Photo credit: BoPoMo photos
Dr Bakker and Interests
Dr. Karen Bakker is a UBC professor in the Geography department, a Canada Research Chair, and the Director of the Program on Water Governance. Her main areas of interest include water security, environmental management, and politics. In her free time, Dr. Bakker enjoys cycling, gardening, hiking with her husband, and playing with her two lovely daughters. She also blogs about food politics and parenting at FrenchKidsEatEverything.com.
Dr Bakker and Passions
She is passionate about the environment, education and her family. Dr. Bakker is celebrating her two daughters as well as women around the world on this International Women’s Day. She is inspired by many women – too many to name, in fact – especially those who were or are educators, academics, campaigners, outstanding scholars, visionaries, and spokespeople for gender equality. Mary Wollstonecraft, Dorothy Hodgkin, Millicent Fawcett, Simone de Beauvoir, Germaine Greer, Wangari Maathai are among the many women who inspire Dr. Bakker.
Dr Bakker and Women’s Issues
Dr. Bakker believes that gender equality in access to education is without a doubt one of the most important issues of our time. She also believes that the Suffragettes who won the right for women to vote are a great example of the many outstanding women around the world who have made significant progress. Her idea of female empowerment is freedom for women to reach their full potential which, she believes, will benefit both women and men.
Dr. Bakker loves initiating change and enjoyed her time on UBC’s Status of Women Committee, which successfully campaigned for UBC to fulfil its legal obligations with respect to gender equity in faculty salaries. She would like to see more women in senior professorial and administrative positions at UBC which does not compare well to its peers in this regard. Internationally, she would like to see more women, from a greater diversity of backgrounds, playing a role in global environmental policy dialogues and debates. “Too often, their voices are unheard or obscured”, she says.