Equalogy

Posts Tagged ‘Feminism’

The Feminist Peace Network put out a great post for Climate Change Blog Action Day on how climate change, specifically in the form of natural disasters, affects women.

In conjunction with the Climate Change Blog Action Day, I want to focus in  particular on the gendered impact of climate change.  Nowhere is this more obvious than after natural disasters, when women and children are particularly vulnerable, a point illustrated all too well in the post earlier this week on the horrific situation for pregnant women in refugee camps in the Philippines in the aftermath of Typhoon Parma.

Gendered harms are also a consideration in understanding why utilizing population control is not a solution to Global Warming.

In the Different Takes Climate Change Series Winter 2009 issue, Betsy Hartmann lists 10 reasons why the linkage of population control and global warming is problematic.  Note in  particular points 3 and 4 below regarding reproductive and gender  justice. She writes,

Climate change is clearly one of the most urgent problems of our time.  It is also a highly contested policy arena with different actors from all sides of the political spectrum struggling to get a piece of the action. The population control lobby is no exception.  Today, a number of mainstream population and environment groups are claiming that population growth is a major cause of climate change and that lower birth rates are the solution. This view threatens to undermine a progressive climate justice agenda that seeks both to curtail greenhouse gas emissions and to reduce economic, social, gender and racial inequalities. It also poses a danger to reproductive rights.

1. The numbers don’t add up. The industrialized countries, with only 20 percent of the world’s population, are responsible for 80 percent of the accumulated carbon dioxide build-up in the atmosphere. The U.S. is the worst offender.  In 2002 the U.S. was responsible for 20 tons of carbon dioxide emissions per person, compared to only 0.2 tons in Bangladesh, 0.3 in Kenya and 3.9 in Mexico.

2. Blame games target the wrong people.Wealthy countries, corporations and consumers are getting off the hook. The challenge of climate change presents an opportunity for affluent Americans to rethink their wasteful lifestyles and get on board with a transition to a just and green economy.  The problem is not ‘those people over there’ — it is us, right here.

3. Population control programs erode reproductive rights. Viewing family planning as a means to solve the climate crisis will set back progress on the delivery of safe, voluntary and ethical reproductive health services.  That’s because there’s a big difference between family planning programs designed primarily to reduce birth rates and those premised on reproductive rights as an end that is worthy in itself.

4. Population control is no substitute for gender justice.

5.  Linking population and the environment bolsters anti-immigrant agendas. By attributing environmental degradation to population growth, population and environment groups play into the hands of conservative anti- immigrant forces. In the greening of hate, anti- immigrant groups strategically deploy population arguments to gain support among environmentalists.

6.  Fear-based stereotypes of overpopulation contribute to the militarization of climate change.

7.  Population stereotypes victimize the displaced.

8. Population alarmism encourages apocalyptic thinking and distracts us from
the search for practical solutions to the climate crisis.

9. Shifting the blame for the climate crisis to the Global South prevents international solidarity.

10. Inserting population into the climate change debate divides the environmental movement at a time when we should be coming together. The implicit and explicit race, class and gender biases of population control are detrimental to building an inclusive movement for climate justice. This narrow worldview also blocks a deeper understanding of the economic and political forces that both drive climate change and prevent effective solutions.

In her conclusion, Hartmann writes,

Climate justice, not population control, is the starting point from which we can begin to build the kind of national and international solidarity that is needed to address climate change.  The world is waiting.  we are way behind, and there is no time to lose.

In framing this as an issue for which the solution is solidarity, not control, Hartmann crucially addresses the point that the human made causes of global warming and climate change are, at their root because of our attempts to control our physical world using a power over paradigm which inevitably means that those and that over which power is asserted become powerless.  In contrast, solidarity implies the utilization of power by connection which is a far more sustainable model for transformative change and empowerment.  Hartmann’s work exemplifies the kind of matridynamic paradigm shift that is an absolutely crucial requirement for responsibly addressing the issue of climate change.

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Addenda:  The latest issue of Sister Song’s Collective Voices is devoted to Environmental Justice and has several excellent pieces regarding reproductive justice, gender and climate change.  Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice also has a report, Looking Both Ways: Women’s Lives at the Crossroads of Reproductive Justice and Climate Justice which should be considered essential reading in understanding why the holistic linking of these issues is so crucial.

Please also see my post on Reclaiming Medusa, A Plea For The Planet.

The Feminist Majority is co-hosting the 2009 “Women, Money and Power” Summit which will include guest speakers such as Gloria Steinem, Dolores Huerta, Lorraine Cole, and Amy Brenneman.  The Summit will take place at the Washington Court Hotel on Oct. 4 and 5.  To register and check out the agenda in development, click here

What bravery!  The piece is too descriptive to paraphrase, so here are some highlights written by Anna Badkhen for Ms. Magazine.

On a bullet-scarred side street in Baghdad’s downtown, where U.S. Marines famously helped tear down the statue of Saddam Hussein in April of 2003, an inconspicuous entryway tucked between a steel-shuttered shop and a rickety candy stall leads to a flight of steep concrete stairs. Rusted water pipes run precariously over and across the poorly lit top step, tripping first-time visitors. The second-floor landing bottlenecks into a dark, empty hallway. Women in black abayas hurry across the buckled floor tiles in silence and quickly disappear through an unmarked plywood door on the right.The decrepit two-bedroom apartment behind this unassuming portal is an essential junction of what activists in Iraq and their U.S. supporters call the Underground Railroad. This Railroad is a small, clandestine network of several shelters, located mostly in Baghdad, for the countless but commonly overlooked victims of the war in Iraq: women who have been raped, battered or forced into prostitution, or women who, accused of bringing dishonor to their families by having been abused, have been rejected or even threatened with death by their relatives.

In a country ravaged by war and fractured along sectarian lines, these shelters serve women who have nowhere else to turn for help. Operated despite recurring threats and lack of government support by a team of 35 Iraqi activists who call themselves the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), the shelters offer a glint of hope for civil society.

The Underground Railroad was founded in 2004 by Baghdad-born architect-turned-feminist-organizer Yanar Mohammed, head of OWFI, along with MADRE, an international women’s rights group based in New York. It provides the only sanctuaries for victims of sexual abuse and domestic violence outside the quasi-autonomous Kurdistan region in northern Iraq, where the local government and NGOs operate several similar shelters. In addition to providing temporary asylum, it helps women resettle in places where their abusers cannot find them easily. Since its inception, says MADRE Policy and Communications Director Yifat Susskind, the Railroad has helped thousands of women. Several have been transferred to Turkey, at least two now live in the U.S., but most of the rescued women have remained in Iraq.

Read the rest here!

I’m sure libraries are great things.  They provide free internet, and the ability to borrow books, CDs, magazines, DVDs and a whole bunch of other thing you probably never knew you wanted to borrow.  I just have a tiny feminist bone to pick with my public library.

Because of the state of the economy, I decided to give up my book addiction.  Like many of you, I have a passion for owning books.  The more beat up and dog eared they are the more I love them.  I have books held together with duct tape and books where entire chunks are falling out.  My drug..er..bookstore of choice was Borders.  Go in, browse, get some tea, buy a few books with snazzy looking covers and leave satisfied.

The library isn’t nearly as fun.  Dewey Decimal System or not, I can never find anything.  And the books don’t read the same way when they are covered in thick industrial strength plastic that crinkles with every page turn.  But that’s not my problem.

It’s the Cosmo, Elle, and Teen Vogue magazines that line the shelves.  “Where is Bitch?” I ask.  Where is my Ms., Curve, Bust and Out?  Why aren’t teens and young adults at least given a choice of reading something that might heighten their self-esteem rather then cause them to go out and buy lip plumping gloss?

I’m also a big fan of all the books that Feministing covers in their weekly blog topic “Not Oprah’s Book Club” and maybe 1 out of every 10 books are available at the library.

I began thinking about this issue when a great college professor of mine decided to read fairy tales to his feminist epistemology class every week.  He read from a great book called Kissing the Witch, which transformed my take on classics like sleeping beauty and Cinderella forever.

Bitch Magazine also recently put together a great blog post suggestions books for the “anti-princess girl-feminists”.

It’s my experience at the library that makes me realize it’s not only the media that could use a feminist make over.  I don’t know how policies work at libraries and who does the magazine/book ordering but would it hurt to put feminism out there a bit more?  I realize I’m asking a lot since everyone from celebrities to evolutionary psychologists think feminism is” illogical, unnecessary and evil”.  While most people come into a feminist/pro-feminist identity during college, I think the need for it to “infect” younger generations is incredibly important.

What has your experience been with public libraries?  Do you live near a particularly feminist/LGBTQI friendly library? Let me know!

This is so discouraging.  I hate when celebs make all these statements about the double standards that men and women face and then proclaim that they are definitely NOT a feminist because they love men.  FEMINISTS ARE NOT MAN-HATERS.  get over the tired stereo-type already.

Here is the interview:

Basically, the interviewer asks her if she thinks people will be distracted by the sexual content in her music.  She goes on to say no, not at all and mentions all the records she has sold.

Lady Gaga: You see if I was a guy and I was sitting here with a cigarette in my mouth, grabbing my crotch and I was talking about how I make music because I like fast cars and fucking girls you would call me a rockstar.  But when I do it in my music and in my videos, because I’m a female, because I make pop music, you are judgmental, you say it’s distracting. I’m just a rockstar.

Are you a feminist?

I’m not a feminist. I HAIL men, I LOVE men. I celebrate American male culture and beer and bars and muscle cars but thats not what you asked me,  you asked me if my music was distracted by my sexuality and it’s not.

Right because feminists don’t have men in their lives that they love, or love beer or fast cars.  This is disappointing.

If you don’t know who Sarah Haskins is, well, your life is about to become a lot better.  She’s the creator of Target Women, the hilariously witty segment on Current TV’s InfoMania that breaks down the media through a feminist lens.

I was lucky enough to see her perform at the 2009 Women, Action and the media conference in Boston.  She’s smart, funny, and has a great take on all the media crap that’s thrown to women.  She also just sold a screen play called Book Smart that I hope makes it to the big screen.

Salon.com named her as their “girl crush” and demanded she get a job on The Daily Show and whenever a new Target Women airs, it’s immediately embedded on feminist blogs.

What I like most about Sarah is that she will openly call herself a feminist, and that’s rare today.  While her show doesn’t throw the word feminism around liberally, she’s not pretending that we’re in some kind of post-feminist world and reminds us every Thursday just why feminism IS still relevant.

If this isn’t enough to give you a girl crush also, I’ll leave you with two things:

My favorite answer to the question, are you a feminist?

Yes, I’m a feminist. It is an extension of my lifelong war against pantyhose.

To me it means that as women we are individuals before we are gendered people and that we’re not defined by our gender except in the ways we chose to appropriate that definition.

We’re in a weird generation, right? Our Moms were forced to grapple with that definition more immediately, and I think it’s changed as we’ve grown up. The core issue “how do I fight bias against me because of my gender” is still there but has gotten more complicated and wrapped into all kinds of identity issues about how you present yourself as a woman and I pretty much think it’s your choice and fuck pantyhose. So, hence my answer above.

I think all comedians bring their experience and perspective to comment on the world and I am a woman, so that gets involved. – via The Bastion

AND, my personal favorite Sarah Haskins clip – Target Women: Wedding Shows