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No Relief: Poor women's everyday experiences of sanitation in urban India
(Special Event)
For women and girls in low income areas the consequences of inadequate sanitation include fear of harassment, experiences of violence, and pyschosocial stress. When safe, usable toilets are not available, women and girls face three types of toilet insecurity: 1) the material reality for many women and girls that they do not have access to a toilet; 2) the risk of venturing out for open defecation if there is no toilet; and 3) having access to a public toilet, but one that is unusable (e.g., filthy) or unsafe (e.g., insufficient lighting), so that women and girls accept the risk of going for open defecation.
Toilet insecurity is not due solely to the absence of adequate sanitation. It is primarily due to gender--the social process that creates men and women as separate, unequal categories. Gender inequality is the source of the three types of toilet insecurity; it is fundamental to the reasons that women and girls are harassed and attacked when going out for open defecation. Changing conditions of toilet insecurity to toilet security will occur when gender inequality is placed at the center of sanitation policy. A change in gender relations can reduce open defecation in poor countries.
The speaker at this event is Dr. Kathleen O'Reilly, an associate professor of geography at Texas A&M. For the past two decades, she has conducted ethnographic fieldwork in rural India concerning the social and environmental impacts of public health development projects with a specific focus on women's experiences in assessing these impacts. Safe drinking water, community health, and the experiences of gendered violence by Indian women as they relate to the lack of sanitation are key components of her research, which she will be discussing at this talk.
This event is the last in the Fall 2015 Women and Gender in International Development series. Refreshments will be provided.
More information...
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(540) 231-4297