One of the first professional positions I held was as a ‘Women in
Development Specialist’ in the early 1980s. Despite decades of
research, many of the problems identified in the 1970s and 80s persist:
the invisibility of women’s forest-related work for policymakers,
extension personnel, and even researchers; the inattention throughout
the value chain to the forest products women use; a lack of women’s
voices in policymaking, as well as in household decisions related to
forests; the inadvertent but adverse effects on women of well‑meaning
forestry programs.
The recent special issue on ‘Forests and Gender’ (International Forestry Review)
is a breath of fresh air. While the scientific forestry community has
been receptive to studies of women’s forest-related work, they have
found some of our more theoretical and qualitative studies a hard slog.
The use of terms such as ‘hegemony’, ‘symbolic representation’,
‘alterity’, and ‘habitus’ render such studies inaccessible to
foresters.
