy and research must take seriously.
Refocus gender on economic participation and political empowerment
In conclusion, to go with gendered change in fisheries, we need to change how we approach gender
inequality or we will keep losing fisheries value. We need to refocus on gender in economic participation
and political empowerment. The task is immense and gender equality will not happen quickly. We each
need to work out what it means for us. For me, now, I have three dreams. I want to see the FAO
Committee on Fisheries and Aquaculture (COFI) discuss gender on its agenda – soon. I want to see all
fisheries and aquaculture scientists required to take a Gender 101 course in their basic degree. And I want
each fisheries and aquaculture organization to have, and to implement, a serious gender policy and
program.
4 December 2012