Format: ORAL

Ana H. Ladio1, Irene Teixidor-Toneu2

1INIBIOMA (CONICET-Universidad Nacional del Comahue). Quintral 1250, S.C. de Bariloche, Argentina. Email: ahladio@gmail.com 2IMBE, Aix Marseille Univ, Avignon Univ, CNRS, IRD, Marseille, France

Achieving gender equality and ensuring a fair representation of women in ethnobiology (and other disciplines) is still challenged by biases deeply rooted in the academic system. These biases lead to practices that reaffirm inequalities towards women. The existence of a gender hierarchy gives rise to a tripartite set of problems that may be manifested in the practice of ethnobiological research. These problems are: 1) maintaining or exacerbating such a hierarchy; 2) failing to examine differences, being insensitivity to differences, and treating people the same when they should be treated differently; and 3) using double standards, treating different groups differently because of their position within a social hierarchy. To explore gender biases in ethnobotanical research, we will re-examine our own published works, evidencing gender misconceptions that have become evident in the discursive field and have operated in the conception, methodology, and interpretation of our results. Our conclusions reinforce the idea that it is necessary to open new perspectives that allow considering the feminine dimension when studying place-based knowledge and practice, since it is still veiled in much of the ethnobiological scientific production. The set of problems evidenced in our work and that of other authors, synthesized in the so-called triangle of bias, can only be corrected with an integral gender approach. Furthermore, we highlight the importance of further research to describe local gender asymmetries in the protagonists' own terms.