Women and the Environment

(Response to Kirk overview)

            “A culture against women is a culture against nature.” (Kirk p. 560)

            All across the world, globalization is affecting women by altering the environment.  In India, where seed companies have licensed their products to farmers, those farmers often kill themselves because they cannot repay their debts.  In America, women farmers are often niche workers, working on infertile land and conducting laborious agriculture.

            What’s the source of the problem for the environment?  Patriarchy.  Capitalist values lead to raping the environment.  Militarist values lead to war, and in the home, the devaluing of women and violence against them.  In our modern patriarchy, technology is above nature in our hierarchy of values, and we treat nature like we treat our world’s women: with rape, disregard and marginalization.

            High cost low output globalized farming is partly to blame.  Biodiversity in Punjab has been reduced.  Wheat and Rice are grown primarily, and there is an influx of disease and pests.  Chemical fertilizers and pesticides require massive amounts of water.  Overwatering leads to desertification.  In this way, the global capitalist environment has created local devastation in India.  To recoup debts, people sell their daughters, or since a daughter requires the father to give up a large dowry, often those babies are killed.  In India, there are 925 women for each 1000 men.  Even then, capitalist agriculture returns 1/3 of it’s input labor and money, while a natural region with natural agriculture returns it’s input as crops by 20 times!

            Capitalism has polluted our oceans.  The Aleut or Eskimo, who still eat lots of sea mammals, build up PCBs in their breast milk.  PCBs are petroleum fuel pollutants that build up in the breast milk of those who are affected, and those pollutants are passed onto the young.

            Even when the governments of the world have surpluses of grain, Earth’s people go hungry.  The Earth is enough for everyone’s needs, but not for some people’s greed.  Capitalist greed and devaluation of women go hand in hand however.

            “Why women?  Because our present patriarchy enshrines together the hatred of women and the hatred of nature.” (Kirk p.560)

            The situation is bleak but not impossible.  Feminism encourages us to be non-violent, and to address the human species place in the web of nature.  We can only rape and kill our planet, and our women, for so long.  We are at a cusp in today’s society – do we go forward, into the sustainable future, and abandon patriarchy and capitalism, or do we go backward, catapulting our corporations into wellbeing, and sending the human race back 10,000 years into slavery?
            How are women connected to the environment?  Deep ecology is one idea that combines with feminism to promote the idea that we are all connected to the environment.  The environment is feminized, with imagery like the "virgin forest" or "raping of the earth" - it's resources must be productive.  A bioregion can only support so much agriculture and water use - we must learn to live sustainably and be ecofeminists.
            Part of the problem is that there is a lack of international environmental justice.  Companies can pollute the environment, even with smokestacks polluting the air, yet that's government sanctioned.  A lot of waste gets located in poorer communities due to "Not in My Back Yard" syndrome which advocates relocating waste sites away from communities - who are able to advocate against it.  The communities which are too poor to advocate, their mothers and fathers are probably hard at work, end up hosting toxic waste because of government subsidies that are available to bulk up the budget of local communities.
           Food and water security is a huge issue - sometimes our food and water comes from distant communities that due to international regulations have been forced to provide exports at the expense of other government and community efforts that might benefit locals more.  If we can create re-localization, and focus on remaining sustainable within our particular bio-regions, then neighbors are feeding one another and the global demon of capitalism is defeated.  We all get to choose how we spend our dollar, after all, and the more we spend local the more we defeat globalization and the more attention we can spend on our local environment.
            Water supplies suffer from globalized economy - there is pressure on governments from international corporations to privatize pristine water supplies in foreign communities.  When water isn't bought by global corporations, it's polluted, and unfit for drinking.  Many small communities suffer from pollution, especially after floods and natural disasters.  The #1 cause of infant death, diarrhea, worldwide results from intestinal bacteria and virus that come from dirty water.

            What we need is a paradigm shift in human thinking.  The institutions which my country gave birth are sucking up the life of this planet, and in an attitude of systematic physical and spiritual violence, globalization is devastating local farms and bank accounts.  Where will our world be in 100 years?  Will corporations rule the world, with governments taking the back seat, and people living under their thumb?  Or will people rule the world, and the corporations will exist to further the needs of the people.

            How about we start some for-the-people global corporations?  To start, let’s end seed royalties – everyone has the right to grow food!  What’s more important – lining the pockets of our capitalist industry, or providing for the wellbeing of local farmers and consumers?  Not only does quality of food and diversity of crops suffer when large companies move in, but the farmer is turned into a slave to world markets – which are inherently unstable.  Buy local, sell local, end globalization!