Women in the global South are affected by environmental degradation in a variety of ways. Women in the Global South are disproportionately affected by not having access to clean water. Without clean water women in low-income countries face sanitization and hygiene issues that complicate menstruation, pregnancy and childrearing. Having clean water is important and directly affects women in these areas. Further affecting women is the fact that women are responsible for collecting clean water for their household. This is time consuming and can have related consequences such as missed time for education and vulnerability for abuse and attack to use a toilet. Eco feminist are striving to alter this sense of reality and say, “Embedding gender equity into policy at all levels will be crucial to achieving water and sanitation for all” (https://www.unwater.org/water-facts/gender/).
https://images.app.goo.gl/31mqCRHzwh12CgYv7
In addition to the shortage of clean water women in the Global South are affected by exploitation of resources and the manipulation from the Global North that control those resources and ultimately make farmers dependent on them for agricultural necessities. Also many women of the Global South are dependent on the land for food, water and shelter therefore ecological destruction is a type of oppression as a result of economic greed. Vandana Shiva is a physicist and activist who has made groundbreaking progress on some of the issues that affect women-nature connections and puts it this way, “…people who are dependent on natural resources, on biodiversity, on the land, the forests, the water. Nature is their means of production” (Shiva). Bina Agarwal, also an eco feminist asserts that gender-class effects of environmental degradation are caused by a shift of natural resources to patriarchal systems like the state. Because women (and men) rely so heavily on the environment for healthy nourishment, clothing, shelter and fuel, the degradation of the environment is a direct patriarchal assault on women and the ecosystem.
In contrast to eco feminist like Hobgood-Oster and Warren who have more of a focus on dualistic hierarchies and historical and cultural factors such as Warren’s women-nature connection of “Symbolic Connections” Agarwal seems to focus on environmental degradation and its subsequent effects on women. Both seem to tie in the patriarchal entities that govern the oppression of both women and environment. Further she focuses on problems with the distribution of property, power, and knowledge, how that relates to the environment and eventually how it affects gender. For example, she mentions several terms in relation to resource management in India:
- Forms of Environmental Degradation
- The Process of Statization
- Process of Privatization
- The Erosion of Community Resource Management Systems
- Population Growth
- Choices of Agricultural Technology and Erosion of Local Knowledge Systems
These terms identify Patriarchal systems in which resources are either stolen or damaged and she notes that poor households and women are harmfully more affected. I enjoyed Agarwal’s perspective because of the diversity of her focus. Her Global South perspective is refreshing and should make us mindful that eco feminism just like feminism is intersectional and must be viewed in every context. Not just from our own geographic location but awareness of other countries and cultures can help us better understand the actions and changes that eco feminist can use to eradicate patriarchal structures that support the oppression of women and nature.
Hello Holly,
I’m so happy that you decided to focus this week’s blog on women of the global south. I wrote a paper last semester on this topic. The women in Latin America for example are so poorly treated. It’s unbelievable how they are used like slaves by corporations. These large (some American) companies pay them next to nothing for slave labor, in unsafe and unsanitary working conditions. It broke my heart to learn that these women are abused in such ways. Most of them factory workers, making products that they themselves can not afford to buy because they don’t make enough money.
I agree completely when you say that feminism if intersectional and that women of all races and social classes should become aware of how other women in rural and poor areas of the world are treated. We all just go about our daily lives with little thought at the suffering that women around the globe face on a daily basis. Your blog really brought into focus some key issues about women and the global south. Especially in regard to a basic human need such as clean fresh water.
Great job in condensing the information, Holly. I seem to struggle with simplifying concepts and your writing is concise and to the point. You and I agree that an intersectional feminist analysis to ecological demise and women in India is essential to combat and reverse the effects of a Westernized, consumerist, patriarchal approach. The fact that Dr Vandana Shiva works with women to collect seed biodiversity before they are completely eliminated by the states monoculture policy is a huge step forward. Or should I say, a step back to where India used to be.
Is it easier, being an outsider, to see how destructive statization and privatization are in the third world? Where villagers were once free to grow and acquire materials, foodstuff and water for their families and create a cooperative community environment, taking only what was essential, their lives have now become an all-consuming search for those necessities. This inevitably leads to more poverty. Is it predominantly women who have taken up the banner of resistance to the state and private companies? As Bina Agarwal writes, “…I will argue that women, especially those in poor rural households in India, on the one hand, are victims of environmental degradation in quite gender-specific ways. On the other hand, they have been active agents in movements of environmental protection and regeneration, often bringing to them a gender- specific perspective and one which needs to inform our view of alternatives” (p119). Yet, until men join with women to stop and reverse these environmental disasters, will it be successful? Men, after all, have been the instigators of these policies, even if it is the few over the many.
The idea that clean water, as you stated, has become a rare commodity should be enough to stop the pesticide, fertilizer, chemical use. Children have less time for school, women have less time for family and community when water is scarce. And diseases are out of control. The facts below should astound us all:
• Women and children in many communities spend up to 60 percent of each day walking to collect water.
• 4,500 children die every day from preventable diseases related to a lack of access to clean water, adequate sanitation and hygiene.
• Without access to a latrine, many girls stop going to school once they reach puberty.
• In Africa, more than a quarter of the population spends more than 30 minutes, sometimes up to 6 hours, walking 3.75 miles just to collect enough water for the day.
• Over 80% of the disease in developing countries is related to poor drinking water and sanitation.
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(https://www.h2oforlifeschools.org/page/water-crisis?gclid=CjwKCAiA1fnxBRBBEiwAVUouUuGizsnMow0AsGyCTmcsOKGZeR7VQakGcJ96SyNkW2PuBqmwFTpTsxoCpksQAvD_BwE)
It is time for the poor, the neglected, the ignored to be given a voice in their future. It is clear that what is in place is not working for the people. Just as an injustice (yin) rears up, there is always the opposition (yang) to that injustice. What is needed is for enough voices, joined together in unison to become environmental feminists and change the status quo.
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