A Gendered Approach to Understanding Salinity Intrusion Impacts: A Case Study on a Coastal Region of Bangladesh

Abstract: This study sheds light on the salinity-induced social insecurities of coastal women and adolescent girls of Bangladesh and shows how salinity contributes to creating and intensifying those insecurities. Moreover, the study explores the gendered division of labor and shows how coastal females’ gender roles are accelerating to their deprivation and disadvantaged situation. Besides, it explores coastal men’s perceptions and understandings of gender roles, social insecurities, distressing situations, and prioritizing events. Using semi-structured interviews and a thematic analysis approach, the study blends its findings with eco-feminist theorizing and feminist political ecology theory. This study identifies eleven social issues related to coastal women and girls’ marriage and family structure, health, hygiene and well-being, education and work security, and violence against them. Findings show that salinity-induced social aspects affect the coastal women’s and adolescent girls’ entire lives so disproportionately and profoundly that nowadays, they turn to be marginal among the country’s marginalized people. Moreover, the traditional gender roles of coastal women and girls make them the critical victims of salinity intrusion. However, their male counterparts accept the gender role discrepancies as an evident and inevitable social norm. Therefore, the study argues that gender-specific and context-specific attempts are necessary to break the salinity trap of coastal women and adolescent girls. Furthermore, this paper incorporates the concepts of radical realism and radical adaptation. It suggests that we should place ‘gender equality’ as a core component of further research on salinity and planning policies and practices at the structural and institutional levels. As the study is an initial attempt to understand salinity from the sociological point of view, future researchers have the opportunity to explore each of the identified social issues in an in-depth manner and suggest sustainable solutions for the coastal women and girls to way out from their horrifying conditions.