GENDER EQUALITY AND STATE ENVIRONMENTALISM

Gender inequality may be linked to the degradation of our planet.  At least this is the research being talked about in Kari Norgaard and Richard York’s “Gender Equality and State Environmentalism.”  Largely absent from older debates is awareness of, or attention to, the gendered nature of environmental politics. Their research On countries such as Norway and Singapore has brought light on the subject.  The two leading countries in industrial but are polar opposites of environment and gender equality.  Norway with more gender equality and less sexism has not only fulfilled the environmental treaties of the Global Eco, are more impactful on the environment globally.  Where as Singapore is industrially high carbon emissions footprint almost double the amount of over 13% of the worlds emissions and with very little women in leadership roles it gives you the clue that maybe gender equality is important to the servical of the planet and mankind in general.   “Existing work in the area of gender and the environment and ecological feminism suggests several reasons that nations with greater gender equality may be more prone to protecting the environment.”(508)

What do you think?  Do you think women around the world care way more about the environment?  Women do care more about the environment statistically and here’s why.    They have been and still are more affected by the disturbance of nature.  As described in this quote.

“Women have more pro-environmental values, are more risk averse, are more likely to participate in social movements, typically suffer disproportionately from environmental degradation, and sexism and environmental degradation can be mutually reinforcing processes.” Norgaard and York.  

A photo of First Lady Erdoğan: “Our relation with the environment is, above all, an issue of morals. It is not an option but a necessity for Muslims to protect the environment, defend animals’ rights and live modestly without wasting.”  

It’s refreshing and exciting to read of leading women in the world and it’s important to talk about.  First Lady Erdoğan’s “zero waste project” is underway in Turkey and making huge changes to laws and policies.  She is speaking to the sensibilities  of many eco-feminists around the world.

A photo in Turkey of the significant change on the “zero waste” initiative.

In a culture that over values masculine qualities we set the stage for Trump and Putin.  The stage of violence and war with guns, border laws and the fight for oil in Venezuela or the fight for Gaza and taking more land from Palestine.

  This research of Norgaard and York indicates that women are more likely than men to express support for environmental protection and that women consider a variety of environmental risks, from nuclear power to toxic substances, to be more serious than do men.

Syrian schoolchildren run past heavily damaged buildings in the rebel-held are of Jobar, on the eastern outskirts of the capital Damascus, on April 30, 2016. / AFP / AMER ALMOHIBANY (Photo credit should read AMER ALMOHIBANY/AFP/Getty Images)

Women are consciously more aware of the responsiblity for future generations.  As we are the ones literally giving birth to a nation and have too much invested to see it fail.  Explanations for the gender gap in environmental concern have built on this work, suggesting, for example, that women are more concerned about the environment because they have been socialized to be family nurturers and caregivers (Hamilton 1990).

Let me just say that I was not groomed to be a politician but I think I may have been more inclined if I saw more female leaders growing up. Women in politics have been held back and with less women in power the less we see happening to protect our environment.

Without women like First Lady Erdoğan and Brundtland  and other women around the world fighting for the environment where would we be?

Women like First Lady Erdoğan and Bruntland are paving the way.  Bruntland  made huge steps bringing women to more levels of leadership in creating change in the environment for Norway in the 70’s.  She created new policies that led to change on a global scale.  There are more women in politics since the late 1970’s.  This can be seen in the chart below.

This is what the stats are of women in parliament.

The key to closing the gender gap? Putting more women in charge! This article was amazing describing the need for more women in office and having more women presidents. I love that this is such a true statement. Women hire more women.  When Norgaard and York talk about Norway and Singapore on equality and emissions it’s mind blowing. There is way more evidence pointing to women’s impact on the world when they are in higher up positions.  

The gender gap and the state of the environment are connected.  The link below helps mine the real gaps to help create a sustainable planet and a world that works for everyone.  Women leaders and more women in charge of changing environmental policies.  Check out more oon the “Zero Waste Program”. 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kimelsesser/2016/10/27/7-important-facts-about-the-global-gender-gap/#772e47a34c22

Links about the global gender gaps

http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GGGR_2017.pdf

https://money.cnn.com/2018/03/08/news/economy/gender-equality-economy-environment-opinion/index.html

Zero waste initiative.

https://www.turkeyhomes.com/blog/post/turkey-s-zero-waste-project-and-efforts-to-protect-the-environment

http://www.tim.org.tr/en/press-room-news-tim-launched-zero-waste-in-exports-campaign.html

Abortion isn’t a light word!  As a topic it can be rather sensitive and arguable. Even the toughest off feminists have given “it” sensitive names such as “the most difficult decision” “tragic”.  (Jessica Valenti) I won’t discredit the feeling aspect or the moral piece being hard or tragic but even these names by feminist seem to come with the cost of one’s moral compass. Isn’t it time we cut through the BS? In the article Abortion isn’t about the right to privacy. It’s about women’s right to equality. Jessica Valenti says “it’s time for the pro-choice movement to lose the protective talking points and stop dancing around the bigger truth: Abortion is good for women.”  In this discussion on abortion lets center topics of morality and destruction of our ecosystem and why in eco-feminists Hawkins says it’s  tied to women’s reproductive Right. Eco feminist Hawkins takes us into the extinction of species to the extinction of mankind and why it should be wrapped up in women’s equality and their reproductive Rights around the world.

“One of the most important issues in biomedical ethics is the controversy surrounding abortion. This controversy has a long history and is still heavily discussed among researchers and the public—both in terms of morality and in terms of legality.”

There are 3 different standpoints of abortion.  Traditional pro-life, pro-choice and the middle.  There are many different extremes to abortion.  Traditional pro-lifers believe a baby is formed at conception, were as pro-choice believe that it’s not til after birth.  The middle is they believe an abortion is just is certain cases such as rape. I think the biggest thing I learned in the readings was thet morality is taught and it by a law and the way we were brought up on how we might decide.

Morality is that neverending conversation of law and ethics.  We can dive into the morality of abortion which has been a topic of traditional account for centuries.   Women have been, dominated by this topic of right and wrong under the pressures of white male supremacy for a thousands of years.   Isn’t not allowing women the rights to their own reproductive system immoral? Lets not forget about the Women who are suffering the most from these laws. Women in 3rd world countries who are closest to areas, not only suffering from land degradation and poor health, but from inequality. Hawkins talks about land degradation being perpetuated by lower class people in poverty.  When the land doesn’t have any more to give they move on to survive.  “This planet has over 1 billion people in poverty”.  (Hawkins). Many women in these places don’t have access to safe birth control or safe health care. It could most likely be a topic of the privilege in this case. What about the destruction of our planet from a moral high ground that too many people will kill us all.  Hawkins keeps a very high level of care by sharing her passion for all life.  That it takes being aware of everything as a whole then as separate with quasi rights. I think what I’m really learning from Hawkins is that everything is precious but we honestly don’t treat everything as precious.  Hawkins asks her reader to dig into a deeper sense of mother.  To be smart and good to the children you have and plan for life.

Women in Nepal.

Telling women by law what they can  and can’t  do with their bodies is by definition a form of  slavery.

Slavery comes in many forms and this is just another way women have been controlled and just maybe how the Mother Earth is being controlled.

Many feminists believe Abortion is a necessity for millions of women worldwide, for their health, for their wellbeing, for their dreams of a better tomorrow. The reality is that a woman will seek an abortion—legal or otherwise—almost instinctively and in self defense. A woman will do this when an unwanted pregnancy presents an excessive strain on her or her family’s physical, emotional or economic resources. Throughout the ages, courageous women have made it their right and indeed their responsibility. In a civilized society we owe women the legal right to make their decision safely.
http://feminist.org/rrights/

Eco-feminist Hawkins shares their view on abortion with less of a dramatic approach and high ground for abortion.  Hawkins talks about the environment and her love for all life. She writes that too little attention has been given the moral implications, from an environmentalist perspective and whether or not it is morally okay to bring up another child in the world.    To put it bluntly Hawkins speaks from the legal standpoint of the earth the animal and the water and the air. In the last two hundred years our planet has grown from one billion to 7 billion. This amount of growth to environmentalist is not sustainable. We must take different looks and start changing the traditional thinking that has been dominated by the white supremacy. The land degradation from globalization along with resources being depleted by everyone rich and poor.  We have taken a impatient look at overpopulation. Overpopulation has turned to the abuse of animals and animals being genetically modified to grow faster to feed more people. How is this ethically or morally ok?. How Is it healthy? As of present time, recognition of our connectedness with all other life on this planet reinforces the need for abortions. (Hawkins) I bring up this quote and the talk of the chicken because it seems so separate, but it’s not. With overpopulation we are slowly harming ourselves and destroying creatures.  So many creatures have gone extinct due to our growth as humans. Everyone has a place here but maybe not for much longer. I agree that eco-feminists can talk about abortions more and create more dialogue about the destruction of this awesome planet. I believe that it is partially due to the education of contraceptives and sexual health. Women without rights to their own bodies are slaves and so is the planet.

Animals by law have quasi rights.  Rights to stay alive.  So a rhino that is going extinct can’t really be protected though morality says don’t kill that animal.  Morality is different from place to place.  Will Animals  be able to save themselves from our own destruction?

True fact no animals are found after natural disasters such as tsunamis.  The animals are normallly found way up in the mountains.  One researcher says it’s because they know the earth better than we do.

Take a look at the world clock for reference on the destruction of forests, the pollution of forests and the population of humans.

http://www.poodwaddle.com/worldclock/

I agree that abortion isn’t just necessary because people will get them anyway, or because our privacy is important – but because women’s desire to seek the life they want in the way that men can is our right and its purpose, not a side effect.

Society benefits when women can commit to education and work and dreams without having at the back of their mind that maybe it’s all provisional, because at any moment an accidental pregnancy could derail them for life.  The planet benefits when women can commit to education and work and dreams without having at the back of their minds that it’s all for nothing the world is done for anyway. (Jessica Valenti)

The sexualization of women and animals does not come as a any surprise when reading The Sexual Politics of Meat, by Carol J. Adams.  Oppression comes in many forms. She describes meat as a “symbol for what is not seen but is always there – patriarchal control of animals”. [ii] “What is not seen but is always there?” Let’s think upon the view of it being the demoralization of everything but the white male dominated ad space.  It shows that the space that I’m in and the advertisements that I see are for my white male counterparts. Adams describes white men as being the dominant over all humans and non-humans, this includes women, people of color, lgbtqia. This is looking into the views of intersectionality of white man ruling over everything else.  Take the photo below for example.

This picture is a female pig being sucked dry by a dominating pig as all the other little pigs waste away.  The bigger and deeper look at this photograph is how pornographic it really is and how it violates women as whole.  Adams speaks of it in her book as anthropornographic. It is an older white women on her back getting raped for all she’s worth by a huge ass white pig who has literally kicked everything aside for its own benefit.  For one in natural selection that happens, yes. But the mother wouldn’t just allow one pig to kill all her babies. in this case nobody is winning but the big fat gluttonous pig. The others being all the other parts that create a better community.  Is this supposed to be funny? I find the image grotesque and disturbing. This is stating that the white man is more deserving of the earth’s resources than anyone else. Another image that seriously is making fun and demoralize lower working class and the woman’s mother body.  Maybe even the sense of raping Mother Earth as well. This reminds me of Carols insight in “War of compassion” Many of the arguments that separate caring into deserving/undeserving or now/later or “first those like us”/”only then those unlike us,” constitute a politics of the dismissive. Being dismissive is inattention with an alibi. It asserts “this does not require my attention,” or “this offends my sensibility,” (i.e., “we are so different from animals how can you introduce them into the discussion?”). Genocide, itself, benefits from the politics of the dismissive.
When someone asks the questions on if animals matter, do you think it can be referenced alongside the “boys will be boys”? Now hear me out! You turn a blind eye to what you don’t want to really talk about or look at because it doesn’t affect you? When we say “we are different from animals” we are saying the same thing “boys will be boys” The dismissal of an advertisement that dismantles women into meat objects is stating that a women is basically dead  and things that are dead don’t feel.  So there for women and animals don’t matter. When men see an advertisement that endorses the eating of meat making the man manly. It says eat meat, be manly and take whatever you want because your a man. Add that message with a scantily dressed women and there is a deeper message being portrayed.  I’m easy and I can be taken. As described from Adams here. “First, let’s acknowledge that whenever whiteness appears, it is a choice. Earlier I referred to the whiteness of the feminized pigs in the ads. That is a deliberate choice. Black women are often depicted as “wild” animals who have to be captured. Meanwhile in advertisements (and t-shirts, wall paintings, billboards, etc.) for barbecues, pigs are often depicted not just as white women, but as “slutty” white women, i.e., white trash.”  

In Carol Adams slideshow she carefully chose Lady Gaga White Jewish Woman in a meat bikini. She is photoshopped in good shape and very attractive. She has a come fuck me face and is basically half dead.  Meaning the animal she is wearing as clothing is dead. I don’t get that at first. I’m too busy first trying to figure out if it’s really Lady Gaga and why she would do this ad. She has literally become the cow to eat.  Lisa Kemmerer says Adams holds no punches in her analysis of how these ads sugar-coat the flesh industries. “Anthropornography gives you a hooker on your plate. Nonhuman animals are whoring for you. Nonhumans want you, too. Suffering? Slaughtering? Inhumane acts? No. They want it” (p.111).  How about this view? The cow/woman is forever pregnant til death and the dead cow/woman the model is wearing has died to only serve one purpose. The purpose for future destruction of animals and our planet. Would this model have done this advertisement if she really knew? Could you imagine if you were a cow. Your last time being outside you see your best friend being worn by a human as your on your way to the slaughterhouse.  To think that my whole existence as a living creature is to serve the male white dominating population. Francis Bacon spoke of reversal role. We are all meat, we are potential carcasses’ said Bacon, ‘whenever I am at a butcher’s I always think it astonishing it’s not me hanging on the hook, must be pure chance’. As Deleuze explains, ‘meat is not dead flesh, it retains all the sufferings and assumes all the colours of living flesh. It manifests such convulsive pain and vulnerability […]. Meat is the common zone of man and beast, their zone of indiscernibility’.[iv]

With this last photo I’m truly shocked by what I’m seeing.  It’s another woman giving birth to a burger a man a white man is going to eat.  The exploitation of women/cows giving birth to just have their baby be ripped away and shipped off to be eaten.  Is this how we treat our children? Most likely if I’m asking that question it’s most likely true. This photo is just disputing to think I would seriously take the sacred most beautiful thing I can do as woman is create and a white man has me basically giving birth to something he eats.  I say and bring up white men because you don’t see these advertisements geared towards any other race but the white male race. This is were intersectionality of one specific race white male dominating homophobic rhetoric and oppressing women by calling them animals and making them sexual objects, people of color are merely animals to die.  I am going back to Adams question of change. How do we make those whose suffering doesn’t matter, matter?