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It is said that there are three sides to every story: first, what one believes has occurred; second, what others believe has occurred, and lastly is what actually has occurred (referring to facts and the objective truth). Energy transitions toward a low-carbon future are not only technical and economical, but also deeply social and gendered. Therefore, this article investigates how gender has been manifested within energy transition pathways across three case studies: Canada, Kenya and Spain. We argue that while mainstream, high-carbon energy pathways are absent from women’s narratives; other pathways may value alternative manifestations. Off-stream pathways, may create niche spaces for low-carbon technologies, and may result more gender sensitive and inclusive. However, we argue that transformative pathways involving radical innovation and structural shifts may indeed broaden the gender definitions beyond women and men by including gender with other intersecting social identities working from the ground up. Our study has been limited to studying gender in binary terms – that is, an emphasis on women and men due to the methodological and empirical limitations of the three case studies. However, it is crucial to push for research on the intersectional dimensions of gender within the energy transition and transformation domains.
Open access: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629620301262