Blowing the smoke out of the kitchen: core issues in household energy and gender

A literature search for papers on the theme “Household Energy” finds most researchers equate the term with cooking and stoves, issues strongly identified with women. However, a number of researchers have taken a broader definition (see for example Clancy, 1998, Klingshirn 2000) to encompass all the activities that take place within a household and the linkages to a much wider system of energy supply and demand. In addition, there are significant linkages between household energy and other sectors, for example, agriculture (agricultural residues as fuel source), health (lung and eye diseases, nutrition), education (children’s opportunity for after-school study) and income generation (cottage industries). These linkages also demonstrate that it is not sufficient to consider only women when addressing household energy issues but that men also play a significant role in decision making on household energy. This paper takes this broader definition as the framework in which to examine the issues around household energy from a gendered perspective