CSGGE Lunch Series: Maria Garcia

Thank you for your interest in the lunch series on "Gender Equity in an Inequitable Era".  On Thursday, April 1st we will hear from Maria Alejandra Garcia, Assistant Professor in Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her talk, "Women, Environment, and Gender Backlash in the Global South" will be in-person and also offered virtually through Zoom.  Lunch will be provided for in-person attendees. 

Despite decades of investment, gender equality in agricultural and natural resource-dependent contexts in the Global South remains far from realized. While women’s access to services such as extension and finance has improved, severe inequalities persist; women continue to face limited access to land, technologies, and inputs, alongside disproportionately heavy workloads and high rates of violence. Efforts by community-based groups, policy initiatives, and development projects have focused on empowering women to bridge these gaps. However, increasing women’s participation in spaces where they have historically been marginalized can also trigger backlash. Recent studies show that programs promoting women’s decision-making and challenging traditional social expectations can generate gender backlash, manifesting as household conflict, increased workloads, and violence against women. Yet, there remains a critical lack of in-depth research explaining how and why this backlash emerges within agricultural and socio-ecological systems. 

This series is co-sponsored by the LAS Office of Inclusive Excellence.