"... From grassroots conservation projects to international committees on the environment, women are often underrepresented in the conservation process (Deda and Rubian 2004; Sodhi et al. 2010). Women?s participation is often limited to awareness-raising activities and labor contribution projects (Arya 2007). In their review of implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Deda and Rubian (2004) conclude that greater efforts must be made to address the gender disparity in biodiversity conservation policy and actions. Positive relationships between local residents and protected areas are critical to the long-term successful conservation of protected areas. Ensuring that women?s perspectives are included in our understanding of those relationships is not only an important component of a fair and inclusive conservation process, but also has positive practical implications for conservation of protected areas. On one hand, this is because protected areas can disproportionately impact women. For example, women have been shown to bear a greater share of the psychological and physical costs of wildlife conflicts in India (Ogra 2008). If these differences are not recognized, women may receive fewer direct benefits from conservation and be left bearing more costs (Hunter et al. 1990). On the other hand, women can make significant contributions to conservation. Westermann et al. (2005) found in natural resource management groups in 20 countries of Latin America, Africa, and Asia, that collaboration, solidarity, and conflict resolution were greater in groups where women were present. In Nepal and India, Agarwal (2009) found that greater women?s participation in forestry groups was correlated with better forest condition, in terms of both conservation and regeneration, and increased forest patrolling and rule compliance. Unfortunately, our understanding of gender in the context of people?s attitudes toward protected areas (PAs) is limited. Many studies limit their sample to household heads, who are most often men (e.g., Tessema et al. 2010; Vodouheˆ et al. 2010), or do not break down results by gender (e.g., Silori 2007; Rinzin et al. 2009). Studies that include gender as one of many socioeconomic characteristics that may influence people?s relationships with PAs, along with others such as education and wealth, have had mixed results. Some studies find that men have more positive attitudes toward specific protected areas (Mehta and Heinen 2001; Xu et al. 2006; King and Peralvo 2010), some find women more positive (Arjunan et al. 2006), and some find no difference (Bauer 2003; Carrus et al. 2005; Wang et al. 2006; Baral and Heinen 2007; Ferreira and Freire 2009). As described earlier, studies examine the role of gender in conservation without attention to attitudes toward protected areas or they explore the determinants of attitudes toward protected areas without a focus on gender. To our knowledge, however, there are no studies that focus on the effect of gender on attitudes toward protected areas. Thus, this article contributes to the literature by directly examining gender differences in local residents? perceptions of protected areas in Myanmar. We explore whether men and women differ in their attitudes toward the protected areas and perceptions of protected area benefits and problems. Then we explore whether gendered differences in perceptions and socioeconomic characteristics account for any difference in women?s and men?s attitude toward the protected areas..."