Reykjavík Grapevine - 20.05.2016, Page 10

Picture this: conversations about
women’s frustrations, aspirations,
and hesitations flowing across kitchen
tables all over the Arctic. Considering
Arctic regions are often cut off from
one another socially, geographically,
and even linguistically, how can these
stories be gathered to spark meaning-
ful dialogue? What can these stories
tell us about what’s happening and
what’s not in terms of gender issues in
the Arctic? Moreover, what does gen-
der have to do with Arctic issues?
Rachel Kohut and Tahnee Prior, co-
directors of Plan A (genderisnotplanb.
com), think they have found a way
to start answering these questions.
Rachel, a future lawyer primarily in-
terested in health, first met Tahnee,
a scholar primarily interested in the
environment, at a conference con-
cerning gender and law in 2014. Soon
after meeting, they began discussing
their experiences working with gender
issues in the Arctic. Both agreed that
not only is policy in the Arctic lacking
a gender component across the board,
but that something could be done to
fill this chasm in conversation. And
thus, a Plan A was born.

Counting on
conversation

Plan A is a digital storytelling plat-
form that Rachel and Tahnee intend
to use to gather and share lived expe-
riences of women across the Arctic.
They hope that unexplored issues in
Arctic research, law, and policy will be
identified and addressed. By opening
dialogue on being a woman in Arctic
regions, Plan A will ideally shed light
on what’s missing in Arctic institu-
tions, and allow researchers and poli-
cymakers to start filling in these gaps.
“Whether it is women often acting
as first responders to shifting land-
scapes or medevacing long distances in
difficult weather to give birth, women
across the Arctic have more in common
than they might think,” Rachel tells me
in an e-mail. She also points to extreme
variation in temperature and lengthy
distance to healthcare as problems es-
pecially common in the colder regions,
ones that have particularly drastic con-
sequences for women.
Through this platform, Arctic in-
habitants will be the ones shedding
light on such issues through lived ex-
periences, bringing policy, law, and
academic study closer to those they
ultimately affect.
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 6 — 2016
10
INTERVIEW
Improving The North
Through Discourse:
Gender
Equality
is Plan A
Words REBECCA CONWAY
Photo ART BICNICK
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