I don’t hear anyone complaining, so maybe it doesn’t matter. But it is such a striking phenomenon that I took some time to reflect. What might it tell us about ourselves and the way we operate? Can we be sure that the comment on the glass ceiling in the corporate boardrooms and management doesn’t apply to us? Finally, and maybe most importantly, do gender issues relate to shifting our culture to include greater respect for Life and the need for sustainability?

Let me clarify. We must distinguish between sexism issues – discriminating against me because I am male or female; language which favours one sex over the other – and the gender issues. Gender issues are more to do with expectations on you/me because I am male/female: those masculinist and feminist traits we all acquire but in very different proportions. (Of course, there are always exceptions.)

In any culture, there will be certain expectations on each gender and it will vary from culture to culture and time to time. When I grew up in the fifties in Australia women were expected to listen to men. Conversely, men expected to be listened to, or felt they had to provide leadership. My mother on the other hand was American, and she expected men and women to listen to her! In the USA women were expected to show leadership as well as men.

We’ve moved beyond the ‘feminist’ debate and are increasingly recognising that some of our expectations on women AND men are not very useful. (A position ecofeminists have espoused for years.) But there is little debate of this issue within the traditional environment movement.

Let me give you my experience and observations at national, State and local levels. This is no research study, call it street knowledge.

The cultural issues we have all been subject to in Australia are largely reflected in our own organisations. The majority of senior employees in the higher status organisations (national) are men, even though most employees are women – they are in the lower paid and lower status jobs, and the majority of volunteers are women. There is little secure senior part-time work, the work ethic is rampant and the hours of work are ridiculous, thus making it much harder for any parent (male or female) to have a senior position, or for people to have a sustainable life. The expectations felt by those women who are senior are that they need to be a leader, spokesperson, strategist, keep everyone informed, keep an eye out for everyone’s needs, and then clean up after a meeting.

Whether or not all these things hold true, I think it is behoven on each organisation to reflect on gender issues. (Just as environmental organisations have tried to work out how best to work with indigenous cultures.) This is far more than making sure we comply with anti-discrimination legislation. An awareness of our own cultural constraints and expectations and the implications for the way we run our organisations is surely part of sustainability.

Many, many years ago, a half-day gender workshop was part of a national meeting of The Wilderness Society. My memory says the the men wanted it as much as the women. Part of this workshop was a wonderful exercise when we separated into single sex groups and filled in the gaps: As a man I am expected to ... As a woman I am expected to ... Then we compared notes – talk about hilarious. But guess what came up: As a man I am expected to ... cut down trees, build dams, be a leader, to fight to win. That was 1985, most people would have been under 35. Have we changed much?

If we were to ‘feminise’ our culture perhaps the need to build dams and cut down trees would be reduced. Think about it.

Karen Alexander was ACF’s Environment Manager from 1990-93. Before that she had numerous paid and unpaid jobs in The Wilderness Society. She currently works for herself, mainly with the not-for-profit sector. She continues to do a lot of unpaid work, including being President of Australian Bush Heritage Fund.