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World Maritime University Ph.D. Dissertations Dissertations

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Gender equality in ocean science for sustainable development :

analysis of ocean science institutions in Kenya
Renis Auma Ojwala

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GENDER EQUALITY IN OCEAN SCIENCE FOR
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: ANALYSIS OF
OCEAN SCIENCE INSTITUTIONS IN KENYA
WMU RESEARCH REPORT SERIES

No. 28, August 2023

SERIES EDITORS:
Maximo Q. Mejia, Jr.
Jens-Uwe Schröder-Hinrichs

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 WORLD
MARITIME
UNIVERSITY

Gender equality in ocean science for

sustainable development: Analysis of
ocean science institutions in Kenya

Renis Auma Ojwala

Kenya

A dissertation submitted to the World Maritime University in partial

fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy in Maritime Affairs

WMU RESEARCH REPORT SERIES

No. 28, August 2023

WMU Publications
Cover photo by © Renis Auma Ojwala. Photo taken by the Author from an
exhibition on dangers at sea at Malmö Museum, Sweden which was part of
WMU’s contribution: – In a place of equal opportunity women can do anything
and everything, with less talk and more action –

Copyright © Renis Auma Ojwala

Paper 1 © Elsevier
Paper 2 © Tailor & Francis Group
Paper 3 © Springer
Paper 4 © Ecology and Society

The views expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the
view or policy of his/her/their employer(s,) organization(s), WMU Publications,
or the World Maritime University. WMU Publications and the Series Editors,
while exercising the greatest care in this publication, do not hold themselves
responsible for the consequences arising from any inaccuracies therein.

All rights reserved. Except for quotation of short passages for the purposes of
criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced without full
attribution to the author(s) or the prior written permission of the Publisher.

ISBN 978-91-987473-3-1

DOI: 10.21677/phd230604

Published in Sweden in 2023 by

WORLD
MARITIME
UNIVERSITY

WMU PUBLICATIONS
PO Box 500
201 24 Malmö, Sweden

Suggested Citation:
Ojwala RA (2023). Gender equality in ocean science for sustainable
development: Analysis of ocean science institutions in Kenya. WMU
Publications: Malmö, Sweden.
 Dedication
This thesis work is dedicated to the Almighty God for providing opportunity,
protection and good health during my PhD studies (especially field work which I
conducted during the COVID pandemic), and to my late parents (Peter Otieno
Ojwala and Esther Adhiambo) for their love.
Table of Contents

Acknowledgements .............................................................................................8
Abstract .............................................................................................................11
Abbreviations ....................................................................................................14
Definition of terms ............................................................................................16
List of figures ....................................................................................................21
List of tables ......................................................................................................23
List of papers included in this dissertation ........................................................24
1. Introduction ......................................................................................................25
1.1. Research aim ..............................................................................................26
1.2. Research objectives ....................................................................................27
1.3. Research questions .....................................................................................28
2. Literature review ..............................................................................................29
2.1. Gender and ethnic politics in Kenya ..........................................................29
2.1.1. Gender diversity in politics in Kenya .................................................29
2.1.2. Ethnic politics in Kenya .....................................................................31
Historic background of ethnic groups in Kenya .................................... 31
Relationship between ethnicity and politics in Kenya ............................ 32
2.2. Higher education in Kenya .........................................................................33
2.2.1. Gender disparities in higher education ...............................................33
2.2.2. Ethnic inequalities in higher education ..............................................34
2.2.3. Understanding the relationship between parents’ background and
students’ access to higher education in Kenya .............................................34
2.3. Promoting gender and ethnic diversity in education in Kenya ...................35
2.4. Ocean governance in Kenya .......................................................................36
2.4.1. Policies and legislation .......................................................................36
2.4.2. Institutional framework ......................................................................37
2.5. Gender and environmental management ....................................................40
2.5.1. Overview on gender and sustainable development ............................42
2.6. Ocean Sustainability ...................................................................................49
2.7. The UN Ocean Decade and gender ............................................................51
3. Theoretical Framework ...................................................................................55
3.1. Feminist political ecology ..........................................................................55
3.2. Feminist political ecology of education .....................................................59
4. Research methodology .....................................................................................62
4.1. Philosophical assumptions .........................................................................63
4.2. Kenya as a case study .................................................................................64
4.3. Sampling strategy .......................................................................................64
4.4. Data collection and analysis .......................................................................68
4.5. Ethical considerations.................................................................................73
4.6. Positionality statement ...............................................................................73
5. Results and Discussion .....................................................................................77
5.1. The Through-line........................................................................................78
5.2. Effectiveness of gender policies in public universities in Kenya ...............80
5.3. Gender representation in non-academic institutions in Kenya ...................89
5.4. Barriers to gender equality among students and staff in ocean science .....92
5.5. The influence of intersectionality in achieving gender equality.................99
5.6. Good practices towards gender equality...................................................105
6. Conclusions and recommendations ...............................................................109
6.1. Conclusions ..............................................................................................109
6.2. Recommendations ....................................................................................111
6.3. Significance and contributions of the study .............................................112
6.4. Limitations and suggestions future research ............................................114
References ...........................................................................................................116
Appendix 1: Questionnaire for students ...........................................................136
Appendix 2: Staff interview guide.....................................................................140
Appendix 3: Administration interview guide ...................................................143
Appendix 4: Institutions governing the Indian Ocean in Kenya ....................145
Appendix 5: Summary of the literature on
Feminist political ecology in natural resources ................................................147
Appendix 6: Summary of the data and information collected from
the selected ocean science institutions ...............................................................149
Appendix 7: Papers included in this dissertation ............................................152
Acknowledgements
Moving away from my area of expertise in natural sciences to social science
research came with many challenges and frustrations. My PhD journey has not been
smooth but there were always new things to learn daily. It has been a journey of
self-discovery as a woman venturing into an interdisciplinary field. It took me some
time to understand the feminist theories and decide the most appropriate one for this
study. In addition, being a fresher in gender studies required extensive reading, and
sometimes I was fatigued, demotivated and overwhelmed. However, the limitless
guidance and support of my supervisors: Prof Momoko Kitada, Prof Francis Neat
and Prof Susan Buckingham, and their invaluable feedback and expertise helped me
to navigate through the complex concepts, theories and philosophies addressing
gender issues in ocean science as well as in designing questionnaires and interview
guides. I would also like to sincerely thank them for accepting to take me as their
PhD student, believing in me and for not giving up, particularly when I was only
making baby steps at the beginning of this research. Thank you for understanding
and always encouraging me when things got complicated, especially during the
COVID-19 pandemic when I was anxious and restless because of the delays in my
fieldwork. Thank you for your insightful suggestions and comments, positive
criticism, guidance, time, support, encouragement and contributions throughout the
research process, specifically in writing academic publications that resulted from
this study.
My deepest gratitude goes to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO)
Canada for their generous financial support for my studies and Nippon Foundation
for their generous funding of the World Maritime University (WMU)-Sasakawa
Global Ocean Institute (GOI). I sincerely thank the President of WMU, Cleopatra
Doumbia-Henry, for her inspiration, motivation and commitment towards achieving
gender equality in the university, and the Director of GOI, Prof Ronan Long, for
giving me this opportunity to pursue my PhD Degree in Maritime Affairs under
Empowering Women for the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable
Development programme, for his encouragement, motivations, connections and
continued support during this PhD journey. Thank you, Prof Ronan Long, for
always acknowledging, recognizing and supporting my research, primarily through
Facebook posts, and always sharing my research interests/work with the visiting
partners and stakeholders.
This research area required access to various institutions dealing with ocean
science in Kenya, and I had no contact with most of them. My special thanks go to
Mrs Nancy Gitonga, who guided and supported me during fieldwork by sharing
contact details of the respective persons and the selected institutions. Thank you for
being the best mentor and for the several phone calls you made to the participants
on my behalf that resulted in a fruitful fieldwork or data collection process.

8
 I would further acknowledge all the institutions that provided gender-
disaggregated data and shared their gender-related policy documents. My warm
regards to the management of the institutions studied (Human Resource Personnel,
Heads of Departments and class representatives) for allowing me to conduct this
research in their institutions and for facilitating the dissemination of the
questionnaires through e-mail and other social media handles such as WhatsApp
groups. Deepest appreciation for the students and staff in ocean science departments
and institutions, who, without their contribution, this work would not have
materialized. Thank you for taking the time to complete the questionnaire and
participate in my extended interviews during the data collection process.
Unfortunately, research ethical protocols prohibit the mentioning of specific names.
I am also grateful to my PhD Advisory Committee (PAC), Prof Clive Schofield
and Prof Zhen Sun, for their invaluable comments and insightful feedback during
my four progression seminars that were significant in the development of this
research. My sincere appreciation goes to the WMU fraternity: PhD Director Prof
Max Mejia (our new university president), Prof Michael Manuel, Lyndell Lundahl,
Carla Fischer, Sue Jackson, Prof Johan Bolmsten and Ammar Jaber, who always
provided technical support in one way or another during this journey. Special
gratitude also goes to Malmö Museum for giving me the platform to exhibit and
showcase my research interest.
My heartfelt gratitude goes to the GOI secretariat; Elnaz Barjandi, Jill Jarnsäter,
Flora Lim, Flavia Destro, Mercedes Troisi Allende, Linda Del-Savio and Jose
Manuel Pacheco for their unlimited support with logistics, motivation and
encouraging words. Also, I am greatly thankful to the WMU lecturers and
researchers; Prof Mary Wisz, Prof Aleke Stöfen-O’Brien, Dr Tafsir Johansson, Dr
Aspasia Pastra, Dr Rian Derrig, Dr Kathleen Auld and Prof Johan Hollander for
their encouragement. My special thanks also go to my wonderful colleagues: Dr
Mariamalia Rodriquez-Chaves, Ellen Johannesen, Luciana Fernandes Coelho, Dr
Kahlil Hassanali, Zaidy Afrin, Kristie Alleyne, Kristal Ambrose, Tricia Lovell,
Roxanne Graham, Deniece Aiken, Sarah Mahadeo for having made the map, Dr
Jane Tifuh, Dr Laura Elsler, Jennie Larsson, Dr Vahid Vikili, Peyman Ghaforian,
Anas Saleh, Bikram Bhatia, Natalia Calderon, Dr Andrei Polejack, among others,
for their technical support, motivation and for creating a conducive and friendly
learning environment. My deep appreciation also goes to Mr. Søren Lund for
assisting with proofreading part of the dissertation.
My sincere thanks also go to Prof Nzula Kitaka and Dr Nelly Kadagi for their
advice, inspiration and recommendation for this PhD position. I also send my
indebtedness to Dr Risper Ondiek, Prof Julius Kipkemboi, Dr Elick Otachi, Mr
Johnstone Omukoto, Dr Cosmas Munga, Dr James Barasa, Dr Jemimah Simbauni,
Dr Fredrick Tamooh, Dr James Jumbe, Mr Henry Nyabuto, Dr Bernerd Fulanda, Dr
Catherine Lukhoba, Dr Steve Omondi, Mr. Evans Sicharani, Ms. Loureen Oduor,
Ms. Lillian Mulupi and Ms. Rose Masika for their support during my fieldwork, as

9
well as the ECOPs team including Natalie Fox, Erin Satterthwaite, and Cora
Hörstmann.
Last, but not least, I would also like to express my profound appreciation to my
siblings (Fredrick Omondi Otieno, Jackline Atieno Otieno, George Ochieng’
Otieno, Bonface Ojwala Otieno and Sharon Akinyi Otieno) for their encouragement
and prayers which gave me the zeal to work harder and my uncle (guardian),
Maurice Ogweno Ojwala, for his motivation, emotional and moral support. I would
also like to thank my family and friends in Sweden, WMU Bistro team, colleagues
and friends for their support. May God bless you all.

Figure 1: Supervision meeting with my three supervisors

10
Abstract
Gender inequality poses a serious problem for national and international
developmental programmes such as the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science
for Sustainable Development (the Ocean Decade) and appears in both developed
and developing countries. The fundamental aim of the Ocean Decade is to improve
ocean health worldwide through generating knowledge, supporting innovations,
discovering creative ideas and developing solutions to achieve equitable and
sustainable development under the changing environmental, social and climate
conditions. The paucity of women in ocean management has been documented as a
major hindrance to ocean sustainability and a top challenge to diversity in
workplaces because of the exclusion of female knowledge, even though the greater
proportion of primary resource users are women. The inclusion of women in
management leads to different kinds of perspectives and leadership that facilitate
and navigate various policy issues. Consequently, the Ocean Decade is committed
to ensuring that the issue of gender inequality in the ocean science sector is urgently
addressed and the contribution towards ocean-based activities by women is made
visible in various disciplines, including education, fisheries, research, conservation
and management. However, there is very little information on the link between
gender and ocean science, especially in developing countries like Kenya. In order
to increase the participation of women, we need to know where the gaps exist and
how best to close them. The lack of information about women’s substantial roles
has led to unequal opportunities for women to participate in and contribute to ocean
scientific research and governance. This lack of awareness about gender equality
among ocean science communities has thwarted the progress and inclusion of
women.
Gender equality is not only about having equal gender ratios in terms of students
and staff within institutions, but also how this is related to seniority, position and
influence. It is about understanding how gender intersects with factors such as
ethnicity, education, class and age and how organisations must be inclusive, diverse
and ensure everyone has an equal voice and opportunity – numbers are not all. This
research explores gender equality gaps in ocean science institutions and the existing
gender-related policies, providing baseline gender-disaggregated data and
accounting for the underrepresentation of women in ocean science. The research
employed a Feminist Political Ecology framework, utilising a balanced approach of
quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis methodologies. Using
Kenya as a case study, this research has used the Gender Integration Continuum
framework to evaluate the effectiveness of institutional gender policies against
national standards. In addition, the study investigated gender gaps (using gender-
disaggregated data) in the enrolment of students and recruitment of staff in ocean
science universities and non-academic institutions. The career patterns, experiences

11
and barriers of both female and male students and ocean science professionals were
also obtained through questionnaires and interviews. The questionnaires were
administered to 102 undergraduate and postgraduate students while 30 interviews
were conducted using two sets of guiding questions to target two groups of
participants, i.e. ocean science staff in general and staff dealing specifically with
gender issues –the gender focal points within the institutions, thus gaining insight
into individual staff experiences as well as institutional work and progress on gender
equality. The ocean science institutions studied were categorized into four groups:
public universities, government agencies, non-governmental and intergovernmental
organisations.
The findings revealed that even though most public universities have gender
policies in place, these do not necessarily translate into gender balance of students
and staff. Fewer female than male students were found to be enrolled in ocean
science-related courses at public universities. All the ocean science institutions had
lower representation of female staff at all career stages, including management and
decision-making positions. Institutional management was found to be strongly
male-centred (androcentric), especially in government affiliated agencies.
Interestingly, this was not the case for non-governmental and intergovernmental
organizations, where the number of female managers and directors was greater than
in academia. Ethnic and gender biases were found to be prominent in the enrolment
of students and hiring of staff in ocean science programmes. Cultural barriers,
gender discrimination and stereotypes were highlighted by student respondents as
the major impediments to full participation of female students in ocean science
education. Results also showed that career patterns were diverse between female
and male staff, with both genders acknowledging discriminatory promotion
guidelines, work-family conflicts, incidents of sexual harassment and lack of
support and recognition as barriers to career progression and gender equality in
ocean science. Most participants mentioned institutional gender centres and
formalised gender policies as good practices in forwarding gender equality.
Based on these findings, this study generated the following recommendations that
will significantly contribute to, promote and improve the status of gender equality
in ocean science institutions in Kenya: (i) the establishment of gender-
transformative policies with clear and measurable targets and indicators, (ii) the
effective implementation of such policies through regular evaluation and
monitoring, (iii) constant and mandatory gender analysis through collection of
gender-disaggregated data of students and staff to keep track on the progress, (iv)
having equitable recruitment and hiring committees or panels to eliminate
discrimination, (v) including women in leadership, management and decision-
making positions in the institutions, (vi) mandatory training of students and staff,
and (vii) developing and strengthening mentorship programmes to encourage and
attract more female prospects to increase their participation in ocean science fields.

12
Keywords: Gender equality, ocean science, public universities and institutions,
ocean decade, empowering women, gender policy, sexual harassment policy,
gender-disaggregated data, career progression, barriers, good practices.

13
Abbreviations
CEDAW Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
Against Women
CISP Comitato Internazionale per lo Sviluppo dei Popoli
(International Committee for the Development of Peoples)
CUE Commission of University Education
DEI Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
ECOPs Early Career Ocean Professionals
ECOSOC Economic and Social Council (of the United Nations)
FAO Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations
FGM Female Genital Mutilation
FPE Feminist Political Ecology
GEF Global Environment Facility
GIC Gender Integration Continuum
GWA Gender and Water Alliance
HELB Higher Education Loans Board
IGOs Intergovernmental organisations
IGWG Interagency Gender Working Group
IOC-UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of the
UNESCO
IUCN International Union for Conservation of Nature
MDGs Millennium Development Goals
NACOSTI National Commission for Science, Technology and Innovation
NGOs Non-governmental organizations
SDGs The UN Sustainable Development Goals
SEI Stockholm Environment Institute
SIDA Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency
STEM Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics
UN United Nations

14
UNDP United Nations Development Programme
UNEP United Nations Environment Programme
UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization
UNGA United Nations General Assembly
UNFCCC UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
UNHCR United Nations High Commission for Refugees
UNICEF United Nations Children’s (Emergency) Fund
USAID United States Agency for International Development

15
Definition of terms
Career The progression of an individual’s career. It entails career
advancement growth and promotions (Kanyata, 2022).
Career Activities undertaken by the employees themselves and the
development organisation so as to achieve career objectives and job
requirements (Kakui & Gachunga, 2016).
Development A term that has been used to refer to both economic and
human developments. It has been defined as the constant
improvement of the well-being of the entire population and
of all individuals on the basis of their free, meaningful
participation in development and in the fair distribution of
benefits (UN Declaration on the Right to Development,
1956).
Empowerment The process of generating and building capacities to exercise
control over life by expanding choice. This entails gaining
access to resources and developing people’s capacity in order
to actively participate in shaping one’s own life and
community in social, economic and political terms
(Muyoyeta, 2007). Female empowerment is achieved when
women and girls acquire power, inherent confidence,
knowledge, skills, and voice to act freely, and exercise their
rights and full potential as full and equal members of society
(Hickel, 2014).
Feminism A complex concept with various meanings as defined by
many scholars, but the underlying premise is seeking justice
and equality in all spheres of life by creating opportunities for
women to have the same access to resources as men (Raina,
2017).
Gender Refers to the socially constructed roles, responsibilities,
attributes, phenomena and behaviours associated with being
female and male, and the relationship between women and
men, girls and boys, that emerges in families, societies and
culture and is considered the appropriate life status for
women and men at a given time, giving women unequal life
chances and unequal opportunities. Gender is not the same as
sex and cannot be determined biologically (UN Women,
2011; Kabeer, 2003; UNESCO, 2003; FAO, 2018).

16
 Gender blind Ignores gender issues, roles and gaps between women and
men and may contain measures that discriminate against
women and men and/ or reinforce gender inequalities (FAO,
2016; IGWG, 2017; FAO, 2018).
Gender Any restriction to, or exclusion from, opportunities and
discrimination entitlements based on gender relations and roles that prevent
a person from enjoying full human rights (FAO, 2013; FAO,
2018).
Gender division The result of how a society divides work among women and
of labour men according to what is considered appropriate or suitable
for each gender (UNESCO, 2003).
Gender equality The equal participation of women and men in all spheres and
at all levels, including decision-making positions; equal
rights to access development-related benefits, including
equal access and control over natural resources; equal
employment opportunities; and absence of discrimination
based on sex. Gender equality is not specific to one gender
and does not imply that genders will or should merge into one
(FAO, 2013, GEF, 2017; FAO, 2018).
Gender equity The process of showing fair and just treatment to women and
men as well as to gender minorities in the distribution of
responsibilities and benefits, while taking into account their
different interests, needs, vulnerabilities, social and cultural
barriers. In other words, it’s a means or tool to achieve gender
equality. It involves measures that compensate for women’s,
girls’ and gender minorities’ historical and social
disadvantages that prevent them from operating on a level
playing field (UNESCO, 2003; African Union, 2009; IFAD,
2015).
Gender focal Gender focal point is a staff member who is responsible for
point facilitating the promotion of women’s empowerment and
gender equality issues in the activities of his or her working
unit 1. He/she is a change agent who has been designated
within an institution or organisation to monitor and stimulate
greater consideration of and awareness on gender parity and
equality issues in daily operations (UN Women, 2020). The
main role is to provide information to staff on policies

1 European Union Resource Package (n.d). Gender mainstreaming in development cooperation.

https://eugender.itcilo.org/toolkit/online/story_content/external_files/BB7.pdf

17
 relevant to advancing gender equality in the workplace and
on creation of enabling working environment such as family
friendly policies and flexible working arrangements (UN
Women, 2020, p. 4).
Gender identity Refers to the individual’s feeling about their own gender, i.e.
one’s own psychological perception of being female, male or
other. This may or may not be the sex received at birth. Every
person has a gender identity which they present to the outer
world in a unique and personal way (Arendell, 2000; Rokach
& Patel, 2021).
Gender Unequal treatment of individuals, manifested as hierarchical
inequality gender relations, mostly originating from those differences in
cultural and social responsibilities, roles, perceptions and
discriminatory gender norms that are created and maintained
to define women and men in society (Buckingham, 2020).
Gender Inequalities that exist between women and men which are not
imbalances related to their biological roles (Muyoyeta, 2007).
Gender Identifying and then addressing gender inequalities during
integration project design, implementation and monitoring and
evaluation. This is important because the power relations and
roles between women and men influence or affect how an
activity is implemented (USAID, 2012).
Gender Assessing the implications for women and men of any
mainstreaming planned action, including legislation, policies and
programmes, in all areas and at all levels. It is a strategy for
making women’s as well as men’s concerns and experiences
an integral dimension of the design, implementation,
monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes in all
political, economic, and social spheres so that women and
men benefit equally and inequality is not perpetuated
(ECOSOC, 1997, p.27).
Gender neutral Recognises gender inequalities but does not include specific
measures to address gender inequality and discrimination
(FAO, 2018).
Gender norms Refers to the informal, widely held and deeply entrenched
rules and socially shared or societal expectations about how
each gender should behave or that define socially acceptable
responsibilities and roles of women and men and the power
relations between them. Gender norms are disproportionately

18
 disadvantageous to women and skewed in favour of men
(e.g., women should do domestic work). These norms are
distinct, not universal and can vary from every society both
within and between cultures, and can change over time
(Petesch et al., 2018; FAO, 2018).
Gender Having equal or same numbers of women and men receiving
representation education and/or in workplaces at any level and in any field
or institution (Francesca et al., 2013).
Gender Identifies, recognises, and adequately addresses the different
responsive or particular needs, priorities, power structures, status and
approach relationships between girls, boys, women and men to
promote equal outcomes in the design, implementation and
monitoring of activities (GEF, 2017).
Gender Gender roles refer to the activities and responsibilities given
roles/relations or ascribed to women and men in a society based on their sex.
These roles are influenced by the cultural, economic,
political, social and religious situation (FAO, 2018). Gender
relations, on the other hand, refer to the ways a society
defines identities, responsibilities, rights and roles of women
and men in their interaction with one another, and these
relations are informed by socio-cultural norms that determine
how power is distributed between sexes (FAO, 2018).
Gender Shows awareness of gender differences and inequalities, but
sensitive does not necessarily address them (IGWG, 2017).
Gender A generalized view or perception that is widely held, a fixed
stereotype image or idea about the attributes or characteristics that
define women and men. This can limit the capability of either
gender to develop their personal abilities, make choices about
their lives and pursue their professional careers (Baltic
gender report, 2020).
Gender Recognises specific needs and priorities of women and men,
transformative and proactively and purposefully tackles gender inequalities
by questioning and challenging the structures, norms, and
institutions on which these inequalities are based, reinforced,
sustained, and reproduced over time (FAO, 2018).
Gender/sex- Data that allows for the measurement of differences between
disaggregated women and men and which is presented separately
data (UNESCO, 2003).

19
Intersectionality The understanding that a person’s identity is made up of
multiple, intersecting factors such as age, class, race,
ethnicity, marital status, education, disability, gender identity
and/or sexual orientation among others, all of which combine
to both benefit and disadvantage women and men alike and
which cannot be separated (Rocheleau et al., 1996).
Mentoring The process of developing formal relationships between
junior and senior members of an organisation. It creates an
opportunity for less experienced staff to learn from more
experienced staff (Aneeq, 2012).
Ocean science The study of the global marine environment, including the
physics, chemistry, and biology of marine systems
(McConnochie, 2023).
Productive role Tasks that produce services or goods with a monetary value
attached, including trading, farming, and formal employment
(Muyoyeta, 2007).
Reproductive Tasks related to child bearing, rearing and general well-being
role of the family (Muyoyeta, 2007).
Scorecard A tool used to evaluate gender equality in workplace
(EQUILEAP, 2019). A scorecard establishes and puts goals,
strategies, and vision at the centre, and assumes that people
should adopt them to promote gender equality in their
respective institutions.
Sexual Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for favours and other
harassment verbal, behavioural or physical conduct of a sexual nature –
things that explicitly or implicitly affect an individual’s
employment (Weinberg & Nielsen, 2017).
Sustainable Development that meets the present needs, without
development compromising the ability of future generations to meet their
own needs (United Nations, 1987).

20
List of figures
Figure 1: Supervision meeting with my three supervisors .................................... 10

Figure 2: Summary of the categories of ocean science institutions in

Kenya (see Appendix 4 for further details). .......................................................... 40

Figure 3: International frameworks and initiatives to promote gender equality.... 48

Figure 4: Theoretical framework of Feminist Political Ecology in

ocean science based on the fundamental concepts of this study
(Source: Author's illustration) ............................................................................... 60

Figure 5: Profile of the students who responded to the questionnaires in

public universities in Kenya, where illustrations a) gender, b) marital status,
c) number of children , d) university (anonymized) and
e) ethnic groups of the respondents ....................................................................... 66

Figure 6: Geographic location of the twenty-seven selected

ocean science institutions in Kenya ....................................................................... 67

Figure 7: Methodological path of data collection and analysis ............................. 71

Figure 8: Summary of the themes and sub-themes generated from the

interviews conducted with ocean science professionals (n = 30) .......................... 72

Figure 9: Schematic diagram of the ¨Through-line¨ illustrating the flow of the

interconnected research ideas and outlining the relationships between the
research questions and the outputs (publications) ................................................. 79

Figure 10: Undergraduate students’ enrolment by gender in seven public

universities in Kenya (excluding one university due to missing data) .................. 83

Figure 11: Students’ enrolment in MSc degree in six selected public universities
in Kenya (excluding two universities that did not provide gender data) ............... 83

Figure 12: Differences in staff representation by gender in selected (a) universities

and (b) positions .................................................................................................... 85

Figure 13: Proportion of women and men in four senior management positions
in the eight selected public universities in Kenya (Head of Department = 8,
Members of University Council = 48, Vice-Chancellor = 8, Chancellor = 8) ...... 86

21
Figure 14: Average proportion of ocean science professional by gender in
the selected institutions (universities = 8, government agencies = 9,
non-governmental organisations = 7 and Intergovernmental organisations = 3) .. 90

Figure 15: Funding sources for female and male students in

public universities in Kenya (Female n = 43, male n = 59)................................... 93

Figure 16: Comparing the career paths of female and male staff in public
universities............................................................................................................. 97

Figure 17: Gender and ethnic representation of students undertaking ocean

science-related programmes in Kenya based on the responses from the
questionnaires (n = 102) ...................................................................................... 100

Figure 18: Relationship between the current positions of the

participants by gender and age in ocean science-related departments in
public universities in Kenya ................................................................................ 103

Figure 19: Ethnic representation of participants in

the selected public universities ............................................................................ 104

Figure 20: A conceptual framework illustrating interventions needed to achieve

ocean sustainability based on the research findings ............................................ 111

Figure 21: Different techniques used during interviews in this study ................. 150

Figure 22: Data collection process during the interviews ................................... 150

Figure 23: Concept map of relevant issues investigated in this research ............ 151

22
List of tables
Table 1: References of the selected studies that
applied feminist political ecology.......................................................................... 58

Table 2: Interviewees distribution by occupation.................................................. 65

Table 3: Socio-demographic profiles of the staff participants from

the selected public universities in Kenya (n = 30)................................................. 69

Table 4: Summary of the comparative analysis between national and

institutional gender policies in public universities showing percentages of
the gender-specific strategies in each document by themes
(Analysis excluded three public universities without gender policies) ................. 81

Table 5: Summary of the themes coded from the interviews ................................ 96

Table 6: Various forms of discrimination affecting female and

male students in the selected public universities ................................................. 101

Table 7: Summary of the key findings and recommendations from this study ... 112

Table 8: Mapping Ocean science institutions in Kenya and aligning their

mandates to the Ocean Decade’s societal goals (Including the institutions that
did not participate in this study) .......................................................................... 145

Table 9: Overview of some literature on FPE and the research methods used ... 147

Table 10: Data obtained from the eight selected public universities in Kenya ... 149

Table 11: Data obtained from the nineteen (19) selected ocean science
institutions (Government agencies = 9, NGOs = 7 and IGOs = 3) ...................... 149

Table 12: List of organizations and occupations of the interviewed participants 149

23
List of papers included in this dissertation
The list of papers (Appendix 7) in this thesis are presented in chronological order in
line with the research questions, starting with those evaluating gender policy
implications and empirical data on gender representation in ocean science
institutions in Kenya and followed by those focusing on the theoretical or thematic
analysis of students’ and staff experiences. This thesis is based on the work
contained in the following papers:

Paper 1: Ojwala, R. A., Kitada, M., Neat F., & Buckingham, S. (2022).
Effectiveness of gender policies in achieving gender equality in
ocean science programmes in public universities in Kenya. Marine
Policy, 144: Article 105237, pp. 1-12. DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2022.105237.

Paper 2: Ojwala, R. A. (2023). Status of gender equality in ocean research,

conservation and management institutions and organizations in
Kenya. African Journal of Marine Science, 45 (2), 1-11. DOI:
https://doi.org/10.2989/1814232X.2023.2213724.

Paper 3: Ojwala, R. A. (2023). Unravelling gender and ethnic bias in higher

education: Students experiences in access to ocean science
education and career opportunities in Kenya. Higher Education
(Under review).

Paper 4: Ojwala, R. A., Buckingham, S., Neat, F. & Kitada, M. (2023).

Gender and the ocean: Understanding women’s roles, experiences
and barriers to participation in ocean science education in Kenya.
Ecology & Society (Under Review).

Papers 1 – 4 are reproduced with the permission of the publishers: Elsevier, Tailor
& Francis Group, Springer and Ecology & Society.

24
1. Introduction

The absence of gender equality and women’s empowerment in ocean science is a

concern for the conservation, protection and sustainable use of the ocean (Orcutt &
Cetinić, 2014; Huyer, 2015; Gissi et al., 2018; Legg et al., 2023). The need to
address gender inequality remains a key focus within the management of marine
resources to ensure sustainable oceans for future generations and is established
within the framework of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (United
Nations, 2015a; Virto, 2018; Giakoumi et al., 2021). Women play a crucial role in
ocean resource management around the world, especially in small-scale fisheries,
marine conservation and managing aquatic resources at the community level (UN
Women, 2015; Tilley et al., 2021). According to the UN Women (2015), women’s
substantial contribution has been observed across the entire fisheries supply chain,
largely associated with the post-harvest activities such as processing, seaweed and
shellfish collection, marketing, and net repairs (Gissi et al., 2018; Shah & Bukhari,
2019).
Women also actively engage in local development plans or projects led by the
local, national, and regional conservation organisations through participating in
mangrove planting or regeneration to restore marine biodiversity and help re-
establish the shoreline buffering and stabilization (IUCN, 2017). Women are the
primary users of the ocean resources in the Global South because of their
subsistence or domestic roles. Besides, women in local coastal and indigenous
communities have extensive traditional knowledge that is necessary and needed to
achieve sustainable use and conservation of ocean ecosystems (UN Women, 2015).
Despite these substantial contributions, women are often overlooked and do not
translate to decision-making power for women. In ocean science, gender balanced
teams and organisations are, not only fair, but result in better outcomes because
ocean sustainability issues are complex and require diverse and innovative
perspectives.
The IOC-UNESCO, as the agency dealing with ocean science globally, initiated
the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (hereafter Ocean
Decade) –a ten-year implementation plan of the SDG 14 (Life Below Water) to
reverse the declining health of the oceans through involving all stakeholders
(Ryabinin et al., 2019), both women and men alike. Less than ten years now remain
to achieve the SDGs underpinning the 2030 UN Agenda for Sustainable
Development. Gender equality which is a cross-cutting and crucial element of the

25
Agenda 2030, with its own specific SDG (No. 5) is a far-reaching goal. Despite this,
gender equality has not been fully addressed in most parts of the world and ocean
science is no exception. Based on the existing literature and reports, including the
annual global ocean science and gender gap reports by IOC-UNESCO and World
Economic Forum, respectively (Kabeer, 2005; Orcutt & Cetinić, 2014; Gissi et al.,
2018; WEF, 2020; IOC-UNESCO, 2020; Isensee, 2020), there is clear evidence that
gender inequality is problematic in ocean research and governance globally.
Recently, discussion on gender equality has gained traction in ocean science due
to the growing seriousness of deteriorating ocean health, driven largely by human-
induced (and gender related) environmental and climate change impacts (Giakoumi
et al., 2021). Understanding the gender inequalities in ocean science is critical in
ensuring sustainable ocean management in terms of its approaches and policies
(Boesch, 1999; Håkon et al., 2005; Brodie et al., 2020). Most countries have ratified
the international and national frameworks on gender equality to increase women’s
participation in development and sustainable environmental management (Hicks,
2011; Popp et al., 2019; Bennett et al., 2019). However, the underrepresentation of
women is still evident mostly in developing countries. In light of this, this study is
focused on gender equality in ocean science institutions in Kenya in order to provide
the missing data and information on status and trends in this sector. The aim is to
evaluate existing national and institutional gender policies, examine the gender-
disaggregated data of students and staff, and explore the experiences of female and
male ocean scientists (both students and staff) in higher education, research,
conservation, and governance.
This study adopted Feminist Political Ecology (FPE) as a theoretical framework
to provide insights on the existing relationships between gender, environment, and
the politics of place in order to understand how the differences in gendered power
relations influence the institutional policies and practices in the ocean science sector
as well as the achievement of a sustainable ocean. Being a deductive research
design, FPE was employed in framing the research objectives and questions. The
following sub-sections discuss in detail the research aim, objectives, and questions
of this study.

1.1. Research aim

This research aimed to examine gender equality and the empowerment of women in
ocean science in Kenya. Using ocean science institutions in Kenya as a case study,
the effectiveness of existing institutional gender policies was evaluated using
national policies and standards and gender-disaggregated data. This study explored
what makes a successful and effective gender equality policy. The gender gaps
identified were then interpreted with respect to the intersectionality between

26
ethnicity, age, family support, education, and class, using the information provided
by the participants of questionnaires and in-depth interviews. Ultimately, the study
sought to generate recommendations on how to close the gender gaps identified and
mitigate the factors that impede the achievement of gender equality in ocean science
institutions.

1.2. Research objectives

The overall objective of this research was to conduct a comprehensive baseline
study of gender equality within ocean science institutions in Kenya. This
encompassed understanding the current state of gender policies and representation
among students and staff. The insights derived from this study aim to inform and
bolster strategies to promote gender equality within these institutions. Utilising
these insights, the study sought to facilitate the advancement of gender policies,
creating a more inclusive environment for all genders. This broad objective was
achieved by five specific objectives:

First, to evaluate gender-related policies against national standards and their

impacts in ocean science institutions in Kenya. The focus was on the existing
national and institutional gender policies and their impacts in the institutions on
women’s participation in ocean science.

Second, to investigate the representation of women and men in ocean science at all
levels across educational, research and management institutions in Kenya. The
focus was on students and staff gender ratios in ocean science programmes.

Third, based on the outcomes of the gender representation of the students and staff,
to examine the students and staff views, and barriers to gender equality in ocean
science in Kenya. The focus was on students’ and staff experiences in ocean science
fields and barriers to access and equal participation in higher education.

Fourth, to apply Feminist Political Ecology to explore the forms of gender

inequalities, and the intersections between gender and age, family support,
education, ethnicity and class, across ocean science institutions in Kenya. The focus
was on how intersectionality contributes to explaining variability in ocean science
above and beyond the gender equality policy to the gender inequalities that currently
dominate in ocean science institutions among students and staff.

Fifth, to identify the good practices and interventions in the institutions to promote
gender equality in ocean science in Kenya and generate recommendations. The

27
focus was on all the interventions or initiatives in the institutions that are viewed as
good practices by staff, including gender policies.

1.3. Research questions

To achieve these objectives, the following five research questions were formulated
to guide this research:

1. What is the relationship between gender-related policies and women’s

representation in ocean science institutions in Kenya?
2. How does gender representation vary across ocean science career levels and
institutions in Kenya?
3. What are the barriers to gender equality among students and staff
participating in ocean science disciplines in Kenya?
4. How does age, family support, education, ethnicity and class intersect with
gender to influence the achievement of gender equality in Kenya?
5. What are the good practices in place to promote gender equality in ocean
science institutions in Kenya?

28
2. Literature review

¨Throughout Africa, women are the primary caretakers, holding significant

responsibility for tilling the land and feeding their families. As a result, they are
often the first to become aware of environmental damage as resources become
scarce and incapable of sustaining their families¨
~Wangari Maathai (2004).

2.1. Gender and ethnic politics in Kenya

2.1.1. Gender diversity in politics in Kenya

Gender representation in politics is a challenge that deserves serious attention in
Kenya. Gender plays an important role in Kenyan politics and gender-related issues
are currently on the rise especially in general elections and political appointments
(Memusi & Madsen, 2022, p. 3). Kenya had an estimated population of over 47.6
million people in 2019 with females accounting for 50.5 per cent of the total
population (Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, 2019). Most people are
concentrated near Lake Victoria and Nairobi –the capital city. The Global Gender
Gap Index Report in 2022, ranked Kenya in position 57 out of the 146 countries
surveyed, with a parity score index of 0.729 (WEF, 2022, p. 214). This ranking was
based on the country’s cumulative performance in four different aspects:
educational attainment (ranked 118th), political empowerment (ranked 81st), Health
and survival (ranked 57th) and economic participation and opportunity (ranked 6th).
These results showed a remarkable improvement compared to those in 2021, where
the country was ranked 95th position out of 156 countries studied with an index score
of 0.692 (WEF, 2021, p. 239). However, the 2023 index report ranks Kenya at 77
out of 146 countries, with a score of 0.708 (WEF, 2023). These data show why
regular monitoring and evaluation of the country’s performance in various sectors
in terms of gender equality is crucial because it shows how the gender gaps vary
over time and the need to look at trends rather than snapshots.
Women’s role in politics can be traced back from the pre-colonial, colonial to
post-colonial era (Oduol, 1993, p. 166; Ochwada, 1997, p. 2; Kamau, 2010, p. 11;

29
Kenyatta, 2023, p. 3). Even though women were largely invisible in political affairs,
historical records reveal their important contribution to make Kenya what it is today
(Oduol, 1993). For instance, during the colonial era when the country was struggling
to gain independence, women steered peaceful protests that jeopardized their lives
(Hanson, 2008; Kamau, 2010; Kenyatta, 2023, p. 3). Other efforts made by women
included the formation of women’s movements to promote and advocate for gender
equality such as Maendeleo Ya Wanawake Organisations (MYWO) and the
National Council of Women of Kenya (Ochwada, 1997, p. 16; Lutomia et al., 2016,
p. 321; Lund, 2021, p. 12). According to Lund (2021), the MYWO is a national
grassroots organisation formed by women in 1950s as a welfare organisation.
MYWO later became a turning stone that dealt with women’s rights issues and
gender equity in Kenya, as well as provided a safe space for women, including those
from rural areas. A report by European Institute for Gender Equality (2017) on
gender equality in political decision-making highlighted that equal participation of
women and men in politics is an important condition for good governance and
effective democracy. The participation of women in political decision-making has
many positive effects on the society such as development in education, higher
standards of living, health, and infrastructure, strengthening and enhancing the
democratic system, more equitable societies, and inclusive governance as well as a
decrease in political corruption (Fraile & Gomez, 2017).
However, politically, women are still underrepresented, with lower proportions
in elected bodies of government and political leadership often below 30 per cent
(Lund, 2021). This contravenes the one-third gender principle threshold as
stipulated in the 2010 Constitution (Lund, 2021). Kenya has never had a woman
head of state or Vice-President since its independence. The highest position a
woman has achieved in the last six decades since Kenya’s independence is the office
of the Chief Justice and governor position.
An examination into the challenges/obstacles faced by women politicians, root
causes of gender discrimination/biases and reasons causing the persistent gender
imbalance in political process in spite of the women’s efforts, has revealed different
factors or impediments (Lund, 2021, p. 6; Memusi & Madsen, 2022, p. 5). These
include the deeply rooted patriarchal structures, power imbalances, stereotypes,
cultural prejudices, competitive politics, political parties, lack of political will and
exclusion of women from political decision-making processes, violence against
women, shaming of female politicians and financial capability (Kamau, 2010; Lund,
2021; Memusi & Madsen, 2022; Kenyatta, 2023). Gender equality and
empowerment of women are key aspects that should be promoted in politics to
ensure that both women and men exercise their equal rights and freedom in political
decision-making process. In order to achieve this, there is need to reduce patriarchal
stigma about the perception of women’s position in society, feminist movements
and theories that have been developed to explore gender issues in politics and
provide concrete solutions.

30
2.1.2. Ethnic politics in Kenya

Historic background of ethnic groups in Kenya

Kenya is ethnically diverse (Taaliu, 2017; Kisaka & Nyadera, 2019), although the
number of ethnic groups has not been well-documented because of the
inconsistencies of the figures given in different reports. These sources include the
African Studies Center (n.d)2 that reported over 70 distinct ethnic groups and
Santhiapillai (2022), who reported over 150 ethnic groups in the country. However,
only 42 official tribes are commonly recognised in Kenya (Taaliu, 2017, p. 21).
While ¨ethnic groups¨ and ¨tribes¨ are terms with distinct definitions, in Kenya, they
are frequently used synonymously, as many Kenyans colloquially refer to their
ethnic groups as tribes. In the Kenyan context, the term ethnicity referred to as
¨belonging to a social group that share common identity based on socio-cultural
values like culture, languages, religion, customs, and beliefs¨ (Taaliu, 2017, p. 26).
It is used to express the identity and cultural affiliation of people in a population
(United Nations Statistical Division, 2003, p. 2). Whereas the term ¨tribe¨ refers to
a group of people within a geo-political region with common ancestry. In other
words, tribe is associated with common ancestors while ethnicity is related to culture
(Taaliu, 2017, p. 26). In this thesis, the researcher opts to use the term ‘ethnic
groups’, as it is a more inclusive, encompassing and relevant term in this particular.
Kenya’s ethnic groups came about many years before independence in 1963 when
the British colonial government divided Kenya into groups (Cornell & Hartmann,
2007; Kiai, 2009; Taaliu, 2017; Muange & Kiptoo, 2020). These ethnic groups
generally fall into three ethnolinguistic families: Bantu, Nilotic and Cushite. Based
on three broad categories, the five largest and dominant ethnic groups among these
families are the Kikuyu community with approximately 17.7 per cent of the nation’s
total population, followed by Luhya (14.2 per cent), Kalenjin (13.3 per cent), Luo
(10.8 per cent) and Kamba with 10.4 per cent - commonly referred to as the ‘big
five’ (Taaliu, 2017). Kenya’s relatively stable economy has led to an influx of
migrants and refugees who have been estimated to account for more than half a
million people in the country, many from neighbouring South Sudan and Somalia.
In addition to the African population, Kenya is home to groups who migrated to the
country during British colonial rule. People from India and Pakistan arrived in the
19th century, although many left after independence. A substantial number remain
in urban areas such as Mombasa, Nairobi and Kisumu, where they engage in various
business activities. European Kenyans, mostly British in origin, are the remnant of
the colonial population. The migration from rural to urban areas has accelerated
since independence, spurred by greater economic development in urban areas.

2 African Studies Center (n.d) East Africa living encyclopaedia

https://www.africa.upenn.edu/NEH/kethnic.htm

31
 The language of Swahili (also known as ‘Kiswahili’) has also helped shaped a
common national identity that transcends ethnic boundaries. Swahili, a language
sharing linguistic features with other Bantu-based languages in the country, became
the national language in Kenya following its independence, largely due to its broad
adoption among the population. The country also uses English as an official
language which is mainly used for business, education and official purposes. Along
with Swahili and English, each ethnic group speaks its language as a native tongue.
Swahili is commonly used when Kenyans communicate with other Kenyans from
different ethnic groups. Culturally, Kenyans identify with their ethnic groups with
many of them following traditions that relate to their ethnicity, from the name they
give their children to the way they serve their food. Alongside, this pride in their
native languages, there is a strong sense of national identity. Many are proud of their
cultural heritage, accomplishments, and the country’s successful efforts to achieve
economic growth.

Relationship between ethnicity and politics in Kenya

Ethnic politics is more pronounced in Kenya than many African countries. Becker
(2015, p. 11) argued that ethnicity is an important structuring factor in society
because political parties are organised mainly along ethnic lines. Lynch (2015, p.1)
has defined ethnic politics as ¨a situation in which politicians tend to mobilize
support on the basis of an appeal to ethnic identity and people tend to support leaders
from the same ethnic group¨. Kenyan politics has been experiencing an ongoing
competition for power which is often portrayed as a struggle between the major
ethnic groups –the Kikuyu, Kalenjin and Luo. In most cases, different ethnic groups
view each other as competitors (Njoroge, 2017). In fact, most people believe that
they will not access opportunities, or they will be excluded from state’s benefits and
protection when a member of their ethnic group is not in power (Ajulu, 2002; Lynch,
2015).
The consequences of ethnic bias in politics have been a pressing challenge in
socio-economic and political development for six decades now, a major stumbling
block to democracy, and the major cause of social problems since independence
(Taaliu, 2017, p. 21). This bias has been reported to ignore the interests of the
minority ethnic groups and side-line them when it comes to job opportunities and
decision-making processes, hence they always become politically marginalised
during an era of a particular ethnic group (Lynch, 2006). Ethnic bias in politics is
often implicated in a range of detrimental behaviours. These include election
rigging, corruption, poor governance, and the unequal distribution of resources, as
well as a lack of accountability (Masakhalia, 2011). Further, there is a dearth of
meritocracy, with job opportunities frequently being made based on ethnic group
affiliations rather than qualifications. This practice leads to an underutilization of
human capital and skills (Masakhalia, 2011).

32
2.2. Higher education in Kenya
Various researchers have studied different issues in higher education in Kenya,
including students’ enrolment and recruitment of staff (Mukhwana et al., 2016;
Taaliu, 2017; Odhiambo, 2018; Simson, 2019); growth of public and private
universities, gender disparities and ethnic diversities (Oketch, 2003; Onsongo,
2007; Boit & Kipkoech, 2012; Mwebi & Simatwa, 2013). Higher education,
specifically university education has been recognised as the most important factor
in achieving development and economic growth in the country and is expected to
play an increasingly greater role in socio-economic development through producing
and disseminating the knowledge required to achieve a knowledge-driven and
innovative economy (Mulinge & Arasa, 2017).
Kenya’s education systems have transformed and expanded in the last six
decades. There are different categories of higher educational institutions including
teacher training colleges, technical training institutions, middle level institutions and
universities (Mwebi & Simatwa, 2013). Over the years, higher education in Kenya
has experienced remarkable growth caused by the introduction of national policies;
the free primary education and free secondary education in 2003 and 2008,
respectively. The aim of these two policies was to provide a free universal education
system to everyone, regardless of income. This Education for All approach provided
an emancipation to parents and opportunities to many students, especially women
whose education was not prioritized and those from the marginalised groups.
Consequently, the number of public universities has risen from seven in 2007 to
twenty-four in 2010 (Mwebi & Simatwa, 2013, p. 353; Commission for University
Education, 2022). The expansion of university education also led to the
establishment of private universities to meet the growing demand. Currently, Kenya
has 37 public universities and 33 private universities, however, there are still not
enough places to accommodate all applicants according to the Commission for
University Education (2016).

2.2.1. Gender disparities in higher education

Access to higher education is an indispensable element and crucial tool for
substantial socio-economic development. University education has also been
recognised as the most important exit route from poverty (Boit & Kipkoech, 2012,
p. 44; Mwebi & Simatwa, 2013, p. 352; Rosa et al., 2020; Rosa & Clavero, 2022).
Women’s access to higher education exposes them to opportunities, higher income
sources, gives them self-confidence and provides social networks (Mwebi &
Simatwa, 2013). While Kenya has attained gender parity in primary education and
recorded reduced gender gaps in secondary education levels, women are generally
underrepresented in higher education compared to men (Mutula, 2002; Onsongo,

33
2006; Mulongo, 2013; Taaliu, 2017; Odhiambo, 2016; Migosi, 2018; World
Economic Forum, 2020). This is especially the case in Science, Technology,
Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) courses (Mbirianjau, 2018; Omukoba, 2018;
Shannon et al., 2019; Amunga & Amadalo, 2020). Despite the adoption of the
Education for All (EFA) and the education target of the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), gender inequalities
clearly persist in higher education in Kenya.

2.2.2. Ethnic inequalities in higher education

A number of previous studies in higher education have discovered that there are
ethnic disparities in Kenyan universities (Kramon & Posner, 2016; Mukhwana et
al., 2016; Taaliu, 2017; Simson & Green, 2020). Ethnic biases are more pronounced
and often witnessed in forms of admission of students to universities, and
employment e.g., recruitment, transfer, deployment and promotion of staff both
teaching and non-teaching staff, and provision of services in public office (Alwy &
Schech, 2004; Mwiria, 2006; Taaliu, 2017; Muange & Kiptoo, 2020). Taaliu (2017)
reported that the majority of students enrolled were from Kikuyu, Luhya, Kamba
and Luo, the four dominant ethnic groups that accounted for 72.8 per cent of the
total number of students in colleges and public universities. This means that the
other ethnic groups shared only the remaining 27.2 per cent. Mwiria (2006) also
confirmed that ethnic imbalance in representation exists in the public universities
where the majority of students admitted, staff employment and in leadership
positions, give priority to people from the region, mainly associated with their ethnic
groups.

2.2.3. Understanding the relationship between parents’ background

and students’ access to higher education in Kenya
The Kenyan Government claims that education can be accessed by every citizen and
that every citizen has a right to education regardless of gender, age, ethnicity, and
social status. Equitable education system ensures that a child whose parents have
higher incomes does not get an education superior to a child from a less
disadvantaged background (Wilkie, 2007). Unlike the primary and secondary
education, access to higher education is more expensive and it depends on the
availability of funding. Sources of funding in Kenyan universities vary from support
from parents or other family members, loans, grants, scholarships to well-wishers,
among others. Availability of financial resources often influence the students’
learning opportunities (The Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development, 2012, p. 11).

34
 Access to higher education is highly influenced by parental characteristics such
as educational background, class, and income. These factors play a significant role
in students’ academic life and influence individual educational choice in many
countries, including Kenya (Breen & Jonsson, 2005; Chege & Sifuna, 2006; Erola
et al., 2016). Occupational class of parents, in turn act as a direct indicator for the
material resources available for children’s education. Previous studies have
indicated that the parents’ resources and attitudes also have a powerful influence on
how gender intersects with educational outcomes, occupational attainment and
wider social norms and practices (McCracken et al., 2015; Määttä & Uusiautti,
2020). For instance, a study by Farre & Vella (2012) argued that increasing the
number of parents in education, especially mothers changes their traditional views
about the role of women in society, hence more likely to have working daughters
through increasing the educational attainment of their daughters. It can also be the
case that in accordance with traditional gender stereotypes, low educated parents
perceive STEM courses as less suitable for girls (Tomasetto et al., 2015).

2.3. Promoting gender and ethnic diversity in education

in Kenya
To achieve gender equality and ethnic diversity in higher education and other
sectors, the Government of Kenya has shown concerted efforts by developing
various policies (Ministry of Education, 2015; Wango et al., 2012). At the
international level, Kenya supported the Beijing Declaration of the Platform for
Action (1995), MDGs in 2000 and SDGs in 2015. Apart from the international
frameworks, the country has also developed national and institutional gender
policies to enhance the achievement of gender equality at institutional level,
including universities. EFA was to provide guidance to the country to achieve
gender equality in education by increasing the enrolment of female students at
different levels of education (Flora et al., 2014). To increase female students’
enrolment, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology in Kenya have since
then developed policies and strategies that have shown considerable progress or
improvements over the years, including the Education and Training Gender Policy
(2015). In addition, other relevant policies include the 2010 Constitution of Kenya,
the Sessional Paper No. 14 of 2012, the National Policy on Gender and
Development (2019), the Universities Act No. 42 of 2012 and many institutional
gender-related policies addressing gender inequality, sexual harassment and gender-
based violence.
The Education and Training Gender Policy in Kenya (2015) is the second edition
developed and adopted by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology
(MoEST) with the technical support of UNESCO. The aim of the national gender

35
policy was to ‘eliminate gender disparity and achieve gender equality in the
education sector’ (Ministry of Education, 2015; Ojwala et al., 2022; Hailu et al.,
2023), with references to various policy provisions from 2010 Kenyan Constitution
and international frameworks such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
(1948), the Convention on the Elimination of all Discrimination against Women
(1979), to the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995). This policy is
geared towards human rights-based approach to ensure equal rights to education for
girls and boys, women, and men, addressing six key priority areas, namely: access,
equity, quality education, safety, security, and gender-based violence, nurturing and
mentoring, and governance and management (Ministry of Education, 2015).
Institutions or universities are expected to ensure compliance in upholding the two-
thirds principle in enrolment of students and deployment of staff as expressed in the
2010 constitution. The institutions or universities are expected by the government
of Kenya to establish their individual gender-related policies, especially institutions
with more than 20 staff members. The policy also outlines the implementation
structure, with administrative framework in Ministry of Education, Science and
Technology. For instance, the Cabinet Secretary ensures that the policy is adopted
by all stakeholders and Principal Secretary oversees budgetary allocation and
provide leadership in facilitating the implementation and review of the policy. Even
though the policy document elaborated the implementation framework, there was
no statement highlighting the direct financial and legal consequences for not
following or complying with the requirements of the gender equality and ethnic
diversity policies by the institutions.

2.4. Ocean governance in Kenya

2.4.1. Policies and legislation

Kenya is located in the East African Coast and borders the Indian Ocean. The ocean
is recognised as playing an important role in human existence and in the Kenyan
economy, as well as in regulating climate conditions (Odido, 1998; Kibiwot, 2008).
To ensure effective ocean governance, Kenya has institutions and standards to
manage ocean resources and maintain their quality through setting up domestic and
international laws3. The domestic laws include Environmental Management and
Coordination Act (2015), Fisheries Management and Development Act (2016),
Wildlife Conservation and Management Act (2013), Merchant Shipping Act (2009),

3 Nairobi Covention (n.d). Marine and coastal resources governance –Kenya Country profile.
https://www.nairobiconvention.org/kenya-country-profile/marine-and-coastal-resources-
governance-kenya-country-profile/

36
and National Oceans and Fisheries Policy (2008). Kenya is also a signatory to
international laws, including the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
(UNCLOS-1982), East African Community Treaty and Protocols, the Convention
on Biological Diversity (1992), the Convention on the Conservation and
Management Measures of High Seas Resources, the Paris Agreement and the
International Convention for Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL), the
Nairobi Convention (1985) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)
framework.
At international level, the Nairobi Convention is a part of the United Nations
Environment Programme (UNEP)’s Regional Seas Programmes adopted in 1985,
with the aim of addressing the accelerating degradation of oceans and coastal areas
in the world, through sustainable use and management of marine and coastal
environment. This programme is for the protection, management and development
of marine and coastal environment of the Eastern African region (Odido, 1998;
Maina, 2012, p. 10). The FAO framework, on the other hand, is a voluntary
instrument adopted in 1995, aimed at everyone working in, and involved with
fisheries and aquaculture. For example, the FAO Code of Conduct is a set of
international standards of behaviour for responsible fisheries practices (FAO, 1995).
The Code has a global which is directed towards members and non-members of
FAO, sub-regional, regional and global organisations, fishing entities whether
governmental or non-governmental, and all persons concerned with the
conservation, management and development of fisheries resources, including
fisheries and those engaged in marketing and processing of fishery products as well
as other users of the aquatic environment in relation to fisheries (FAO, 1995, p. 1).
Besides, the Code provided principles and standards applicable to conservation,
management and development of all fisheries.
The Kenyan government has also recognised the potential of ocean resources in
boosting the country’s economic outlook and has made the Blue Economy an
economic pillar in its development blueprint (Obura, 2020; Thoya et al., 2022).
Kenya also co-sponsored the end of plastic pollution resolution which was a global
landmark during the United Nations Environmental Assembly. In addition, the
Government of Kenya is currently participating actively in the UN Ocean Decade
as evidenced in the 2022 UN Ocean Conference, where Kenya co-hosted the event
together with the Government of Portugal (United Nations, 2022).

2.4.2. Institutional framework

In Kenya, there are many institutions and organisations responsible for making
informed decisions regarding utilization, conservation, protection, education,
research, and management of ocean resources, including formal and informal
frameworks (Odido, 1998; Kibiwot, 2008). The institutions are mandated to

37
improve and protect the ocean in Kenya as detailed in Appendix 4 and their locations
provided in Figure 6. These institutions play a vital role in support of ocean research
and governance (Isensee et al., 2017). The institutions, especially those associated
with higher education and research, are key instruments for empowerment and
social change. In order to effectively address the ocean or environmental challenges
and their impacts, the country has developed an integrated ocean governance policy
–the Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) approach to bring all the ocean
institutions to work together to achieve sustainable utilization and management of
ocean resources (Kibiwot, 2008). However, women’s participation in ocean science,
research, conservation, and management institutions in Kenya is not well-
documented (Akumu, 2015; CISP, 2018).
The main institutions responsible for the ocean sector in Kenya can be
categorized into three (Figure 2) namely: government institutions, non-
governmental organisations, and intergovernmental organisations (Odido, 1998;
Maina, 2012). The specific examples of the government institutions include Kenya
Marine and Fisheries Research Institute (KMFRI), Fisheries Department, Kenya
Wildlife Service (KWS), National Environment Management Authority (NEMA),
Kenya Maritime Authority (KMA), Kenya Ports Authority (KPA), Kenya Navy,
local universities, Beach Management Units (BMUs) and Coastal Development
Authority (CDA). KMFRI is a government research institute established under the
Science and Technology Act Cap 250. Its responsibilities include conducting
research on marine and freshwater fisheries, aquaculture, chemical and physical
oceanography among others. The Fisheries Department is charged with the
responsibility of regulating artisanal and commercial fishing in Kenya, and it was
developed under Fisheries Act Cap 380 to carry out activities in relation to the
development, exploitation, utilization, conservation, and management of fisheries
resources. The department works together with the BMUs to strengthen co-
management of marine fisheries resources. While Kenya Maritime Authority role is
to help in the protection of the marine environment such as prevention of marine
pollution and it was established under KMA Act 2006 to co-ordinate, regulate and
oversee maritime affairs in Kenya, and the local universities are responsible for
marine and coastal-related studies.
The non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are voluntary groups of
organizations, usually not affiliated with any government. The majority of them are
non-profit organizations formed to provide services and advocate a public policy.
Examples of NGOs in the Kenyan Coast include Coastal Oceans Research and
Development in the Indian ocean (CORDIO) East Africa, Worldwide Fund for
Nature (WWF-Kenya), Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), Coastal and Marine
Resources Development (COMRED-Africa), Seascape, Ocean Sole, Community
Based Environmental Conservation (COBEC) and Coast Development Research
Organisation (CDRO). CORDIO East Africa conducts research related to coastal
oceans and climate change. The work of WWF-Kenya entails environmental

38
conservation and management and WCS is mandated to carry out research and
monitor coral reefs ecosystem and climate change. COBEC is a community-based
organisation that work with the local communities in conservation, protection and
restoration of species and their habitats.
Intergovernmental organisations (IGOs) also referred to as the international
organisations however the later may also include non-governmental organisations
as members, are usually established on the basis of a charter or treaty that sets out
the scope and parameters of their functions (Sinclair, 2019). According to Chelotti
et al. (2022), IGOs can act as a site and promoter of membership and socialisation
since it offers various avenue and mechanisms for states to interact and be
socialized. In addition, IGOs facilitates the diffusion of values at the societal level
through engagements, seminars or media campaigns with civil society (Chelotti et
al., 2022). Several IGOs exist within the United Nations system and are referred to
as the United Nations agencies. Examples of IGOs dealing with ocean science in
Kenya include UNEP, FAO, Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC)-
UNESCO and Western Indian Ocean Marine Science Association (WIOMSA).
WIOMSA is a regional non-profit membership organisation established in 1993.
The organisation has a particular interest in linking knowledge that emerges from
research to the management and governance issues that affect marine and coastal
ecosystems in the Western Indian Ocean region. It is dedicated to promote
educational, scientific and technological development of all aspects of marine
sciences in the WIO region. IOC-UNESCO, on the other hand, promotes
international cooperation in marine sciences to improve management of the ocean,
coasts and marine resources. The IOC is in charge of coordinating the United
Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development 2021-2030 (IOC-
UNESCO 2023)4, and coordinates programmes in ocean science, ocean
observations and services, ocean literacy and capacity development to promote the
advancement of science and its application to achieve sustainable development in
the country.

4 IOC- UNESCO (2023). The IOC-UNESCO Assembly gathered in Paris to review achievements
and plan future of global ocean science for sustainable development.
https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/ioc/unesco-assembly-gathered-paris-review-achievements-
and-plan-future-global-ocean-science

39
 International organizations

National organizations
Nairobi
Convention
Fisheries
Department
Non-governmental organizations
KWS
FAO
Public
universities CORDIO WWF WCS

KMFRI
WIOMSA

Figure 2: Summary of the categories of ocean science institutions in Kenya (see Appendix 4 for further
details).

2.5. Gender and environmental management

Gender has been recognised as a critical factor in determining how natural resources
are accessed and controlled, plying a significant role in sustainable development
(Rocheleau et al., 1996; Sen et al., 2002; Elmhirst & Resurreccion, 2012, p. 5;
Resurreccion, 2013). Correspondingly, gender is understood as a crucial
determining factor of ‘who does what’, ‘who has power’, ‘who decides’ and ‘who
has what’ in the society. In this study, gender roles or social norms are relevant since
they inform the gendered power relations and division of labour which shape
environmental issues such as access to and control over resources (Sida, 2016; Sen
& Mukherjee, 2017; Sen, 2019; Buckingham, 2020; Murunga, 2021). Gender roles
in the subsistence and household economies bring women closer to the environment
as providers for their families. However, harmful cultural barriers such as traditions,
stereotypes and superstitious claims often limit women’s activities and restrict
women from accessing and having control over natural resources (Geheb et al.,
2008). Subsequently, most women in rural areas are forbidden from taking part in
decision-making positions that target environmental management despite being the
primary users (UN Women, 2016). For instance, in the rural Global South, women’s
relationship with the environment is made more explicit by their responsibilities in
securing livelihoods such as subsistence farming, income generating activities e.g.
marketing, and collecting food, water and firewood (Rocheleau et al., 1996).

40
Inclusion of women in environmental development and management plans that
affect their lives is urgently needed to achieve a good governance (Gissi et al.,
2018).
Globally, women manage environment and simultaneously provide a livelihood
for their families. Although, women are often not counted as agents of change and
their knowledge is often ignored (Sida, 2016, p. 1). With this in mind, gender
analysis regarding gender aspects of the consumption of goods and services, use of
natural resources and experiences of environmental degradation such as pollution
and loss of biodiversity, is necessary in environmental management. Ideally, women
and men should be agents in environmental management, including equal
participation in decision-making and policy processes (Sida, 2016). Sida (2016)
argues that addressing gender in the context of the environment, also means
recognising that women and men are not homogenous groups. Women’s and men’s
age, ethnicity, social class and other variables interact in shaping the links between
gender and the environment, and this complexity must be accounted for in
participation and gender analysis, including formal and informal norms that shape
the behaviour of the actors, division of labour that outlines the tasks and
responsibilities that women and men are expected to fulfil in different sectors, and
access to and control over resources (Sida, 2016).
Discriminatory gender norms are often driven by power imbalances that ignore
women’s priorities, needs and knowledge, and exclude women from natural
resource management, decision-making and leadership. The social structures and
norms often influence the gender relations and affect the decision-making process
and management of natural resources between women and men (UNEP, 2016;
Huyer, 2015). UNEP (2016) has pointed out that women and men utilize and
manage ecosystems differently because of differences in their roles, environmental
knowledge, capacity and needs concerning natural resources. Consequently, gender
equality is needed for sustainable environmental development worldwide5.
Environmental problems usually have more severe impacts on women, because the
majority of women lack alternative sources of livelihoods and income-generating
activities compared to men (Coleman & Mwangi, 2013; OECD, 2020).
Additionally, their time-intensive household and care duties often impede their
ability to participate in decision-making processes and initiatives that are geared
towards the sustainable management (Coleman & Mwangi, 2013; Fisher & Carr,
2015; Villamor & van Noordwijk, 2016).
It has been proposed that sustainable development is only attainable through
gender equality, when the needs and interests of both women and men are fully

5 Geneva Environment Network. (2023). Gender and the environment

https://www.genevaenvironmentnetwork.org/resources/updates/gender-and-the-environment/

41
recognised (Irish Aid Gender Equality Policy, n.d, p. 7)6. UN Women (2018)
describes gender equality as a driver of sustainable development in all its spheres
(Agarwal, 2010; Agarwal, 2019; Płonka et al., 2022). Women play significant roles
in informal environmental management and development, and the mounting global
evidence establishes a link between enhanced environmental outcomes and gender
equality (Westermann et al., 2005; Agarwal, 2010; Giakoumi et al., 2021). For
instance, Gissi et al. (2018, p. 215) argued that ocean governance needs to
incorporate women’s role for its effectiveness. According to Giakoumi et al. (2021)
women’s participation brings different types of observations, knowledge,
interpretations, and experiences that provide new perspectives to enrich
management with concrete and innovative solutions. Subsequently, the vital
contributions of women must be recognised and considered in all pillars of
sustainable development and environmental restoration (Haraway, 1991; Agarwal,
2010; Agarwal, 2018). Indeed, studies have revealed that countries with better
female representation in political and top ministerial positions in environment-
related sectors are more likely to ratify environmental treaties leading to sustainable
management solutions (Elwell & Williams, 2016; IUCN, 2020).
Unfortunately, across the fisheries and ocean sectors women often experience
several challenges due to lack of gender-aware perspectives because these sectors
are dominated by men (Aloo et al., 2000; Allison & Mvula, 2002; FAO &
RECOFTC, 2016). Women are more likely to face gender discrimination hampering
their access to fisheries and other ocean resources, participation in decision-making
and by the irrational belief that women on-board fishing or research vessels brings
bad luck (Harper et al., 2013; Koralagama et al., 2017; Harper et al., 2017; CISP,
2018, Johannesen et al., 2022). This calls for a gender-responsive approach in ocean
management to maximise the full potential of women and men to contribute to
environmental (ocean) sustainability effectively and equitably.

2.5.1. Overview on gender and sustainable development

Since the 1980s when the relationship between gender, environment and
development began to be discussed, insights from researchers, activists and policy
makers have helped to develop knowledge about gender as a concept and its
connection with the environment (Lawanga, 2002), as well as to clarify how gender
relations operate at different scales and places. Rocheleau et al. (1996), Nightingale
(2011), Harcourt and Nelson (2015) and Buckingham (2020) have all acknowledged
that it is critical at the start of every research project and management process to
understand the gendered political, cultural, and socio-economic processes and

6IrishAid (n.d). Environment and Gender equality.

https://www.irishaid.ie/media/irishaid/allwebsitemedia/20newsandpublications/publicationpdfsen
glish/environment-keysheet-13-gender-equality.pdf

42
structures. This creates better understanding when dealing with environmental
problems, in order to establish gender-responsive approaches to achieve equitable
development. Studies have examined the roles of gender in environmental
discourses and their differentiated roles dealing with the environment, identifying
some of the constraints that women face in accessing, using and managing natural
resources. Studies in the Global South have viewed women as environmental
managers and agents of change towards sustainable development because of their
productive and reproductive roles, particularly in the household and at local levels
in society (Nightingale, 2006). Notwithstanding, Elmhirst and Resurreccion (2012)
noted some shortcomings in the efforts to integrate gender considerations into
natural resource management and development policy. They found that while
gender was incorporated into various institutional tools, it often lacked its
transformative potential –a critical and politicised aspect within a feminist context.
With rising environmental degradation, feminist perspectives acknowledge that
environmental crises are not gender neutral as they affect people disproportionately.
Women bear the highest costs of environmental crises due to, but not limited to,
household roles such as providing food and water for their family, and at community
levels (Dankelman, 2002, p. 2; Dankelman, 2017). According to feminist scholars,
environmental justice can only be achieved when resource destruction and
discriminatory power relations that affect people already facing multiple forms of
discrimination, including women, are seen as part of the same problem (Todes et
al., 2010; Haeffner et al., 2021). Further, scholars argue that ‘environmental
problems cannot be adequately addressed without addressing gender and other
forms of social inequality’ ingrained in individual social identities (Buckingham,
2020, p. 6). The inequalities that affect women are not independent or mutually
exclusive since not all women experience this inequality in the same way due to
their individual social identities, as demonstrated by intersectional critiques of
feminism (Buckingham, 2000; Moeckli & Braun, 2001; Warren, 2015; Buckingham
& Le Masson, 2017; Crenshaw, 2017).
Previous studies have recognised the crucial role feminist and women’s
movements have played in climate and environmental actions since the 1970s.
While women in the Global North were less directly linked to their environments,
women in the Global South were found to have a typical relationship with the
environment where they were primarily responsible for collecting water and
firewood, among others (Rocheleau et al., 1996; Harcourt & Nelson, 2015).
However, some shared disadvantages such as income and occupational imbalances
affect all women regardless of their geographical location (Buckingham, 2020). On
average, women are reported to continue to be poorer than men and suffer more
from the environmental consequences of such inequality (Agarwal, 1992;
Muyoyeta, 2007; Kitada, 2016), despite the initiatives that have been in place to
better understand the relationship between women and environment or women,
gender, and development. Women are very often excluded in the planning and

43
implementation of development; as a result, they have not benefited from
development programmes, projects, and processes to the same extent as men
(Muyoyeta, 2007). Besides, scholars and researchers have highlighted that
development, like environmental degradation and natural disasters, also affects
women and men differently, often with significant burden and negative impact on
women (UN Women, 2018). Gender analysis in environmental work is necessary
and relevant, as it makes gender differences and power structures visible in all areas
such as waste management, water, energy, forestry, chemical and pollution,
democracy, and livelihood, agriculture and fishing (Sida, 2016). For instance,
gender division of labour in forest management differs and depends on many
aspects, though in general the use of forest by men causes more environmental
degradation. Nonetheless, women have less access to forest and land rights, and
participate less in forest management and decision-making. Also, in coastal areas,
men work predominantly with fishing and fish farming, while up to 90% of
secondary sector workers are women (Sida, 2016, p. 3).
The United Nations' (UN) work on gender emerged over four decades ago when
women were included in development plans at national and international levels
(Muyoyeta, 2007). The UN’s historical work on gender has shown some progress
in addressing gender inequalities and theories of women’s issues in development
based on international frameworks, initiatives and conferences that were aimed at
promoting gender equality (Figure 3). UN Women (2023) highlighted that the
recognition of women's roles and contributions was intended to increase women's
capacity and participation in development processes, as well as to empower them
and improve their disadvantaged status. Some of these initiatives include Women in
Development (1970s), UN Decade for Women conferences (from 1975 to 1995),
Gender and Development (1998); Millennium Development Goals (2000) and the
Sustainable Development Goals (2015). The feminist frameworks adopted a
Women in Development (WID) approach in the 1970s, which was later replaced by
a Gender and Development (GAD) approach (Parpart, 2000, Muyoyeta, 2007).
Even though the WID approach increased the visibility of women in development
issues and successfully helped secure women’s issues a prominent place at the UN
and other development agencies, it had some limitations because its main emphasis
was on small income-generating activities and projects, and the issues addressed
were based on women’s reproductive roles, including nutrition, family planning and
education. The WID approach, in an attempt to improve the position of women in
society, sought to integrate women into the development programmes and planning
they had initially been left out of (Muyoyeta, 2007). This approach saw women as
a group lacking the opportunity to participate in development, and this exclusion
was seen as detrimental to the development. The approach succeeded to increase
awareness of gender inequality, enhance livelihoods, increase participation in
decision-making and improve access to education and employment (Miller &
Razavi, 1995; Momsen, 2008). However, some challenges associated with the WID

44
approach included limited resources, resistance to change, limited institutional
support and lack of gender-disaggregated data7. The WID approach was problematic
as it focused exclusively on women as the “problem” rather than on gender relations
and power imbalances, issues which Gender and Development sought to address
(The KOOTNEETI, 2022).
Prior to the formation of GAD, critics of WID gave rise to the Women and
Development (WAD) approach which argued that women are an important part of
development and have always been key economic actors (Miller & Razavi, 1995;
Muyoyeta, 2007). Unlike WID, WAD focused primarily on the interaction between
women and development processes and asserted that integration of women in
development escalates inequality. WAD was criticized for this approach as it
viewed global inequalities as the main problem facing people from poor countries,
addressing women’s exclusion from the global economic structures which
disadvantaged women because of their social status (class) and led to unequal
distribution of wealth (Koczberski, 1998; Parpart, 1993; Chowdry, 1995; Miller &
Razavi, 1995; Momsen, 2008). The WAD approach was also criticized for assuming
that women’s position in society will improve with more equitable international
structures, underplaying the role of patriarchy in social relations and undermining
women’s equal participation. Further reflection on women’s experiences in
development gave rise to Gender and Development (Miller & Razavi, 1995;
Marchand & Parpart, 1995), which looked at the impact of development on both
women and men. This approach sought to ensure that both genders participate in
and benefit from development, with emphasis on equality of control and benefit
(Muyoyeta, 2007). Other initiatives followed, including the Decade for Women
(1976-1985) and women’s conferences, notably those held in Mexico City, Nairobi,
Copenhagen and Beijing (Figure 3).
During the fourth Women’s Conference in Beijing (1995), a platform for action
was adopted to ensure full and equal participation of women in economic, political,
social, civic and cultural life at different levels, including national, regional and
international. It also aimed to eradicate all forms of discrimination based on sex
(Cornwall & Rivas, 2015). However, challenges like lack of acknowledgment of
contextual knowledge of women and limited representation of women still remain.
This platform has not been able to tackle issues that relate to long-standing concerns
such as harmful traditional practices (Allotey & Denton, 2020). Since then, gender
equality and women’s empowerment have been central to all the UN agencies' work,
including the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000 and Agenda 2030
for Sustainable Development – SDGs (United Nations, 2015). From a gender lens,
the MDGs highlighted the top-down nature of the processes that were established

7 The KOOTNEETI. (2022). Women in Development (WID): Principles, success and challenges:
https://thekootneeti.in/2022/09/21/women-in-development-wid-principles-success-and-
challenges/#:~:text=Women%20in%20development%20(WID)%20is,in%20all%20aspects%20of
%20development.

45
by a few UN officials and failed to address the issues of gendered power, resulting
in women working for development rather than development working for their
empowerment and equality (UN Women, 2014, p. 30). These shortcomings of the
MDGs were addressed in the SDGs that aim to leave no one behind in
developmental programmes and processes.
The UN’s commitment to promoting gender equality led to centralizing the
several UN functions of working on gender equality by establishing UN Women in
July 2010. UN Women is mandated to accelerate the progress in advancing and
achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment (UN Women, 2013). This
agency has been actively leading the annual celebration of International Women’s
Day globally, with different themes including Empowering Women-Empowering
humanity, Planet 50-50 by 2030: Step it up for gender equality, Women in
Leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world, and Gender equality
today for a sustainable future tomorrow. Besides this, various other UN international
agencies have also shown their commitments by integrating gender in their
programs and projects. These include FAO, the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). For
instance, FAO adopted its Gender Equality Policy in 2012 to mainstream gender in
its project cycle to better achieve food security, reduce poverty, and ensure rural
development as per its mandate (FAO, 2013; FAO 2020). The UNFCCC also
developed an enhanced gender action plan (through the Lima Work Programme)
that sets out activities and objectives aimed to advance understanding and
knowledge of gender-responsive climate action8. In order to achieve a
transformative social change, institutions need to apply gender and social equality
perspectives to environment and development (UNFCCC, 2017). Apart from UN
Women, other organisations working for gender equality include9: Association for
Women’s Rights in Development, Womankind Worldwide, Women for Women
International, Women’s Environment and Development Organisation, and
International Centre for Research on Women.
These platforms provide transformative and intersectional approaches to promote
gender mainstreaming and social inclusion in development and management of
natural resources, and provide the opportunities for researchers to present case
studies on women and environmental crises at different levels e.g., local, national
and global levels (Feenstra & Özerol, 2021). However, researchers still report
persistence in gender pay gaps and gender inequality in decision-making positions

8 United Nations Climate Change (2017). Gender Action Plan.

lhttps://unfccc.int/topics/gender/workstreams/the-gender-action-plan
9 Ada Hasanagic (n.d). 25 organizations fighting for gender equality.
https://www.humanrightscareers.com/magazine/organizations-gender-equality/

46
in different sectors including education and labour market around the world, with
the largest affected group being from developing countries (UN Women, 2014). In
fact, women were reported to be the majority of those dismissed when jobs are cut,
as observed during the period of COVID-19 (Afridi et al., 2022). Moreover,
women’s search for work has been observed to be limited by the need for ‘family-
friendly’ hours and accessible locations, which leads most women to resort to low-
paid service jobs, especially in urban areas or richer countries (Buckingham, 2020,
p. 2). In contrast, men are repeatedly reported to dominate senior and higher paid
positions. The underrepresentation of women is alarming in all sectors related to the
environment including ocean science. The next sub-section discusses the plight of
the global oceans, ocean sustainability, the interaction between gender and oceans
e.g., women’s role in relation to marine environment and ocean science (fisheries,
coastal management and conservation), the existing challenges, the goal of the
Ocean Decade to improve ocean health and why gender equality is key in ocean
sustainability.

47
 1975
1948 1970s
First International Women's 1976-1985
Universal Declaration of International Feminist
Year -First Conference (Held UN Decade for Women
Human Rights Movements
in Mexico City)

1979 1995
1980
Convention on the 1985 Fourth World Women's
Second World Conference on
Elimination of All Forms of Third World Women's Conference -The Beijing
Women (Held in
Discrimination against Conference (Held in Nairobi) Declaration and Platform for
Copenhagen)

48
Women Action

2010 2021
2000 2015
UN Entity for Gender The UN Decade of Ocean
Millennium Development Sustainable Development
Equality and Empowerment Science for Sustainable
Goals Goals
of Women Development

Figure 3: International frameworks and initiatives to promote gender equality

2.6. Ocean Sustainability
The oceans are the largest ecosystems in the world, supporting rich biodiversity and
providing vast goods and services which support the human population in coastal
and island States and beyond. They are strongly interconnected and integral to both
the global ecosystem functioning, security, and economy (National Research
Council, 2001; Lacroix et al., 2016; Rasowo et al., 2020). The benefits range from
provisioning to regulating ecosystem services, including food supply, employment,
and income-generating opportunities (Fröcklin, 2014; Kleiber et al., 2015; Barbier,
2017; Franke et al., 2020; OECD, 2022), providing wellbeing benefits to all
humanity. Importantly, all these benefits are linked to human rights, e.g., in the
fisheries sector (Francis & Bryceson, 2001; Diamond et al., 2003; Biswas, 2012; de
la Torre-Castro et al., 2017; FAO, 2022). According to FAO (2022), more than 58.5
million people depend either directly or indirectly on capture fisheries and
aquaculture around the world, with the vast majority coming from developing
countries (Medard et al., 2002; Lwenya et al., 2016; Matsue et al., 2014; Nunan &
Cepić, 2020). The multiple benefits can only be derived from healthy and resilient
oceans (Ryabinin et al., 2019; OECD, 2022).
Meanwhile, growing threats to ocean ecosystems and human beings are on the
verge of causing unprecedented damage to the world’s oceans. Despite the oceans’
vastness and complexity, they are becoming vulnerable due to the growing pressures
causing more and more challenges in the marine environment. For centuries, many
people took for granted the dazzling biodiversity of life in the oceans10. However,
as threats to the marine natural environments escalate and extinction rates increase,
it is time for humankind to work harder to preserve the breadth of species living
here (Partelow et al., 2023). Scholars have studied and observed changes and
challenges including loss of biodiversity, marine pollution, overfishing, climate
change, oil drilling, illegal poaching, rising sea-levels, ocean acidification and
coastal development (Lacroix et al., 2016). These threats remain global problems
with profoundly negative environmental, economic and social consequences
(Owuor et al., 2019; Nina et al., 2023; Partelow et al., 2023). For example, the
percentage of stocks fished at biologically unsustainable levels rose from 10 per
cent in 1974 to 35.4 per cent in 2019 (FAO, 2022, p. 46).
Overfishing is having serious impacts on the oceans as it wipes out some fish
stocks. The manifold variety of life forms in the oceans have been affected by
anthropogenic activities, which in turn have affected the ocean processes and
functions, and detrimental not only to the ocean’s health, but also to aspects of

10 PEW (2018). Plight of ocean species shows need to preserve earth’s variety of life.
https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2018/05/21/plight-of-ocean-species-
shows-need-to-preserve-earths-variety-of-life

49
human life and infringing the rights attached to them (Pomeroy & Douvere, 2008;
Owuor et al., 2019). FAO estimates that over 70 per cent of the world’s fish species
have been entirely exploited or depleted; by capturing fish faster than they can
reproduce, which is harming the entire ecosystems that interact with those species,
from the food they eat to the predators that eat them. Additionally, many extensively
used fishing methods are quite destructive. For example, pulling the catches and
bottom trawling destroy sea floor habitat and scoops up many unwanted fish and
animals (bycatch) that are later tossed aside, by which time they are either dead or
severely injured. There is also massive loss of diversity, and some marine species
are on the verge of extinction according to the World Ocean Assessment Report
(United Nations, 2021). It is also estimated that most seas already need long-term
fishing bans if certain species are to recover at all.
There are also increasing numbers of dead zones – hypoxic (low-oxygen) areas
in the oceans caused by excessive nutrient pollution from human activities, coupled
with other factors that deplete the oxygen required to support most marine life in
bottom and near-bottom water (OECD, 2022). According to OECD (2022),
eutrophication and ocean dead zones are a growing global challenge. These dead
zones result from water quality challenges –eutrophication, which is a water
pollution caused by excess use of nutrients that trigger toxic algal blooms. The
blooms cause spots ‘dead zones’ in the oceans where life no longer exists or lead to
significant loss of marine biodiversity. Over the years, the amount of plastic
pollution in the oceans has also increased and it has become inevitable that human
activities have detrimental effects on ocean life (Thompson et al., 2009; Andrady,
2011; Partelow et al., 2023). A huge amount of trash finds its way into the ocean in
the form of debris which can easily entangle and trap animals. These plastics often
destroy delicate sea life like sponges and corals. Besides, sea turtles and dolphins
often mistake plastic bags for their favourite foods, like jellyfish and squids, choking
them or clogging their digestive system. Ocean acidification, on the other hand,
results from excessive absorption of carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted worldwide and
makes the ocean much more acidic. The ocean acidification has the effect of limiting
the calcium carbonate needed by corals, plankton, and other marine life to build the
skeletal frames and shells that protect them. In addition, excessive nutrients
(nitrogen) in the ocean also contributes to climate change. Numerous activities with
high economic benefits performed by humans e.g., fisheries and aquaculture
coupled with the increased ocean utilization and lack of awareness of the unbalanced
ecological footprint by humans have resulted to the declining ocean health (Lacroix
et al., 2016; Siles et al., 2019). Unfortunately, only around 3 per cent of the oceans
are fully protected, very far from the 30 per cent that marine scientists say is needed
to ensure a healthy marine environment.
The current status and situation of ocean degradation requires an urgent integrated
vision of knowledge and resources, and new perspectives and solutions in order to
tackle the challenges arising from human activities both onshore and at sea (Cicin-

50
Sain & Belfiore, 2003; de la Torre-Castro, 2019). In order to help increase the
awareness of the problems that marine debris causes in the oceans and consider
ocean sustainability issues e.g., ocean protection and representation justice, UN
agencies including FAO, UNEP, and IOC-UNESCO have developed a number of
initiatives and measures of the conservation strategy to improve the health of the
ocean, including Stockholm Declaration and London Convention (1972), UNCLOS
implemented in 1982, as well as the World Ocean’s Day which is celebrated
annually. These initiatives place environmental issues including ocean pollution at
the forefront of international concerns to enhance ocean protection. As human
health and well-being depend on the healthy marine ecosystem services
underpinning the ocean economy and providing critical supporting functions
(OECD, 2022).

2.7. The UN Ocean Decade and gender

The call for a more sustainable use of the ocean led to the formulation of many
initiatives such as the UN Sustainable Development Goal 14 (SDG 14: Life below
Water) in 2015 and the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development
(the Ocean Decade) in 2021 by the IOC-UNESCO. SDG 14 aims to ‘conserve and
sustainably use the seas, ocean and marine resources for sustainable development’
(United Nations, 2015). The UN Ocean Decade was initiated as a ten-year
implementation plan to enhance the achievement of SDG 14. Its aim is to support
innovative ideas, new discoveries and generate knowledge to find solutions that
reverse the decline in ocean health (Kaluza et al., 2018; Ryabinin et al., 2019; Franke
et al., 2020). According to de la Torre-Castro (2019), adopting an inclusive ocean
management approach by incorporating gender aspects is beneficial to the oceans
e.g., small scale fisheries, and to ensure a diversity of actors as it considers women
and men, elders, and children as well as the ethnic minorities. In ocean management
just like in other resource management systems, women have been largely excluded
in decision-making processes in different governmental agencies (Diamond et al.,
2003). For instance, women and men often perform different activities. In most
cases, especially in developing countries like Kenya, women normally have roles
that are carried out onshore such as fish processing, trading, and collecting
invertebrates while men participate in fishing activities (Weeratunge et al., 2010;
Abwao & Awuor, 2019).
The study reported in this PhD thesis addresses the interaction between two UN
SDGs, that is Goal 14 (Life below Water) associated with the conservation and
sustainable use of the seas, oceans and marine resources for sustainable
development and Goal 5 (Gender Equality) concerned with achieving gender
equality and empowerment of all women and girls (United Nations, 2015b). Until

51
now, discussions related to SDG 14 have not adequately considered gender-specific
matters and this is perilous to the sustainable use and management of marine
resources, possibly because of the exclusion of women, who are primary actors and
whose contributions are often overlooked (Arulnayagam, 2020). None of the SDG
14 targets mention any gender-related indicators. According to Elwell and Williams
(2016), more attention to the different needs, concerns, priorities and disparities
between women and men is needed. The most important thing is that gender equality
is currently addressed in the recently proclaimed implementation plan – the Ocean
Decade (Ryabinin et al., 2019; IOC-UNESCO, 2020). The Ocean Decade is
committed and has shown increasing interest and effort in gender equality in ocean
science by endorsing some gender-focused programmes, such as Empowering
Women for the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development
programme (Empowering Women programme) at World Maritime University-
Sasakawa Global Ocean Institute (WMU-GOI) to improve diversity, capacity
building, equity, and inclusion. This programmes also ensures innovative
discoveries and solutions to promote gender equality and diversity in ocean science
globally that can help to find diverse solutions to ocean pressures and problems
(DFO Canada, 2020; Sun et al., 2021).
Across many parts of the world, achieving gender equality in ocean science has
been made more difficult by a lack of or inadequate gender-disaggregated data, both
descriptive and substantive representation. According to Radel and Coppock (2013),
having gender-disaggregated data helps acknowledge women’s and men’s
substantial roles, recognise their contributions, and address the different concerns
and interests separately. Understanding the relationship between gender,
environment and sustainable development helps to explain who makes decisions on
ocean-human systems, and how these decisions are made is critical to ocean
resource governance (Gissi et al., 2018). The lack of research and publicity on
gender inequalities in managing ocean resources has led to persistent unconscious
biases and exclusion of women from developmental plans and projects, and from
decision- and policy-making processes in the ocean sector. The data needed to track
national, regional, and global progress for women’s representation and contributions
in ocean science are simply lacking.
Impacts of deteriorating ocean health are unlikely to be gender neutral as their
effects increase the risk for the least empowered and most vulnerable group in
society. Previous studies show clear evidence of a gender gap in ocean science
(O’Connell & Holmes, 2005; Bonatti & Crane, 2012; Huyer, 2015; Isensee et al.,
2017; Gissi et al., 2018; Michalena et al., 2020; Giakoumi et al., 2021; Brooks &
Deniz-Gonzalez, 2021; Legg et al., 2023), where women are active environmental
managers and primary actors whose expertise is often under-utilized in decision-
making-related planning, research and management of the ocean; thus women
rightfully demand inclusion in these processes. Gender equality is a cross-cutting
theme in sustainable development discussions and the Ocean Decade encourages all

52
countries, particularly the developing countries, to incorporate a gender perspective
on ocean science policies and practices, a perspective which is currently absent (Sun
et al., 2021). Gender is important to consider within ocean science since such fields
rely on access to education and job opportunities, all which favour men everywhere
but more starkly in the Global South. There is currently a broad agreement on the
urgent need for gender equality within the ocean scientific community as it crosscuts
all sectors and issues that must be addressed to achieve ocean sustainability (Sun et
al., 2021).
Even though IOC-UNESCO in 2020 recognised the need to include women in
ocean science (Gillanders & Heupel, 2019; Haas et al., 2022), it is late relative to
other international agencies which have already done so. The IOC-UNESCO,
through the Ocean Decade implementation plan, also recognises the imbalances
between women and men in ocean science. The concern applies to various
disciplines in ocean science across developed, emerging, and developing countries.
In the Global South, the under-representation of women ocean scientists is
particularly acute. To address this, the Ocean Decade offers capacity development
for women to improve their knowledge and skills to increase their participation in
decision-making processes in ocean sciences for sustainable development
(Ryabinin, 2020). Furthermore, the Empowering Women programme as one of the
Decade Networks promotes and advocates for gender equality and women’s
empowerment in ocean science worldwide. However, the implementation plan does
not address how the Ocean Decade is going to increase the use of a gender-
responsive approach in actual ocean science research. The Empowering Women
programme therefore aims to build capacity and advocate for gender equality or
gender perspectives in ocean science governing bodies at national, regional, and
international levels. This programme offers training and creates awareness on
gender-related issues through creating a gender strategic plan and actions as a
guiding principle to ensure gender equality is achieved at all ocean science
disciplines and career levels – equal representation of ‘the people we need for the
ocean we want’ (Sun et al., 2021).
Nevertheless, some of the issues that became clear from the previous studies on
gender and ocean science was the inadequate research, little or limited information
and lack of gender-disaggregated data, more specifically in developing countries
(Kleiber et al., 2015; de la Torre-Castro, 2019). To date, the only available data is
found in the two Global Ocean Science Reports by the IOC-UNESCO that presented
the underrepresentation of women in ocean science at a global scale (IOC-
UNESCO, 2020a; 2020b). Even though this report identified and quantified the key
elements of ocean science such as workforce and publications, the figures presented
on representation of female ocean science researchers and personnel did not give a
good reflection of the current status of gender equality in ocean science at either
national or global levels. The data used were extracted from the lists of participants
who attended international conferences and symposia between 2009 and 2015 (Sun

53
et al., 2021). Therefore, the need for evidence-based research to provide the primary
data led to this study with a focus on developing countries using Kenya as a case
study.

54
3. Theoretical Framework

A feminist theoretical approach helped to examine gender equality and women’s

empowerment in ocean science and how and why gender inequalities in ocean
science education disadvantage women in accessing ocean science careers. One
theoretical perspective that addresses the multiple dimensions of gender in ocean
science is that of feminist political ecology, which concerns the political and power
relationships between gender and environment, and how these shape ecological
processes, knowledges, and sustainable management (Rocheleau et al., 1996;
Elmhirst, 2011; Elmhirst, 2015; Sundberg, 2017). FPE was developed to examine
women's invisible and often neglected knowledge and contributions to sustainable
development (Sundberg, 2017; Nam, 2018; Lau, 2020).

3.1. Feminist political ecology

Feminist political ecology (FPE) is a subfield of political ecology introduced in the
1990s (Rocheleau et al., 1996; Harcourt & Nelson, 2015) and inspired by
ecofeminists, feminist poststructuralists, and feminist environmentalists. Political
ecology (PE) understands that ecological concerns in connection with the political
economy (Blaikie & Brookfield, 1987) and argues that power relations influence
human’s relationship with the environment and natural resources (Nyantakyi-
Frimpong, 2017; Batterbury & Ndi, 2018). As an inclusive term, it involves diverse
research into policy, environment, and politics, particularly concerning access and
control over natural resources (Rocheleau et al., 1996). Political ecologists
acknowledge that political, social, environmental, and economic perspectives and
decision-making processes shape the lives of individuals or groups, environmental
practices and policies. In other words, it helps explain how politics, conditions and
implications create environmental changes (Bryant, 1992; Harcourt & Nelson,
2015; Sundberg, 2015). Though the central focus of political ecology is the uneven
distribution of access to and control over natural resources, determined by factors
such as ethnicity and class, the field of FPE has arisen in response to traditional PE
lack of consideration for women’s roles. This observation is notably pointed out by
Rocheleau et al. in 1996. According to Rocheleau et al. (1996, p.1), ¨the
convergence of gender and environment emerged under conditions of rapid

55
restructuring of ecologies, economies, politics, and cultures from global to local
levels¨.
The FPE approach begins with positioning gender as a critical variable that
influences resource access and control, shaping ecological practices and processes
that, in turn, impact both women and men and their relationship to the environment
(Rocheleau et al., 1996; Radel & Coppock, 2013; Sundberg, 2017; Nyantakyi-
Frimpong, 2017). In addition, FPE does not assume shared identities. For example,
not all women share the same life experience, nor do they behave in a similar way
in a given situation. Thus, FPE posits that gender interacts with other social
identities such as class, education, ethnicity, and age to influence gender and power
relations –a term defined as intersectionality (Arora-Jonsson, 2011; Nightingale,
2011; FAO & Biswas, 2017; Odhiambo et al., 2018). This intersectionality is what
shapes the struggles that women face in sustaining their survival and livelihoods
ultimately influencing ecological change and the communities’ prospect for
sustainable development. In this context, FPE helps explain existing gendered
differences and provides an understanding that helps to avoid generalizing all
women as vulnerable or victims. FPE can help identify barriers that hinder the
participation of women and men of particular identities. It seeks to understand,
interpret, and explain the local experiences of economic and environmental change.
According to Axelrod et al. (2022), an intersectional approach can inform
sustainable and equitable environmental policy by highlighting distributional
injustice through power relations associated with multiple components of an
individual's social identity. The authors further pointed out that a lack of knowledge
on these issues by policy makers and environmental managers may lead to harmful
policies aggravating existing injustices rather than promoting equitable and
sustainable development. Intersectionality moves beyond gender hierarchies and
acknowledges the way patriarchy relates to class, age, ethnicity, and education to
shape the nexus between humans and ocean. Gender is a source of powerlessness or
power in any culture or society, and the power associated with gender can always
change because societies and cultures also change (Gordon, 1995; FAO, 2017).
Therefore, when the power associated with gender intersects with other sources of
power such as class, education, age and ethnicity, the power may decrease or
increase (Haraway, 1991; Akoyoko, 2014; Sundberg, 2015).
According to feminist political ecologists, much of the literature on gender and
environment categorizes women as either: the problem, as victims or as saviours
(Arora-Jonsson, 2011; Gay-Antaki, 2016). FPE can counter the woman-as-victim
narrative and find solutions to the general failure to incorporate gender as an
essential characteristic which determines access, control, decision-making and
policy-making processes, as well as governance of natural resources. An FPE
approach helps address the how- and why- questions that explain the variations in
gender-environment interactions (Radel & Coppock, 2013). It provides new
perspectives that recognise deeply rooted inequalities and are entrenched in the

56
concept of equality. According to Gay-Antaki (2016), FPE stresses how the social
positions of women have enhanced their knowledge of environmental issues
depending on where they live and made them expertly aware of the rising prices of
water, consumables, and electricity, as well as develop adaptive strategies in the
face of environmental degradation or climate crises. Rocheleau et al. (1996, p.4)
sum up the approach when they state, ‘FPE considers gender as a critical variable
in shaping resource access and control and often interacting with class, ethnicity,
race, and culture to shape processes of ecological change and the struggle of women
and men to sustain ecologically viable livelihoods’.
FPE researchers also argue that knowledge is gendered and emphasize the
importance of understanding gender as it is ‘constituted in and through diverse and
interlocking processes of differentiation’ (Sundberg, 2015, p. 13) caused by social
dimensions such as ethnicity and class (Nightingale, 2011; Resurreccion &
Elmhirst, 2008; Elmhirst, 2015). The FPE approach illuminates why women and
men engage in particular work and have access to and control specific resources
such as fisheries and marine resources. It also outlines the complementary gender
roles and uneven societal relationships (Nightingale, 2011; Mollet & Faria, 2013;
Sundberg, 2017). The approach demonstrates how women are more likely to use the
knowledge gained from their subsistence roles as family providers and portrays
men's knowledge as more likely gained from training associated with conventional
science (Rocheleau, 1995a; 1995b; Sundberg, 2015). Decision-makers and
environmental managers often use scientific knowledge that undermines women’s
traditional or indigenous knowledge (Cvitanovic et al., 2015). FPE also increases
the participation of minoritized groups in problem-solving and decision-making
processes. According to Rocheleau et al. (1996), FPE introduces meaningful social
knowledge and perspectives that would be ignored through biased representation
and seeks to prevent the most powerful and dominant groups from controlling the
ecological processes and resources. In other words, FPE positions gender as a
crucial determining factor of ¨who does what¨, ¨who has what¨, ¨who decides¨, and
¨who has power? ¨ in society (UNESCO, 2003; Lamb, 2018; UNICEF, 2011).
FPE has been applied by researchers and scholars in a range of contexts from
access to different natural resources to sanitation and hygiene (Table 1). Feminist
political ecologists have drawn connections between ecological issues and social
factors. They consider how aspects like gender and power relations within
management institutions shape access to resources such as water, land, and energy.
These relationships also dictate who is included in, or excluded from, decision-
making processes and governance. To study these complex interactions, feminist
political ecologists employ a variety of research methods (Appendix 5). For
instance, Ankrah et al. (2020), in an investigation of gendered access to productive
resources in the agricultural context in Ghana, highlighted ways in which gender
influenced access to and control over agricultural resources. Another study by
Haeffner et al. (2021) investigated the representation of justice in socio-hydrology

57
and water governance in the United States, drawing attention to gender politics and
power relations that shaped the representation of the water sector and decision-
making processes.

Table 1: References of the selected studies that applied feminist political ecology
Context References
Access to and control over natural resources Rocheleau et al., 1996; Arora-Jonsson, 2011;
Nightingale, 2011; Elmhirst, 2011; Radel & Coppock,
2013; Elmhirst, 2015; Kerr, 2014; Harcourt & Nelson,
2015; Harris, 2015; Ankrah et al., 2020; Hernández,
2022; Andersson et al., 2022; Layman & Civita, 2022
Climate change issues and impacts Garcia et al., 2022
Carbon markets Gay-Antaki, 2016; Andrews et al., 2022
Access to communal land Soto-Alarcón & González-Gómez, 2021; Mollett, 2022;
Mollett & Faria, 2013
Hydropower development and solar energy Buechler et al., 2020; Mangura, 2021
Forest resource management Asumang-Yeboah et al., 2022; Ramcilovic-Suominen et
al., 2022; Chipango, 2022; Murer & Piccoli, 2022
Dietary diversity Nyantakyi-Frimpong, 2017
Water insecurity, access and governance Adams et al., 2018; Haeffner et al., 2021; Nunbogu &
Elliott, 2021; Truelove, 2021; Irbık, 2022; Nunbogu et al.,
2023
Mariculture Ruff et al., 2022
Biodiversity conservation Lau, 2020; Elias et al., 2021
Education and conference spaces Lloro-Bidart, 2017; Nelson, 2021
Sanitation and hygiene Jewitt & Ryley, 2014; Nunbogu et al., 2023

FPE scholars have exposed the challenges faced in management institutions where
women are excluded from natural resource management and how intersectionality
issues affect environmental management. For instance, Harris (2015) investigated
water projects in Turkey, where massive technology and infrastructures available in
South-Eastern Turkey for irrigation purposes co-exist with daily domestic water
needs being out of reach for women due to hegemonic approaches to water
governance, that exclude women from management and decision-making practices.
Harris noticed that the government’s project regarding water rendered unequal
benefits for women and men as the approach prioritized and valued water
privatization and marketization. Also in Ghana, FPE researchers found out that land
and extension services were discriminatorily distributed with limited access by most
women compared to their male counterparts (Ankrah et al., 2020). Environmental
issues are central to debates about the nature of society and the realities of justice in
distribution. Therefore, increased participation of women who face difficulties in
environmental struggles can ensure the survival of their families during ecological
and economic crises. Highlighting gender inequalities in natural resource
management in previous studies helped the researcher to understand how gender
and power dynamics play crucial roles in different ways. FPE approach has helped
the researcher to understand how access to ocean science education as a resource is
important in environmental sustainability issues, including ocean sustainability.

58
Therefore, these insights provided inspiration to adopt how to investigate gender
inequality in terms of access to higher education and career opportunities in ocean
science.

3.2. Feminist political ecology of education

Education is not only an asset but also a resource to empower people by
transforming individuals’ lives, ensuring inclusiveness, social equality and driving
progress towards sustainable development (Lawson, 2011; United Nations, n.d11;
UNESCO, 2019, p. 3). Education is recognised as a powerful means of improving
women’s status in their community through boosting their economic status.
Educating women means that daughters are more likely to be educated as well.
Daughters of educated women are more likely to experience better educational and
occupational attainment. Education is therefore capable of increasing women’s
sense of agency which will support wider reforms in promoting gender equality
(McCracken et al., 2015). McCracken et al. (2015) explored the ways that education
may overcome social norms and practices which have a pervasive effect on gender
discrimination in society and found out that the discriminatory attitudes and
practices originate in the family. For instance, in the home where women and girls
are often excluded from decision-making processes and are thus denied developing
confidence in their personal abilities. In this way, social norms of discrimination
can undermine macro level reforms that are intended to benefit women (UNESCO,
2020). In addition, scholars argue that education of women is the most effective way
of stopping the cycle between poor protection of women’s rights and low regard for
women’s rights. This is usually achieved through empowering women in education
system to become better advocates for themselves. The mechanism through which
this can be achieved is by providing women with better economic outcomes
(McCracken et al., 2015, p. 43). Quality education leads to better research,
conservation and management skills and thus to more sustainable use of natural
resources. Given the connection between gender and natural resource use, FPE can
provide a framework to understand how access to and opportunity for education
leads to gender dynamics and power imbalances that directly influence women's
participation in research, governance, and decision-making processes.
There are studies in education that have analysed intersectional identities
(Nichols & Stahl, 2019). Different individual identities, such as gender and
ethnicity, have been found to affect access to higher education in Kenya (Taaliu,
2017; Tefera et al., 2018; Simson, 2019; Njagi, 2020). For instance, a study done by

11 United Nations (n.d). Education as the pathway towards gender equality.

https://www.un.org/en/chronicle/article/education-pathway-towards-gender-equality

59
Taaliu (2017), investigating ethnicity in Kenyan universities, highlighted the ethnic
biases in enrolment of students as many university students were from the dominant
ethnic groups in Kenya. In the context of sustainable management of natural
resources and the ocean in Kenya, however there is very little known. The
application of FPE in an educational context is also novel. The only example of
applying FPE theory to higher education is Nelson (2021) analysed conference
spaces as emotional sites for women becoming campus sustainability leaders. In her
study, Nelson (2021, p. 8) concluded that ‘FPE is useful for taking emotion seriously
to make sense of and rethink conference spaces, professional norms and behaviours
where green knowledge production proliferates.’ This thesis uses FPE to understand
the inequalities in ocean science fields in Kenya. The study aimed to discover where
the inequalities arise, what causes these inequalities and why.
The research questions (section 1.3) were derived in the context of gendered
knowledge and power relations, and intersectionality. It incorporated the insights of
FPE and the researcher’s situated knowledge and experiences (positionality) as a
female scientist and an expert in an ocean science-related field to explore and
understand the interconnectedness between gender and ocean science across public
universities, government agencies, NGOs and IGOs. This study examines realities
and personal experiences, practices and policies, which affect the opportunities of
female students and female staff, especially in enrolment, employment, decision-
making and governance positions (Figure 4).

Figure 4: Theoretical framework of Feminist Political Ecology in ocean science based on the fundamental
concepts of this study (Source: Author's illustration)

60
Using FPE as a theoretical framework, this study examined the inequalities among
students and staff in universities, research and management institutions. FPE is used
to evaluate how access to higher education resources, such as funding, was affected
or influenced by gender and ethnicity within ocean science-related programmes.
FPE expands the analytical categories and diversity of students and staff within the
university as well as other ocean science institutions to overcome one-dimensional
approaches (Tefera et al., 2018). FPE is also used to draw links between the material
dimensions of education (e.g., enrolment patterns, graduation rates, completion
rates, transitional rates, employment rates, promotion, etc.) and the non-material
factors (e.g., age, ethnicity, power relations, class, values, norms, etc.). These links
often shape access to quality education and inclusion in and exclusion from access,
participation, governance, and decision-making positions (Adams et al., 2018; Lau,
2020). FPE also helps to clarify the importance of gender and intersectional
identities in the selection of courses, resource allocation (funds) and social
injustices, including discrimination and sexual harassment. This is because of the
power imbalances and differences in gender relations that influence the privileges
of a particular group, especially in higher learning institutions and other public
institutions. Elmhirst (2015) emphasized that women and men experience
environmental impacts differently due to their differentiated social responsibilities.
Mangura (2021) also argues that gender differences in responsibilities for,
experiences of, and interests in environment and nature are crucial when dealing
with social inequality and marginalization on gendered axes (Sundberg, 2017;
Haeffner et al., 2021). While gender shapes access to and control of resources,
ethnicity is another critical variable in Kenya's social, economic, and political power
relations (Kwatemba, 2008).
Drawing from the FPE insights, the research questions framed from this
theoretical framework adopted a mixed method approach, both qualitative and
quantitative approach to investigate, explore, and understand the existing gaps,
inequalities, and differences in terms of access to education and job opportunities in
ocean science institutions in Kenya. These include gender representation of staff
and students, inconsistencies between written policies and practice, and the lived
experiences of students and staff. A detailed research methodology is elaborated in
the next section.

61
4. Research methodology

“What is measured becomes visible, what is visible

can be monitored and gets improved”
~Anna Rita Manca (2015)

The complex real-world issues concerning gender in ocean science in Kenya were
explored and analysed using a mixed-methods approach. This approach was
composed of both quantitative and qualitative methods. Descriptive statistics were
used to get a grasp of and understand the data, and thematic analysis was
predominantly utilised in producing Paper 4. These methodologies allowed for
major themes to be identified and a coherent picture of the topic under investigation
to be provided. The choice of a mixed-methods approach allowed the researcher to
explore diverse perspectives and uncover relationships that exist between the
intricate layers of or the multifaceted research questions (Shorten & Smith, 2017, p.
74).
The mixed-methods approach entailed descriptive, explanatory, and exploratory
research designs (Cresswell & Garrett, 2008; Cresswell, 2013). Descriptive research
was used to unpack status of gender equality in ocean science among the students
and staff and to determine areas with wider gender gaps. This descriptive approach
established the baseline gender-disaggregated data through gathering quantifiable
or evidence-based information for statistical data analysis and assisted in measuring
the study characteristics in research questions. Explanatory research design
complemented the investigation and sought to explain gender inequalities and their
consequences based on selected perspectives, experiences, and barriers in the
institutions. At the same time, an exploratory research design aimed to explore the
intersectionality as the main aspect that has been under-researched in ocean science
institutions in Kenya. This was done through interviews to examine the root causes
of gender inequalities in ocean science in education and workplaces and have a
better understanding of how and why they persist (Bryman, 2012; 2016).

62
4.1. Philosophical assumptions
In social research positioning, the researcher holds specific personal concepts or
principles which combine to form a research philosophy. Here, the key concept
employed was epistemology as a theory of subjectivity and objectivity (Crotty,
2003; Guba & Lincoln, 2005; Denzin & Lincoln, 2006; Bryman, 2012; Kiss, 2013;
Moon & Blackman, 2014). Denzin and Lincoln (2006) argued that this concept
increases the researchers’ understanding of the lived experiences of different groups
of people, critique and change the current conditions within which they live and
strive to grow.
This notion of epistemology can be practically applied using specific theoretical
lenses. For example, a feminist political ecology lens, for example, has an
epistemological stance used to investigate and strengthen the understanding of the
situations faced by women ocean scientists in Kenya using both quantitative and
qualitative data collected from the participants. This means that the researcher’s
mind or epistemological position is thought to be separate of the problem being
investigated and allow the data collected to explain how and why the reality exists
or ‘why we know what we know by providing a philosophical grounding for
deciding what kind of knowledge are possible and how we can ensure that they are
both adequate and legitimate’ (Crotty, 2003 p. 3). Crotty (2003) also argued that the
theoretical perspective is also positivism as it bases knowledge wholly on
observable facts and avoid speculations about the problem under investigation. On
the contrary, subjectivist epistemology holds that the researcher cannot be separated
from the world of objects, as humans or the researcher is known to be part of the
system. In this study, the researcher maintains a certain degree of objectivity when
analysing and interpreting results guided by the data collected, theory adopted, but
accepts that her personal experiences or perspectives introduce an element of
subjectivity. Thus, this is the reason why the researcher included a self-reflexive
positionality statement (section 3.4) at the end of the methods section of this thesis.
This positionality statement describes the researcher's lenses and gives her personal
experiences, beliefs and perspectives that could potentially influence the research
process, including age, social class, gender, education, and ethnicity (Holmes, 2020;
Fennell & Arnot, 2008; Arnot & Fennell, 2008). Positionality recognises
experiences and perspectives that provide detailed insights into the research process
and assumes it is possible to discover the truth that can be verified empirically, be
valid, generalizable and independent of social thoughts and conditions (Harcourt &
Nelson, 2015).

63
4.2. Kenya as a case study
Kenya was selected because, first, it has been actively involved in ocean-related
initiatives globally over the past decades. For instance, the country hosted the Blue
Economy Conference in Nairobi in 2018 (KMFRI, 2018; Muigua, 2020) and co-
hosted the UN Ocean Conference with the Government of Portugal in Lisbon in
2022 (Obura, 2020). However, more is needed to understand who undertakes and
participates in ocean science and governance in Kenya, and why and how the
engagement of the stakeholders is gendered in the study among professionals, both
women and men in ocean science. Second, over the past three decades, the country
has shown commitment towards achieving gender equality in various sectors and
levels, as evidenced in its current 2010 Constitution. According to the 2010
constitution of Kenya, institutions must adhere to the two-thirds gender
rule/principle. In other words, not more than 70 per cent of one gender or ethnic
group is allowed in an institution or position. However, gender disparity remains in
the education sector and workplaces associated with ocean science. Third, the
researcher is a Kenyan marine and freshwater scientist and has intimate experience
of the country’s education and employment systems. The researcher represents an
insider-outsider’ based on some commonalities and differences associated with her
previous experiences and perspectives.

4.3. Sampling strategy

This study used purposive sampling based on specific criteria met by an institution
or individual (Padilla-Diaz, 2015). For the universities, the selection criteria were
based on the following: must be a public university, offer ocean science-related
courses and have five years or more of active operation (to be able to assess the
differences between enrolment and graduation of female and male students for a
four-year degree programme). Students must also be undertaking ocean science-
related courses and staff employed in teaching ocean science-related programmes.
In the case of institutions other than public universities, the criteria used included
those responsible for the ocean in Kenya (section 2.4.2 and Appendix 4), ranging
from government agencies, NGOs and IGOs and carrying out activities related to
ocean science research, conservation work, management, policymaking, and
governance. The participants selected for interview included those performing these
activities or responsibilities. In addition, gender focal points were interviewed to
illuminate institutional performance and efforts in promoting gender equality. These
criteria ensured that the selected participants had everyday experiences regarding
ocean science and/or gender equality. Snowball sampling was also used to recruit
participants through other participants, especially where participants were hard to

64
access due to COVID-19, as the majority of the employees were working from
home.
The case study was conducted in 27 ocean science institutions in Kenya from
June to October 2021 (Figure 6). These institutions were categorized into: i) public
universities (n = 8), ii) government agencies (n = 9), iii) NGOs (n = 7) and iv) IGOs
(n = 3). Full details of the data collected by gender in the study for each institution
are provided in Appendix 6. Table 2 presents the number of academic staff who
participated in the interview and Figure 5 shows the socio-demographic
characteristics of the 102 students who responded to the questionnaire.

Table 2: Interviewees distribution by occupation

Type of organisation Occupation of participants Number of interviews
Public universities Associate professors 5
Senior lecturers 2
Lecturers 8
Tutorial fellows 1
Graduate assistants 1
Senior technologist/ technicians 2
Technologists/ technicians 1
Part-time lecturers/ PhD students 6
Lab assistants 1
Gender focal points 3
Total 30

65
 b c
a

d e

66
Figure 5: Profile of the students who responded to the questionnaires in public universities in Kenya, where illustrations a) gender, b) marital status, c) number of
children , d) university (anonymized) and e) ethnic groups of the respondents (Author’s illustration)
67
Figure 6: Geographic location of the twenty-seven selected ocean science institutions in Kenya (Author’s illustation)
4.4. Data collection and analysis
To understand the complexities involving gender disparities in ocean science, data
collection was done through mixed-methods approach to capture all dimensions of
the problems. The mixed-methods approach used in this research was inspired by
other authors including Barahona-Fuentes et al. (2020), McKague et al. (2021) and
Kiss (2013). Barahona-Fuentes et al. (2020) evaluated the impacts of policies in
maritime education and training institutions and analysed gender-disaggregated data
and interviews to understand the gaps and barriers. The data collection methods
included literature and policy reviews, collection of numerical data, surveys,
questionnaires, and interviews (Figure 7) in four steps: 1) secondary data from
national and institutional gender-related policy documents, 2) primary numerical
data on gender ratios (gender-disaggregated data) of students and staff, 3)
questionnaire to students, and 4) in-depth interviews with staff.
Policy documents were collected through Google search, others were retrieved
from institutions’ websites and the ones which were not publicly available were
obtained in person with the help of the university’s or organisation’s gender focal
points. During the document search, the researcher used terms such as ‘gender
policy’, ‘gender equality policy’, ‘sexual harassment policy’ and other related
words. The policy documents collected were scrutinized and the ones from the
selected public universities and institutions were included in this analysis.
Collection of gender-disaggregated data was done through quantitative data
collection method using a survey tool designed to collect the same data from all the
27 participating institutions. In public universities, gender ratios of students and
academic staff were collected. The data included enrolment and graduation of
female and male students in ocean science-related courses over a decade (2010-
2019), both undergraduate (BSc) and postgraduates (MSc and PhD). Additionally,
data on the gender representation of academic staff was collected, taking into
account different institutions and career positions, including management positions.
The researcher only collected gender ratios of ocean professionals in the remaining
non-academic institutions by ranks. The aim of collecting gender-disaggregated
data was to provide a picture of current status and trends in the ocean science
education and governance sector.
Questionnaires were used to collect quantitative and qualitative data to gather
information from students about their experiences or opinions. The researcher used
a self-completion questionnaire which was shared with the wider range of
participants via online Survey Monkey (due to COVID pandemic). However, 30 per
cent of the questionnaire were administered in person, especially to the students who
were on campus at the time. A set of questions used in the questionnaire range from
the source of funding for studies to barriers facing female students participating in
ocean science (See Appendix 1). It is important to note that not all questions

68
indicated in the questionnaire were used in this thesis, as part of it addresses a
broader objective of the Empowering Women project which is still ongoing.
In-depth interviews were conducted with a diverse range of academic staff
involved in teaching ocean science courses from part-time lecturers to professors
(Table 3). The interview solicited information on the lived experiences of staff
including their career progression, barriers, and some practices that they considered
as good in promoting gender equality in their institutions. To capture the diversity,
the participants were asked to identify their ethnic groups, age, highest level of
education and class as presented in the interview guide in Appendix 2. It is important
to note that an extensive interview guide was used to generate a comprehensive
dataset, and some of the data lie outside the scope of this thesis. Thirty interviewees
were identified through existing contacts and university’s head of departments.
Most interviews took place via zoom meetings (53 per cent), and the rest were done
through face-to-face and phone calls (see Appendix 6). Interviews were conducted
in English, and lasted 30 to 90 minutes, where audio were recorded with the
participant’s permission. The focus was on how women report and interpret their
lives, decisions, and practices –known as women’s subjective lived experiences.

Table 3: Socio-demographic profiles of the staff participants from the selected public universities in Kenya (n
= 30)
Socio-demographic Categories Frequencies (n = 30)
characteristics Women Men
No of participants Gender 12 18
Marital status Married 5 16
Single 5 1
Unassigned (Gender 2 1
focal points)
Social class Middle class 6 15
Lower class 3 0
Not specified 1 2
Unassigned 2 1
Highest education level PhD 6 9
Ongoing PhD 3 1
Masters 3 8
Children Have children 9 14
No children 1 3
Unassigned 2 1
Age <30 0 2
30-39 3 4
40-49 2 5
50-59 3 4
Above 60 2 2
Unassigned 2 1

69
The field data collected in this study comprised of data by gender of students and
staff, administered questionnaires to students undertaking ocean science-related
courses and in-depth interviews with ocean science personnel and gender focal
points (Appendix 6). A gender focal point is a person whose role is to ensure gender
issues are mainstreamed within an institution, mostly the directors in Gender
centres/institutes or in the Directorate of Gender affairs (UN Women, 2020).
Document analysis was adopted for evaluating institutional gender policies. The
number or volume of gender-specific strategies in each institution was calculated as
a percentage of total strategies, which was then evaluated against the gender ratios
of students and staff of that institution to see if they translated to the intended gender
balance in the institutions, specifically in ocean science fields (Ojwala et al., 2022).
In this analysis, the role of policy documents was assessed as a proxy for changes
and processes to promote gender equality in terms of the relationships between the
policy documents and the gender balance of students and staff.
Data on staff and students were analysed using descriptive statistics to calculate
means, measures of variation, the frequency distribution of ocean science
professionals in each institution, and at all levels, percentages of female students’
enrolment and graduation over the years (between 2010-2019) as well as women’s
representation in management positions. This analysis helped to understand the
status and trends of gender equality in ocean science institutions in Kenya. All the
tables and figures in this thesis were created by the author hence no citation was
included.
Further, the thematic analysis was used when analysing students’ and staff
experiences in ocean science-related fields from the questionnaire and interview
data. Interview data provided in audio or video format were transcribed using
Otter.ai, where video or audio were transcribed and cleaned up before coding. Data
was processed using NVivo Version 12, where the qualitative information
(transcripts) from the interviews were analysed by categorization and theme
formation (Figure 8). This process ensured prolonged immersion in the data and
repeated interactions with the transcripts. It involved the identification of the most
relevant factors and seeking patterns of participants experiences and perceptions by
gender, ethnicity, age, education and class. Charts, project maps and word clouds
were developed to visualize the general patterns. Figure 8 shows the hierarchy chart
developed from NVivo software illustrating the themes and sub-themes (codes and
child codes) that resulted from the selective coding, which was guided by the
research questions of this study. The hierarchy chart helped to visualize the resulting
patterns of themes after coding interviews transcripts. The main themes included
employment status, career development, staff experiences, work-family balance,
barriers to career progression, gender and power imbalances, work relation with
colleagues, gender policies and good practices. The researcher further holds that
knowledge is always partial and never bias-free and thus offers transparency about
her positionality in section 4.6.

70
71
Figure 7: Methodological path of data collection and analysis (Author’s illustration)
72
Figure 8: Summary of the themes and sub-themes generated from the interviews conducted with ocean science professionals (n = 30)
4.5. Ethical considerations
Before data collection, the Research Ethics Committee of WMU approved the
questionnaires and interview guides. Also, the Kenyan National Council of Science,
Technology and Innovation (NACOSTI) (License No. 824286) granted the
researcher permission to conduct this study in Kenyan institutions. Questionnaires
and interview guides had a short description explaining the purpose of the research
to each potential participant and included a statement that guaranteed anonymity
and confidentiality to participants and institutions. These data collection tools were
piloted before fieldwork. The institutions studied were anonymized to ensure
confidentiality following the approval protocol.

4.6. Positionality statement

Positionality refers to the stand adopted by a social researcher within the study
(Holmes, 2020. P 2). It is a self-reflective piece that sets the scene of my research
based on my lived experiences as a woman that have influenced and motivated me
to enrol for my PhD studies in the Empowering Women for the United Nations
Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development programme. This research
is therefore not entirely ¨objective¨ as a starting point, because as a woman
researcher born and raised in Kenya I represent the inside observer. The challenges
I faced are similar to many women in the country. Along these lines, I can express
my own situated knowledge as part of a larger group of scholars seeking to find the
root causes and solutions for gender inequalities in ocean science disciplines and
institutions seen through the lens of a feminist political ecologist.
Regarding my positionality in this research, I represent an ‘insider-outsider’
based on some commonalities and differences associated with my previous
experiences and perspectives. Although my position as insider was important, it
allowed me to stay conscious about my biasness and assumptions when interviewing
participants. As a result, I did not steer the participants to what I already expected
and instead asked them open ended questions to allow them express their own
experiences. The aim was to remain neutral during data processing and analysis to
unravel the data as something new. In doing so, the researcher read the transcripts
many times to ensure an in-depth understanding of the differences in the
participants’ experiences that emerged during the interview.
To begin with, I write as someone who roots in a patriarchal society from the
Global South. I can be defined by various social identities based on ethnicity,
gender, education, age, marital status, occupation and class, which influences access
to higher education, power imbalances, access to job opportunities, and access to
and control over natural resources. In our village, gender roles were differentiated

73
between girls and boys. The typical village girl’s life involved primarily,
reproductive roles and secondarily, education, including fetching firewood and
water. In the village, women make up more than half of the workforce in the fishing
industry and play a critical role in their communities. They are often involved in
time-consuming small businesses like fish marketing, especially selling the famous
‘omena’ (Rastrineobola argentea). Due to cultural norms and beliefs, it was a
‘taboo’ for women to board fishing boats. Some female fish traders, particularly
widows, known as Mama karanga, resorted to building relationships with the male
fishers, documented in many articles as ‘Fish-for-sex’. More often than not, women
had to act as both father and mother and use the little income from their small
businesses to provide for their families and pay school fees for their children. I also
witnessed many of my primary school classmates drop out of school due to early
pregnancies and lack of school fees, and most of those affected were girls. As a
student in undergraduate studies, I convey my situated knowledge as part of a larger
group of female students who have experienced difficulties in accessing higher
education. I have had to depend entirely on government loans (Higher Education
Loans Board – HELB) to complete my undergraduate degree. This approach raises
issues of access to higher education, bias, access to funding, opportunities and
awareness of potential sources of bias that can help in critical reflection. Hence, this
study aims to identify the different experiences among students, especially those
from marginalized groups.
During my undergraduate studies, I encountered attitudes and behaviours that I
would consider gender and ethnically biased. In 2010, when I joined my BSc
studies, most of the students enrolled in my course were from the western region of
Kenya, with 36 per cent and 29 per cent coming from the Luo and Luhya
communities, respectively. The best thing, though, was that in our class of 14
students, we had a better representation of female (57 per cent) than male (43 per
cent) students. I also experienced some differential gender roles during fieldworks,
where male students were most preferred for some kinds of activities like going to
the boats to sample fish and water. For the MSc degree the opposite was true. In a
class of 10 students, there were only three women. However, I have observed some
improvement, where females and males were both given opportunities to participate
in every activity including sampling water, fish and aquatic plants and laboratory
analysis.
Having worked for various organisations engaging in multiple activities as a
volunteer, a research intern and a part-time lecturer, with affiliations ranging from
local, national and international NGOs to governmental agencies and universities. I
observed gender and ethnic biases in hiring and recruitment processes, being
excluded from field activities, sexual harassment and bullying in terms of offensive
comments, pressure for dates, tight hugs, derogatory jokes, and unintentional
microaggressions about my educational qualification, more specifically from less
educated colleagues. I also noticed that most employers had no or little confidence

74
in women. In most of my work experiences, I had to volunteer for two or three
months in each institution before getting a paid contract. I observed some male
colleagues coming directly with paid contracts, even those younger than me. As a
part-time lecturer in one of the public universities in Kenya, I experienced the lack
of or delayed payment.
My self-reflective perspectives and experiences provide a sense of why, how and
where this research was conducted. I am a female early career ocean (and
freshwater) scientist who has volunteered, interned and part-timed in various
science-related organisations in Kenya and experienced the impact of gender
inequality regimes as a student and temporary staff. I have seen practices and
discourses that undermine and deny women opportunities and exclude women in
decision-making positions. As a female scientist without family responsibilities, this
research has helped me to understand what it is like to be a working parent/mother
and how they experience life differently. My experiences are not an exception.
Many young girls, colleagues and women in my country and neighbouring regions
find themselves in courses and careers that are male-dominated, and they may meet
people who have different perceptions on gender equality. I wanted to understand
more about existing gender inequalities among students and staff, their experiences
based on access to higher education and job opportunities, and the barriers and
challenges they encounter in their everyday life in ocean science which is still
predominantly a male domain.
Having experienced discrimination and biases as a female graduate in ocean
science-related programmes in Kenya in terms of employment, I have frequently
asked myself the following questions: Why are ocean science courses so unpopular
in my country? Why is it so hard for women to access higher education, especially
in ocean science courses? Why are more students from my ethnic group enrolled in
these courses despite coming from the lakeside and not coastal region? Why are
there so few women students and staff in my discipline? Why are female graduates
denied employment opportunities in this field despite several applications? Why do
women take too long to secure a job in my discipline? How are the women in ocean
science institutions perceived by their managers and male colleagues? What is the
government doing to increase women’s participation in my discipline? Are students
and staff aware of the initiatives in place to promote gender equality in their
institutions? My research together with the capacity building workshops, trainings,
conferences and webinars organised by the Empowering Women’s programme and
other agencies have helped me to understand the breadth of these complex issues
and answer these questions.
The persistent biases in terms of gender, ethnicity, class, education, and age in
ocean science coupled with heightened power relations, institutional structure and
culture, socio-cultural practices and stereotypes are the main drivers of this study,
and put forward the need for transformative gender policies and more sustainable
approaches to address these problems. In this context, the national and institutional

75
gender policies, gender-disaggregated data (gender representation) and lived
experiences of students and staff undertaking ocean science are the major foci of
this thesis. Despite the growing number of gender-related policies – institutional
gender equality policies and sexual harassment policies developed to enhance
gender equality in higher education and workplaces since 1970s – remarkable
improvement has been recorded only in primary education, not in secondary and
tertiary education in developing countries including Kenya. However, little
information is available on gender representation and contributions in ocean science
in Kenya. In order to gain more knowledge on progress in gender equality and the
effectiveness of the policies and initiatives aimed at promoting gender equality in
oceans science institutions, there was an urgent need for this research to provide a
baseline empirical evidence and qualitative data to explore the strengths (successes)
and weaknesses (failures) of the institutions and policies that have been repeatedly
accentuated in the ocean science field.

76
5. Results and Discussion

Understanding the relationship between gender policies and gender equality in

ocean science is a priority for the Decade of Ocean Science (Sun et al., 2021). The
research presented in this thesis examined the status of gender equality and the
effectiveness of gender policies in promoting gender equality in ocean science
institutions in Kenya. This study produced four academic papers that focus on
distinct but related aspects of gender equality within research and educational
institutions in Kenya that have a remit in ocean science. The findings in Papers 1
and 2 were primarily based on descriptive statistics of gender ratios, whereas the
finding in Papers 3 and 4 are discussed in relation to the core concepts presented in
the theoretical framework section (feminist political ecology theory). While each
paper can stand alone and be read independently of the others, there is a common
thread or “Through-line” that runs across all. They need to be considered together
to appreciate the full scope and complexity of the problem this thesis is attempting
to address. It is therefore necessary to summarize the findings of each paper,
highlight the themes or ideas that link them together and thus to find the key
elements of this research that need to be conveyed to academics, practitioners and
policymakers. The overall findings which emerged when all the papers are
considered together are provided in the conclusion.

77
5.1. The Through-line
Figure 9 illustrates the “Through-line” approach12,13,14 while Appendix 6 provides
detailed information on the data collected. This approach provides a creative process
to convey the data and information collected on gender policies, gender ratios and
individual experiences and how they are interlinked. The ¨Through-line¨ concept
has been used by storytellers and expert speakers in TED talks to outline their ideas
to the audience and by students when writing their dissertations. This concept helps
to consolidate the detailed understanding of the research questions and serves to
achieve the overall research aim. The detailed answers to the research questions
(emerging from the research objectives) are discussed in sub-sections below:
Subsection 5.2 contributes to the first research question and in part, the second
question (mainly gender representation in public universities), primarily based on
the results from Paper 1, whereas Subsection 5.3 contributes to the second research
question mainly based on the results from Paper 2 which focused on gender
representation in non-academic institutions. Subsection 5.4, Subsection 5.5, and
Subsection 5.6 are primarily based on the results from Papers 3 and 4, contributing
to the third, fourth and fifth research questions. At the end of these subsections the
researcher attempted to consolidate the main findings with a view towards future
research needs.

12Bowman, D.J. (2021). Through-line/Throughline/Through Line –what does it mean?

https://www.donnajanellbowman.com/2021/06/14/through-line-throughline-through-line-what-
the-heck-is-it/
13Pacheco-Vega, R. (2020). Developing a coherent argument throughout a book or dissertation/thesis
using The Red Thread (Throughline –Global Narrative).
http://www.raulpacheco.org/2020/01/developing-a-coherent-argument-throughout-a-book-or-
dissertation-thesis-using-the-red-thread-throughline-global-narrative/
14Johnston, R. (2018). Through-Line –The single most vital trick in writing a novel.
https://rosiejohnstonwrites.com/2018/04/08/through-line-the-single-most-vital-trick-in-writing-a-
novel/

78
79
Figure 9: Schematic diagram of the ¨Through-line¨ illustrating the flow of the interconnected research ideas and outlining the relationships between the research
questions and the outputs/publications (Author’s illustration)
5.2. Effectiveness of gender policies in public
universities in Kenya
The first research objective of this thesis was to evaluate gender policies against
national standards and their impacts in ocean science institutions in Kenya. At the
time of data collection, there was little information on gender in ocean science in
Kenya, although there was a focus on women in fisheries at the local or community
levels (Aloo et al., 2000; Matsue et al., 2014; CISP, 2018; Abwao & Awuor, 2019;
Murunga, 2021). To date, the only available data was found in the Global Ocean
Science Reports by the IOC-UNESCO (IOC-UNESCO, 2020), which did not
present a complete picture of the status of gender equality because the sample used
only conference attendees/participants. In most cases attendance in conferences are
often unrepresentative since the participation fee is too expensive and not easily
affordable by many, especially ocean scientists from developing or under-resourced
countries. Therefore, this current study was timely to ensure that the gaps are
accurately identified and addressed through an evidence-based research process
using ocean science institutions in Kenya as a case study.
To answer the first research question ‘what is the relationship between gender-
related policies and women’s representation in the ocean science institutions in
Kenya?’ I analysed policy documents and gender ratios of students and staff in
public universities. In addressing this question, the policy documents gathered were
evaluated using the Gender Integration Continuum (GIC) Framework adopted from
the USAID Interagency Working Group as explained include the Research
Methodology Section.
The evaluation of the policies was based on six themes: access, equity, quality
education, safety, mentorship and governance which were in line with the key
priority areas of the national gender policy. Using the GIC framework helped
identify gender-blind and gender-aware policies, and further identified the gender-
specific provisions or strategies, which were in turn compared with the
representation of women denoted by the proportions of female students and staff.
The evaluation was done in three steps; the first step identified the gender-specific
strategies and calculated them into percentages of the total provisions in each policy
document. The second step, evaluated and compared the percentages derived from
the gender-specific strategies of the national gender policy with those of the
institutional (universities’) policies. The third step, compared the percentage of
institutional policy with the gender ratios (percentages of women) of students and
staff in their respective universities.
From the analysis, the results revealed that both national gender policy and
individual university policies had more gender-neutral strategies than gender-
specific ones, and all the policy documents were outdated, including the national
gender policy (Kenya’s Education and Training Sector Gender Policy, 2015) of the

80
Ministry of Education (Paper 1). It is also important to note that the national gender
policy recorded very low percentages of gender-specific strategies in almost all of
the six themes with an average of 4 per cent compared to other policies.
Notably, the evaluation of the institutional gender policies against the national
gender policy in education revealed that four out of the five documents reviewed
were above the national standards based on the calculated or estimated percentages
of gender-specific strategies or provisions (as indicated in dark blue) except one
which was at the same level as (or meeting) the national standards (light blue) as
presented in Table 4. The universities were later ranked and categorized based on
these percentages ranging from highest (28 per cent) to lowest (4 per cent),
indicating Universities A to E, where A is the University with better policy and E is
the university with the weakest policy. This study showed that the universities used
the same themes as those in national policy to formulate their own gender policies,
however, there were no clearly defined standards that were to be strictly followed
by the institutions. Hence, the strategies from various universities policies differed
with regard to the way they were written or addressed gender issues in the
universities (see Paper 1 for a more detailed analysis).

Table 4: Summary of the comparative analysis between national and institutional gender policies in public
universities showing percentages of the gender-specific strategies in each document by themes (Analysis
excluded three public universities without gender policies)
Overall
Gender
Safety, Nurturing gender-
policy Quality
Access Equity security and Governance specific
assessment education
and GBV mentoring strategies
criteria
(%)
Education and
Training
8% 0% 0% 7% 17% 0% 4%
Sector
Gender policy
University A
33% 67% 0% 7% 40% 50% 28%
policy
University B
20% 20% 0% 0% 100% 25% 22%
policy
University C
0% 75% 0% 0% 0% 20% 19%
policy
University D
20% 43% 0% 0% 0% 0% 9%
policy
University E
29% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 4%
policy
*Note: The colours represent; Dark blue = Above, Blue = Meet, and Light blue = below national policy standards, in
comparison with the Kenya National gender policy as a benchmark

The general objective of all the institutional gender policies was to establish
measures and mechanisms for eliminating all forms of gender disparities and
discrimination in university operations such as education, research, training and
governance. The policy statement also outlined the universities’ responsibility to
create and sustain a fair and just academic environment to all students and staff,

81
where women and men have equal rights, opportunities, voices and access to
resources. Therefore, gender equality policy was considered to be an essential input
to increase the number and participation of women in ocean science. In order to
evaluate the effectiveness of the policies in terms of performance or assess whether
the general objectives were achieved, gender data collected on enrolment of students
and employment of staff in ocean science-related programmes/departments, were
used to determine if those universities with stronger policies were performing better
on gender equality of their students and staff. Before comparison, the results from
students and staff representation at all levels were presented as follows:
In terms of students’ enrolment, the study showed that gender representation of
students varied across ocean science disciplines at all degree levels and in all public
universities studied in Kenya (see Paper 1). Fewer female students were enrolled in
ocean science-related courses than their male counterparts at different degree levels
(BSc to PhD). The overall percentage of female students’ enrolment in BSc level
was higher with an average of 35 per cent (n = 316) compared to that of female
students in MSc level at 22 per cent (n = 23). Whereas, female students’ enrolment
in four of the selected public universities represented 39 per cent (n =9). That said,
this showed a clear evidence of low students’ transition rate from one level to the
other in all the surveyed universities, with the proportion of female students often
much lower than males. This is because the proportion of students who continue
with their studies after undergraduate level differs depending on the availability of
funding, family support, employment opportunities, economic activities of the
parents, family background and socio-cultural factors as claimed by Ogolla (2013).
The evidence overwhelmingly showed biases in enrolment of female students in
ocean science, and the wide variations of female students between BSc and PhD
need urgent attention to address the disparities between female and male students.
Further, the study also revealed declining trends in enrolment and graduation of
female students at both undergraduate (Figure 10) and postgraduate levels (Figure
11) during the ten-year study period (2010-2019). Some of the universities were still
using the analogue types of booklets to register students that had information and
data that were not segregated by gender and took longer to retrieve (Kitada et al.,
2023).

82
 100
Male
Female
80
Proportion of students (%)

60

40

20

0
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

Year

Figure 10: Undergraduate students’ enrolment by gender in seven public universities in Kenya (excluding one
university due to missing data)

100
Male
Female
Proportion of students (%)

80

60

40

20

0
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

Year

Figure 11: Students’ enrolment in MSc degree in six selected public universities in Kenya (excluding two
universities that did not provide gender data)

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Possible reasons for the decline of numbers of students enrolled in 2018 and 2019,
could be ascribed to the strict guidelines by the Ministry of Education that were
intended to end cheating in the Kenyan national examination –Kenya Certificate in
Secondary Education (KCSE) –which is the main university entry exams in Kenya.
Since the implementation of these guidelines in 2017, the number of students that
attained university grades dropped drastically, consequently resulted in a decline in
university enrolment across the whole country15. This is because the number of
students who qualified for university were less than the capacity of the many
universities in Kenya16, as the majority of the students opted to enrol in diploma
courses in Technical and Vocational Education and Training Institutions (Njoroge
et al., 2023). The decline in the number of new students for higher education has led
to some university degree programmes/courses being scrapped by the Commission
for University Education (CUE), especially those courses that attracted fewer
students. This decision affected most of the ocean science-related courses, including
BSc in Applied Aquatic Science offered in one of the public universities in Kenya,
which was scrapped by the university management in 2022.
Apart from the student data, academic staff representation by gender was also
analysed and the study showed that the percentages of women staff were found to
be lower than their male colleagues with an overall proportion of 32 per cent.
Women were underrepresented in all the universities as summarized in Figure 12a,
with the best performance by University B which had 40 per cent female academic
staff. Only half of these universities met or were above the threshold (33.33 per
cent) of one-third gender principle enshrined in the Constitution of Kenya. The rest
of the universities did not meet this threshold with a representation below 26 per
cent in each. Figure 12b presents the overview of staff representation by gender and
positions/ranks. More women staff (60 per cent) occupied non-tenured positions or
entry level positions. Similar to the pattern observed in female students’ enrolment,
the findings also revealed an inequality in the recruitment of women as academic
staff. In some universities data on gender ratios of the staff were not readily
available upon request.

15 University World News African Edition (2019). University enrolments drop as fewer qualify for
entry. https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20190430095806978
16 Nation Team (2017). Why poor scores threaten parallel degree programmes in varsities.
https://nairobinews.nation.africa/poor-scores-threaten-parallel-degree-programmes-varsities/

84
 a
b

G 67% 33%
Full Professor 86% 14%
F 76% 24%
Associate Professor 61% 39%
E 63% 37%
Lecturers 71% 29%
D 76% 24%

University
Technical Staff 73% 27%
B 60% 40%

85
Academic positions
A 74% 26% Non-tenured Staff 40% 60%

0 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80 100
Staff representation (%)
Male Female

Figure 12: Differences in staff representation by gender in selected (a) universities and (b) positions
Similar findings were recorded in senior university management, where
underrepresentation of women was observed in all four senior positions, including
Chancellor, Vice-chancellor, member of university council and Head of the
Department, with only two women as Chancellors and three women as Vice-
chancellors out of the total (eight in each position see Figure 13). Men dominated
all the top management positions despite having policy provisions aiming to balance
the appointments to governance and leadership positions in the universities.
Notably, most universities did not collect the data they need to understand the gaps
and issues in order to formulate or review the policies to be more transformative to
actively address the disparities (Onsongo, 2009; Ojwala et al., 2022).

100
Gender representation (%)

80 73% 75%

63% 63%
60

40 37% 37%

27% 25%
20

0
t

r
r
il
en

lo
lo
nc

el
el
tm

ou

nc
nc
ar

ha
ha
ep

ity

C
C
D

e-
rs
of

ic
ve

V
d

ni
ea

U
H

Male Female

Figure 13: Proportion of women and men in four senior management positions in the eight selected public
universities in Kenya (Head of Department = 8, Members of University Council = 48, Vice-Chancellor = 8,
Chancellor = 8)

86
The study confirmed that the overall findings showed no relationship between
having a gender policy and more equal representation of women in the institutions,
whether as students or at academic and management levels. There was no
relationship between having a gender equality policy and a better gender balance of
academic staff. In fact, at academic career level, some universities without gender
policies performed the same as those with policies. Analysis of the universities’
management boards, for example, also revealed that the university with the best
policy only had less than 30 per cent women in their leadership positions, with no
woman as Chancellor, Vice Chancellor or Head of Department. These mismatches
between the policy provisions and the gender balance of staff in the universities
indicated the need for them to prioritize the policy implementation, evaluation and
monitoring to develop gender-transformative policies with clear guidelines and
measurable indicators to avoid the fluctuations or declining trends in enrolment of
female students in ocean science-related programmes that were observed over
course of the study. Even though there were declining trends in enrolment of female
students, a slight relationship between a better policy and the gender ratios of female
students was noticed. For instance, University A with the best policy had a better
representation of female students in enrolment compared to University E with the
weakest policy. However, this observation was only possible in female students’
enrolment at undergraduate levels and was not the same in postgraduate degree
levels (see Ojwala et al., 2022). The availability of gender-disaggregated data can
help to identify who has access in terms of enrolment, and having clear digital
records also help keep track of the progress and to enable concrete actions to be
designed to address the identified gaps and avoid fluctuations in enrolment,
retention and graduation rates of female students in ocean science programmes.
Although the existence of gender policies showed superficial commitments of the
universities to enhance access and gender equality through various provisions such
as affirmative action, the findings by Ojwala et al. (2022) and Ojwala (2023) clearly
revealed the existing strengths and weaknesses of the policy documents reviewed.
The strengths of most of these policies were that they were above the national
standards and had some gender-specific provisions that were missing in all the
themes in the national gender policy, though at lower percentages. However, the
weaknesses outweighed the identified strengths, which is possibly the reason for
their failure to achieve gender equality. These weaknesses include (i) having more
policy provisions that ignored the gender inequalities (gender-neutral) in their
respective institutions, (ii) all the policies being outdated without review showed
lack of implementation, regular monitoring and evaluation, (iii) lack of gender
analysis before formulation of policy, (iv) there was also an unclear implementation
plan with the majority of the personnel listed as involved in the implementation
process being on the top university management board led by Vice Chancellor of
each university, (v) ineffective implementation of the policies was also apparent due
to the inconsistencies and (vi) lack of resources and accountable personnel to

87
oversee the implementation process of the policies. As a result, all these policies
failed to address the differences in gender balance to improve female students’ and
staff’s access to opportunities in the ocean science-related programmes, including
in education and decision-making roles.
These findings complement those of the study conducted by Onsongo (2009) on
affirmative action, gender equity and university admissions in Kenya, Uganda and
Tanzania. According to Onsongo, national gender policy appeared to take a long
time to be widely disseminated to the respective universities. In addition, the
universities received limited resources for the implementation of this policy, which
is one cause for the slow-paced progress. Even though no previous study has been
conducted in ocean science, similar trends as those of female students’ enrolment,
especially in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) courses
have also been recorded in Kenyan universities even before the policies were
formulated (Mbirianjau, 2018; Fisher et al., 2020; Amunga & Amadalo, 2020). For
instance, Mbirianjau highlighted women’s underrepresentation on STEM courses
with a representation of between 30 per cent and 35 per cent. Furthermore, the
participation of women in STEM was also found to drop progressively through the
education levels and career ladder (Fisher et al., 2020). The women’s representation
in Kenyan ocean science universities generally reflects a similar tendency to that in
the STEM fields of the region. The results of the present study confirm that the
existence of a gender policy in the universities are only well-written on paper but
are either not working in practice or have minimal impact in promoting gender
equality, hence there is an urgent need to revise, update and implement them.
Even though the national policy aimed to eliminate gender disparities, it lacked
clear indicators on how to achieve its objectives. Table 4 presents the variations of
gender-specific strategies in each document including the identified national
standards, which had only 4 per cent of its total policy provisions that were gender-
specific. Arguably then the national gender policy in education was not the best
policy model for the institutions to emulate, as all institutional gender policies
reviewed were within and above the national standards. This reduces the universities
compliance as the standards tended to be very lax or not sufficiently strict. The
gender concerns led to formulation of gender-specific strategies by the universities,
which outline ways to tackle harmful gender norms and are geared towards
eliminating gender biases and stereotypes to increase women’s access to and
participation in higher education regardless of their social status and background,
specifically in STEM courses. For instance, a few policy documents emphasized
increasing scholarship or fellowship opportunities and others mentioned the need to
enforce equity in scholarship and research to achieve 40 per cent female applicants,
while others emphasized that making scholarships available that target well-
performing female academic staff, as well as promoting supportive measures to
retain all students, specifically females will be the most important factors in
achieving gender equality in ocean science.

88
 On the other hand, gender-neutral strategies ignore gender norms and gendered
power imbalances that exploit the underrepresented gender, usually women,
because such strategies primarily focus on the overall impact and are not explicitly
aimed at either women or men. For example, some policy documents highlighted
the need to ensure gender equality in appointing staff for leadership positions,
mainstream gender-related courses and training modules for all students and staff.
Further analysis of the implementation of these policies showed that the
implementation processes were more high-level practice carried out by the
management staff rather than at department levels, and departments lacked
representatives to foresee gender issues at the departmental level. Another indicator
of a failed implementation process was that outdated policies were still in action
even though they specified that the policies would be reviewed after at least five
years. The need to have a better understanding of the causes of the persistent gender
inequalities and gender policy implementation led to next stage of the research to
explore the experiences and perceptions of students and staff on ocean science-
related fields and on the impacts of the existing gender policies, as discussed below.

5.3. Gender representation in non-academic institutions

in Kenya
Gender equality was investigated in county and national government agencies,
NGOs and IGOs dealing with ocean research, conservation, protection, and
management. Overall, the average status of women in ocean science institutions was
low, although with notable variations from one institution to another. The findings
revealed that most institutions affiliated with the government had a lower
representation of women than NGOs and IGOs. For instance, NGOs had a higher
proportion of female staff (45 per cent) than government agencies, whereas
women’s representation was slightly above 30 per cent. Figure 14 presents the
results from all four categories of institutions, including public universities for
comparison.

89
 100
Male
Female
80
Proportion of staff (%)

68% 69%
61%
60 55%
45%
40 39%
32% 31%

20

0
es

es

s
s
O

O
iti

ci

IG
en
rs

N
ve

ag
ni

t
en
U

nm
er
ov
G

Figure 14: Average proportion of ocean science professional by gender in the selected institutions
(universities = 8, government agencies = 9, non-governmental organisations = 7 and Intergovernmental
organisations = 3)

From these results, it could be argued that the performance of the government
agencies may have been influenced by the 2010 Kenyan Constitution, because these
nine government institutions (both county and national) had no individual gender
policies but were only complying with the two-thirds gender principle –one of the
affirmative actions enshrined in the Constitution in Article 27 (8), which states that
‘not more than two-thirds of any elective or appointive position in the government
of Kenya shall be of the same gender’. Though some government institutions
complied with the minimum required limit of one-third representation for women
according to the Kenyan Government, this representation is very low in individual
institutions and is unlikely to bring any transformative change to the current
challenges faced in ocean management (see Paper 2; Ojwala, 2023).
The findings showed that the majority of women occupied junior or entry level
positions in most institutions, which could be explained by the fact that these
institutions including public universities were using two-thirds gender principle as
a target or choice (or to tick the gender box) rather than to meet the minimum
requirement by the government or obligation. The underrepresentation of women
causes them to lag behind men in terms of career development and gets worse in
senior management positions (also observed in Ojwala et al., 2022). Therefore, there
is a need for each institution to establish its own gender policy after initial gender
analysis to guide their institutions’ culture or practices and ensure gender is

90
mainstreamed in all their operations, and to bridge all the identified gaps. Paper 4
explains how this may occur, including the limited opportunities for women in
recruitment, hiring and appointments, male dominance in managerial positions and
stagnation or relegation of women to non-leadership positions (Koralagama et al.,
2017). Studies have shown that lack of control and representation of women
especially in decision-making positions often leads to gender bias because of the
power imbalances or relations that favour men (Hill et al., 2016; Ojwala et al., 2022;
Shellock et al., 2022).
The analysis of women’s representation by positions established that unlike
government agencies and public universities, women in NGOs and IGOs were well
represented in management positions, with about 75 per cent women managers in
NGOs and 67 per cent women directors in IGOs. However, government agencies
recorded the lowest percentages of women in senior positions with only 20 per cent
women directors. In NGOs, a better representation of women was observed in most
of the seven institutions surveyed under this category and in management positions.
One reason for the better representation of women in NGOs might be that NGOs
have to adhere to donor-funded specific requirements on women’s representation
before they can receive financial support. According to Shapiro (2019), women
constitute over 70 per cent of staff in non-profit organisations in the United States
especially in development and fundraising departments. However, the more
prominent and well-funded a non-profit organisation is, the fewer women it has on
its staff leadership and executive board. Another reason for more women in NGOs
could be that women are often more drawn to social justice organisations and social
services for experiential or moral reasons or they get attracted to working in
institutions with female-dominated space (Shapiro, 2019).
Further analysis of staff representation in government agencies revealed that
women continue to be underrepresented at every career level. In most of the nine
institutions studied, women were more likely to occupy junior positions which often
lack stability and job security, have less pay and lack social protection (ILO, 2012;
ILO, 2016). Given that these are relatively high-status jobs, it is better to say women
are more likely to be poorer and more vulnerable in the sector compared to their
male counterparts, despite having the same educational qualifications. Similar
studies outside Kenya have also indicated the lower representation of women in
ocean science disciplines (O’Connell & Holmes, 2005; Bonatti & Crane, 2012;
Huyer, 2015; Legg et al., 2023). In the Global Ocean Science Report that projected
38 per cent of ocean science staff were women based on conference attendance,
referred to earlier (Isensee et al., 2017), considerable regional variations were noted
ranging from Mauritania (4 per cent) to Croatia (62 per cent). The present study,
however, gives a more accurate and detailed picture of gender representation in
ocean science in Kenya ranging from access to higher education to labour market
or employment opportunities, which may better reflect the situation in the Global
South. That said, the underrepresentation of women staff and students in all the

91
ocean science institutions studied inspired and drew the attention of the researcher
to evaluate the existing national and institutional gender policies to identify their
goals, objectives, and gaps, and understand the reasons why the policies failed to
promote gender equality in these institutions.

5.4. Barriers to gender equality among students and staff

in ocean science
Evidence by Ojwala et al. (2022) and Ojwala (2023) in the first two papers clearly
indicated that persistent underrepresentation of female students’ enrolment in ocean
science programmes in the selected public universities was evident between 2010
and 2019. This is likely to be related to the fewer women staff who were recorded
in all institutions and in almost all ranks in Kenya, except leadership positions in
NGOs and IGOs. In order to answer the research question – ‘what are the barriers
to gender equality among students and staff participating in ocean science
disciplines in Kenya’, this study focused on students' and staff experiences on
studying and working in ocean science-related programmes to explore the reasons
for their underrepresentation despite the presence or availability of gender equality
policies according to the findings by Ojwala et al. (2022).
The existing patterns revealed that there is an urgent need to investigate and
explore students and staff experiences, barriers and challenges to access to higher
education and job opportunities, and to understand the gendered differences in
treatment within their respective universities. Drawing from the insights of Feminist
Political Ecology, gendered access to higher education and other forms of
discrimination that students and staff often face in public universities in Kenya were
examined. The FPE insights provided a better understanding of the nuanced or
subtle differences in individuals' access to educational resources and job
opportunities. These experiences of students’ journey to ocean science programmes
were gleaned through self-completion questionnaires (Appendix 1). Questions to
students concerned sources of funding for their studies, awareness of their
university’s gender policy, experiences of sexual harassment behaviours, and other
barriers that hindered full participation in these courses. Questions to staff focused
more on causes of gender inequalities in workplaces and barriers to their career
progression (Appendix 2). Questions were also addressed to the gender focal points
to explore some of the challenges they encounter in the implementation of gender
policies and in promoting gender equality in their universities (Appendix 3).
The survey and interviews identified barriers that often limit students access to
higher education and staff career progression in Kenyan universities. Students
identified six main barriers: lack of access to funding sources, cultural beliefs,
gender discrimination, gender stereotypes, ethnic bias and sexual harassment. The

92
majority of the respondents, both female (58 per cent, n = 25) and male (58 per cent,
n = 34), claimed that cultural barriers were one of the major obstacles that hindered
female students' access to higher education and career opportunities. Most of the
students strongly agreed that access to financial aid to cover their studies was a big
challenge (see Paper 3).
Regarding access to financial support or aid, more male respondents were found
to be supported by their parents or relatives (18 per cent, n = 11) than their female
counterparts (11 per cent, n = 5). Instead, most female respondents more than 60 per
cent, n = 26) received financial support for their education from a Higher Education
Loans Board –HELB loan (Figure 15). Although the study loan provided access to
higher education for some female students to access higher education, female
graduates ended up in a vicious cycle of debts after graduation and vulnerable high
interest rates, especially when they were unable to secure jobs immediately (see
Paper 4). As a result, the loan holders, majority of whom are women in this study
often face exorbitant fines or penalties associated with failure to pay this loan in
time17.

80 Female
Male
Proportions of respondents (%)

63%
60

41%
40

20 18% 18% 18%

16%
11%

4% 5%
2% 2% 2%
0
t
an

nt
or

s
hi

re

er
ra
Lo

pp
rs

so

ish
G
la

su

on

lw
ho

sp
i ly
Sc

el
lf-
m

W
Se
Fa

Figure 15: Funding sources for female and male students in public universities in Kenya (Female n = 43, male
n = 59).

17 Republic of Kenya (2020) Kenya Gazette Supplement: National Assembly Bills, 2020. Higher
Education Loans Board (Amendment) Bill, 2020, p 827.

93
The support of female students by their parents was found to vary from one ethnic
group to another, with the majority of female respondents who received family
support coming from the Luo community. The researcher’s main conclusion or
argument from these findings is that government loans are not effective for
supporting female students because it heightens their susceptibility and lower status
due to lack of job opportunities, hefty penalties and inequitable employment rates.
In order to support and empower female students, this research argues that provision
of fellowship programmes that are specific to women can give them a better
opportunity to develop and relieve them from constant debts. With these initiatives,
students from poor backgrounds could compete on a level playing field (Adams &
Von Pischke, 1992; Okurut et al., 2004).
Examining students’ perceptions of their future career prospects, the extent to
which female and male students expect to work in marine scientific careers after
graduation was determined on a Likert scale of 1-5, where 1 =definitely not likely
and 5 = extremely likely. Higher percentage scores range from ‘very likely’ to
‘extremely likely’ for the statements indicated that the majority of respondents (both
females and males) were positive that they will definitely work in the field of marine
science in future. More male respondents (47 per cent, n = 28) responded ‘Extremely
likely’ than their female counterparts (42 per cent, n = 18), whereas, more female
respondents (44 per cent, n = 19) responded ‘Very likely’ than the males (34 per
cent, n = 20). These responses showed that all the respondents were positive and
had interest to work in ocean science disciplines in future. However, the highest
score of male respondents as ‘extremely likely’ showed that they were possibly
more confident of getting job opportunities than females. During the analysis, it was
also revealed that male respondents dominated ocean science courses, which
confirms the argument by feminist political ecologists that gender is a critical
variable influencing the expectations of the students and shaping their prospects in
access to job opportunities in future. This argument can be attributed to the gender
norms, stereotypes, lack of role models and the notions about ocean science as a
male domain. The distinct gender relations in society shaped by patriarchal ideology
have heightened the gendered division of labour and power imbalances which are
manifested in the early stages of ocean science careers.
Conflicts between studies and family responsibilities were also mentioned by
more female student respondents who were married and had children. One of them
described the situation as hectic and tiresome as both the family roles and school
activities required time in equal measure, often referred to as double work. Women
are often expected to commit to strenuous caregiving responsibilities.
Other barriers that were mentioned in this study were, sexual harassment
behaviours and gender bias as well as lack of awareness on gender equality and
sexual harassment policies. In this study, more male students than females expressed
having experienced sexual harassment or gender bias while at their respective
universities. This finding contradicts with those of other scholars, such as

94
Bondestam and Lundqvist (2020) who highlighted that female students often
experience sexual harassment during their academic lives. Based on these
differences, the researcher argues that the responses may be attributed to the male
respondents witnessing the act happen to their female colleagues rather than
themselves. This argument will become clearer when looking at the staff barriers
since the interview gave more elaborate responses than questionnaires. Sexual
harassment pervades most universities in Kenya and is an epidemic throughout
higher education systems worldwide (Bondestam & Lundqvist, 2020).
When students were asked if they were aware of both the gender equality and
sexual harassment policies and how they would report sexual harassment, the
majority of women and men both answered ‘No’. However, fewer female
respondents were aware of the policies than their male counterparts. The
respondents also admitted that there was no training or awareness creation to make
them aware of the reporting procedures in cases of harassment.
The findings also showed that there were various social identities that affected
female students’ participation in ocean science apart from gender. Ethnicity played
a major role in access to ocean science-related courses and access to educational
resources such as financial support. In addition, the respondents confirmed that
cultural barriers and stereotypes are the root causes of the gender disparities in
Kenyan public universities and society. All these findings support the arguments of
the feminist political ecologists who claim that gender intersects with other social
identities to exacerbate the challenges and continue to disadvantage people from
marginalized groups as discussed in detail in section 5.5 on intersectionality.
The interviews also explored the experiences and barriers faced by academic staff
working in ocean science-related departments in the university. Several barriers
were commonly mentioned among staff participants in this study. Prior to the
analysis of these barriers, the study determined the different patterns in career paths
between women and men staff using ten parameters: first job after graduation, time
taken before getting the first permanent job, first permanent job, years of work
experience, number of publications, number of publications as first author, number
of conferences attended, trainings, promotion rates and current employment status
as well as their roles and responsibilities. Table 5 presents the overall themes that
resulted from coding of the interviews and the number of times they were mentioned
by participants.

95
Table 5: Summary of the themes coded from the interviews
Theme References Sample size
Employment status 213 30
Career development 215 22
Staff experiences 250 27
Work relation with colleagues 148 27
Work-family balance 191 27
Barriers to career progression 165 26
Gender and power imbalance 198 30
Gender policy 203 27
Good practices 172 27
Institutional gender issues 118 3

The findings showed that fewer women mentioned getting jobs immediately after
graduation than men. More women staff experienced difficulties finding jobs after
graduating with ocean science-related degrees, as the majority of female staff who
participated in this study had no permanent jobs at the time. Some of them had even
longer than five years of work experience in temporary positions compared to their
male counterparts. In fact, more women experienced taking longer than three years
before finding a permanent job, and some of them are yet to be employed after being
in part-time positions for over five years. The women staff in part-time positions
complained of not being paid for their services and sometimes had delayed payment,
while none of the male participants mentioned lack of payment. In fact, one university
had all its women staff on a short-term contractual basis in ocean science-related
departments. Surprisingly, most of these female participants were more qualified than
most of their male counterparts. The majority of women staff were PhD degree
holders while others had ongoing PhD studies at the time. However, male participants
were found to have easier access to job opportunities since some of them had already
secured permanent and pensionable jobs with an MSc degree. Unlike female
participants, most male participants indicated that they got jobs immediately after
graduation. These findings confirm the results and arguments reported in Paper 1
which showed that women academic staff were more likely to be underrepresented in
ocean science departments in all universities and at all career stages.
Concerning career progression for both female and male participants, it was clear
that most female staff faced barriers, and some took many years at one career level
before getting promoted. For instance, when the participants' ages and years of
experience were compared, it was notable that most male participants in lecturer
positions were younger than the female participants in the same position even
though they had fewer years of work experience. Two-thirds of the male Associate
Professors were in their early 50s, whereas both females in the same category were
in their 60s. In addition, one female lecturer thought that she was overdue for
promotion since she was promoted over ten years ago. She claimed to have all the
qualifications for promotion, including required publications, number of students

96
supervised, conference participation, research grants, research, and had mentored
many students. These two figures (Figure 16) compare the career paths between a
female and male staff member who each had family responsibilities and have
previously worked in other institutions. This illustration reveals that it is easier for
men to change institutions but still progress in their career. For women, it takes a
longer time to progress in all circumstances, whether they are established in an
institution or not.
Women’s participation has been found to face many challenges and has been
observed to decline with seniority as presented in Papers 1 and 2. Similar findings
were highlighted by O’Connell and McKinnon (2021) in their study on perceptions
of barriers to career progression for academic women in STEM. Giakoumi et al.
(2021) also pointed out the underrepresentation of women begins at early
employment stages and continues with career advancement. Barriers to career
progression and gender equality were frequently mentioned in all the themes
analysed (Table 5), including staff experiences, gender and power imbalances,
work-family conflicts, work relation with colleagues, and gender policies. When the
participants were asked about some of the barriers that hindered their career
progress, most of the female participants mentioned the discriminatory promotion
policies with the strict requirements such as number of publications as a first author,
number of conferences attended, number of students BSc, MSc and PhD supervised
and has to have a PhD degree. These requirements are applied depending on the
university management, but they seemed stricter on women than men as most men
compared to women staff got jobs without a PhD degree. To some participants, these
promotion guidelines were often altered by new management.

Figure 16: Comparing the career paths of female and male staff in public universities (Author’s illustration)

97
In addition to the institutional barriers to promotion, other practical barriers many
of which were related to parenthood were mentioned. As women engage more in
care work at home, their careers often suffer. Here, some of the barriers mentioned
by women participants included work-family conflicts, lack of support and
recognition, sexual harassment, and bullying. Work-family conflicts were
mentioned as one of the hindrances to career progression by most female
participants who had family responsibilities (Wandahi & Njoroge, 2021). Some of
the causes of work-family conflicts mentioned were lack of adequate spousal
support, having young children to care for, lack of childcare facilities or support
from the institutions, family demand, inflexible schedules, and long working hours.
Balancing work with family responsibilities was challenging to many female
participants, creating time- and strain-based conflicts. These results confirmed that
balancing these two time-consuming and conflicting responsibilities without
support from the house help and spousal support is hectic. Many confirmed that they
had house help when the children were younger or still have house help to support
them with the house chores.
Secondly, the lack of promotion among women staff was also highlighted by
participants and showed how disadvantaged women were when it comes to access
to opportunities like appointments to senior positions. Despite their qualifications
and achievements, less attention is given to their concerns and interests, which
sometimes demotivates them and hinders their full and effective participation. Apart
from the lack of career advancement opportunities, some female participants also
claimed that inflexible schedules or lack of flexible working arrangements in the
institutions make them unable to actively participate or engage in research activities
or to publish papers which are some of the fundamental promotion requirements.
The problem that arises from this is that most women are assigned lower ranks with
heavier lecture duties and have less access to research networks and funding
opportunities that men have. On the contrary, their male counterparts were less
likely to experience conflicts in relation to balancing work-family responsibilities
(see Paper 4). Most male participants mentioned that work-family responsibilities
did not affect their work in any way. This indicates the burden working mothers
experience when they have to perform double roles at work and at home often
without or with inadequate spousal support.
Another barrier mentioned by almost all participants is that they have
experienced, heard or witnessed sexual harassment and bullying, although only one
female participant admitted to having been sexually harassed. Sexual harassment
includes unwelcome requests for favours and advances of a sexual nature, including
verbal and physical conduct or behaviours. It is important to note that a female
participant also highlighted the positive changes she has observed over the years
due to the increased awareness about sexual harassment, that has led to reduced
incidences of sexual assaults in most universities.

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 Other barriers and obstacles emerged from the interviews and are discussed in
Paper 4. These included the lack of support and recognition by their male
counterparts and management, lack of role models and mentorship programmes,
lack of awareness of gender issues, lack of institutional gender policies, cultural
barriers, gender stereotypes, and discriminations. These obstacles were recognised
and mentioned by the participants as the major impediments to women’s
participation in ocean science spheres, especially in academia, research, and
leadership positions. These results resonate with those of Shellock et al. (2022) who
found out that barriers to women’s participation in ocean science include limited
institutional support and capacity, poor leadership within institutions, lack of
institutional structures and policies, and lack of career progression and job security.
All the findings confirm the arguments by feminist political ecologists that
workplaces which are male dominated, in particular ocean science often fail to
incorporate gender as an essential characteristic which determines access to and
control over natural resources (Arora-Jonsson, 2011). FPE also posited that
knowledge is gendered therefore understanding gender and other social dimensions
helps to generate diverse ideas for effective (ocean) governance (Sundberg, 2015).
In addition, FPE insights revealed that women and men engaged in particular
activities and had access to and control over specific resources in marine resources,
in this case access to junior or entry level positions.
Further to the barriers, this study introduced the intersectional lens to explore and
understand the other social dimensions such as ethnicity, age, class and education
to intersect with gender, and to influence the achievement of gender equality in
ocean science sector/departments. The following subsection answered this research
question on intersectionality.

5.5. The influence of intersectionality in achieving

gender equality
For ocean science students, the intersectional lens provided a better understanding of
the nuanced or subtle differences in individuals' access to educational resources. This
aspect helped the researcher to understand whether all female students were
undergoing the same experiences or treatment because of having the same gender or
if there were other factors that intersected with gender to make the situation worse for
other women or exacerbate discrimination in their institutions. Firstly, the students
were asked to identify their socio-demographic details including gender, age,
ethnicity, and education (year of study). Out of the 102 respondents, 42 per cent (n =
43) identified themselves as females and 58 per cent (n = 59) as males, and their ages
ranged between 18 years and 47 years old. Based on class, about 80 per cent (39
females and 42 males) claimed that they were from the middle- or working- class

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families and over 60 per cent of the respondents (31 females and 33 males) were in
their final year of study. With regard to ethnicity, most of the student respondents
enrolled in ocean science-related courses were found to be from the dominant ethnic
groups in Kenya, led by those from the Luo community (Figure 17).

40 Female
Male

30
Proportion of students (%)

12%

20

20% 3%
7%
10
11% 3% 7%
1%
4%
6% 6% 6% 4% 5%
2% 1% 1% 1%
1%
0 1%
o

M jin
a

a
u

ba

s
ii

i
un

er
hy

nd
Lu

uy

er
is

am
en

th
K

aj
ke
Lu

ik

O
B
al

K
K

iji
K

Ethnic groups

Figure 17: Gender and ethnic representation of students undertaking ocean science-related programmes in
Kenya based on the responses from the questionnaires (n = 102)

The findings indicated that gender and ethnic biases played a crucial role in the
enrolment and participation of female students in ocean science-related courses in
public universities in different ways. These two factors dictated who to support
financially to access educational resources (financial aid/support), and the selection
criteria to the higher education programmes. For instance, this study identified that
female and male respondents (students) from the Luo community in Western Kenya
were more likely to apply or be selected to undertake ocean science-related courses
than those from other ethnic groups in other parts of the country, including the
Central, Northern and Coastal Kenya (Figure 17). Gender and ethnic biases were
also examined using feminist political ecology to explore how they influenced
gender equality, in particular students' access to higher education in Kenya.

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 To determine whether the above-mentioned intersectional identities influenced
gender equality in ocean science education, the respondents were asked if they have
experienced discrimination based on their gender, age, education, ethnicity and
class, and the majority of the students responded to this question providing
intersectional discrimination they experienced as presented in Table 6.

Table 6: Various forms of discrimination affecting female and male students in the selected public
universities
Question: Have you ever been discriminated at your university because of the following
factors?
Female respondents % Male respondents %
(n = 43) (n = 59)
Yes No Blank Yes No Blank
Age 21% (9) 70% (30) 9% (4) 8% (5) 90% (53) 2% (1)
Gender 23% (10) 70% (30) 7% (3) 19% (11) 81% (48) 0% (0)
Education 21% (9) 70% (30) 9% (4) 14% (8) 83% (49) 3% (2)
Social status 33% (14) 63% (27) 5% (2) 34% (20) 66% (39) 0% (0)
Ethnic group 26% (11) 67% (29) 7% (3) 20% (12) 78% (46) 2% (1)

Even though discrimination based on social class had the highest number of
respondents, it was excluded because the majority of the students’ respondents
indicated that they belonged to either the middle class (70 per cent female and 49
per cent male) or working class (21 per cent female and 22 per cent male). Similar
responses were noted among the staff, where most of them (60 per cent women and
88 per cent men) mentioned being in the middle class. Lack of access to education
based on these social characteristics means that women have less access to decision-
making positions regarding sustainable development. Subsequently, they cannot
enjoy the right to environmental justice (Muigua, 2018).
Apart from the findings about the existing gender disparities among students in
enrolment using the gender-disaggregated data (Paper 1), this study revealed that
students were also discriminated against based on other intersectional identities such
as ethnicity, age, education and class (Table 4). As ethnicity was referred to by a
majority of respondents, this was selected for analysis along with gender. In Kenya,
ethnicity is one of the major determining factors of power relations and privileges.
Even during national elections and public appointments, for example, people vote
along tribal lines (based on one’s ethnic group rather than on party manifestos).
Using a feminist political ecology lens, this study exposed some of the barriers that
resulted from politics of place and provided insights and understanding of gendered
power relations in higher education institutions. With this in mind, better actions
can be developed to promote equality in all sectors through elimination of
discrimination along ethnic lines.
Also concerning ethnic biases, female students from the Indian ocean coastal
region were less likely to get a placement or less likely to apply to ocean science-
related courses, with only 1 per cent recorded in this study (Figure 18). Failure to
include students from the coastal region in ocean science programmes means that

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the people who are close to, benefit from and directly affected by the deteriorating
ocean’s health are often left behind. This supports the arguments of FPE theory that
the existence of gender relations and power imbalances between women and men
and among ethnic groups influence the access to and distributions of resources, and
influence who decides, in this case educational rather than natural resources
(Rocheleau et al., 1996). These findings confirmed the claim that women’s
education is less valued in most patriarchal countries like Kenya, where parents are
more likely to prioritize educating their sons over daughters.
Drawing from feminist political ecologists’ insights, these findings used
empirical data to investigate the challenges experienced by students in the context
of how they accessed higher education and how their education was supported, as
well as to know how their gender intersects with ethnicity to reproduce inequalities
in ocean science (Elmhirst, 2011; Nightingale, 2011; Truelove, 2011; Tomislav,
2018). The findings clearly showed that not all female students received equal
treatment both at home and at the university, as we have seen that the majority were
not privileged in terms of financial aid and had to resort to applying for loans.
Though not in education, scholars have used feminist political ecology to highlight
everyday inequalities (Rocheleau et al., 1996; Nightingale, 2011; Sultana, 2011).
The findings associated with barriers that impede female students’ access to
higher education and career opportunities in the ocean science confirmed that
cultural barriers, gender discrimination and gender stereotypes are the major
obstacles for female students in Kenyan public universities. This finding is
connected to ethnicity and explains why some ethnic groups had no women in
higher education, such as the Maasai community. The Maasai culturally excludes
women from accessing education. Until recently, Maasai girls were being married
at an early age and most of them underwent forced marriages. This illustrates FPE’s
suggestion that culture contributes greatly to the variations in gender spaces and
powers over access to resources, in this case education. In most communities in
Kenya, every ethnic group has cultural expectations that reinforce gender inequality.
Cultural norms and gender stereotypes play a crucial role in gendered divisions of
labour, where women and men are expected to play differing roles in family
activities and workplaces.
Questions were asked of the staff on additional forms of discrimination apart from
gender. Understanding staff’s participation in ocean science based on intersectional
identities showed that the majority of women unlike men were discriminated against
based on their gender, ethnicity, age, education and social class. Notably, due to
fewer female participants in this study, most of the career positions were not
represented by females compared to males. However, the sample collected clearly
reflected the positions that women are more likely to occupy. The career levels were
examined with the age groups, education, class and ethnicity. However, because
most of them had PhD degree and more than 90 per cent (n = 27) claimed to be from
the middle class, these two parameters were not included in detailed analysis.

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 This study discovered that the majority of participants' ages were between 30 and
60 years old. Three age groups (30-39 years, 40-49 years and 50-59 years) had the
same number of participants (26 per cent each), while between 60-69 years and <30
years had 15 per cent and 7 per cent, respectively. However, some positions were
distributed in almost all age groups. For example, the lecturer position had younger
(30-39) and older (60-69) staff participants. The findings showed that age was not
directly proportional to or related to academic positions (Figure 18). Regarding
career progression by gender and age, one instance worth mentioning is that a
female participant between 40-49 years was still working as a part-time lecturer,
while all male participants in this age group already had permanent positions. Based
on gender, participants’ distribution showed that most of the male participants were
between 40 and 49 while the majority of women were between 50 and 59. This
suggests that the employment opportunities for women in the selected public
universities were very low. Based on education level of staff, more women had
higher qualifications than men, with most of them having or studying for PhD
degrees compared to their male counterparts. However, these did not translate to
their career progression, as women’s progression was slower than men’s, with most
men being in senior positions than women.

5
Tutorial fellow
4 Technologist
Number of participants

3 Senior technologist
Senior lecturer
2 Part-time lecturer

1 Lecturer
Lab assistant
0 Graduate assistant
30-39
40-49
50-59
60-69
30-39
40-49
50-59
60-69

N/A
N/A
<30

Gender focal point

Female Male Associate professor

Gender and age

Figure 18: Relationship between the current positions of the participants by gender and age in ocean science-
related departments in public universities in Kenya

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Apart from gender, age and education, this research also examined the
representation of academic staff by ethnic groups and the findings revealed that
more women participants were from the Kikuyu community (50 per cent, n = 6),
while more men participants were from the Luo community (33 per cent, n = 8).
The remaining ethnic groups each had a representation of fewer than five staff
members. Even though the Luo community had most male participants, the highest
rank they occupied was that of a lecturer; no member held a senior lecturer or
associate professor position. These findings confirm the arguments by the feminist
political ecologists that suggests that ethnicity play a crucial role in power
distributions and shaping the access to opportunities, in this case job and career
advancement opportunities. Ethnicity is one source of power in Kenya that can
influence who can access which opportunity in an institution because of the power
relations rooted in tribal discrimination that resulted from national politics which
are skewed towards dominant ethnic groups (Figure 19). Further, this study also
confirms the FPE claim that bias representation ignores the knowledge and
perspectives that can ensure a better ocean governance and emphasize that need for
the involvement of women and minorities in decision-making positions (Axelrod et
al., 2022).

6
Number of participants

5 Tutorial fellow
Technologist
4
Senior technologist
3
Senior lecturer
2 Part-time lecturer
1 Lecturer
Lab assistant
0
Kikuyu

Meru

Rabai
Nandi
Kamba

Teso
Luo

Luhya
Luo

N/A
N/A
Uganda

Maasai

Shirazi
Kisii

Graduate assistant
Gender focal point
Associate professor
Female Male
Ethnic groups

Figure 19: Ethnic representation of participants in the selected public universities

104
In terms of promotion, these results showed that female staff from the Kikuyu
community are more likely to be favoured than women from other tribes. It was also
being observed that women staff from the Luo community who happened to be the
majority in terms of student enrolment as outlined in Paper 3 were disadvantaged
when it comes to recruitment as shown by their low representation (only two women
were recorded). Also, Luo men were disadvantaged when it comes to promotion
despite being the majority in academia as highlighted in Paper 4. Studies have
highlighted that when the management is composed of people from a particular
ethnic group, they tend to favour and promote staff from their ethnicity–a term also
referred to as tribalism (Taaliu, 2017). In fact, two of the women participants from
the Kikuyu group got employed in ocean science institutions without the ocean
science degree or relevant degrees. They had to enrol for ocean science courses
while on the job and change their field of study at Masters and PhD level after being
employed. These findings suggested that the participants from dominant ethnic
groups are more likely to be favoured for job opportunities even without the right
qualifications. This favouritism for positions can possibly lead to hiring unqualified
or low-skilled staff who cannot provide the expertise needed for working in ocean
science to achieve ocean sustainability.
Failure to address these exposed challenges, persistent barriers faced by students
and staff, and the rooted gender and ethnic biases will have constant negative
consequences as they will continue prolonging the achievement of gender equality
in ocean science education sector in Kenya. Therefore, the need to develop
interventions and actions to find solutions that are holistic and can help address
gender inequality in ocean science is timely and urgently needed, as many of these
solutions will in turn help protect the ocean health through diverse research and
management skills. In the next sub-section, the researcher examined some initiatives
that the participants considered as good practices in their respective institutions, the
impacts of those interventions in promoting gender equality and the participants’
suggestion for improvements or areas that need to be improved.

5.6. Good practices towards gender equality

To tackle these barriers and obstacles, some institutions had initiatives that the
participants considered good practices. This section answered the fifth research
question; ‘what are the good practices in place to promote gender equality in ocean
science institutions in Kenya?’. These initiatives were seen by participants to create
a conducive environment for both female and male staff and increase the
participation of female staff. They included the availability of gender policies;
having a university gender centre or institute and gender focal point; and allowing
both female and male staff to take study leave to further their education. Three

105
participants highlighted university gender policies as a good practice (see Paper 4).
Even though these initiatives existed, most of them such as gender policies were not
well-known to the participants and their effects in improving gender equality were
not felt or had very minimal impact in the selected public universities. Importantly,
a few participants acknowledged that the existence of sexual harassment policies in
their institutions has led to the reduction of the incidences of sexual harassment
within their university.
The majority of participants (8 women and 5 men) were not aware of these
policies. The lack of awareness can possibly be explained by inadequate or no
training on gender-related issues in the institutions and staff exclusion from
formulation and implementation of the policies. Even though most male participants
(n = 12) knew about the existing gender policies, they were not able to substantiate
the effects of these policies or were not able to identify the aims and objectives or
the contents of the policies. Almost all (n = 27) the participants admitted that they
had never participated in formulation and implementation of these gender policies,
except the three gender focal points interviewed.
Three participants mentioned that their universities had mentorship programmes
where some students were assigned to one professor to advise and guide them in
their studies. However, these mentorship programmes or empowerment hubs were
not so active based on the perceptions of the participants. Regarding women in
leadership positions, three participants mentioned that in their universities, top
management positions such as Chancellor and Vice-chancellor were balanced,
where a female Chancellor had a male Vice-chancellor and vice versa. The majority
of respondents equated gender equality with relatively low proportions of women,
and the majority male participants narrated how their universities gave equal
opportunities for both women and men just because they had one woman in a
leadership position such as Vice Chancellor while lacking women in most senior
positions. Almost half of the interviewees (n = 14) mentioned ‘giving equal
opportunities to all staff’ as the best practice in their university. The majority of
them, who were men, felt that women were so many or already enough in their
department. However, the figures and evidence in Paper 1 revealed that most women
staff were in junior positions and were not more than 30 per cent in terms of staff
representation.
The establishment of gender institutes or centres was also mentioned by
participants as good practice in public universities. All the universities studied had
a gender directorate whose director reported to the Vice Chancellor and acted as
gender focal point in the university. A quote from one of the participants suggested
that the gender centres were actively committed in promoting gender equality in the
campuses:

106
 “The fact that we are the only university with a Gender Institute in Africa.
So, our university has always been way ahead in terms of gender matters. We
even have a gender director, and there is a lot of awareness, and a lot of
trainings because almost every semester like now, I just sent two of my staff
for a gender awareness workshop” (Participant 18, female, Associate
Professor).

The interviews with the institutional gender focal points helped the researcher to
understand the universities’ commitments in promoting gender equality in Kenya.
The questions asked included their role and responsibilities, if they collect gender-
disaggregated data of students and staff, what they do with these data, their
perception of gender equality in the university (if they thought that their university
is gender equal), what has worked or good practices, the challenges they faced in
implementing gender-related policies and their suggestions for future
improvements.
The findings indicated that the roles of these gender centres or gender focal
points, according to the key informant interviews, is to ensure gender is
mainstreamed in the campus and in all the activities within the university. They
collect staff data quarterly and report to the government through the Ministry of
Gender. Even though this was a requirement by the ministry, it seemed that the data
was not actually used internally to give guidance on how to reduce gender
inequality. In addition, the gender data reporting excluded students’ information
which is one of the important aspects of this research and it is looking to address
this gap. In fact, almost all universities lacked digital students’ records, they had
manual registers for students’ enrolment, and graduation documentation which were
not segregated by gender. The gender focal points also confirmed that their
universities were not gender equal in terms of students and staff representation.
Even though all the three key informants revealed that their universities were not
gender equal at the time, they had initiatives and policies to improve the situation.
One of them expressed that their university or department is specialised in science
and technology which often had fewer female enrolment, thus women tended to be
fewer than men as compared to other universities with Humanity and Art courses.
However, all of them said that they have noticed some positive changes in the
university over the years, where the management positions have been occupied by
a few women which was an improvement as compared to several years ago.
Regarding the implementation of gender-related policies, two of the three
informants confirmed that they had both gender equality and sexual harassment
policies while one of them admitted having their policy in draft format awaiting
senate approval. They also confirmed that the policy implementation was carried
out by a high-level committee comprising those in top management positions rather
than at the faculty or departmental levels because it involved disciplinary issues,
especially when tackling sexual harassment cases. According to these gender focal

107
points, the implementation of the existing gender policies at the university level was
faced with many challenges, including the lack of both human and financial
resources, resistance from some male colleagues, lack of clear reporting procedures
and clear guidelines on how to address or deal with sexual harassment cases between
staff and students. One gender focal point said that in her directorate implementing
policies and initiatives was made difficult as there only two staff, both of whom
were women –herself and the secretary. This also made it harder to advocate for
gender equality across the university, including at faculty and departmental level.
In terms of areas of improvements, the gender focal points highlighted the need
to commit resources to ensure effective implementation of the policies, regular
training and creating awareness on gender issues to all staff and students and to be
gender sensitive. Also, there was the need to have nursing rooms for working
mothers or child-care facilities where nursing mothers can leave their small children
while they are at work. For students, they suggested talking to the girls or having
mentorship programmes to attract more women in ocean science programmes.

108
6. Conclusions and recommendations

6.1. Conclusions
This study examined gender equality and women’s empowerment in ocean science
institutions in Kenya, using gender-disaggregated data of students and staff, the
existing institutional gender policies, the experiences, and barriers faced by students
and staff in this field as well as the good practices that the institutions already have
to promote gender equality. The application of the gender integration continuum
framework was found to be an effective method to analyse the policies and
insightfully identified and evaluated the policy provisions into gender-neutral
strategies and gender-specific ones. The application of FPE as the theoretical
framework was found be useful in guiding the research objectives and questions and
in understanding the complex interplay between gender and other social factors
(intersectionality). Specifically, this led to novel insights on how age, education,
class, and ethnicity shape access to and participation in ocean science
fields/programmes. In Kenya, a gender perspective should be sensitive to
intersectionality as it is a component of power relations that determines who
dominates in the institutions. This approach provided insights and deepened
understanding of the invisible gendered power relations, diversity and how these
shape or influence inequality. It contributed to a more inclusive research approach
and knowledge on how gender perspective is supposed to be analysed to tackle
disadvantages facing students and staff through a holistic approach and address
discrimination, biases and marginalization experienced in ocean governance in
Kenya at different levels. In short, FPE has proved very helpful in understanding
the inequalities in ocean science fields in Kenya.
This study clearly shows that the existing gender policies were all outdated and
did not translate to gender equality in public universities in terms of staff
employment and access to top management positions. However, it is notable that a
weak relationship was found between the gender policies and the gender balance of
female students enrolled. The percentages of female students in undergraduate
degrees were proportional to the percentages of gender-specific strategies, where
the university with stronger policy had better representation compared to the one
with the weaker policy. Nevertheless, some public universities with gender policies
performed the same as some universities without gender policies.

109
 It was evident that the percentages of female students enrolled were lower in all
degree programmes and their transition to PhD degree was much lower than males.
Furthermore, the female students’ enrolment was generally found to decline over
the ten years under study in the selected public universities in Kenya. Regarding
ocean science professionals’/staff representation, women academic staff were also
found to be lower than their male colleagues in all the selected public universities
and in most ranks/positions, with the majority of them occupying junior positions.
Women ocean scientists were underrepresented in all the other studied non-
academic institutions. Although a better performance was recorded in NGOs
compared to public universities, government agencies and IGOs. With changes in
ocean stressors and the need for more experts to address the ocean challenges, the
world’s attention is currently focusing on the Ocean Decade to reverse declining
ocean health. The Ocean Decade is an opportunity to advocate for increased women
in ocean research, protection, conservation, and management and help ensure more
integrated and inclusive ocean governance.
The issue of barriers to career progression and for women in the studied
institutions was an important finding. The majority of women participants
mentioned different factors that they felt hindered their active participation. These
included work-family conflicts, lack of support and recognition at workplace and at
home, discriminatory promotion guidelines, cultural barriers and sexual harassment
and bullying. The inclusion of women in the establishment of the ocean
development projects has been equated to accelerate the attainment of the Ocean
Decade’s overarching goals.
There was strong evidence that gender intersects with other factors in the
enrolment of students and recruitment or appointment of staff. Insights from the
FPE lens provided clarity of power imbalances and uncovered ethnicity as an
additional critical variable of concern that shapes inequalities in Kenya coupled with
gender. Students’ and staff responses provided new knowledge of understanding
women’s lived experiences which were mostly connected to their gender and
ethnicity. Most female students and staff felt that they were more likely to be
affected negatively by their gender and ethnicity when it comes to accessing higher
education, funding sources and job opportunities. Indeed, these findings provided
better understandings of the intersectionality in career progression among women
and men staff in ocean science, underlying what makes them lack promotional
opportunities and support in ocean science fields to effectively contribute to ocean
sustainability in Kenya.
Lastly, the findings highlight some actions that the participants felt were good
practices in their respective institutions. These include having institutional gender
policies (even though this thesis has highlighted the shortcomings of the existing
policies), having gender centres to address gender issues within the university, and
having mentorship programmes. Such finding can identify the specific gender gaps,
barriers, and best practices to promote gender equality in ocean science which can

110
guide the development of more concrete solutions by innovative ways of addressing
this persistent problem.
This thesis has discussed five key areas of gender equality concerns in ocean
science institutions in Kenya and has argued that gender equality is critical for
achieving equitable and sustainable ocean in Kenya. The commitments toward
gender equality in ocean science have shown minimal progress and are often faced
with many challenges, resulting in persistent gender gaps at institutional and career
levels nationally.

6.2. Recommendations
This study generated five overall recommendations that can improve gender
equality in ocean science in Kenya and other countries that still face the same
problem (Table 7). The overarching recommendation is that the ocean science
institutions should formulate comprehensive gender strategies and action plans.
These plans need to be equipped with clear, quantifiable objectives that will not only
set forth a vision to combat gender inequality within these establishments, but also
reinforce gender mainstreaming across all organizational activities. Institutional
accountability can thus be ensured, a culture of gender equality can be fostered, and
the overall productivity and success of the institutions can, in turn, be elevated. This
is visualized in Figure 20.

Figure 20: A conceptual framework illustrating interventions needed to achieve ocean sustainability based on
the research findings (Author’s illustration)

111
Table 7: Summary of the key findings and recommendations from this study

No. Key findings Recommendations

1. The existing gender Ocean science institutions should conduct gender analysis to identify the gender
policies were gaps before policy formulation.
ineffective The outdated universities’ gender policies should be reviewed to have more
gender-transformative strategies.
All the ocean science institution should have a gender strategy and action plan
with measurable indicators.
Further awareness raising is needed to both students and staff in ocean science
institutions in Kenya on gender issues and policies.
The university management or gender focal points need to carry out regular
monitoring and evaluation on the performance of the policies.
The Kenyan universities should commit resources both in financial and human
form to enhance policy implementation, accountability, and transparency in gender
mainstreaming.
2. Lack of gender- Ocean science institutions, both public universities and non-academic institutions in
disaggregated data Kenya without updated students and staff records by gender, need to ensure regular
collection of gender-disaggregated data of students and staff at different degree and
career levels to ensure accurate record are kept and track on the gender equality
progress.
3. Inadequate support Ocean science institutions in Kenya need to develop and strengthen women’s
structures for women support structures to increase their participation in ocean science research and
to access to higher management such as grants, scholarships, fellowships, trainings, and mentorship
education, research programmes and having role models.
and jobs
4. Limited opportunities Ocean science institutions in Kenya should ensure fair and equitable admission and
for women, recruitment panels/committees to eliminate discrimination and enhance
especially in transparency and accountability.
leadership and
decision-making
positions
5. Gender and ethnic Ocean science institutions in Kenya should create and increase awareness, training
biases in the ocean and capacity building on barriers that hinder women’s participation of female
science institutions students and staff, such as cultural barriers, gender, and ethnicity.
Ocean science institutions in Kenya should develop good practices or
interventions to enhance diversity and promote gender equality among students and
staff.

6.3. Significance and contributions of the study

This research is the first of its kind on gender equality in ocean science education
and research in Kenya and has provided new knowledge and baseline information
regarding the relationship between gender and ocean science in Kenya. The study
has filled a research gap, with original data gathered through quantitative and
qualitative methods in ocean science institutions that had not been researched
before. The study is also novel in putting gender in the context of intersectionality
in ocean science and applying FPE in an educational context. The findings of this
study reveal the gender, ethnic and other inequalities in ocean science and can be
used to develop solutions to increase the participation of women and marginalized
groups undertaking ocean science courses.

112
 Consequently, the universities and other institutions that apply these
recommendations from this study will be better placed to increase diversity by
including all ‘people we need for the ocean we want’ to conduct innovative research
as summed by Sun et al. (2021), discover new ideas and generate knowledge needed
to achieve ocean sustainability. The low employment rates of female graduates with
an ocean science background have been observed throughout this study and justifies
the need for more effective and transformative approaches to achieve gender
equality in ocean science, both in higher education and employment opportunities.
The findings of this research will be important inputs for more effective gender
policy formulation, evaluation, and implementation. For institutional management,
the study will guide them on how to promote gender equality through regular
collection and monitoring of the gender-disaggregated data to keep track of the
institution’s progress to perform better, and on what concrete actions or measures
to emphasize when formulating and implementing gender policies. It will also
provide the information to inform individuals of their accorded equal rights and
opportunities to participate without discrimination based on gender or ethnicity. In
this research, it is argued that there is a need for institutions to review and update
existing policies as well as to formulate and implement gender-aware policies.
Applying FPE in education and research institutions established its utility in a
context not generally used by feminist political ecologists and therefore could be
said to develop its conceptual flexibility. Thus, the intended empirical and
methodological contribution of this research is an original contribution to the
knowledge base of policy evaluation, gender analysis and the application of feminist
political ecology.
In addition to its significance, this research had both practical and theoretical
contributions. The practical contributions of this research include a detailed analysis
of the institutional gender policy and gender-disaggregated data of students and staff
in Kenya. No previous study to the best of researcher’s knowledge and through
search in peer-reviewed databases has empirically explored the gender equality in
ocean science for sustainable development in Kenya. This case study reveal that
there was no relationship between having gender policy and gender equality among
students and staff due to gender neutral provisions. This implies that for effective
implementation of the policies, emphasis should be placed on the gender-specific
provisions with clear indicators based on the identified gender gaps in and
organisation or institution. This will help increase women’s participation at all
levels, including decision-making positions.
Another practical contribution of this research is the Gender Integration
Continuum framework for analysing the provisions or strategies in the policy
documents, in order to identify the gender neutral strategies from the gender-
specific ones. The study extends the limited research on understanding women’s
representation in management and decision-making positions. This contribution
helped to understand the characteristics of a good policy and how it can be

113
implemented at different levels, including faculty and department of ocean science,
especially through training and capacity building to persuade the actors to join the
campaign of achieving gender equality and adoption of the policy in the institution.
It is among the first studies to consider gender equality in ocean science for
sustainable development.
The theoretical contribution for this study involve application of FPE theories in
a new context. FPE has been widely applied in access to and control over natural
resources such as water and land. However, no study has used the theory to
understand the existing inequalities in ocean science education and employment
opportunities. In this study, FPE was a compelling theory for understanding the
gender relations and power imbalances that shape the access to ocean science sector.
This theoretical approach extends the research of gender in ocean science by
investigating the persistent underrepresentation of women in a male dominated with
respect to an intersectional lens. It helps to analyse the findings and explore how
gender intersect with other intersectional identities such as ethnicity to influence the
achievement of gender equality in ocean science in Kenya.

6.4. Limitations and suggestions future research

As this study only targeted ocean science institutions in Kenya, the findings cannot
be directly extrapolated to other universities or research institutions. Furthermore,
data was not always complete; a few universities and other institutions did not have
readily available records of the enrolment and graduation of students by gender, and
staff gender data and had to manually search for the data from the registration
booklets. This meant that some universities provided only graduation data or could
not provide complete data within the time frame of this project. This could result in
bias and results should be interpreted with caution. In terms of policy, most
institutions did not have policies publicly available and in some cases few
institutions were not ready to share their gender policies which they had in drafts.
It should be recalled that the study was carried out during unprecedented times of
the COVID-19 pandemic when travel restrictions existed in some counties in the
western region of Kenya, which complicated access to those universities.
Alternatively, those universities were contacted using emails, but often with low
response rates. The researcher, therefore, only evaluated the policy documents that
were available and analysed the gender ratios of students and staff that the
universities provided, as well as analysed the responses and interviews that the
researcher managed to obtain from the participants. Thus, the study cannot claim to
be representative of all institutions, government agencies, IGOs and NGOs.
This study identified areas that need further research to expand the application of
feminist political ecology, including analysis of women’s contributions to the Ocean

114
Decade goals, and barriers hindering their participation in non-academic institutions
where they undertake various activities apart from teaching and supervising
students: ocean scientific research, conservation and governance in Kenya and
assessment of the role mentorship programmes play in advancing gender equality
in ocean science. Also, future research should look at the opportunities for
comparative research within the East African region and beyond.
This study used both quantitative and qualitative research which involves
objective and subjective approaches, respectively. Qualitative research often
requires the researcher to interpret subjective data collected from the participants
such as students’ and staff experiences. In this case, the subjectivity is often equated
with bias. However, the researcher, provided her positionality statement to minimize
potential or conscious biases while analyzing and interpreting the data.

115
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Appendix 1: Questionnaire for
students

WMU-GOI Women’s Empowerment Project

Questionnaire for the Ocean Science Institutions in Kenya –Survey on BSc
and MSc students’ experiences in ocean science disciplines

Aim: To explore and understand the role of gender equality and empowerment
of women in the conduct and delivery of ocean scientific research

A. Introduction
Dear BSc/MSc student,
Hello! This questionnaire is part of a study about gender equality in ocean science
for sustainable development with a focus in ocean science institutions including
public universities. It is carried out by a PhD student in Maritime Affairs under the
programme on Empowering Women for the UN Decade of Ocean science for
Sustainable Development from World Maritime University, Sweden. The
questionnaire is directed to both female and male students at selected public
universities. It covers 21 questions and takes approximately 10-15 minutes to
answer. Answers will be kept strictly confidential, and you will not in any way be
personally identified in the report of the study, in statistical summaries or in any
other information resulting in the study. Participation in this study is voluntary and
you may decline to answer any questions you feel uncomfortable doing so and feel
free to exit the study any time or withdraw the consent, without needing to explain
why. All information will be kept anonymously.

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B. Respondent’s Profile
Date
Name of the Institution
Age
Gender
Marital status
Number of children
Ethnic group/Tribe
Home Town

C. Questionnaire

Part 1: Student Admission Status

1. What degree (BSc, MSc etc.) and which subject are you studying for at
the University?
Degree: _______________________________________
Subject/Course: _________________________________

2. To which department do you belong?

______________________________

3. Which year did you start your course/programme? ______________

4. How do you support your study?

i. Loan [ ] (Specify_______________________________
ii. Grant [ ] (Specify) ______________________________
iii. Scholarship [ ] (Specify) __________________________
iv. Other [ ] (Specify) _______________________________

5. Are you the first in your family to go to the university? Yes [ ] No [ ]

6. Which of the following best describes your social status?

i. Upper class
ii. Middle class
iii. Working class
iv. Other (Specify) _________________________________

7. Who/what motivated you to undertake ocean science-related course?

______________________________________________________

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 8. As a marine scientist, which of the following options best describe how
you would like to contribute towards ocean health? (Tick as many as
apply)
i. A clean ocean e.g. addressing pollution problems [ ]
ii. A healthy and resilient ocean e.g. protecting marine ecosystems
and biodiversity [ ]
iii. A productive ocean e.g. working towards sustainable fisheries [ ]
iv. A predicted ocean e.g. developing oceanographic models [ ]
v. A safe ocean e.g. preventing marine natural disasters [ ]
vi. An accessible ocean e.g. ensuring open access to data and
research [ ]
vii. An inspiring and engaging ocean e.g. increasing education and
public awareness [ ]

9. At the end of your degree/study, would you consider a marine scientific

career? Please tick one.
i. Extremely likely [ ]
ii. Very likely [ ]
iii. Moderately likely [ ]
iv. Less likely [ ]
v. Definitely not likely [ ]
10. How many persons are there in your year/ course?
_________________________________________________

11. What percentage of students in your year/course are female?

_________________________________________________

Part 2: Student Experiences at the University

12. Do you know if your university has a gender equality policy? Yes [ ]
No [ ]

13. Do you know if your university has a sexual harassment policy? Yes [ ]
No [ ]

14. Have you experienced any behaviours that you would consider as gender
biased or sexual harassment while at the university? Yes [ ] No [ ]
o Gender bias: Yes [ ] No [ ]
o Sexual harassment: Yes [ ] No [ ]

15. If you witnessed or experienced gender bias or sexual harassment, would

you know how to make a complaint? Yes [ ] No [ ]

138
 16. Can you suggest any actions to help empower women and other
underrepresented groups at the university? _________________

17. Do you find that female students have less opportunity for higher
education and careers in ocean science?
o Higher education: Yes [ ] No [ ]
o Research careers: Yes [ ] No [ ]

18. What do you think are the main obstacles for female and male students in
higher education? (Tick all that apply)
For female students For male students
Gender discrimination [ ] Gender discrimination [ ]
Gender stereotypes [ ] Gender stereotypes [ ]
Cultural barriers [ ] Cultural barriers [ ]
Other (Specify) ____________ Other (Specify) _____________

19. Have you ever been discriminated at your university because of the
following factors?
i. Age Yes [ ] No [ ]
ii. Gender Yes [ ] No [ ]
iii. Education Yes [ ] No [ ]
iv. Social class Yes [ ] No [ ]
v. Ethnic group Yes [ ] No [ ]

20. Have you experienced any conflict between your studies and family
responsibilities?
Yes [ ] No [ ]
o If so, can you describe your experience__________________

21. What area (s) do you think can be improved to ensure a fair future for all
students in the University? Tick all that apply.
i. Equitable student financing [ ]
ii. Role modelling [ ]
iii. Mentorship programme [ ]
iv. Safety at campus [ ]
v. Improved gender-related policies [ ]
vi. Other (Specify)____________________________
*****
Thank you for your participation!
Disclaimer: An extensive questionnaire was used to generate a comprehensive
dataset. Some of the data lie outside the scope of this PhD

139
Appendix 2: Staff interview guide

WMU-GOI Women’s Empowerment Project

Interview Schedule for the Ocean Science Institutions in Kenya – PhD
students, Academic and Research Staff Interview

Aim: To explore and understand the role of gender equality and empowerment
of women in the conduct and delivery of ocean scientific research

Interview Date: …………… Interviewee Code: ………………………

A. INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

PART 1: ENROLMENT/EMPLOYMENT STATUS

a. Could you tell me what your current position is at [name of institution]?
b. What are some of your roles and responsibilities in your department?
c. Do you see yourself as having a leadership role or senior position in the future?
d. In which field of science have you led your research/career?
e. How did you get to your current position?
f. Of the seven Ocean Decade societal goals which one does your research most
closely align with?
Part 2: WORK RELATIONS WITH COLLEAGUES
(Let’s talk about your department/institution)

a. Overall, how would you describe your relationship with your seniors (e.g.
supervisors and colleagues at the institution?
b. Do you notice that women and men tend to take on different work/roles
in your department?
c. Would you prefer a female or a male leader in your department/
institution?

140
PART 3: STAFF EXPERIENCES AT WORKPLACE
a. Do you feel that your work has been supported, recognised and valued?
If so, how?
b. How do you feel you contribute to your institution’s goals?
PART 4: STAFF CAREER DEVELOPMENT
a. Have you taken up any initiatives that (name of institution) has run to
help advance or prepare for your career?
b. In your opinion, did your gender affect your early career aspirations,
experiences or plans? If yes, how?
c. Have you at any time thought you have not been supported or been denied
a career development opportunity?
PART 5: WORK-FAMILY BALANCE
a. Do you have responsibilities outside of work?
b. Does your institution have flexible time or place of work arrangements?
c. Do you think that women and men have the same opportunities to take
parental leave?
PART 6: GENDER AND POWER IMBALANCE
a. What does gender equality mean to you?
b. How do you think gender is perceived in ocean science by professionals?
c. Are there initiatives to promote gender equality in your institution?
d. Have you ever applied for promotion? If yes, how many times? Were
you successful?
e. Have you ever been discriminated because of your age, ethnicity,
education or class? Please explain how each of them has affected your
opportunities or privileges.
PART 7: POLICY
a. Are you aware of any gender policies/sexual harassment policies in your
institution? If yes, could you tell me what they are and what they address?
b. Have you experienced any behaviours that you would consider as gender
biased, or sexual harassment while in your institution?
c. If yes, how would you know to whom or how to register a complaint?
d. Have you experienced any change/impact since the implementation of the
gender policy/sexual harassment policy in your institution?
e. Have you received any training related to recognizing gender bias, gender
policies and sexual harassment policy?

141
PART 8: OTHER INTERVENTIONS
a. Could you identify any good practices in your institution that encourage
women to participate fully at all levels?
b. What is your contribution towards gender equality in your institution?
research or projects?)
c. Looking ahead 5 years, what would you like to see change in your
institution in relation to gender equality?
d. Could you suggest any actions to help empower women and other
underrepresented groups in your institution?
e. If you would like to have your career choice again, how would you go
about it?

B. RESPONDENT PROFILE
Highest level of education Bachelors Masters PhD Other
(Specify)
Age <30 30-40 40-50 50-60 >60
Gender
Marital status
Number of children (and
age)
Ethnic group
Social class Lower [ ] Middle [ ] Upper [ ]
Position in Organization Director Manager Researcher/ Other
Technician (Specify)
[ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
Name of the institution
Years in the institution
Ocean science programs

Do you have anything to add or feel is relevant which has not been covered?

*****
Thank you for your participation!

Disclaimer: This thesis only analysed a subset of the questions in the

interview guide, leaving the remainder for future research.

142
Appendix 3: Administration
interview guide

WMU-GOI WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT PROJECT

Administrative Staff Interview Schedule (Gender Focal Point) in Ocean
Science Institutions in Kenya

Aim: To explore and understand the role of gender equality and empowerment
of women in the conduct and delivery of ocean scientific research

Interview Date: …………… Interviewee Code: ………………

Warm up start:
• What position do you hold in [name of institution]?
• Do you think your institution is one which is gender equal and/or
welcoming to women?
• Which ocean science programme(s) do you offer in [name of institution]

A. OVERVIEW ON GENDER INFORMATION

1. What does gender equality means to you?
2. Is information and data on gender collected in [name of institution]?
3. Has your institution developed any gender equality measures?
4. Does your institution have gender-sensitive indicators that can be monitored?
5. Do you think your institution gives equal opportunities for both women and men
staff?

143
B. POWER DISTRIBUTION
Do you think there is equal representation of women to men in senior management
and research positions? Can you estimate a proportion of that?
6. Do you have designated gender focal points? What are their roles in [name of
institution]?

C. POLICY
7. Does your institution have policies on gender equality and sexual harassment?
8. If there are policies, how often are the training workshops on gender equality
and sexual harassment policy awareness conducted in your institution?
9. How are these policies implemented in [name of institution]?
10. What are the impacts of these gender policies?
11. Does your institution have flexible time/place of work arrangements for the
staff?
12. Do female and male staff have the same opportunity for parental leave? How
many paid leave days for each?
13. How does your institution operationalize gender mainstreaming?

D. BARRIERS
14. Which barriers to achieving gender equality do you think exist in your
institution? Could you identify any that are present in your institution?

E. OTHER INTERVENTIONS
15. Could you identify some good practice measures in your institution that
encourage women to participate fully at all levels?
16. What measures do you think could be established in [name of institution] to
promote gender equality?
17. What support structures are there for women scientists in [name of institution]?
18. Is there any more information on gender equality you would like to share?
19. Do you have any questions you would like to ask?
*****
Thank you for your participation!
Disclaimer: This thesis only analysed a subset of the questions in the
interview guide, leaving the remainder for future research.

144
Appendix 4: Institutions governing
the Indian Ocean in Kenya

Table 8: Mapping Ocean science institutions in Kenya and aligning their mandates to the Ocean Decade’s
societal goals (Including the institutions that did not participate in this study)
Institution Mandates in ocean governance Relevance to UN Ocean
Decade Goals
Coastal & Marine Nurture practical solutions to problems facing Goal 7: An inspiring and
Resource Development coastal and marine environments and engaging ocean
(COMRED) communities for sustainable development-
Advancing the socio-economic well-being of the
coastal population
Community Based Protect and conserve natural ecosystems through Goal 2: A healthy and resilient
Environmental education, habitat restoration and preservation ocean
Conservation (COBEC) and wildlife management
Seacology Protect threatened islands ecosystems through Goal 7: An inspiring and
preservation of the indigenous culture and improve engaging ocean
the lives of the community
Ocean Sole Prevent and alleviate pollution of land and sea Goal 1: A clean ocean
through turning the discarded flip-flops from the
Kenyan coast to incredible art and functional
products
Wildlife Conservation Saves wildlife and wild places worldwide through Goal 5: A sustainably
Society (WCS) science, education, conservation and inspiring harvested and productive
people to value nature. ocean
Coastal Oceans Research on climate vulnerability of coral reefs, Goal 2: A healthy and resilient
Research and impacts of fishing on reef systems, adaptive ocean
Development Indian capacity of coastal communities
Ocean (CORDIO)
World Wide Fund for Stop degradation of the planet’s natural Goal 5: A sustainably
Nature (WWF-Kenya) environment and build a future in which humans harvested and productive
live in harmony with nature. ocean
Western Indian Ocean Advance regional co-operation in all aspects of Goal 3: A predicted ocean
Marine Science coastal and marine sciences including socio- Goal 4: A transparent and
Association (WIOMSA) economic and management, and to support accessible ocean
sustainable development in the WIO region, while
promoting interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary
approaches.
A Rocha Kenya Conserve and restore threatened habitats and Goal 5: A sustainably
biodiversity through research, environmental harvested and productive
action, advocacy and community empowerment ocean
Nature Kenya Connect people with nature and take action for Goal 5: A sustainably
biodiversity conservation harvested and productive
ocean
The Nature Conservancy Conserve the lands and waters on which all life Goal 5: A sustainably
depends by addressing the biodiversity and harvested and productive
climate crises ocean
County Fisheries Improve livelihoods of the people through Goal 5: A sustainably
Departments promotion of competitive, innovative research, harvested and productive
equitable distribution and sustainable ocean
management of fisheries resources in various
counties

145
Kenya Marine and Undertake research in marine and freshwater Goal 3: A predicted ocean
Fisheries Research fisheries, aquaculture, environmental and Goal 4: A transparent and
Institute (KMFRI) ecological studies, and marine research including accessible ocean
chemical and physical oceanography in order to
provide scientific data and information for
sustainable development of the Blue Economy
Kenya Maritime Authority Ensure sustainable safe, secure, clean and Goal 4: A safe ocean
(KMA) efficient water transport for the benefit of
stakeholders
Kenya Wildlife Service Conserve, protect and manage wildlife Goal 5: A sustainably
(KWS) (biodiversity) in Kenya and to enforce related laws harvested and productive
and regulations ocean
Kenya Fisheries Service Conserve, manage and develop Kenya’s fisheries Goal 5: A sustainably
(KeFS) and aquaculture resources harvested and productive
ocean
National Environment Ensure sustainable management of the Goal 1: A clean ocean
Management Authority environment through exercising general
(NEMA) supervision and coordination over matters relating
to the environment and to be the principal
instrument of government in the implementation of
all policies relating to the environment.
Kenya Forest Service Conservation, sustainable development, Goal 5: A sustainably
management and utilization of the country’s forest harvested and productive
resources including mangroves for equitable ocean
benefit of present and future generations
Kenya Forestry Research Conduct research and provide information and Goal 4: A transparent and
Institute (KEFRI) technologies for sustainable development of accessible ocean
forestry (mangroves) and allied natural resources
for socio-economic development
National Museum of Gather, store and disseminate information of Goal 4: A transparent and
Kenya (NMK) Kenya marine life with a view to preserve and accessible ocean
protect the biodiversity
Nairobi Convention Address the accelerating degradation of the Goal 1: A clean ocean
world’s oceans and coastal areas through the Goal 4: A transparent and
sustainable management and use of the marine accessible ocean
and coastal environment by engaging the Goal 5: A sustainably
countries that share the Western Indian Ocean in harvested and productive
actions to protect their shared marine environment ocean
Intergovernmental Provide strong scientific understanding and Goal 2: A healthy and resilient
Oceanographic systematic observations of the changing world ocean
Commission of UNESCO ocean climate and ecosystems shall underpin Goal 5: A sustainably
(IOC-UNESCO) sustainable development and global governance harvested and productive
for a healthy ocean, and global, regional and ocean
national management of risks and opportunities
from the ocean
International Union for Work supportively and in collaboration with other Goal 2: A healthy and resilient
Conservation of Nature members and partners, including NGOs and ocean
(IUCN) governments to achieve a new paradigm for Goal 5: A sustainably
sustainable development based on the concept of harvested and productive
people centred development. ocean
Food and Agriculture Aims to defeat hunger and improve nutrition and Goal 3: A predicted ocean
Organization of the food security worldwide by increasing the Goal 5: A sustainably
United Nations (FAO) efficiency of agriculture and fisheries thereby harvested and productive
improving the situation of the rural population in its ocean
member countries
Universities (Technical Educate and research on coastal and marine Goal 7: An inspiring and
University of Mombasa, resources. They offer course like marine biology, engaging ocean
University of Nairobi, marine resource management, fisheries and
University of Eldoret, oceanography, applied aquatic science, etc.
Kenyatta, Egerton,
Pwani, Karatina, etc.)

146
Appendix 5: Summary of the
literature on Feminist political
ecology in natural resources

Table 9: Overview of some literature on FPE and the research methods used
No. Author(s) and title Type Target Field of Research methods
population study question
1. Kerr, R. B. (2014). Lost and Article Rural Malawi Indigenous, Combined FPE In-depth interviews,
found crops: agrobiodiversity, Case study: drought- and Indigenous focus groups, archival
indigenous knowledge, and a Ekwendeni tolerant knowledge documents and
feminist political ecology of Region grains (finger observations
sorghum and finger millet in Northern millet and
northern Malawi. Annals of the Malawi soghum)
Association of American
Geographers, 104(3), 577-
593.

2. Gay-Antaki, M. (2016). " Now Article Oaxaca city Gender Effects of a wind Case study research:
we have equality": a feminist and Mexico city dynamics of project and a archival research,
political ecology analysis of carbon small scale semi-structured and
carbon markets in Oaxaca, markets - reforestation in-depth interviews
Mexico. Journal of Latin Differences project and the
American Geography, 15(3), between convergence of A series of informal
49-66. wind and environment, semi-structured and
forest carbon gender and in-depth interviews,
projects development focus groups
3. Melissa Haeffner, Dana Article Water sector Water How power and An exploratory survey
Hellman, Alida Cantor, Idowu employees in governance politics shaped consisting of closed-
Ajibade, Vinka Oyanedel- United States the composition of and open-ended
Craver, Maura Kelly, Laura (496) – one the water sector questions to explore
Schifman & Lisa Weasel year data and decision- workers’ lived
(2021). Representation justice collection from making experiences in water
as a research agenda for October 2018 – processes? sector
socio-hydrology and water September
governance, Hydrological 2019
Sciences Journal, 66:11,
1611-1624, DOI:
10.1080/02626667.2021.1945
609

147
4. Soto-Alarcón JM and Article Manzanas Land Identifying Case study approach-
González-Gómez DX (2021). members - patterns and Participant
Collective Rural Women strategies to developing a observation, Focus
Access, Use, and Control Over access, use, sense of the discussion groups and
Communal Land in Mexico: A and control whole interviews
Post-Capitalist Feminist communal phenomenon by
Political Ecology Approach. resources in recognizing how
Front. Sustain. Food Syst. Mexico the gendered
5:695344. doi: Fieldwork – at access and use of
10.3389/fsufs.2021.695344 irregular communal
intervals property were
between 2012 interdependent of
and 2019 the interaction of
the commons.
5. Nelson, I. L (2021). Article Campus Conference How SHE (Annual Event ethnography
Conference spaces as Sustainability Sustainability in and auto-ethnography
emotional sites for becoming Professionals higher education
campus sustainability leaders. (CSP) in the USA)
Emotion, Space and Society, conference
39, 100785, 1-10 events co-
produce CSP
(Campus
Sustainability
Professionals)
subjectivities and
expertise
emotionally
6. Buechler, S., Vázquez-García, Article Women’s Small-scale Interviewed both A comparative study:
V., Martínez-Molina, K. G., & experiences solar energy women and men participant
Sosa-Capistrán, D. M. (2020). with small-scale projects observation, individual
Patriarchy and (electric) solar energy and focus group
power? A feminist political projects in interviews and
ecology of solar energy uses Urban and rural stakeholder meetings
in Mexico and the United Arizona, USA
States. Energy Research & and Zacatecas,
Social Science, 70, 101743. Mexico.
7. Jewitt, S., and Ryley, H. Article Girls in primary Semi-structured
(2014). It’s a girl thing: and secondary interviews and
Menstruation, school schools focus groups
attendance, spatial mobility (FGs)
and wider gender inequalities
in Kenya. Geoforum, 56, 137-
147.

8 Irbık, D. E. A (2022). Article People who Water A systematic literature

Systematic Literature Review were affected governance review based on
of Water-Migration-Gender by the PRISMA guidelines
Nexus Towards Integrated exposures to
Governance Strategies for climate
(non) Migrants. Frontiers in change/water
Water, 104. related hazards
and migrated to
another
country.

148
Appendix 6: Summary of the data
and information collected from the
selected ocean science institutions

Table 10: Data obtained from the eight selected public universities in Kenya
Public Data on Data on Data on Gender Sexual Survey Interviews
University students’ students’ staff Equality harassment
enrolment graduation gender Policy policy
ratios
A √ √ √ √ √ √ √
B √ √ √ √ √ √ √
C − − − √ √ − −
D √ √ √ √ √ √ √
E √ √ √ √ √ √ √
F √ √ √ − − √ √
G √ √ √ − − √ √
H − √ − − − √ −

Table 11: Data obtained from the nineteen (19) selected ocean science institutions (Government agencies = 9,
NGOs = 7 and IGOs = 3)
Institution Number of Data on staff Gender policy Interviews
institutions ratio
Government agencies 9 √ None (-) √
NGOs 7 √ One √
IGOs 3 √ Two √

Table 12: List of organizations and occupations of the interviewed participants

Type of organization Occupation of participants Number of interviews
Public universities Associate professor, senior lecturer, lecturer, 30
tutorial fellow, graduate assistant, senior
technologist/ technician, technologists/
technicians, part-time lecturer/ PhD students,
lab assistant
Government agencies, NGOs President, Directors, managers, 52
and IGOs coordinatiors, Principal fisheries officers,
Senior research scientists, Chief fisheries
officers, Research scientists, Assistant
researchers, Fisheries officers, Assistant
fisheries officers, Conservationists, Gender
focal points, Coxswains, Interns

149
Figure 21: Different techniques used during interviews in this study

Figure 22: Data collection process during the interviews

150
151
Figure 23: Concept map of relevant issues investigated in this research
Appendix 7: Papers included in this
dissertation

Paper 1 Ojwala, R. A., Kitada, M., Neat F., & Buckingham, S. (2022).
Effectiveness of gender policies in achieving gender equality in ocean
science programmes in public universities in Kenya. Marine Policy,
144: Article 105237, pp. 1-12. DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2022.105237.
Paper 2 Ojwala, R. A. (2023). Status of gender equality in ocean research,
conservation and management institutions and organizations in Kenya.
African Journal of Marine Science, 45 (2), 1-11. DOI:
https://doi.org/10.2989/1814232X.2023.2213724.
Paper 3 Ojwala, R. A. (2023). Unravelling gender and ethnic bias higher
education: Students experiences in access to ocean science education
and career opportunities in Kenya. Higher Education (Under review).
Paper 4 Ojwala, R. A., Buckingham, S., Neat, F. & Kitada, M. (2023). Gender
and the ocean: Understanding women’s roles, experiences and barriers
to participation in ocean science education in Kenya. Ecology &
Society (Under Review).

152
Paper 1
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Paper 2
African Journal of Marine Science 2023, 45(2): 105–115 Copyright © The Authors
Printed in South Africa — All rights reserved AFRICAN JOURNAL OF
Open Access article distributed in terms of the
MARINE SCIENCE
ISSN 1814-232X EISSN 1814-2338
Creative Commons Attribution License [CC BY 4.0]
https://doi.org/10.2989/1814232X.2023.2213724
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)

Status of gender equality in ocean research, conservation and

management institutions and organisations in Kenya
RA Ojwala

WMU–Sasakawa Global Ocean Institute, World Maritime University, Malmö, Sweden

Corresponding author, e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]

Gender equality is key to achieving the objectives of the United Nation’s Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable
Development. In patriarchal societies, men’s dominance has long overshadowed women’s participation in science-
related fields, including ocean science. The lack of gender-disaggregated data in ocean science has made it
difficult to establish the extent of gender bias across institutions and at all levels. Providing baseline data can
help to address the difficulty of women accessing employment opportunities in managing coastal and marine
resources. This study aims to fill the gap in gender data in ocean science in Kenya by presenting a case study
on gender ratios of ocean science professionals in Kenyan research institutions. Data on the gender composition
of staff were collected from a range of local to international ocean research, conservation and management
organisations situated in Kenya. The results show fewer women were represented in government agencies
than in nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) and intergovernmental organisations (IGOs). There was also an
underrepresentation of women in senior positions, with only two out of nine directors in government agencies
being women. The majority of women occupied junior positions. Further research through in-depth interviews will
be needed to establish the reasons for the disparities in representation and career advancement.

Keywords: baseline study, East Africa, gender-disaggregated data, gender inequality, hierarchies, ocean science institutions, senior positions,
sustainable development

Introduction

The oceans provide essential ecosystem goods and services including Kenya1 and Cambodia2 (FAO 2015; King and
to human beings and societies, and their use needs to Cordero 2015; Harper et al. 2017; IUCN 2017; UN Women
be sustainably managed if they are to provide for future 2018a; OECD 2022).
generations (Francis and Bryceson 2001; Barbier 2017; In fisheries, as fish traders and processors, women
Kaluza et al. 2018; Virto 2018; Brodie Rudolph et al. 2020). comprise over 90% of those involved in post-harvesting
To a large extent, the responsibility for ocean governance and activities (Harper et al. 2013; Matsue et al. 2014; Shah
management lies with governmental and intergovernmental and Bukhari 2019; Siles et al. 2019), and there may
organisations and, to a lesser extent, nongovernmental be more subtle influences both at the community and
organisations and coastal communities (Boesch 1999; household levels (Gissi et al. 2018). However, women are
Hoel et al. 2005; Cho 2006; Kibiwot 2008; Haas et al. underrepresented in fish harvesting and seagoing research
2022). Gender equality needs to be a policy priority for such activities (Johannesen et al. 2022), and their contribution
organisations and is considered essential for the sustainable to fisheries and marine management is often overlooked
use of marine resources and effective ocean governance in statistical summaries and reports (Allison and Mvula
(Gissi et al. 2018; Michalena et al. 2020; Sun et al. 2021). 2002; Kleiber et al. 2015; Biswas 2017). Indeed, women
Coastal management often fails if there is inadequate tend to be restricted from engaging actively in science-
engagement with the stakeholders, especially if those related academic programmes, seagoing research
excluded are predominantly women (Diamond et al. 2003; undertakings and decision-making processes, and are
Kibiwot 2008; Brugere 2014; Gissi et al. 2018). While more likely to occupy junior positions in ocean management
women and men may play differentiated roles in different (Kitada and Langåker 2016; Zhao et al. 2017; Gissi
workspaces, the contributions of women to research, et al. 2018; Arulnayagam 2020; Johannesen et al. 2022;
policy and governance regarding marine resources are Ojwala et al. 2022). Other studies have also highlighted the
often unnoticed even though they are the primary users persistent gender bias in marine science and the challenges
and influencers of marine ecosystems through pursuit inhibiting women’s participation in ocean management and
of their livelihoods across countries in the Global South,
especially in the African context (Fröcklin 2014; Michalena
et al. 2020; Giakoumi et al. 2021). For example, women 1
See https://www.nature.org/en-us/about-us/where-we-work/africa/
play an essential role in mangrove regeneration and stories-in-africa/women-kenya-mangrove-forest
2
See https://www.oneearth.org/women-are-leading-the-charge-
fisheries management in many developing countries,
rewilding-mangroves-in-cambodia

African Journal of Marine Science is co-published by NISC (Pty) Ltd and Informa UK Limited (trading as Taylor & Francis Group)
106 Ojwala

career progress both in developed and developing countries et al. 2000; Medard et al. 2002; Lwenya et al. 2006; Geheb
(Fröcklin 2014; De la Torre-Castro et al. 2017; Giakoumi HWDO&,631XQDQDQG&HSLü 7KHUHDUH
et al. 2021; Shellock et al. 2022a, 2022b). also deeply rooted cultural norms and distinct gender roles
Oceans are increasingly threatened by human activities, across many cultures, including in Kenya, that recognise
with marine pollution, global warming and overfishing women as caregivers rather than as ocean professionals
negatively affecting ocean health around the world. The or managers of natural resources (Matsue et al. 2014;
United Nations adopted the Sustainable Development CISP 2018; Muigua 2018a; Owuor et al. 2019; Murunga
Goals (SDGs) in 2015 as the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable 2021). Such cultures and norms are not only unfair but also
Development to provide a universal call to action to protect stand in the way of innovative and creative ideas, diverse
the planet and improve livelihoods (United Nations 2015, perspectives and novel solutions that are needed for
2022). One of these goals is SDG 14: ‘Life below water’, successful ocean management (Kleiber et al. 2015; DFO
which aims to “conserve and sustainably use the oceans, 2020; Sun et al. 2021).
sea and marine resources” and is concerned about the Promoting gender equality by eliminating gender biases
health of the ocean. Even though the SDGs advocate for in ocean science institutions is a crucial contribution to
inclusive involvement of all stakeholders in environmental efforts in ocean conservation, protection and governance
action as defined by the slogan ‘Leaving no one behind’, systems (Ojwala et al. 2022). Consistent efforts are needed
SDG 14 remains gender blind without any gender-specific to address the various challenges that prevent women
indicators in its targets. Addressing the nexus between from accessing ocean science-related jobs, including
gender and ocean health is therefore key in advancing gender bias, stereotypes, harmful gender norms, lack
towards equitable, fairer and more-sustainable use of of role models, lower wages, sexual harassment, and
the ocean. To enhance the implementation of SDG 14, a GLVFULPLQDWLRQ LQ ZRUNSODFHV 2UFXWW DQG &HWLQLü 
10-year plan (2021–2030), called the UN Decade of Ocean Arulnayagam 2020; O’Connell and McKinnon 2021). If
Science (hereinafter the Ocean Decade), was adopted we are to be in a position to evaluate the impact of such
by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of initiatives, it is vital to assess the extent to which women
UNESCO (IOC-UNESCO) to generate knowledge and actively participate in ocean research, management
innovative solutions to reverse the decline in ocean health. and governance. For this, there is a need to collect
Although SDG 14 does not reference gender, the Ocean gender-disaggregated data so that an accurate scale of
Decade is committed to achieving gender equality in ocean underrepresentation and the actual contribution of women
science and provides the opportunity to accelerate efforts to ocean sustainability can be presented.
towards ocean sustainability. In Kenya, resource governance, including that pertaining
SDG 5: ‘Gender equality’ aims to provide equal to ocean resources, has been devolved to county levels
opportunities for both women and men to, inter alia, as enshrined in the 2010 Constitution: “The Constitution
participate in ocean research and management, and establishes national values, rules and principles that
accelerate progress towards a more equitable and facilitate the realisation of equality and inclusiveness
sustainable ocean for all (Ojwala et al. 2022). Gender in governance which include establishing mechanisms
equality, therefore, should be mainstreamed into all that ensure fairness in sharing of national resources and
international development programmes. However, a lack of devolution of governance to county levels” (Ruwa 2011,
gender-disaggregated data masks the true extent of gender p 11). National and county governments are distinct but
inequality in many programmes and institutions. Gender- interdependent and conduct their mutual relations on
disaggregated baseline data are crucial for understanding the basis of consultation and cooperation (Government
the gaps and help to keep track of and enhance progress in of Kenya 2010). Thus, the purpose of devolution is
promoting gender equality. Additionally, they can provide a to ensure inclusive citizenship in the formulation and
way forward to acknowledge and recognise the substantial implementation of public policy and to enhance grassroots
roles and contributions of women in ocean science and participation in decision-making to avoid marginalisation.
the benefits that gender equality brings to organisations. This should include promoting the democratic and
Without the systematic collection of gender-disaggregated accountable exercise of power and fostering national unity
data, there will be no way to assess whether programmes by recognising diversity and protecting and promoting
like the UN Decade of Ocean Science have succeeded in the interests and rights of minorities and marginalised
delivering their promise of gender equality. communities (Ruwa 2011; Muigua 2018b). The county
Historically, women have been underrepresented in government is, therefore, responsible for implementing
science-related jobs, including marine management and policies under its jurisdiction.
fisheries in developing countries, such as Kenya (Agarwal According to Odido (1998), there is no single institution
2001, 2010; Todes et al. 2010; Hicks 2011; Gillanders and responsible for all aspects of marine affairs or resources
Heupel 2019). In fisheries, for example, women are typically in Kenya. Many institutions have been created to oversee
limited to nearshore activities using small handnets, which and deal with specific aspects of ocean-related projects
have lower income returns than the activities usually and programmes to facilitate adaptive management and
undertaken by men (WorldFish 2010, 2016; FAO 2015). achieve sustainable oceans (Odido 1998; Kibiwot 2008).
This gender bias against women stems from cultural and These institutions operate at county (local), national,
superstitious beliefs that women on board research and regional and even international levels, and they include
fishing vessels represent a bad omen or taboo, which government institutions and other relevant organisations
hinders their participation in offshore activities (Aloo that address legal, policy and institutional arrangements,
African Journal of Marine Science 2023, 45(2): 105–115 107

such as nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) and 27 (8) and it states that “not more than two-thirds (66.67%)
intergovernmental organisations (IGOs) (Ruwa 2011). The of any elective or appointive position in the government of
governance systems are mandated to carry out activities Kenya shall be of the same gender”. However, no study has
such as education, research, conservation, restoration yet been conducted to investigate the gender representation
and management. The government institutions with a of women and men staff as well as their distribution at
mandate for ocean resources management include the different hierarchies (ranks) in ocean science institutions
Fisheries Department, Coast Development Authority and in Kenya. Thus, the present study investigated the gender
Kenya Wildlife Service, whereas research institutions and ratios of staff in government agencies, NGOs and IGOs. The
universities together with NGOs and IGOs provide synergy objectives were to determine the ratios of women and men
or collaborate in ocean management in Kenya. among staff in ocean science professions in Kenya and to
As the ocean plays a critical role in the Kenyan economy investigate how gender ratios vary across the different ocean
and climate, ocean governance has always received much science institutions and at different career levels. The overall
attention. Collaborative efforts to achieve sustainable goal was to create baseline data from which progress can
oceans led to the development of UNEP’s Regional be measured and to facilitate openness and transparency in
Seas Programme, known as the Nairobi Convention, 3 ocean science staffing.
which implements regional action plans at national levels
based on global strategy (Kibiwot 2008). However, the Materials and methods
concerted efforts and strategies to address the growing
problems of overfishing, acidification, marine litter and Case study
plastic pollution, among others, in the oceans have shown The study was conducted in Kenya from June to
minimal progress. Some of the reasons for this include October 2021. Kenya was selected because of its active
the lack of an integrated approach in mapping ocean participation in ocean-related initiatives (Obura 2020)
resources, ineffective implementation of policies and a lack such as the Ocean Decade, under which it co-hosted the
of diversity and equality in management. To address these UN Ocean Conference with the Government of Portugal
issues the governance mechanism must be inclusive and in Lisbon in 2022. Kenya’s commitment to sustainable use
integrated horizontally (across departments, disciplines and and management of the ocean can also be traced back
specialised agencies both in public and private sectors) and to 2018 when it hosted the inaugural Sustainable Blue
vertically (across local, national, regional and international Economy Conference, considered the African historical
levels). Therefore, there is an urgent need to address event to fast-track marine environmental protection
inequalities in ocean governance, to address exclusion of (KMFRI 2018; Muigua 2018a; Bennett et al. 2019).
women in ocean spaces at both local and national levels, This initiative reflected the importance of the ocean to
and to reverse declining ocean health that is causing a the Kenyan economy, particularly in the fisheries and
massive loss of marine biodiversity. tourism sectors (CISP 2018). Several institutions in
To address issues of gender inequality, Kenya has Kenya work together to ensure that the ocean’s health
ratified international legal frameworks on gender equality is restored and maintained through collaborations and
including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms partnerships. According to Odido (1998), no specialised
of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the agency is mandated to conserve and manage the ocean
Beijing Declaration and the Platform for Action, which in the country, which partly explains why there are many
guided the formulation of national gender policy of the institutions in the Western Indian Ocean region. Kenya
Ministry of Gender and partly the Kenyan Constitution. The needs equitable and integrated ocean management to
Consitution and national gender policies have been adopted successfully implement the Ocean Decade, involving all the
by a number of institutions to inform their gender equality institutions and stakeholders, and women and men alike.
and sexual-harassment policies. The establishment and Having a successful management regime in the marine
implementation of gender-related policies at institutional environment depends on identifying and understanding
levels, however, have faced several changes, including different stakeholders, expectations and interests (Pomeroy
a lack of human and financial resources (Onsongo 2009; and Douvere 2008). The ocean science institutions
Ojwala et al. 2022). have demonstrated attempts to reverse degraded ocean
This study focused on the non-academic ocean research ecosystems because their mandates align with the seven
and management community in Kenya, which comprises overarching societal goals of the Ocean Decade (Ryabinin
governmental, nongovernmental and intergovernmental et al. 2019).
organisations. Kenya has developed national and institutional This study was carried out in 19 ocean science
gender policies, including the Kenya National Policy on institutions in Kenya, which were identified through criteria
Gender and Development (NPGD) 2000, revised in 2019 based on each institution’s work to conserve, protect,
to incorporate the recommendations outlined by the 2010 study and manage coastal and ocean resources in
Constitution of Kenya, which introduced the ‘Two-thirds Kenya (Figure 1). These institutions included: five county
gender principle’ to help accelerate the achievement government agencies, four national government agencies,
of equality in all institutions. This principle is one of the seven NGOs and three IGOs. They were selected using
affirmative actions enshrined in the Constitution in Article purposive sampling methods based on their mandates and
contributions towards the Ocean Decade goals and their
3
6HHKWWSVZZZQDLURELFRQYHQWLRQRUJNHQ\DFRXQWU\SUR¿OHPDULQH
roles in ocean management and governance (Barahona-
DQGFRDVWDOUHVRXUFHVJRYHUQDQFHNHQ\DFRXQWU\SUR¿OH Fuentes et al. 2020).
108 Ojwala

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IGO
NGO
Public university
Nairobi
Inland water

Tana River Delta

TANZANIA Mombasa
AFRICA
INDIAN OCEAN Mombasa
Kenya 4° S INDIAN
(c)
OCEAN

Figure 1: Locations of the selected ocean science institutions in Kenya included in this study

Data collection and analysis

Men
STAFF REPRESENTATION (%)

The fieldwork gathered numerical data on staff composition Women

by gender, with the help of the human resource personnel 80
in the IGOs, NGOs and government agencies. The names 69%
of the institutions were anonymised using codes to ensure 61%
60 55%
confidentiality. The World Maritime University’s Research
Ethics Committee (Sweden) and the National Commission 45%
for Science, Technology and Innovation (NACOSTI) (Kenya) 39%
40
approved the study procedures before data collection. Primary 31%
data on staff representation were analysed quantitatively
through descriptive statistics, such as the frequency 20
distribution of ocean staff, means and percentages, using
SPSS 22.0. Percentages were used to compare staff 0
distribution by gender and position across the institutions. Government NGOs IGOs
agencies
CATEGORIES OF INSTITUTIONS
Results

Status of gender equality in the selected ocean science Figure 2: Representation of women and men staff in ocean science
institutions institutions in Kenya, June–October 2021. Numbers of participating
Overall, data obtained from ocean science institutions institutions (staff included): government agencies = 9 (904);
in Kenya regarding staff representation by gender and NGOs = 7 (69); IGOs = 3 (180)
position (rank) demonstrated a clear pattern and persistent
bias in all institutions. In Figure 2, the percentages clearly
African Journal of Marine Science 2023, 45(2): 105–115 109

indicate that women’s representation was lower in all 96%

three categories of organisation studied as compared (a)
Men
82%
with their male counterparts. However, the proportions 80
Women
74%
were inconsistent across the institutions. The government
agencies (31% women) were slightly below the minimum 61% 61%
threshold of 33.33% set by the Kenyan Constitution, 60
whereas the other two groups exceeded this threshold:
NGOs had 45% women and IGOs 39%. 39% 39%
40

STAFF REPRESENTATION (%)

Representation of women in government agencies 26%

The percentages of women in government agencies 20 18%

provided the most marked example of the gender gap, with

4%
the lowest or barely compliant representation of women in
most institutions in this category. The institutions surveyed 0
CFL CFM CFK CFT CFW
were anonymised using codes that distinguished county COUNTY GOVERNMENT AGENCIES
100
from national institutions: those from counties start with
(b)
‘C’ and national institutions start with ‘N’. There was no
apparent difference in women’s representation between 80 79%

county and national agencies. The findings showed

64% 66%
that the average representation of women in county 60%
institutions was lower (32%) than that of men (68%). 60
Similar findings were recorded in national institutions with
an average representation of 30% women and 70% men. 40 36%
40%
34%
Figure 3 illustrates the variation in representation of women
between individual county and national institutions. 21%
Another measure of gender equality is the representation 20
of women in the hierarchy of an organisation. In this
study, this was quantified across individual organisations
0
in county and national government institutions (Figure 4). NMA NFS NWS NMF
The figures indicate that women were more likely than NATIONAL GOVERNMENT AGENCIES
men to be underrepresented at all the levels of the
hierarchy, with less than 33% in each position in national
Figure 3: Gender representation among ocean science
government institutions (Figure 4b) compared with the
professionals in (a) county and (b) national government institutions
county government institutions which exhibited better
in Kenya (county agencies: n = 151; national agencies: n = 753).
representation of women above the threshold in two Institution names are encoded for anonymity
positions (director and technical staff). Fewer women were
observed in the more senior positions, such as director
and assistant director, which is similar to findings in ocean and awaiting senate approval. This finding shows that
science in other countries (Thompson et al. 2011; Huyer to date the adoption and implementation of the national
2015) that showed the higher the rank, the lower the gender policy has not been widely disseminated, even 10
proportion of women, especially in decision-making and years after its formulation.
leadership positions. Women are more likely to occupy
junior positions, such as support staff and technical Representation of women in NGOs
staff positions. The individual government institutions NGOs appear to have performed better in staff gender
were analysed to investigate how well the women staff balance than government agencies and IGOs. Like
were represented. Among the five county government government agencies, the NGOs surveyed were also
institutions, women were more concentrated in junior anonymised with codes derived from their names. The
or technical positions, with two women filling five of the findings showed that three out of the seven NGOs studied
director positions (Figure 4a). In addition, there was no had better representation of women staff than governmental
government agency that had an institutional gender policy. and intergovernmental organisations. These organisations
Some of the institutions’ gender focal points—the head or were COD, OCS and COM, with the highest percentage
director of gender centres that are mandated to monitor of women recorded in COD and the other two having
and report on gender equality aspects in the institutions4,5— representation of 50% each. Despite lower numbers than
mentioned that their gender policies were still in draft format COD, OCS and COM, all but one (COB) of the remaining
four NGOs had 30% or more women constituting their
workforce. These percentages were above the averages for
4
See https://www.unwomen.org/en/how-we-work/gender-parity-in-the- most government agencies (Figure 5).
united-nations/focal-points-for-women A further assessment of the overall representation of
5
See http://gender-chemicals.org/what-is-a-gender-focal-point: “The
women staff in NGOs was also done for the hierarchical
Gender Focal Points role is advocating for increased attention to
and integration of gender equality and women’s empowerment in the
rankings. The results showed that the gender gap is smaller
agency’s policy and programming.” at the junior positions such as technical staff than at the
 110 Ojwala

100%
(a)

STAFF REPRESENTATION (%)

Men Men
Women Women
80 80
69% 71%
67% 69%
63% 64%
60%
60 60 57%
50% 50% 50%50%
43%
40%
40 37% 40 36%
33%
STAFF REPRESENTATION (%)

31% 31%
29%

20 20

0 0
COD OCS WFK COB SEC COM WSF
100
NONGOVERNMENTAL ORGANISATIONS
87%
(b)

80 76% Figure 5: Gender representation among ocean science

68% 67% professionals in nongovernmental organisations in Kenya (n = 69:
38 men, 31 women)
60

40
STAFF REPRESENTATION (%)

32% 33% Men

83%
24% Women
80 75%
20 69%
13%

57%
60
0
Director Assistant Officer Technical
director staff 43%

CAREER POSITIONS 40
31%
25%
Figure 4: Staff composition by gender and position in (a) county 20 17%
and (b) national government agencies dealing with ocean science
in Kenya (n = 904: 627 men, 277 women)
0
Director Manager Researcher Technical staff
CAREER POSITIONS
senior ones, like director or manager. While women were
well represented in the category of manager as compared Figure 6: Representation of staff by gender and position in
with men, this was an anomaly, as their numbers were nongovernmental organisations dealing with ocean science in
less in all other positions. The widest gap was at the Kenya (n = 69: 38 men, 31 women)
director level—the most-senior leadership position in all
the NGOs investigated, where the survey results found
almost five-times fewer female directors than male directors Most donors, such as the World Bank,6 Government
(Figure 6). of Canada7 and Global Environment Facility (GEF) in
Further analysis of each NGO by gender and position Kenya, allow strategic opportunities to be leveraged to
suggested that more than half of the institutions were address gender gaps critical to the achievement of global
missing women in one or more positions, such as manager environmental (ocean) benefits (GEF 2017).
and researcher. For example, one of the conservation
NGOs (anonymised as WFK) had a woman director yet Representation of women in IGOs
no women in other positions in the organisation. Notably, An assessment of the representation of women in IGOs in
only COD had women distributed in all five professions/ Kenya yielded mixed results. One of the three IGOs (IWO) had
career positions reviewed in this study, and atypically these representation of women of greater than parity, followed by
women were in greater numbers than men. another (INO) close to parity, and one that recorded the lowest
Of the seven NGOs assessed, only one NGO (WFK) percentage (IFO), but that was also above the threshold
had an institutional gender-equality policy. However, this deemed acceptable by the Kenyan Constitution (Figure 7).
policy document had largely gender-neutral strategies Based on the staff distribution by gender in each of the three
that did not address specific barriers that hinder women’s
access to employment opportunities as well as fair
6
See https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/gender/overview
recruitment processes. Studies have revealed that funding 7
See https://www.international.gc.ca/gac-amc/campaign-campagne/gen-
mandates have helped to shape the increase in women’s der_equality egalite_des_genres/what_we_heard-que_nous_entendu.
representation in NGOs based on the donors’ requirements. aspx?lang=eng
 African Journal of Marine Science 2023, 45(2): 105–115 111
STAFF REPRESENTATION (%)

STAFF REPRESENTATION (%)

Men Men
Women Women
80 80
67%
62% 62% 61%
57%
60 60
53%
47%
43%
38% 38% 39%
40 40
33%

20 20

0 0
IFO INO IWO Director Manager Technical staff
INTERGOVERNMENTAL ORGANISATIONS CAREER POSITIONS

Figure 7: Gender representation among ocean science Figure 8: Staff representation by gender and position in
professionals at three intergovernmental organisations in Kenya (n = intergovernmental organisations dealing with ocean science in Kenya
180: 109 men, 71 women) (n = 180: 109 men, 71 women)

IGOs, there was a better ratio of women to men as compared the three categories of institution in ocean governance in
with either the government institutions or the NGOs. Kenya were fewer than men. The average employment
Unlike other organisations, the IGOs had women ratio of women to men was 38% to 62%. This is similar to
represented in all the positions; however, the majority were the global average of women in ocean science reported
recorded in junior positions (Figure 8). Remarkably, two of by the IOC-UNESCO in the 2020 global gender gap report
the three directors of IGOs in Kenya were women, although (IOC-UNESCO 2020), as well as the findings of previous
men were in the majority across all the managerial positions studies that highlighted the low representation of women in
in all three IGOs. science-related fields (e.g. Huyer 2015; Mackenzie 2015;
A deeper analysis on positions by gender in each of Wallet 2015; UNESCO 2021). The findings conform with
the three IGOs showed that women were represented in those of Huyer (2015) who pointed out that women were
almost all positions in the organisations studied. Women underrepresented in natural science professions in South
were more likely to be employed in technical staff positions Africa in 2006, accounting for only 16% of the employees.
than in management positions. Notably, two of the three Huyer (2015) highlighted that women’s participation is likely
organisations (IWO and IFO) had institutional gender to decrease at every step of the career ladder in scientific
policies, although the existence of these policies did not research and decisionmaking positions at the highest
always translate to gender equality, and INO, with no such echelons. Ojwala et al. (2022) also found that women
policy, had a better gender balance than IFO. academic staff in ocean science-related programmes
were more likely to occupy non-tenured positions in public
Discussion universities in Kenya, at 60%. Shaw and Stanton (2012) also
noted an ongoing gender imbalance in academia through
The underrepresentation of women in ocean science career transitions from junior to senior positions.
indicates the need to continue to raise awareness and This study indicates varied performance in terms of
build capacity to understand and address the problem. staff representation by gender in the three categories of
However, this is only possible if gender gaps are identified institution, but women were nevertheless underrepresented
and quantified. This study addresses the context of ocean in all of them. NGOs and IGOs performed better—with
governance in non-academic institutions and provides close to 50% representation of both genders—than
baseline gender-disaggregated data, which were previously government institutions, which was well above the threshold
unavailable. These data can be used to evaluate gender of 33.33% enshrined in the Kenyan Constitution. These
inequalities in ocean science disciplines, institutions findings may be attributed to the fact that both NGOs and
and hierarchies in Kenya. Such data are essential when IGOs are viewed as being more flexible, participatory and
evaluating or considering whether gender policies and open to change and innovation (Srivastava and Austin
gender-sensitive approaches in ocean science and 2012). NGOs participate in advocacy programmes, such as
governance are achieving success. The data reveal gender influencing policies and conducting issue-based campaigns;
gaps in ocean science across institutions, ranging from in developmental programmes, such as increasing the
local to international organisations, despite the existence capacity of the community to address its own basic needs;
of a national gender policy, and in some instances the and in promoting economic empowerment of women
existence of institutional policies and other initiatives to through providing access to microfinance and improving
promote gender equality, such as gender centres or gender the health and education of women in developing countries.
focal points within the institutions. Also, NGOs have been at the forefront of documenting
The results reveal consistent patterns, where women in discrimination against women from the viewpoint of
112 Ojwala

women’s rights as human rights, and promoting the need qualifications, publications, the number of postgraduate
for a gender-sensitive approach in all sectors (Streeten students supervised and research funds attracted to the
1997), especially in science education, as well as exposing university, or to the lower numbers of female students
violence against women (Handy et al. 2007). Moreover, taking up university ocean science courses (Ojwala et al.
government and donor agencies have increasingly relied 2022). All these prerequisites of higher level management
on local NGOs in developing countries owing to their positions are more likely to favour men than their women
proximity to grassroots communities and profound insight counterparts, who are more likely assumed to have
into women’s concerns (Mehra 1997). Since most of these additional responsibilities such as caring roles, resulting in
NGOs have been funded by international development work-family conflicts (Buckingham 2020; UN Women and
organisations, such as the GEF and World Bank, with ILO 2021). Therefore, it is recommended that the ocean
stricter gender equality requirements than stipulated science institutions carry out regular gender analyses to
by nationally funded ones, the NGOs surveyed were keep track of representation and avoid unconscious biases
more likely to adhere to their requirements to qualify for that may arise when women are excluded from decision-
a research grant or for funds, and this has shaped the making positions and ocean management plans.
representation of women among the staff in NGOs (GEF With regard to ocean governance, even if women are
2017). Even though NGOs tend to have some advantages represented in equal proportions, if their representation is
that attract women, they have been identified as insecure not felt and their voice not heard,8 this does not constitute
workplaces because they often depend on short-term equality (Agarwal 2010; UN Women 2014; Djerf-Pierre and
projects and are prone to end because of the lack of fund Edström 2020). These inequalities limit the participation,
availability (ILO 2012, 2016). Hence, jobs are usually decisionmaking and voice of women in ocean management
contractual, with some having non-renewable contracts. As and governance negotiations, projects and policies (GEF
a result, staff lack social protection in the workplace. These 2017; UN Women 2018b). According to the European
factors can be disadvantageous to all employees and the Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE 2016, p 16), “gender
majority in this case are women. equality is not only about complying with legal requirements
Women’s representation (31%) in government agencies or individual cases, but also sheds light on working
did not meet the threshold of 33.33%, unlike in NGOs conditions and career path.” It matters for all categories of
and IGOs. However, conformity with the threshold set staff beyond traditional distinctions between permanent and
in the constitution does not necessarily mean adequate non-permanent staff. Within this context, these findings call
representation of women. The reason for this is that the for in-depth qualitative research to determine the reasons
majority of women were found to occupy junior positions why there has been slow, no, or very little progress in
or entry-level positions that do not allow them to participate achieving gender equality in these institutions.
and engage fully in research and management of the
ocean. The general conclusion from the data is that, across Conclusions
the board, institutions need to improve the gender balance
both in senior and junior positions, as men overwhelmingly This study has established baseline gender-disaggregated
occupy these positions currently. This type of bias appears data in major institutions responsible for ocean science
to be part of the tradition in most government agencies in and management in Kenya. The study presents the current
Kenya and corresponds with similar findings of a study of status of gender (in)equality in ocean science in Kenya
ocean science programmes in public universities in Kenya and identifies patterns of bias at different levels across
(Ojwala et al. 2022). Kenya’s public universities recorded institutions. There is clearly much work to do if gender
a percentage of 32% women to 68% men as academic equality is to be achieved in ocean science in Kenya. A
staff in the departments offering ocean science courses. key finding is that gender equality cannot be achieved
In combination, these findings provide clear evidence of by including women only in junior positions to check
the difference in performance of the government-affiliated the gender box according to the Kenyan Constitution.
organisations compared with the private ones. Moreover, Women need to be equally represented at all levels in an
previous studies have noted that institutions associated organisation’s structure.
with government tend to have many challenges that
exclude women from the ocean science fields, including Acknowledgements — The author is grateful to the Nippon
lack of institutional gender policies, inadequate support and Foundation for their funding of the World Maritime University
training opportunities, and gender stereotypes. These result (WMU)-Sasakawa Global Ocean Institute and the Department of
Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) Canada for their generous funding of
in fewer women leaders, as well as a lack of mentorship
the ‘Empowering Women for the United Nations Decade of Ocean
programmes (Onsongo 2006). Science for Sustainable Development Programme.’ My sincere
Another key finding of the present study was that, gratitude goes to my supervisors Prof Momoko Kitada, Prof Francis
in addition to inequality in staff composition by gender Neat and Prof Susan Buckingham, for their support and insightful
in various institutions, gender biases were also found comments that helped improve this manuscript, and to Prof
in the hierarchies of each of these institutions. The Ronan Long and Nancy Gitonga for help in building networks and
study established that women were generally fewer in establishing contacts with the targeted institutions, as well as for
most management or senior positions, except in some
IGOs. Gender-biased occupational segregation can 8
6HHKWWSVZZZXQZRPHQRUJVLWHVGHIDXOW¿OHV+HDGTXDUWHUV$WWDFK-
possibly be ascribed either to demanding institutional ments/Sections/Library/Publications/2018/SDG-report-Chapter-3-Why-
promotion guidelines, including extensive educational gender-equality-matters-across-all-SDGs-2018-en.pdf
African Journal of Marine Science 2023, 45(2): 105–115 113

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Manuscript received December 2022 / revised April 2023 / accepted April 2023
Paper 3
 Unravelling gender and ethnic bias in
higher education: Students experiences
in access to ocean science education
and career opportunities in Kenya
Renis Auma Ojwala*

Affiliation
World Maritime University (WMU)-Sasakawa Global Ocean Institute,
Fiskehamnsgatan 1, 211 18 Malmö, Sweden
*Corresponding author: Email addresses; [email protected];
[email protected] (R. A. Ojwala)

Abstract
The lack of highly-trained ocean science professionals constrains sustainable
development and management of the oceans. In Kenya, the government is
committed to improving access to education for all, regardless of gender, ethnicity,
and social status. Increasing female student enrolment has been one of the top
priorities, particularly in science-related courses, which have long been male-
biased. Feminist political ecology is applied as an analytical framework to
understand how gender and ethnicity influence student access to, participation in,
and experience in ocean science-related programmes. Data was collected through a
questionnaire survey with students undertaking ocean science courses in seven
public universities in Kenya. The findings revealed an underrepresentation of
women and minority ethnic groups. Fewer female respondents than males received
financial support from their families, and more female respondents than males
reported that they had experienced discrimination related to their ethnicity and
gender. In addition, a higher percentage of female respondents reported having
fewer opportunities in higher education and ocean science careers than males. These

1
findings reveal the persistent inequalities among students and suggest that Kenyan
public universities need to pay more attention to how intersectional identities, such
as gender and ethnicity, influence and shape the distribution of resources and
opportunities if equitable diversity and inclusion are to be achieved. Also, they need
to strengthen their gender policies and actions to tackle these social inequalities to
promote gender equality in ocean science education.
Keywords: Gender bias, ethnic inequalities, feminist political ecology, ocean
science, university students’ perceptions, intersectionality

1. Introduction
Understanding inequalities in higher education, especially in science-related fields,
is attracting increasing attention in the academic and public sectors (Onsongo, 2006;
OECD, 2012; Makarova et al., 2019; Amunga & Musasia, 2021). Gender inequality
is evident in tertiary levels of education in most developing countries, including
Kenya (Onsongo, 2006; WEF, 2020; Ojwala et al., 2022). According to Ojwala et
al. (2022), gender inequality in enrolment and recruitment has risen from failure to
implement gender policies and cultural practices that hinder women's
empowerment. Even though there are reports of increased female student enrolment
at universities globally (Hango, 2013; UNESCO, 2015; Huyer, 2015; Amunga &
Musasia, 2021), there has been a decline in enrolment at the graduate level and low
transition rates to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)-
related jobs, including ocean science (Corbett et al., 2010; Mbirianjau, 2018; Were,
2020; Ojwala et al., 2022). According to Mbirianjau (2016), female participation in
STEM at public universities is less than 30% in Kenya, despite concerted action to
balance the gender ratios in education (Jones et al., 2000; Chetcuti & Kioko, 2012;
Madara & Namango, 2016; Onsongo, 2009; Omukoba, 2018; Akala, 2019). Ocean
science, in particular, is perceived as a male domain, and scientists or researchers
are predominantly male (IOC-UNESCO, 2017; Isensee et al., 2018; Kitada et al.,
2019; World Bank, 2019; Kamm et al., 2020; Brooks & Déniz-González, 2021).
In addition to gender bias, ethnic bias is also reported to be a problem in education
in Kenya, with a biased representation of certain ethnic groups (Alwy & Schech,
2004; Li, 2018; Kisaka et al., 2019). Kenya is ethnically diverse (42 ethnic groups),
with the largest group being the Kikuyu (accounting for 17.7% of the total
population) (Kwatemba, 2008; Taaliu, 2017). The government requires Kenyan
public universities and workplaces not to exceed one-third of total employment from
one ethnic group as stipulated in the constitution. However, to improve ethnic
diversity in the workplace, there should be equal opportunities in the enrolment of
students from all ethnic groups. Most of the previous studies found that ethnic
patterns in students’ enrolment (Alwy & Schech, 2004; Taaliu, 2017; Kisaka et al.,
2019) and employment (Munene, 2013; Monyoncho, 2014; Mukhwana et al., 2018)

2
in most public universities are skewed, with some ethnic groups being over-
represented than others. For example, Taaliu (2017) and Mande (2020) highlighted
that ethnic bias remains a significant social problem, resulting in fewer students
being enrolled from minority ethnic groups in Kenya.
Gender and ethnic inequalities can be usefully analysed using Feminist Political
Ecology (FPE) as a theoretical framework (Rocheleau et al., 1996; Ajibabe et al.,
2013; Nunbogu & Elliott, 2021). FPE considers gender and the politics of place,
focusing on the division of labour, roles, treatments, and power relations (Elmhirst,
2011; Elmhirst, 2015; Harcourt & Nelson, 2015). FPE also identifies rights to, use
of, and control over resources by examining who has access to resources, who
depends on them, who is responsible for using them productively, and who oversees
resource management (Rocheleau et al., 1996, Ibrik, 2022). As Rocheleau et al.
(1996) noted, FPE treats gender as a critical variable in shaping access to and control
over natural resources. Rocheleau argues that gender accounts for differences in
production, reproduction and community roles between women and men and is a
primary source of social injustice. The theory provides a framework for
understanding the complex interrelationships, and the drivers and impacts of
inequalities or differences. Importantly, FPE juxtaposes gender with other social
characteristics such as age, class, ethnicity, and education –a term referred to as
intersectionality (Nichols & Stahl, 2019). Studies have used the FPE lens to
understand the inequalities in access to and control of natural resources (Douma et
al., 2002; Akoyoko, 2014; Sundberg, 2015; Nunbogu & Elliott, 2021). For example,
Ankrah et al. (2020) used FPE to understand gendered access to productive
resources in Ghana. They pointed out that the access to gendered resources (land,
agricultural extension services etc.) and ungendered resources (labour, credit, and
information, etc.) intersect with age, education, class, and socio-cultural norms in
shaping access to and control over these resources.
In many ways, access to education is similar to access to natural resources because
being educated leads to more opportunities, jobs, and wealth creation (United
Nations, 2015; NGEC, 2016). Further, education can lead to better conservation and
management of marine resources and increase women in decision-making positions.
As such, FPE provides an appropriate and reasonable theoretical basis for this study.
While access to education is much less studied in the context of FPE, there are
notable exceptions, such as a study by Jewitt and Ryley (2014), who investigated
the perspectives of school girls in primary education in Kisumu, Kenya. They
analysed the cultural and spatial limitations associated with menstruation and
puberty to examine gendered inequalities in access to social capital resources,
especially education between better-off girls and those from poor backgrounds.
However, no study has analysed the influence of gender and ethnicity on students’
enrolment in ocean science courses in Kenya. Therefore, there was an urgent need
to examine and understand the interactions between gender and ethnicity in

3
enrolment rates of female and marginalized students, which is particularly important
in ensuring gender balance in ocean science programmes.
In this paper, I use an FPE approach to understand how access to higher education
is affected or influenced by gender and ethnicity within ocean science-related
programmes. FPE expands the analytical categories and diversity of students within
the university to overcome one-dimensional approaches (Tefera et al., 2018). Here,
FPE is used to draw links between the material dimensions of education (e.g.,
enrolment patterns, graduation rates, completion rates, transitional rates) and the
non-material factors (e.g., age, ethnicity, power relations, class, values, and norms).
These links often shape access to quality education and inclusion in and exclusion
from access, participation, governance, and decision-making positions (Adams et
al., 2018; Lau, 2020). FPE can help elucidate the importance of gender and
intersectional identities in the selection of courses, resource allocation (funds) and
social injustices, including discrimination and sexual harassment. Elmhirst (2015)
emphasized that women and men experience the environment differently due to
their differentiated social responsibilities. Mangura (2021) also argues that gender
differences in responsibilities for, experiences of, and interests in environment and
nature are crucial when dealing with social inequality and marginalization on
gendered axes (Sundberg, 2017; Haeffner et al., 2021).
This study uses the concept of intersectionality (interaction between gender and
ethnicity) to understand the experiences, inequalities, and challenges of students in
ocean science programmes. While gender shapes access to and control of resources,
ethnicity is well-known as another critical variable in Kenya’s social, economic, and
political power relations (Kwatemba, 2008). This study explores some of these
issues and asks the following questions:
a) Are there gendered and ethnic differences in access to ocean science
education in Kenyan public universities?
b) What are the barriers to gender and ethnic equality perceived by students
participating in ocean science?
c) Does access to career opportunities in ocean science fields differ between
female and male students as well as among ethnic groups?

2. Materials and Methods

The study was conducted from June to October 2021 in 7 out of 37 Kenyan public
universities which offer ocean science-related courses. The study targeted
undergraduate and postgraduate students. The rationale for choosing public
universities is that they offer programmes at a lower fee than private ones, and they
are committed, at least on paper, to ensuring that gender equality policies are

4
implemented at the institutional level to increase the participation of women in
higher education, particularly in STEM fields (Onsongo, 2009; Odhiambo, 2018).

2.1 Data collection

Data were collected using self-completion questionnaires either in hard copy or
online through Survey Monkey to solicit information on the experiences and
challenges of female and male students and to allow comparisons to be drawn from
different ethnic groups. Heads of department and class representatives helped
disseminate the survey link in each of the seven universities. The questionnaire was
chosen as a research tool because it is a fixed form that presents items in a
standardized way to different respondents so that responses can be aggregated and
compared between sub-samples (Ogembo et al., 2015; Nteere et al., 2017; Taber et
al., 2021; Jackson et al., 2022).
Since it was hard to estimate the total number of students under ocean science-
related programmes in public universities in Kenya, this study used a similar
approach to Osiecka et al. (2022) who examined the experiences of early-career
marine scientists and conservationists worldwide. The questionnaire was structured
into four sections: (1) socio-demographic details of the respondents (e.g., age,
gender, marital status, number of children, and ethnicity/tribe), (2) students’
admission status (funding sources, year of enrolment and programme of study), (3)
students’ experiences, including sexual harassment, awareness of gender-related
policies, and obstacles they face at the university, and (4) access to job opportunities
(e.g., job prospects or career aspirations). It consisted of 21 questions: seven closed
questions that required a 'YES' or 'NO' answer, five multiple-choice questions, and
two single-choice questions, with one requiring a response on a 5-point Likert scale;
the remaining seven were open-ended questions.
The questionnaire collected both quantitative and qualitative data with closed- and
open-ended questions. The qualitative data generated from open-ended questions
provided opportunities for critical insights into understanding students' perceptions
of ocean science-related programmes. The questionnaires were anonymous and not
linked to specific universities to ensure that the student's identities remained
confidential. The response rates varied from one university to another, ranging from
2% to 24% of the total responses (n = 102).

2.2 Data analysis

The data gathered were analysed using NVivo software version 12, where the
responses were coded and analysed by themes. The closed-ended questions were
analysed using descriptive statistics such as mean, standard error, and percentages.
While, the responses to the open-ended questions were analysed thematically. The
themes formation followed a deductive approach derived from feminist political

5
ecology as the theoretical framework of this study. These themes included access to
financial support, experiences of gender and ethnic biases, awareness of the existing
institutional gender-related policies and career prospects. The analysis helped to
understand the gender and ethnic differences in terms of access and experiences of
students.

3. Results and Discussion

3.1 Respondents profile

Table 1 provides a socio-demographic profile of the respondents (42% female and
58% male), most of whom were undergraduate students. More than half of the
female respondents were in their final year of study (Fourth year) compared to their
male counterparts. The mean age of female respondents was lower than that of
males. Moreover, most female respondents were single, while a greater percentage
of males were married, and most males had children. Half of the female and male
respondents mentioned that they were not the first in their families to attend
university.

6
Table 1: Socio-demographic characteristics of students by gender (means ± standard error, unidentified refers
to those who did not respond to a particular question, and others refer to those who answered questions with
‘unspecified’ choices)
All Female Male
Characteristics
(n = 102) (n = 43) (n = 59)
Age
Mean (SE) age 25.36 (± 0.48) 23.67 (± 0.36) 26.63 (± 0.75)
Marital status
Single 81% (83) 86% (37) 78% (46)
Married 18% (18) 14% (6) 20% (12)
Unidentified 1% (1) 0% (0) 2% (1)
Number of children
With children 19% (19) 12% (5) 24% (14)
Without children 78% (80) 88% (38) 71% (42)
Unidentified 3% (3) 0% (0) 5% (3)
Degree level
BSc 76% (78) 79% (34) 75% (44)
MSc 24% (24) 21% (9) 25% (15)
Year of enrolment
Below 2016 17% (17) 21% (9) 14% (8)
2017 46% (47) 52% (22) 42% (25)
2018 2% (2) 2% (1) 2% (1)
2019 and above 34% (35) 23% (10) 42% (25)
Unidentified 1% (1) 2% (1) 0% (0)
First in the university
Yes 49% (50) 47% (20) 47% (28)
No 49% (50) 51% (22) 51% (30)
Unidentified 2% (2) 2% (1) 2% (1)
Family social status
Upper class 0% (0) 0% (0) 0% (0)
Middle class 58% (59) 70% (30) 49% (29)
Working class 22% (22) 21% (9) 22% (13)
Others (Specify) 20% (21) 9% (4) 29% (17)

3.1.1 Respondent composition by ethnicity

Respondents were also asked to indicate their specific ethnic identity. The results
showed that less than half (43%) of Kenya's ethnic groups were represented amongst
the respondents (Figure 1). Of those who responded to the ethnicity question, 32%
identified as belonging to the Luo community, the fourth-largest ethnic group in
Kenya (constituting 10.8% of the total population). The geographical location of
their home is on the western side of Kenya near Lake Victoria, with no proximity to
the Indian ocean. Therefore, the overrepresentation of the Luos in these courses can
possibly be attributed to their large population and traditional preference to inhabit
near lakes and rivers. On the contrary, most ethnic groups from Kenya's coastal
region (e.g., Bajuni and Mijikenda) recorded the lowest percentages. This can be
explained by the persistent low transition rates to higher education in the Coast

7
region due to high school dropout rates (Alwy and Schech, 2004). According to
Alwy and Schech (2004), students from the Coast region are disadvantaged due to
the large regional differences in the allocation of government resources (such as the
establishment of schools and transport facilities) and lack of school fees.
In a similar study conducted by Taaliu (2017), the overrepresentation of ethnic
groups was also recorded, with four major ethnic groups: Kikuyu, Luhya, Luo, and
Kamba, constituting approximately 72.8% of the total number of students enrolled
in the public universities and colleges nationwide. In contrast to the higher
enrolment of students from these four ethnic groups, lower representation of the
minority groups was recorded, with the remaining 27.2% of the students enrolled
found to be shared amongst the other 38 ethnic groups. The findings in this study
resonate with Alwy and Schech (2004) and Taaliu (2017), who similarly found that
Kenyan education is influenced by ethnicity. Ethnicity also plays a role in students'
participation in ocean science by influencing 'who' enrols in 'what' subjects.
However, these two studies by Alwy and Schech (2004) and Taaliu (2017) provided
overall enrolment of students and were not specific in terms of courses and gender.
In this study, most represented ethnic groups had more male respondents than
females, except the Kikuyu, Kisii and Meru communities. The rest of the ethnic
groups (minority groups) were combined into ‘others’ as each had only one
respondent. Therefore, these findings reveal that diversities in students’ enrolment
in Kenyan public universities go beyond gender in terms of the students'
representation.

40 Female
Male

30
Proportion of students (%)

12%

20

20% 3%
7%
10
11% 3% 7%
1%
4%
6% 6% 6% 4% 5%
2% 1% 1% 1%
1%
0 1%
o

ji n
a

a
u

u
i

ni

ba

s
isi

er
hy

nd
Lu

uy

er

ju

am
en

th
K

M
ke
Lu

ik

Ba

O
al

K
K

ij i
K

Ethnic groups

Figure 1: Proportion of student respondents by ethnicity and gender in the selected seven public universities
in Kenya (n =102)

8
3.2 Gender, ethnicity, and access to higher education
To unpack the prevailing inequalities in access to education between female and
male respondents, the study analysed the availability/accessibility of financial
aid/support sources for their educational expenses and compared amongst the ethnic
groups. The results showed that female education was less likely to be supported by
family/parents than their male counterparts. Instead, most female respondents
mentioned that their financial support or funding comes from external sources such
as government loans, which they must repay after completing their studies (Figure
2). For example, one of the conditions of the government loan – provided by the
Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) states that all loanees are required to start
repayment within one year of their studies (the Republic of Kenya, 2015). Failure
to do so comes with hefty penalties, such as fines of not less than five thousand
Kenyan shillings every month. For many recent graduates, starting to pay this loan
within a year is nearly impossible due to the high unemployment rates in the
country. Many graduates spend long periods moving from one internship to another
before getting a permanent or payable job. In addition, many employers, especially
government institutions, require applicants to have clearance from HELB Board
before applying for any advertised position, which is a disadvantage to
'unintentional' loan defaulters. This implies that women are more likely to be
disadvantaged if they default on their loan repayments.

80 Female
Male
Proportions of respondents (%)

63%
60

41%
40

20 18% 18% 18%

16%
11%

4% 5%
2% 2% 2%
0
n

nt
or

s
a

hi

re

er
ra
Lo

pp
rs

so

ish
G
la

su

on

lw
ho

sp
ily
Sc

el
lf-
m

W
Se
Fa

Figure 2: Funding sources for female and male students in public universities in Kenya (Female n = 43, male n
= 59).

9
Regarding financial access by ethnicity, the responses varied from one ethnic group
to the other. Most female respondents from all the ethnic groups received loans for
their studies, with the highest percentage of females who mentioned receiving loans
coming from the Luo community at 18.6%, followed by the Kikuyu at 9.3% and the
Kisii at 6.5%. Fewer female respondents indicated that they were funding their
studies through scholarships, with 4.3% from the Kikuyu community. The Kisii and
the Luo communities recorded 2% each. While the rest of the female respondents
from the other communities recorded zero support from scholarships. Only one
female respondent from the Luo community reported being supported financially
through grants while no female respondents from other ethnic groups mentioned
grants. Those female respondents who were financially supported by family or
parents were from the Luo community (4%), Kikuyu (2%) and Meru (2%). On the
other hand, male respondents from different ethnic groups also recorded
considerable differences in terms of financial support, with the majority of those
who received loans being from the Luo community (16.9%), followed by Luhya
(10.2%) and Kikuyu (6.8%). More male respondents from the Kalenjin community
(5.1%) received scholarships than those from other ethnic groups, and more males
from the Luhya community (3.4%) received the grants than others. The majority of
the male respondents who were supported by parents/family were from the Luo
community, with 8.5%. These differences can be explained by Alwy & Schech
(2004), who pointed out that the ethnic inequalities in education in Kenya are often
compounded by and closely related to other socio-economic disparities. Also, many
ethnic groups prioritize the education of their male children compared to the females
(UNICEF, 2017). Most minority ethnic groups were more likely to educate male
students up to tertiary levels than females (Lorentzen, 2020). The preferences for
educating males can be supported by the FPE, which confirms that male education
is more valued than female in a patriarchal society and, in case of limited resources
(such as funding sources) available to the minority groups, it leaves them with no
choice but to give priority to the male gender.
In this case, feminist political ecology can help to explain the gender and ethnic
differences in access to educational resources, specifically funding (Pommells et al.,
2018). The findings showed that three different sources of funding- scholarship,
grants, and parental support (those that do not require refund)- were more likely to
be available or easily accessible to male respondents in dominant ethnic groups than
their female counterparts. These inequalities in access to non-refundable finance
resources are disadvantageous to most female and minority ethnic groups with
limited resources. These findings confirm that a combination of gender and minority
groups makes women more disadvantaged than other combinations, such as one
with dominant ethnic groups. In this case, more female respondents from the
minority groups were more likely to depend entirely on government loans because
no respondent reported being supported by parents/family, grants, and scholarships
from these groups.

10
Kenya is a patriarchal country with a male-dominated power structure that affects
the privileges between women and men in all the communities. However, some
ethnic groups are more conservative, making gender disparities more pronounced
in such communities. For example, deeply-rooted old traditional and cultural
practices such as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) are widely practiced in some
communities (UNICEF, 2019), including among the Maasai, Meru and Kisii. These
are detrimental to girls and disrupt their everyday life, augmenting school dropouts
and early marriages. The FPE approach helps explain differential funding by its
argument that patriarchal gender norms inform the fundamental conceptions of how
knowledge is produced (Ndiga & Mumiukha, 2022). It shows how women and
minority groups are disadvantaged in accessing conventional scientific practices. In
this system, men tend to have more power than women or have some level of
privileges to which women are not entitled (Ndiga & Mumiukha, 2022). These
results also confirm that male students tend to be more privileged when it comes to
funding to acquire conventional scientific knowledge than females.

3.3 Gendered experiences and ethnic inequalities faced by students at

the university
Generally, the underlying themes expressed by respondents as their lived
experiences were gendered and based on their intersectional identities regarding
treatment, awareness creation and challenges. The themes included main obstacles,
study-life balance challenges, particularly conflicts between study and family
responsibilities, persistent gender bias or sexual harassment, participation barriers,
the lack of information on gender policies, reporting procedures and career
opportunities for women in ocean science.
There was frequently expressed concern relating to the main obstacles faced by
female students at the university, with more than half of the female respondents
reporting cultural beliefs, gender stereotyping and gender discrimination as the most
common barriers to female participation in ocean science courses. At the same time,
male respondents identified cultural beliefs as the primary factor hindering women's
participation in higher education (Figure 3). However, a greater percentage of male
respondents also identified other obstacles, such as a lack of information about
ocean science, financial constraints, and the female perception that science is
complex. In contrast, the only other barriers cited by women were financially related
and pressure from parents to start a family. These male responses confirm the
existing stereotypes and cultural beliefs about women in Kenya, where women's
education in science-related courses is less likely valued than males. This bias can
possibly be due to the perception that such courses are more suitable for men than
women. Also, women are often associated with reproductive roles and believed to
be homemakers, less intelligent and inferior to men and mostly expected to be
getting married at an early age (Lorentzen, 2020; Lau, 2020).

11
 58%
Cultural beliefs
58%

53%
Gender stereotypes
37%

51%
Gender discrimination
37%

9%
Others
31%

0 20 40 60 80
Students' responses (%)
Female Male

Figure 3: Main obstacles faced by female students in public universities (Female, n = 43; Male, n = 59).

The obstacles faced by the respondents were also analysed based on ethnicity. The
results showed that the majority of the respondents who mentioned cultural barriers
as the main obstacle to women's participation in higher education were male
respondents from the Luo and Luhya communities, with 20.3% and 13.6%,
respectively. Most female respondents mentioned gender discrimination as the main
obstacle and were from the Luo (16.3%) and Kikuyu (11.6%) communities. Gender
stereotypes and cultural barriers had equal percentages (11.6%) of female
respondents from the Luo and Kikuyu communities.
Power relations affect and shape gender experiences and determine who counts in
society. According to FPE, these negative perceptions about women often result in
a deepened gender-biased enrolment of students because only people from a specific
gender who are perceived to have interest and knowledge about a particular subject
would be given priority (Rocheleau et al., 1996; Sultana, 2011), and in this case,
male students were more likely to be given support and privileges to further their
education. The findings of the previous studies support this claim through the low
percentages of female students enrolled in ocean science which is perceived as a
male domain (Ojwala et al., 2022). FPE perspective on how cultural barriers build
gendered differences in experiences reveals that female students have unequal rights
or are denied rights to access education, knowledge use, labour obligations, and
inclusion of their voices in natural/marine resource management (Sultana, 2011;
Adams et al., 2018).

12
Under the second theme, conflicts between studies and family responsibilities, most
of the respondents (67% female and 53% male) reported that they had not
experienced study-family conflicts. The majority of those who had experienced
study-family conflicts were male respondents, with a greater percentage of 44% than
females (26%), while the rest did not respond (7% female and 3% male). One of the
reasons why most female respondents did not experience conflicts between study
and family responsibilities is that most of them were single and younger than males.
The situation may be different or more difficult for women to go to university once
they are married and have children.
Some comments exemplified the conflicts that respondents faced in their studies.
For instance, one of the male respondents explained: ¨As the only son, most is
expected of me at home and school, it's an overwhelming experience and a real
challenge¨ and another one reported: ¨It is basically hard since you have to split
your time over education and home responsibilities¨. A few examples of female
respondents who spoke of study-family balance issues are explicitly associated with
children and family. One female respondent described the situation as: ¨It's
tormenting, annoying and can pull you down to earth¨ and another shared her
experience by saying: ¨Taking care of the baby, being a wife and a student is very
tricky because they all need full attention¨. Also, traditional and cultural beliefs
hindering female students' full participation in ocean science courses were
mentioned. One female respondent (from the Kalenjin community) wrote: ¨The need
to support my siblings in their schooling and pay my school fees is challenging.
Also, my culture does not encourage women to do some courses, including what I
am currently involved in. My parents would prefer I marry a rich man instead than
continuing with schooling in a fisheries course¨. Work/study-family balance has
been reported by previous researchers as an emerging challenge brought about by
the increased participation of women in the workforce globally, and it affects
students, employees, and employers equally (Gayle & Lowe, 2007; Hendriks, 2020;
Akuamoah-Boateng, 2020). For example, Cinamon and Rich (2005) and Musya
(2020) showed that employees, especially females with caregiving responsibilities
with inadequate support at home, face more work-family conflict. Musya (2020)
found out that female teachers experienced strain and time pressures due to work-
related and home-related roles, with the main stressors including a lack of adequate
support at home and interruption in work and family schedules (e.g., a child falling
ill). These conflicts often result in the inability to perform duties to perfection,
reduced productivity and poor working relationship with the boss or colleagues. In
the case of education/studies, the consequences include poor performance, school
dropouts, poor working relationships with university lecturers, and poor study-life
balance (Hendriks, 2020). This resonates well with the findings in this study because
most female respondents who had experienced conflicts between their studies and
family roles mentioned that balancing the two was challenging as both family and
studies required the same or equal amount of time. The previous and current findings
highlight early marriages in Kenya as a unique context for understanding extra

13
challenges for women in ocean science because the family responsibilities affect the
access to higher education as well as the participation of women in workplaces.
Concerning gender bias or sexual harassment, both female and male respondents
mentioned that they had experienced gender bias or sexual harassment. However,
the number of male respondents who experienced gender bias or sexual harassment
was higher (see Figure 4b) than females (see Figure 4a), which can be explained by
further research. Most female and male respondents confirmed that they were aware
of the reporting mechanisms within their respective universities (see Figure 4c).

A. Female respondents

15%

c. Reporting mechanisms
100
85% Female
Male
80
Proportion of students (%)

66%
63%
Experienced Not experienced 60

B. Male respondents 40
35%
31%

20

28%
0
Aware Not aware

72%

Experienced Not experienced

Figure 4: Experiences with gender bias or sexual harassment and the awareness of reporting procedures in
the selected public universities (Female, n = 43; Male, n = 59).

14
Regarding the university gender-related policies, the findings showed that only four
of the seven universities in this study had gender equality and sexual harassment
policies. Most respondents, 53% female and 66% male, stated that they were aware
of the existing gender equality policies. While 49% of female and 71% of male
respondents reported that they were aware of their universities' existing sexual
harassment policies. Interestingly, in the universities with no gender-related
policies, more male respondents than females still reported that they were aware of
gender equality and sexual harassment policies. These results could be due to the
biased responses of online surveys where respondents provide the information they
think the administrator would like to hear or claim something beyond their
experience (Bird, 2009; Osiecka et al., 2022).
Some of the findings support the explanations given by feminist political ecologists
on how different obstacles manifest in different ways for women (Haeffner et al.,
2021). The comments on the experiences of gender bias and conflicts also revealed
that the respondents from minority ethnic groups were more likely to face various
biases and conflicts with their studies. Some female and male respondents from less
well-off backgrounds were forced to help their parents finance their siblings'
education with the little stipend or loan they received to support their studies. One
married male respondent mentioned this as his major conflict or challenge: ¨Looking
for money to feed the extended family while in school, I have to share my little
stipend¨. These findings confirm the arguments by feminist political ecologists that
access to resources and challenges are often determined by unequal economic power
relations that reproduce patterns of gendered inequalities (Nunbogu & Elliott,
2021).

3.4 Gender, ethnicity, and access to career opportunities in ocean

science
More female students agreed with the statement that females have fewer
opportunities in higher education and ocean science careers than males, as illustrated
in Figure 5. In contrast, male respondents reported that females have more
opportunities in these two sectors (68% in higher education and 66% in ocean
science careers). The views of male respondents go against the reality identified by
the International Labour Organization (ILO, 2017). According to ILO, women in
the labour market are more likely to be unemployed than their male counterparts.
Also, ILO highlighted alarming female unemployment rates in developing
countries, including Kenya, suggesting men belittle women's experience.

15
Figure 5: Responses to questions on female students having fewer opportunities for higher education and
ocean science careers only include respondents who answered ‘Yes’ (Female, n = 43; Male, n = 59).

The male respondents’ perceptions are not in line with their female colleagues that
women have fewer opportunities in the labour market, which could be an example
of gendered power relations. According to Flood (2015), many men resist gender
equality because they benefit from gender inequalities, including interpersonal
power and material rewards. Additionally, Hearn (2001) highlighted that men’s
resistance to gender equality comes with several reasons, including sexism,
maintenance of power, patriarchal practices, complicity in current arrangements and
the definition of gender equality as women’s business. That said, these findings
might presumably be attributed to the fact that men feel disenfranchised because
more attention is currently shifting to increasing women's education and
empowerment in Kenya. However, the study highlights patterns for which further
research is needed to explain. A study by Roksana (2018) in Sweden highlighted
that women and men can only have equal opportunities in ‘dynamic network’
organizations and not in the ‘static hierarchy’ ones with the traditional patriarchal
structure like in most developing countries. The dynamic network is those
organizations with flexible power structures, and everyone’s contribution is
compulsory, making women more visible. The 'static hierarchy' includes older men
having full authority and a tendency to keep or recruit other men.
Further analysis based on the ethnic differences was done, and the results showed
that the majority of the female respondents who agreed with the statement that
females have fewer opportunities in higher education (14%) and ocean career
opportunities (12%) were from the Kikuyu and Luo communities, respectively. On
the other hand, the males who responded positively to this statement on higher

16
education were from the Luo and Kalenjin communities, with 8% and 7%,
respectively. At the same time, the male respondents who reported fewer
opportunities in career were from the Luo and Luhya communities, with 10% each.
Regarding job prospects, most female and male respondents were hopeful or
believed that they would find a job in ocean science after completing their studies,
with the majority rating their career prospects highly (see Figure 6). Interestingly,
the career aspiration of women was as high as men. However, the confidence of the
male respondents showed that men tend to think that the workplace in ocean science
is more attractive and suitable for them. The feeling of entitlement to job
opportunities by men can be explained by feminist political ecology, which states
that patriarchy and cultural stereotypes often codified some job opportunities as
masculine hampering women’s participation (Nunbogu & Elliot, 2021).

Figure 6: Career aspirations between female and male respondents in ocean science fields (Female, n = 43;
Male, n = 59).

The career aspiration in the ocean science field was also analysed in this study based
on ethnicity. The findings revealed that most of the respondents who reported that
they were ‘very likely’ and ‘extremely likely’ to work as marine scientists in future
were from the Luo community, with 29% male and 26% female, followed by male
respondents (15%) from the Luhya community and female respondents (14%) from
the Kikuyu community. In contrast, male and female respondents who answered

17
with ‘definitely not likely’ and ‘less likely’ were fewer, with only one female
respondent from the Embu community and three male respondents from the Luhya,
Kalenjin, and Mijikenda with one respondent each. These findings can be explained
by the fact that most of the respondents were from the Luo community.
In Kenya, job opportunities usually rely on a person's connections and networks or
through sharing ethnicity with a senior person in an institution rather than an
individual’s educational background within a particular field. FPE explains the
inequalities between women and men as well as the dominant and minority ethnic
groups in access to labour market. It exposes how these power relations influence
access to resources, including job opportunities, which often exacerbates
discrimination among women and minority ethnic groups. Women's access to job
opportunities tends to be lower than for males, and the few who make it to the job
market are more likely to be in junior positions (Orcutt & Cetinić, 2014; Huyer,
2015; Johannesen et al., 2022). Also, discrimination can be more disadvantageous
to females from minority ethnic groups (Taaliu, 2017).
FPE challenges gender norms and beliefs that expect women to be caregivers in the
household and beyond while men are expected to be breadwinners (Arora-Jonsson,
2011). FPE also calls for an intersectional approach that considers how a person's
experiences are shaped by particular geographical locations and the links between
multiple social identities and axes of organizational inequality, such as gender,
ethnicity, class, and age (Kaijser & Kronsell, 2014). The theory exposes and
describes the multiple interconnecting experiences and challenges faced by women
and minority groups by investigating the interlocking differences based on gender
and ethnicity. Inadequate financial support for female students' education may be
one of the reasons for the lower representation of females in ocean science. Thus,
the intersectional lens revealed that women from the Luo community were more
likely to access higher education and receive support from their families than those
women from other ethnic groups. Neglecting women's substantial role as ocean
managers and knowledge bearers could escalate ocean degradation.
It should be noted that the study was conducted during the COVID pandemic when
most universities were struggling to adapt to teaching online and hybrid classes.
Consequently, most students were off-campus, which may be one reason for the low
response rate and could have influenced the results. Further, this research was purely
based on a questionnaire without a follow-up interview; therefore, future research
should consider interviewing students to clarify what kinds (specific) of gender bias
or sexual harassment female and male students often experience while at the
university.

18
4. Conclusion
The adoption of the Feminist political ecology framework identifies the structural
sources of gender and ethnic differential access to education and job opportunities
as important. FPE proved to be a useful theoretical framework for explaining the
social differences that influence the access to higher education, experiences, and
challenges of female and male students in ocean science programmes in public
universities in Kenya. This paper discusses the responses to three research
questions: (1) are there gendered and ethnic differences in access to ocean science
education in Kenyan public universities? (2) what are the barriers to gender and
ethnic equality perceived by students participating in ocean science? (3) does access
to career opportunities in ocean science fields differ between female and male
students as well as among ethnic groups?
The findings in the first research question showed clear evidence that gender and
ethnic inequalities play a key role when providing financial support to students in
ocean science courses since fewer female respondents than males accessed financial
support from their families. Also, most female respondents relied on government
loans to finance their studies. All female respondents from minority ethnic groups
depended entirely on loans. The second research question revealed that female
access to higher education was more likely to be hindered by cultural barriers.
Intersectional identities such as ethnicity also played a significant role in students'
access, treatment, and power relations. Apart from gender, most female respondents
felt they were discriminated against based on their ethnicity. Lastly, most female
respondents strongly agreed that they have fewer career opportunities than males
even though their career aspirations in ocean science were as high as males. Based
on ethnicity, more respondents from the Luo community were more likely to work
as marine scientists after completing their studies than other ethnic groups in this
study.
The study recommends increasing non-refundable financial support to female
students and minority ethnic groups; creating awareness and capacity building on
gender-related issues such as sexual harassment, gender-related policies and
reporting mechanisms; mentorship programmes to populate ocean science courses
in all the ethnic groups; and developing effective and transformative gender-related
policies to address cultural norms, ethnic barriers and stereotypes to promote gender
equality in ocean science courses.

19
Ethical Considerations
Before data collection, the questionnaires were approved by the Research Ethics
Committee at World Maritime University, and permission was granted from the
Kenyan National Council of Science, Technology and Innovation (NACOSTI)
(License No. 824286). Questionnaires had a short description explaining the
purpose of the research to each potential participant and included a statement that
guaranteed anonymity and confidentiality to participants.

Conflict of Interest
None.

Funding
This research was supported by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO)
Canada, under Empowering Women for the UN Decade of Ocean Science for
Sustainable Development Programme. The opinions and views expressed in this
paper are mainly the author’s own and do not reflect those of the funder.

Acknowledgements
The author acknowledges and appreciates the generous financial support from the
Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) Canada. Deep appreciation goes to the
author’s supervisory team: Professor Momoko Kitada, Professor Francis Neat and
Professor Susan Buckingham, for their time, support and contribution throughout
this study. The author also wishes to extend her sincere gratitude to Professor Ronan
Long for his connections and to Mrs. Nancy Gitonga, who provided technical
support to the first author by sharing contact details of the respective persons,
institutions and guidance during the field survey. The author also sends her
indebtedness to Dr Risper Ondiek for her technical support. The author would also
like to extend their special thanks to all the students who participated in this study.
Lastly, my gratitude goes to the heads of the departments and class representatives
of the universities studied for facilitating the dissemination of the questionnaires
through email and other social media handles such as WhatsApp.

20
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Paper 4
Gender and the ocean: Understanding
women’s roles, experiences and
barriers to participation in ocean
science education in Kenya

Renis Auma Ojwala1*, Susan Buckingham1, Francis Neat1 and Momoko Kitada1

Affiliation
1
World Maritime University (WMU)-Sasakawa Global Ocean Institute,
Fiskehamnsgatan 1, 211 18 Malmö, Sweden.
*Corresponding author: Email addresses; [email protected];
[email protected] (R. A. Ojwala), [email protected] (S.
Buckingham), [email protected] (F. Neat), and [email protected] (M. Kitada).

Abstract
Global visions of effective ocean governance consider gender equality as critical to
transformative action and change towards sustainable ocean management.
However, women are often excluded in most of the ocean science-related
programmes, including education despite their substantial roles and contributions in
ocean ecosystems. The commitment to promoting gender equality in ocean science,
especially in the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable
Development, aims to ensure women as much as men engage in ocean science
education, research and management. By doing so, diverse knowledge and
innovative ideas to find solutions to reverse declining ocean health are better
encouraged. However, gender inequality among academic staff still persists in
ocean science education, especially in developing countries such as Kenya. This
paper investigates the roles of women in ocean science education, the challenges
they face, root causes of these inequalities and the existing interventions to advance
gender equality in ocean science in Kenya. The paper uses a feminist political
ecology lens to explore academic staff experiences, perceptions of gender

1
(in)equality, barriers and good institutional practices. The data gathered through in-
depth interviews were analyzed based on the emerging themes from participants’
responses. This revealed that the career progression of women was slower than men,
women were more likely to be discriminated against during promotions, denied
opportunities to develop their careers, received little or no support and recognition,
faced sexual harassment and bullying, and experienced work-family conflicts.
These factors adversely impacted women's participation and career advancement as
well as affected their contribution to a sustainable ocean. This research also revealed
some good practices universities had in place, such as having gender policies and
gender centers to tackle gender inequalities. In conclusion, we stress the importance
of having gender-transformative policies, an effective implementation process, and
having women in leadership positions as crucial for promoting gender equality and
ocean sustainability.
Keywords: Gender equality, women’s participation, sustainable ocean, barriers,
good practices, ocean science.

1. Introduction
In recent years, the UN Decade of Ocean Science has focused on supporting
innovative research and creative ideas to generate the knowledge and science
needed to achieve an equitable and sustainable ocean to maximize the benefits from
ocean resources to meet the needs of future generations (Ryabinin et al., 2019; Sun
et al., 2021; Axelrod et al., 2022). Two of the essential aspects of the Ocean Decade
are inclusivity and equality, which allows the engagement of all stakeholders to
ensure 'we have the people we need for the ocean we want' in the institutions and
decision-making processes (Sun et al., 2021), especially women and other
marginalized groups.
Women's participation in and substantial contribution to education, research and
management of oceans are critical in all aspects of sustainable development
(Michalena et al., 2020; Shellock et al., 2022a). The inclusion of women has long
been viewed by practitioners and development scholars as a pathway towards
enhancing livelihood opportunities, promoting sustainable use of the ocean and
improving ocean governance (Gissi et al., 2018; Satterthwaite et al., 2022; Shellock
et al., 2022a). Giakoumi et al. (2021) and Shellock et al. (2022a) highlight that
increasing the number of women in ocean science education is essential and can
generate diverse perspectives required to solve the complex socio-ecological
challenges of sustainable marine management. There is an urgent need for a
transformative education that provides equal opportunities for both women and men
academic staff to bring their perspectives in pedagogy to share their knowledge
about ocean resource use and management (Peterson & Spencer, 1990). Education

2
is the direct link between women’s literacy and job security and is recognized as the
incubator for future ocean leaders.
Historically, science-related disciplines, including ocean science education, have
been overwhelmingly occupied by men worldwide. Women in academia face many
career progression challenges blocking them from reaching senior academic,
research and management positions (Onsongo, 2006; Huyer, 2015; Popp et al.,
2019; Ojwala et al., 2022). In Kenya, the recruitment, retention and promotion
amongst female staff in public universities are not only getting worse over time but
also higher up the career ladder, with fewer women likely to be holding senior
management positions (Onsongo, 2009; Ojwala et al., 2022). Previous studies have
also reported a low representation of female students in STEM subjects at 27% in
Kenya (Onsongo, 2009; Mbirianjau, 2018; WEF, 2020) and low transition rates
from undergraduate to postgraduate levels in STEM fields (UNESCO, 2015). The
unequal access to science educational opportunities and underrepresentation (and
stagnation) of women in academic careers remains today despite the efforts and
commitments by the Kenyan Government on paper, and the success of women
academically.
Establishing a diverse and inclusive ocean science education is a significant
challenge in most universities in Kenya. While it has been shown that women are
underrepresented in academic positions at all levels in public universities and
leadership roles in ocean science-related departments (Ojwala et al., 2022), there
has been no research on why this is and how academic staff experience gender
inequality. Having more women staff in science-related departments has been
documented in order to attract more female students to these courses, because they
act as role models and offer mentorship opportunities. According to Jones and
Trotman (2016) and Ndegwa et al. (2016), patriarchy in countries such as Kenya
highly influences women's participation because of the absence of gender-
transformative polices and the presence of socio-cultural stigma against women
where some courses and jobs, such as ocean science, are viewed as men's work.
In order to reflect women’s concerns in ocean matters, gender equality and women’s
participation must be integrated in marine conservation, science and governance. To
understand the knowledge gap on persistence of gender inequality in academic
career paths in ocean science teaching and research, this paper focuses on the
academic staff experiences and good institutional practices towards gender equality.
Gender equality and improved ocean governance can only be achieved by
understanding barriers in ocean science departments, their roles, and their
accomplishments in the professional realm. Three research questions inform this
analysis:
1. What roles do women play in ocean science education and how does career
progression differ between female and male staff across academic career
levels in ocean science-related departments in Kenyan public universities?

3
 2. What are the barriers to career progression and gender equality among staff
participating in ocean science disciplines in Kenya?
3. What are good institutional practices in place to promote gender equality in
ocean science in Kenya?

2. Theoretical framework
Gender and environment are an important interdisciplinary subject in research
(Buckingham, 2020). Among various feminist perspectives, this research adopted
feminist political ecology (FPE) as a theoretical framework which helped
understand gender relations and power imbalances among academic staff in public
universities in Kenya. FPE applies feminist theory, objectives and practices to
understand ecological issues (Rocheleau et al., 1996; Nyantakyi-Frimpong &
Bezner-Kerr, 2015). Though previous studies have used FPE to examine the uneven
access to and control over natural resources (Rocheleau et al., 1996; Harcourt &
Nelson, 2015), this study draws from these insights to understand the multiple
stressors in ocean science education. An FPE approach considers gender and the
politics of place, focusing on the division of labor, roles, treatments and power
relations and how power differences influence and shape ocean governance
(Elmhirst, 2011; Elmhirst, 2015; Harcourt & Nelson, 2015). Feminist political
ecologists argue that gendered divisions of power and their intersection with
ethnicity and other variables, are a fundamental component of use, conservation and
management of natural resources globally, including oceans (Rocheleau et al., 1996;
Sundberg, 2017). The FPE approach has been used to explain why certain decisions
are made especially when it comes to who should have access to and control over
natural resources, and the consequences for sustainable environmental change and
management (Rocheleau et al., 1996; Haeffner et al., 2021). As noted by Rocheleau
et al. (1996), FPE argues that gender accounts for differences in production,
reproduction and community roles between women and men and is a primary source
of social injustice. Previous studies on FPE have concentrated on water, agriculture,
forest and land (Harcourt & Nelson, 2015; Adams et al., 2018; Lau, 2020; Ankrah
et al., 2020). However, no study has used feminist political ecology to explore the
differences in gender representation in higher education, although Nelson (2021)
applied an FPE approach to explore views on how higher education conference
spaces are emotional sites to co-produce the expertise of campus sustainability
professionals. Given that education can be seen as a ‘resource’ and ocean science
education as a resource for the health of oceans, we argue that FPE is appropriate to
study gendered and intersectional inequality and power relations in ocean science-
related higher education programmes in Kenya. FPE as used in the research reported
here draws links between the material dimensions of education (e.g., career

4
progression, promotion, support and recognition) and non-material factors (e.g.,
age, ethnicity, power relations, class, values and norms).
In Kenya, ethnic bias is one of the social problems which has heightened inequalities
in all sectors of the economy, including education and employment (see Alwy &
Schech, 2004; Mwiria, 2006; Munene, 2013; Taaliu, 2017; Odhiambo et al., 2018;
Muange & Ng’etich, 2020; Mande et al., 2020; Njagi, 2020). For the purpose of this
research, we use the definition of ethnicity which includes factors such as customs,
values, language and beliefs which determine belonging to a cultural group
(Monyoncho, 2014; Taaliu, 2017). Kenya is a multi-ethnic country with 42 ethnic
groups (Kisaka & Nyadera, 2019) which form one of the bases of discrimination in
the country, especially in public universities as a workforce. Ethnic bias can be seen
in the recruitment, promotion, deployment and transfer of academic and non-
academic staff (Mande et al., 2020). More importantly, during national elections
people usually vote along ethnic lines which has led to power being given to the
dominant group since Kenya attained its independence in 1963.
This study uses the concept of intersectionality (Macias & Stephens, 2017) to
explore the gendered experiences together with other social identities to understand
the challenges facing staff in ocean science programmes. An intersectional analysis
of an issue allows for a deeper, more thorough understanding of societal frictions,
which may help develop better responses, actions and solutions to longstanding
problems. This analysis sought to map the multiple social metrics, gender and
ethnicity that intersect to create systems of oppression (Hancock, 2007).
Gender is known as a source of power or privilege in any culture and society, and
the privilege associated with gender can always change because societies and
cultures also change and vary from time to time (FAO & Biswas, 2017). Therefore,
when the power or privilege associated with gender intersects with other power
sources, such as ethnicity and class, the power/privilege may decrease or increase
promotional opportunities, support and other advantages or disadvantages. The FPE
lens reveals the need to pay attention to the many differences (such as age, class and
ethnicity) that shape everyday life of women staff and also how staff experience
access to opportunities, treatments and stereotypes in ocean science departments in
Kenyan public universities. FPE, then, elucidates the importance of gender and
intersectional identities in the appointment to senior positions, resource allocation
(funds) and social injustices, including discrimination and sexual harassment. This
paper builds upon and contributes to the works and applications of FPE to show
how the theory could be applied to expand the scholarship on gender inequality and
power relations in ocean science fields. To explore the staff experiences and
challenges, in-depth interviews were conducted with the participants, as described
in the next section.

5
3. Materials and Methods

3.1 Study site

The study was carried out in six public universities which offer ocean science
degrees in Kenya between June and October 2021. Public universities often provide
less expensive education than private ones, to students regardless of their socio-
economic status, which should then result in a more diverse student population.

3.2 Data collection

The study adopted an exploratory and qualitative research design aimed at
understanding the in-depth experiences of academic staff and highlighting the
differences and similarities in their career pathways, and barriers that they felt
hindered their career progression. Data was collected through interviews designed
to obtain information on the different career patterns among female and male staff.
Interviews were also designed to explore the obstacles that restrict the participation
of women staff in ocean science programmes. The target population for this study
was staff working in ocean science-related programmes, ranging from part-time
lecturers, technicians, lecturers, senior lecturers, associate professors and full
professors. Three key informants were also interviewed, representing gender focal
points from three of the universities. The purpose of including the gender focal
points was to get institutional information on the status of gender equality in their
respective universities, factors contributing to gender inequalities and good
practices or initiatives in place to promote gender equality.
The six public universities that accepted to participate provided a list of potential
interviewees who were officially invited through e-mail to participate in this
research, and meetings were scheduled based on their availability. The interviews
were conducted face-to-face, by zoom meetings, or through phone calls based on
participants' preference, and lasted between 30 and 90 minutes. This study involved
30 professionals, representing early- to late-career professionals, junior and senior
staff, and those in permanent and non-tenured positions, to ensure the inclusion of
diverse perspectives. The majority of the participants were identified through
purposive sampling, though some participants were identified through snowballing
selection. The authors developed two interview guides for: (i) the academic staff
and (ii) the gender focal points. The questions about individual perception of gender
equality, career journey and factors that affected their career development and
progression were asked to academic staff. By asking the participants open questions
on their experiences, we gained insights into how academic staff perceived gender
equality and the causes of gender inequalities in general as well as their personal
experience. We asked the gender focal points for information regarding institutional

6
initiatives and strategies towards gender equality. Interviews were conducted in
English in which all interviewees were fluent, and were audio recorded.

3.3 Data processing and analysis

The recorded interviews were transcribed using Otter.ai, and transcripts were
manually edited to ensure their accuracy. The transcripts were analyzed using
NVivo version 12, where the qualitative information (transcripts) from the
interviews were analyzed by categorization and themes formation with relevance
for the study and coded into main three groups: career paths, barriers and good
practices. The research questions formed the basis of the coding, and the thematic
analysis of the transcripts followed a deductive approach based on the themes
derived from FPE.

4. Results

4.1 Socio-demographic profile of participants

The participants represented a diverse group of academic staff in ocean science-
related departments from the selected public universities in Kenya. Table 1
summarizes the participants' demographic information as intersected by gender, age,
highest education attainment, marital status, number of children and current
employment position.

Table 1: Socio-demographic profiles of the participants from the selected public universities in Kenya (n = 30)
Socio-demographic characteristics Categories Frequencies (n = 30)
Women Men
No of participants Gender 12 18
Marital status Married 5 16
Single 5 1
Unassigned (Gender focal points) 2 1
Social class Middle class 6 15
Lower class 3 0
Not specified 1 2
Unassigned 2 1
Highest education level PhD 6 9
Ongoing PhD 3 1
Masters 3 8
Children Have children 9 14
No children 1 3
Unassigned 2 1
Age <30 0 2
30-39 3 4
40-49 2 5
50-59 3 4
Above 60 2 2
Unassigned 2 1

7
4.2 Staff understanding of gender equality and causes of gender
inequalities
This analysis included the recognition of the term ¨gender equality¨, its meaning and
causes of gender inequalities in ocean science workplaces. All the participants
interviewed indicated that they had heard about gender equality. Among the
interviewees, 11 women and 13 men said gender equality means giving equal
opportunities to both women and men, while one woman and three men said it refers
to equal treatment of women and men; two male participants said it means no
discrimination based on gender. The extracts from participants showed that the
participants were knowledgeable about gender equality, however, two of them (a
woman and a man) seemed to have difficulties differentiating between gender equity
and gender equality. Going by their explanations, however, they still mentioned
giving equal chances to all without discrimination.

Unequal Unequal Unwelcoming

unequal Administration
remunerationtreatment environment
opportunities 4%
3% 3% 3%
3% Tribalism
Parents 3%
3%
Mentality or
mindset
3%
Feminists Culture
3% 44%
Favouritism for
positions
7%
Failure to
recognize
women's
contribution Differentiated
7% Different
responsibilities
personalities
10%
4%
Figure 1: Perceptions of the staff about causes of gender inequalities in the selected public universities in
Kenya

When participants were asked how they thought gender inequality arose at
workplaces, most of them highlighted that gender inequality originates from culture
and society where boys and girls are taught how to behave and act while they are
young. These ingrained socio-cultural norms and barriers lead to women and men
being given differentiated responsibilities and roles at home and at work and result

8
in favoritism for positions and the failure to recognize women’s contributions
(Figure 1). The administration (4%) and unfriendly work environment (3%) are also
believed to be the causes of gender inequality.

4.3 Career path of ocean scientists after graduation

The three major roles and responsibilities mentioned by participants were teaching,
conducting research and supervising undergraduate and postgraduate students. A
previous study of gendered staff distribution found evidence of varied patterns in
career paths of women and men participants, with underrepresentation of women in
various academic positions in ocean science recorded; most female participants held
non-tenured jobs (Ojwala at al., 2022). Similarly, in this study more women
academic staff interviewed were part-time lecturers, followed by lecturers, associate
professors; more senior academic positions were held by only one or no female
participant. Notably, most of the positions were held by fewer female participants
than males. Male participants were well-distributed across almost all academic
ranks, from graduate assistant to associate professor, with the majority being
lecturers (Figure 2).

6
Number of participants

5
4
3
2
1
0

Female Male

Figure 2: Current position of the participants by gender, excluding gender focal points (n = 27)

The majority of participants were aged between 30 and 60 years old. Three age
groups (30-39 years, 40-49 years and 50-59 years) had the same number of
participants (26% each), while between 60-69 and <30 had 15% and 7%,
respectively. This indicates that the early career professionals were the smallest
group in this study. Comparing age and positions, we noticed that some positions
were distributed in almost all age groups. For instance, lecturer positions had

9
participants from different age groups, between 30 and 69. The findings also
confirmed that men were more likely to have been promoted than women despite
women exhibiting higher educational attainment. For instance, the results showed
that 75% of the women participants had a PhD degree as their highest level of
education and one of them had an advanced research position (postdoc). The
remaining 17% indicated that they had ongoing PhD studies, and only one (8%) had
an MSc degree as her highest qualification. Among male participants, 67% had PhD
degrees, 11% were enrolled for PhD studies and 22% had MSc degrees as their
highest degree. The majority of the male participants were between the age of 40-
50 years while the majority of women were between 50-59 years. One of the three
participants who noted that there has been lack of recruitment in their respective
universities, and that the universities have taken a longer time to employ new staff
claimed:

I hope there will be some employment because they are not employing and people
are retiring and there are so many graduates out there looking for jobs. All the senior
ones have retired and the age gap is very little. In fact, the youngest staff in our
department is 45 years old (Participant 79; Female, Lecturer).

The interviewees were asked to summarize their career journey, including their
initial job, the time they took to get the first permanent jobs, their first permanent
job, years of work experience, and their accomplishments. The initial activities that
most participants, especially women engaged in before getting their first permanent
jobs, including volunteering, internships, business and marketing and part-time
teaching.
More male participants (79%) than female (21%) indicated that they got their first
permanent positions immediately after graduation. Figure 3 shows that most women
take longer to get a permanent job, ranging from two to over five years. Of the three
women participants who got a job immediately after graduation, two were over 50
years old. This suggests that in the past securing jobs directly after graduating might
have been less difficult as there were very few people with university entry grades
then. The number of university students in the country has increased over the past
20 years. One of the female participants expressed:

I think the good thing I went to the University those days when there were not many
people who were going to the university during my time. Getting a job was actually
not a problem, because I remember when we were finishing our last semester in
fourth year, all the companies used to come and camp in the university to recruit
people (Participant 18; Female, Associate Professor).

10
 Unemployed
5 years
4 years
2 years
1 year
Less than a year
Immediately

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Percentages of academic staff

Female Male

Figure 3: The time taken by male and female participants to get their first permanent jobs

Figure 4: Contrasting career paths and progression between male and female staff in the selected public
universities in Kenya

Fifty-three percent of male and 70% of female participants had more than ten years
of work experience, however, males were more likely to be in senior positions. This
indicated that more men were more likely to be promoted than women. For instance,
Figure 4 compares the career progression of two representative participants (female

11
and male) with family responsibilities as well as professional roles. Whereas the
career progression of the male participant was straightforward without apparent
obstacles and with promotion every three years, the female participant with over 21
years of experience was still in a university lecturer position. She complained of
being denied promotion opportunities several times, while her male counterparts
with the same years of work experience were in the ranks of associate professors.

4.4 Gendered barriers to career progression and gender equality in

universities
Women were underrepresented at all academic career levels except in junior
positions. In academia, the possibility of women progressing or transitioning to
higher levels is constrained. The gendered differences in perceptions of the obstacles
that hindered career progression are presented in eleven sub-themes, ordered by the
frequency of their mention (Figure 5). These findings help identify the problems
and drivers of gender inequalities in higher education. Five of the most frequent
barriers are discussed in detail below.

Overworked by colleagues
Denied opportunities to develop career
Sexual harassment
Inadequate funding opportunities
Denied promotion
Lack of suppport and recognition
No recruitment of new staff
Strict qualifications
Bullying from male colleagues
Misunderstandings
Work-family conflicts

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%100%

Percentages of participants

Women Men

Figure 5: Barriers to career progression and gender equality in the selected public universities in Kenya

12
4.4.1 Work-family conflicts
Eighty percent of participants had family responsibilities, while 20% had other
duties apart from family-related ones such as leadership in church. Among women
participants, 90% who had children whether married or single expressed having
experienced work-family conflicts in one way or the other. One female participant
articulated:

As a woman, it's just that like for me to get the one publication, I probably will be
getting one paper when the men already have three papers. Because when I have left
or gone to pick my children up, men will still be working, and they can afford to work
until late. But for me, as soon as it reached four o'clock, I know I have to leave. And
probably I will not be seated anywhere near a computer or doing any work-related
assignments until tomorrow or the next day. So that makes a lot of difference
(Participant 82; Female, Associate Professor).

Most women participants mentioned some factors that hamper work-family balance
in their institutions. Some of these factors included the lack of child care facilities
or support, inflexible working schedules/arrangements, unequal access to parental
leave and the lack of support from their partner/spouse. When the participants were
asked how they managed their time to strike a balance between work and family
responsibilities, only three of them said through good planning and time
management while the rest mentioned that they had house helps. However, when
those claiming to have better time management were probed, they also admitted
having delegated some house-work to their house helps or to their older children.
All participants with younger children confessed to having contracted someone to
assist with household chores while at work:

Yes, I've always had house help. Otherwise, it would be impossible, and I liked it
because I always found support from her (Participant 82; Female, Associate
Professor)

The responses from men gave a different picture as the majority of men who
declared having family responsibilities claimed it was normal and they had nothing
to worry about as it did not affect their work. Among male participants, 80% had
never taken paternal leave to support their spouses. The remaining 20% had only
taken 14 days which is stipulated in the national law on parental leave for
employees:

Those are normal expectations. So, I wouldn’t say it affected my participation…Their

mother is at home with them. She does her own business so she is able to divide the
time between the children and her business (Participant 10; Male, Lecturer).

It is manageable. In the morning, the mother drops them at school and picks them up
in the evening. So it is just normal (Participant 16; Male, Tutorial fellow).

13
4.4.2 Lack of support and recognition
From the interviewees' perceptions, staff support and recognition tended to be
absent or generally limited in public universities in Kenya. When they were asked
whether they felt that their work had been supported, recognized and valued, most
of them disagreed. Instances of lack of support and recognition were mentioned by
some female part-time lecturers who complained of not being paid for several years
or having delayed payments, which made them vulnerable and having to live with
debt. This survival tactic has been observed among most graduates because of a lack
of employment opportunities; therefore, most of those in temporary positions are
often exploited. A female part-time lecturer explained this situation and how the
university management expected them to survive:

They used to pay after every semester before I joined. I was told that they used to pay
after a semester, but when I joined, they used to pay after one year then they stopped
(Participant 40; Female, Part-time lecturer and PhD student).

Despite having a PhD degree and qualifications for a permanent position, she still
had yet to get any opportunity, and part-timing was the only option for her. She went
on to say that her university claimed that it had no financial resources for more
lecturers.

4.4.3 Lack of opportunities for career development

The interviews showed that practices and policies for women to develop their career
in the selected public universities were minimal and were more likely to affect
women’s career development than men’s. Out of the 12 female participants, 58%
said that they had been denied promotion at least once compared to 30% of male
participants who claimed to have experienced discrimination with regard to
promotion. Some claimed that they were denied promotion on technical grounds,
while others are yet to learn why they did not get promoted. Most of the women
staff participants perceived being denied promotion to be associated with their
gender, education qualifications and years of experience. Most female participants
felt that their gender was the reason why they did not get promotion, while most
male participants thought the cause for them was ethnicity. However, all participants
blamed the university management. One female participant pointed out how
changes in the university management team have complicated issues on promotion:

Management has really changed things until we don't know what is happening. And,
of course, the terms also go up to do publications and supervision. So currently,
everybody I'm supervising is not even taking me anywhere. It is just piling up
(Participant 79; Female, Lecturer).

14
In her case, she said that her last promotion was ten years ago, and she does not
understand why it is taking the management so long to promote her despite having
fulfilled all the requirements. The interviews suggest that lack of or poorly-managed
promotion caused job dissatisfaction and demoralized staff, with participants often
feeling frustrated and demotivated. For instance, there was a female participant who
sounded melancholy and concerned about the future of the university or department
and said:

I'm telling you where I want to be. And I don't even know whether I will reach it
because it depends on very many factors. Like now, I was promoted to be a lecturer
in 2011. And they have frozen promotions. For a long time, and with new changes,
things are even messed up (Participant 79; Female, Lecturer).

Some participants also emphasized that the promotion guidelines kept changing to
benefit a particular group of people, especially the older staff. For instance, the
number of years of work experience as a criterion prevents younger academic staff
from progressing despite having many publications and ongoing research projects.
We observed that these changes affect not only female career advancement but also
the progress of young male academic staff. Apart from promotion guidelines and
management, the participants also alluded to the rigid schedules at the university
being a hindrance to their career progression. Inflexible schedules did not allow
academic staff to take up some other activities or initiatives to advance their career,
such as capacity building and training, workshops, conducting a research project
and attending conferences. Some young male participants also confirmed that
nothing extinguishes morale and work performance like being denied promotion or
advancement opportunities.
Some participants also mentioned that the number of publications as a crucial part
of the promotion criteria needs to be revised due to the high cost of publications and
the flexible time to teach and research. These participants narrated some of the
ordeals they go through to get their publications published by reputable or
international journals. The challenges associated with publishing were said to
include the high cost of open access publications which was unaffordable to most
women staff, and the gender bias in some international journals that reject papers
submitted by women claiming that they are for local consumption. The outcry of
one female participant was that the journals rejected her articles when she was the
sole author, but published the ones she wrote or co-authored with her students.
These claims indicate that women-led or single authored papers still lack credibility
despite their efforts to participate equally and achieve scientific excellence in
addressing the world's oceans' significant challenges.
The findings also revealed the need for more financial support from the universities
regarding funding publications. Most participants observed that the university
management's financial constraints and lack of facilitation could lower the number

15
of publications by the staff. The majority of female participants felt that the
university was not supporting their research projects, and they often lacked funding
for their publications. One female participant suggested that the university should
find a way to assist or finance publications. When the participants were asked if the
university has initiatives to promote their staff's careers, most participants, including
men, disagreed and responded that most of their achievements are self-driven or
individual-based initiatives such as attending short courses, training and attending
conferences were by their own means.

4.4.4 Sexual harassment and bullying

The interview responses showed that many female and male staff had experienced,
heard or witnessed behaviors that they could consider as sexual harassment (70% of
all participants). Only one male staff member admitted that he had been harassed
sexually or bullied, but others had heard about cases of sexual harassment in their
universities. The forms of harassment experienced or identified by both female and
male staff were all sexual, with the majority reported between staff and students.
One female participant who was sexually harassed while she was a student shared
her experience:

Sexual harassment is there, not as a staff but as a student. I didn't know the seriousness
of it, so I dealt with it in a very calm way. I felt like I was the one who was in the
wrong but I wasn't in the wrong. But I thought, well, that that was bound to happen.
And those days when I was a student, there was not much talk about that (Participant
82; Female, Associate Professor).

Similar views and concerns were expressed by other participants, including another
female participant who explained how sexual harassment by lecturers and
supervisors affects female students, especially those pursuing MSc degrees. She
recounted that:

It happens to undergraduate students, but this also happens to master students,

especially with their supervisors, because for the master's level, your supervisor is
the closest person that you have, so everything you have to report to them. You have
to see them daily, they have to mark your thesis, and if they don't mark your thesis,
you won't go anywhere. Some students would do what the supervisors ask of them
before they mark their thesis (Participant 2; Female, Technologist).

As well as sexual harassment, some female participants recalled being bullied by

their male colleagues, especially when they were in junior positions. One female
participant narrated the difficulties she had to go through as a junior employee in a
male-dominated department. She said she went through different kinds of
harassment and bullying, including negative comments about her dress and not
being allowed to speak in the departmental meetings. She explained how her male

16
colleagues took too long to accept her as one of the staff members and her way of
doing things. She explained:

I was more or less one of the first ladies to work in this department. If you look at the
people, I've worked with all my journey are male people. But what I have realized
most of the time, I remember when I was employed as a staff, what shocked me then
was that women were not allowed to wear trousers. I'm the first woman to wear
trousers at the [Name of the university], and everybody was like, you can't dress like
(Participant 18; Female, Associate professor).

She further noted that women were not allowed to talk or give their opinion in
meetings:

I remember even when I came to the department, we would be having a meeting and
then when we are talking, people would look at you as a woman. I would keep on
reminding them, if you're not used to a woman talking in this department, there is one
now. There was quite a lot, and you really had to focus your way towards it. It has
never been an easy journey anyway as expected (Participant 18; Female, Associate
professor).

Most of the participants from the universities with institutional gender equality and
sexual harassment policies were not aware of them. Also, a few participants, both
women and men, were unaware of the reporting procedures or did not know whom
to talk to or where to register their complaints in case of sexual harassment,
discrimination or bullying.

4.4.5 Intersectionality in career progression

Apart from the discrimination based on gender explained above, our findings
unveiled the different treatments experienced by the participants and opportunities
that they were denied to advance their careers because of social identities such as
age, gender, ethnicity, education, class or combination of these factors. When the
participants were asked if they had felt discriminated against because of their
ethnicity, one female participant said:

Yes, that one has been there. Especially some of the scholarships that I have applied
for. Some of them, if someone is from a different tribe, always choose someone from
their tribe. So that one has affected me in a way (Participant 1; Female, Part-time
lecturer).

Another female participant elaborated that:

Yes, the ethnic group also play an aspect. Again, you'll find that even if you work in
a place with a majority of a particular ethnic group, sometimes your ethnic face is put
in a meeting to show or in a board to bring up the ethnicity…We are Kenyans; when

17
 the Vice Chancellor comes from this tribe, they will tend to appoint people from their
tribe (Participant 18; Female, Associate Professor).

Some male participants also expressed their concerns about discrimination based on
ethnicity. A male participant confirmed this claim:

Ah, there are two factors that shape your career in Kenya. That is the tribal angle, and
the other one is gender. But in my career, gender is not a problem but the tribal angle.
Yes, I lost the scholarship twice because I did not belong to a tribe. And you can also
tell that during that time, you could not get a house within the university if your name
did not decide. So, those are the things that, even now, are affecting employment,
recruitment, promotions and so on, not gender. If you are in Kenya, I don't think
gender is a big issue; it's tribal. If you are a boss, and a female is from your tribe, I
don't think you will look at gender; gender now takes second placement (Participant
7; Male, Associate Professor).

Age also is a factor that was examined, and our findings established that most
participants did not have a problem with their age. They reported not having
encountered discrimination because of it. However, there are a few female
participants who felt their age denied them some opportunities or made them
discriminated against. For instance, one female participant narrated how age
affected her during her study:

Negatively, because when I apply for anything, especially these postdoctoral or even
courses, they don't want older people you might go and collapse there (Participant
79; Female, Lecturer).

Nevertheless, other participants had different experiences. One older female

participant recounted that age has many opportunities that positively impact her:

My age, not really. The older you are; the more opportunities you have on your way.
Age is a positive thing because of maturity, people look at maturity. It really gives
you wisdom. So that's why you find many things come to you as you mature. For me;
it is more positive than negative (Participant 18; female, Associate Professor).

4.5 Good institutional practices in public universities

In the majority of the public universities studied, the participants were able to point
out some actions and measures that they perceived as good practice for promoting
gender equality. Figure 6 summarizes these good institutional practices based on the
frequency of mentions. These results include the responses from the gender focal
points.

18
 Support students in STEM courses

Women's empowerment hub

Existence of gender policy

Awareness and training on gender issues

Women in leadership positions

Gender institute/Directorate

Encourage women's participation

Equal opportunities

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
Number of participants

Figure 6: Summary of the good institutional practices perceived by the participants (n = 30)

Figure 6 shows that about 40% (12) of the participants felt that their universities
were committed to gender equality through giving all women and men staff
opportunities to participate and carry out their roles and responsibilities equally,
without any discrimination. The majority of those participants who claimed their
universities were gender equal were male. Some of these participants also claimed
that the universities’ appointments often follow the two-third gender principle
enshrined in the national policy and that the opportunities are based on merits or
qualifications of an individual not gender:

Yes, because most of the appointments we have two-thirds gender rule. It is being
enforced in the university (Participant 12; Male, Senior Technologist).

The second good practice mentioned was having gender centers, institutes or
directorates in the universities that are mandated to address the gender issues
including factors that hinder the pursuit of academic excellence of female students
and staff in the university. Approximately 13% of the participants noted that the
gender institutes carry out training and workshops on gender-related issues in the
campus and organize the celebration of International Women’s Day annually:

The fact that we are the only university with a Gender Institute in Africa, our
university has always been way ahead in terms of gender matters. We even have a
gender director, and there is a lot of awareness, and also a lot of trainings because

19
 almost every semester like now, I just sent two of my staff for a gender awareness
workshop (Participant 18; Female, Associate Professor).

Thirdly, 13% of the participants mentioned that their universities encourage women
to participate and apply for every opportunity, including study leave. Additionally,
they mentioned that women are often encouraged to apply for positions and
scholarships as most of the university’s job advertisements state ‘for this vacancy
we actively encourage women to apply’. One female participant expressed:

What I would say is a good practice, that normally whenever we have those adverts
being put out, there is that statement of women are encouraged to apply (Participant
21; Female, Part-time lecturer).

Fourthly, only three of the participants expressed that they considered having
university’s gender policy is a good practice. This gender policy aimed to promote
women’s access to higher education and academic career positions as well as
university management positions. However, these results are not encouraging
because the majority of the staff were not aware of the existing institutional gender
policies and resonate with an earlier phase of the research project, which established
that the presence of a gender equality policy did not translate to gender equality in
public universities (Ojwala et al., 2022). Therefore, there is a need to develop
gender-transformative policies, strengthen the implementation plan of existing
gender policies, and create awareness of these policies which currently seem to have
a very low uptake. There was very low awareness among women and men
participants, with fewer (about 13%) women acknowledging the existence of the
policies than men (43%).
The fifth good practice cited was having women in leadership positions. Three of
the participants claimed that their universities had women represented in top
management positions such as Dean, Director and Vice Chancellor. However, this
was not the case in all the universities studied, which had lower representation of
women in management positions (Ojwala et al., 2022). Other good practices
included: awareness and training on gender-related issues, support structures to
female students in STEM courses and mentorship programmes.

4.6 Status of public universities’ gender equality

The university gender equality status was gathered from the interviews conducted
with the gender focal points from three public universities. Each of them admitted
that their universities are currently not gender equal. They added that they have
initiatives to promote gender equality in their respective institutions, including
having gender policies in place, collection of gender-disaggregated data and
mentorship programmes. However, they also mentioned that the policy
implementation was inadequate due to lack of human and financial resources. One

20
of them mentioned having only two staff members in her gender directorate, and
also lacking an office where staff can go to report their concerns. Regarding the
collection of gender-disaggregated data, these participants acknowledged that they
only collected data for staff and not students, and that this was sent to the national
Ministry of Gender, but not used by the universities to monitor progress in gender
equality. One female gender focal point also indicated that gender related issues
were not given priority in her university, and that the management seemed to neglect
the gender directorate. This suggests that while having the directorate shows
compliance with the requirements by the Government of Kenya, gender equality is
not being enforced at the university level.

5. Discussion and Conclusions

It was evident that women and men participants had different career paths ranging
from the time taken to get permanent jobs to access to promotion opportunities.
These differences in career progressions can be attributed to the delays in getting
employment opportunities, maternity leave breaks, access to education, especially
in communities where men’s education is prioritized, early marriages, sexual
harassment, power imbalances, perceptions about women being weak, perception
of ocean science as a field that requires stamina and not suitable for women, denial
of promotions and discriminatory promotion guidelines.
The critical area emerging from discussions of the career path is that most female
participants felt that they were overdue for promotion. Most of the barriers
mentioned in this study were associated with institutional practices, structure and
culture. These findings confirm the claims by the feminist political ecologists that
male dominated institutions render unequal benefits for women and men as the
system tends to favor men (Harris, 2015; Harcourt & Nelson, 2015; Tierney &
Lanford, 2018). According to Harcourt and Nelson (2015), institutional culture
means 'the deeply embedded and collective patterns of organizational behavior and
the shared values, beliefs, assumptions, practices, norms or ideologies that members
have about their organization’. In addition, FPE helped to identify the barriers that
hinder the participation of women, especially those from the marginalized groups.
The resulting barriers included discriminatory policies, sexual harassment, lack of
support and recognition, work-family balance or conflict, lack of flexible working
hours, limited parental leave days, lack of child care support or facilities, and high
cost of publications are the major contributing factors that stagnate female staff.
Institutional barriers and gender bias lead to inequalities between women and men,
often in complex ways, including stereotyping that undermines performance, lack
of promotion opportunities, and sexual harassment. Our findings concerning the
discriminatory promotion guidelines as a hindrance to career progression

21
complement and extend the study done by Onsongo (2006), who identified aspects
of gender inequalities as access to higher education, low recruitment, training and
promotion of women staff, unfriendly work environment which entail sexual
harassment issues, and discriminatory appointment and promotion practices and
policies that primarily affect women's progress. Similar results were reported by
Shellock et al. (2022b) in their study of women leaders, who identified the barriers
to gender equality in interdisciplinary marine research institutions, including
stereotyping, limited institutional support and capacity, poor leadership within the
university, isolation and underrepresentation, sexual harassment, lack of suitable
funding opportunities, parenthood and caring responsibilities, and institutional
structures (Mahajan et al., 2020).
There is clear evidence of sexual harassment in Kenyan universities based on the
interviews reported here. We found out that women are more likely to be exposed
to sexual harassment and bullying than men and the lack of proper reporting
mechanisms has exacerbated the incidence and prevalence of sexual harassment.
The worst affected group mentioned in this study are the female students and junior
female staff. The main reason for this could possibly be power imbalances, lack of
awareness, lack of policies on sexual harassment or gender-based violence, unequal
opportunities between women and men, male staff outnumbering female staff, and
when women are not respected and valued in the workplace (Equileap, 2019). Power
relations can be defined as the possession of control, influence or authority over
others, and the misuse of power is central to the causes of sexual harassment. For
instance, the perpetrator might be in a powerful position in the university or
department that can influence the future career prospects of the person being
harassed. According to Clancy (2020), public universities have been recording
higher rates of sexual harassment despite being mandated as an institution that
should inspire change in society. Similarly, Agardh et al. (2022) highlighted that
24.5% of women staff reported having been exposed to sexual harassment such as
suggestive gestures or looks, unwelcome comments and inadvertent touching or
brushing, in a Swedish university in 2019.
The results also found that gendered work-family conflicts exist due to
differentiated gender roles. Gender roles often limit women's mobility and interfere
with their careers (Caprile & Valles, 2010; Yousaf & Schmiede, 2017; Wandahi
& Njoroge, 2021). Here, most women seemed to take full responsibility at work
and home, which often led to delayed career progression. Our findings showed that
most male participants claimed or perceived work and family responsibilities as
normal and manageable. However, when we dig deeper to assess how they are
helping with the children or housework, most said 'they are with their mother'. Most
women participants confessed that balancing work and family is difficult as they all
require time and full attention, and some had to pay for house help to assist with
home responsibilities. Work-family conflict has been defined as a form of inter-role
conflict in which the role pressure from work and family domain are mutually

22
incompatible in some respect, that is participation in work role is made more
difficult by participation in the family and vice versa (Flippo, 2005; Akintayo,
2010). In other words, it represents the extent to which an individual's perception of
the involvement in one role interferes with their ability to meet the
demand/responsibilities of another role (Bethge & Borngräber, 2015; Arshad &
Gill, 2018). Adebayo (2016) also defined work-life balance as the maintenance of
stability in one's personal and professional life, which is fundamental welfare
resulting in employee productivity and job satisfaction.
Ojwala et al., (2022) undertook a gender policy analysis that revealed that Kenyan
universities had no policy on flexible working hours, parental leave and child care
support or facilities, which are fundamental to working parents and can help them
achieve work-family balance. In most cases, working mothers have to cope with the
problem of combining work and family responsibilities in their daily life due to rigid
work schedules in universities, thus rendering this job increasingly difficult
(Tammelin et al., 2017). Our findings have shown that the non-flexible working
hours are more limiting for women, as they influence their time allocation to teach,
conduct research and care for the children. Regarding the evidence provided by the
women participants with family responsibilities such as having younger children, it
is indisputable that a considerable proportion of women employees struggle to
balance work and family responsibilities. Voydanoff (2005) also added that
significant differences between employees exist based on the characteristics of an
individual, including gender, education, class, family status and the work
performed. Having responsibility for children potentially increases time demands
and strain, particularly for young children (Hill et al., 2004). To increase female
participation in the workforce, there is an urgent need to pay attention to the policies
that tackle unconscious and conscious biases and barriers and ensure that work-
family policies are developed and implemented effectively (Tammelin et al., 2017).
Additionally, we can achieve work-family balance through the presence of job
satisfaction, part-time work, flexible working hours and adequate spousal support
(Bruck et al., 2002; Annik & Den Dulk, 2012). FPE emphasizes the need to
incorporate gender equality in management and governance of natural resources
such as oceans, because knowledge is gendered and it important to have diverse
skills and ideas to find concrete solutions to enhance ocean sustainability
(Nightinagle, 2011; Arora-Jonsson, 2011; Sundberg, 2015).
In conclusion, this paper investigated the roles and experiences of women academic
staff in ocean science education in public universities using the feminist political
ecology lens and found out that women play a crucial role in teaching, supervising
students and conducting research. In addition, the findings showed that a large
portion of women staff experienced slower career progression due to their gender
and ethnic biases that resulted to lack of promotion opportunities and support. Apart
from lack of promotion, women staff were also found to be faced by numerous
challenges including unfriendly working environment and work-family conflicts

23
that hindered their full participation in workplaces. Furthermore, the institutional
good practices identified in this study were found to be ineffective in terms of
promoting gender equality in ocean science. For instance, gender policies were not
well-known to the participants and they were also poorly implemented.
We recommend the establishment of gender-sensitive promotion guidelines and
practices, effective awareness creation about gender issues and women's right to
opportunities, development of gender-transformative and effective policies to tackle
unrealistic parental leave days and childcare services or facilities, provision of
adequate support in both financial and mentorship programmes to empower the
young staff.

Declaration of Competing Interest

None.

Data availability
Data cannot be shared publicly due to the privacy of the participants in this study.

Acknowledgements
We thank the Nippon Foundation for their generous funding of the World Maritime
University (WMU)-Sasakawa Global Ocean Institute and the Department of
Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) Canada for their financial support of the ¨Empowering
Women for the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable
Development¨ programme. Special thanks to Professor Ronan Long and Mrs. Nancy
Gitonga for their technical support and guidance during the field work. Our deepest
appreciation goes to all the participants who without their contribution this work
would not have been possible.

24
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