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Environmental history books have mostly focused on men’s roles, and generally women’s involvement with nature has been ignored. Even historical texts have been deficient in writing about women participation in environmentalist actions. So, the result is that women’s role in environmental struggles and debates about nature has been hidden from history. However, in reviewing recent centuries’ environmental crises, we can see women of every social class, nation, or color had raised their concerns about the environment more noticeably and openly. According to Bella Abzug, one of the founders and regional co-chairs of U.S. based Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO), women by their increasingly nature-focused activities want to prove to the world that they can make a difference, and be a powerful force for positive changes in the environment and the world around them.[1]

Women’s attitude and the environment

The deep connection between women and men comes from the daily interaction between them[citation needed] . In recent decades, environmental movements have increased as the movements for women’s rights have also increased.[2] Today’s union of nature preservation with women’s rights and liberation has stemmed from invasion of their rights in the past.[3]

In developing areas of the world, women are considered the primary users of natural resources (Land, forest, and water), because they are the ones who are responsible for gathering food, fuel, and fodder.[1] Although in these countries, women mostly can’t own the land and farms outright, they are the ones who spend most of their time working on the farms to feed the household. Shouldering this responsibility leads them to learn more about soil, plants, and trees and not misuse them. Although, technological inputs increase male involvement with land, many of them leave the farm to go to cities to find jobs; so women become increasingly responsible for an increasing portion of farm tasks.[4] These rural women tend to have a closer relationship with land and other natural resources, which promotes a new culture of respectful use and preservation of natural resources and the environment, ensuring that the following generations can meet their needs.[5] Besides considering how to achieve appropriate agricultural production and human nutrition, women want to secure access to the land.[4] Women’s perspectives and values for the environment are somewhat different than men’s. Women give greater priority to protection of and improving the capacity of nature, maintaining farming lands, and caring for nature and environment’s future.[6] Repeated studies have shown that women have a stake in environment, and this stake is reflected in the degree to which they care about natural resources. Ecofeminism refers to women's and feminist perspectives on the environment - where the domination and exploitation of women, of poorly resourced peoples and of nature is at the heart of the ecofeminist movement.

Environmental change and women

Today, women struggle against alarming global trends, but they are working together to effect change. By establishing domestic and international non-governmental organizations, many women have recognized themselves and acknowledge to the world that they not only have the right to participate in environmental dilemmas but they have different relationship with environment including different needs, responsibilities, and knowledge about natural resources.[4] This is why women are affected differently than men by environmental degradation, deforestation, pollution and overpopulation. Women are often the most directly affected by environmental issues, so they become more concerned about environmental problems. Studies have shown the direct effects of chemicals and pesticides on human health.[5] According to United Nations Chronicle journal researchers have found an association between breast cancer and the pesticide DDT and its derivative DDE; and also one study by the World Health Organization has found that women who are exposed to pesticides face a higher risk of abortion.[5] These kinds of health problems cause women to feel more responsible regarding environmental issues.

Gender and perception of the environment

Given the environmental degradation caused while men have had dominance over women, and women’s large investment in environmental sustainability, some have theorized that women would protect the Earth better than men if in power. Although there is no evidence for this hypothesis, recent movements have shown that women are more sensitive to the earth and its problems. They have created a special value system about environmental issues. People's approaches to environmental issues may depend on their relationship with nature. Both women and nature have been considered as subordinates entities by men throughout history, which conveys a close affiliation between them.[7]

Throughout history men have looked at natural resources as commercial entities or income generating tools, while women have tended to see the environment as a resource supporting their basic needs.[citation needed] As an example, rural Indian women collect the dead branches which are cut by storm for fuel wood to use rather than cutting the live trees.[8] Since African, Asian, and Latin American women use the land to produce food for their family, they acquire the knowledge of the land/soil conditions, water, and other environmental features.[1] Any changes in the environment on these areas, like deforestation, have the most effect on women of that area, and cause them to suffer until they can cope with these changes. One of the good examples would be the Nepali women whose grandmothers had to climb to the mountain to be able to bring in wood and fodder.Cite error: The <ref> tag has too many names (see the help page). This conflict started because men wanted to cut the trees to use them for industrial purposes while women wanted to keep them since it was their food resource and deforestation was a survival matter for local people.[9]

Gender-based commitments and movements such as feminism have reached to a new approach through the combination of feminism and environmentalism called Ecofeminism. Ecofeminists believe on the interconnection between the domination of women and nature. According to ecofeminism the superior power treats all subordinates the same. So, ecofeminism takes into account women subordination and nature degradation.[2] Remarking all these different reactions, one can see that however, most policy decision makers are men.

Women environmentalists

China

Mei Ng

Mei Ng was born in Hong Kong, China and she received her B.A. in Anthropology from the University of California Berkely in 1972 and has worked diligently to promote environmental awareness throughout China. Her message of sustainability and eco-friendliness has reached nearly 860,000 people in 15 provinces. Mei Ng is an advocate of responsible consumption, renewable energy utilization, and sustainable development through the women and youth of China. [10]She previously held the position of Director for Friends of the Earth (HK) in Hong Kong, an environmental organization which seeks to encourage environmental protection in China.[11] In 2001 she was appointed to the Advisory Council on the Environment and in 2002 Mei Ng was elected to the United Nations Global 500 Roll of Honor on World Environment Day. Also in 2002 she was appointed by the Chinese State Environmental Protection Agency as China Environment Envoy. In 2003 the Hong Kong SAR Government awarded her with the Bronze Bauhinia Star and in 2004 she was appointed to become a member of the Harbour Enhancement Committee. Mei Ng strives to mobilize women to defend the environment and to bring environmental education to all parts of China. [12] She founded the Earth Station, Hong Kong's first renewable energy education center and has been well-received by policy makers and citizens alike.[13]

India

Vandana Shiva

An influential leader in developing nation environmentalism is Vandana Shiva, born on November 5th, 1952 in India. Vandana Shiva has a B.S. in Physics, a M.A. in philosophy from the University of Guelph (Ontario, Canada) and received her Ph.D. from the University of Western Ontario in Quantum Theory Physics.[14] Vandana Shiva is a world-renown environmental scholar and activist and she has made great strides for women in India as well as around the world.[15] As an physicist-environmentalist adhering to ecofeminism, Vandana Shiva has published numerous papers on the unequal burden placed on women by environmental degradation, stating that women and children "bore the costs but were excluded from the benefits"[16]of development. Vandana Shiva is also an active voice for localized, organic agriculture and she began a movement entitled Navdanya where participating Indian farmers have created 'freedom zones' to keep their crops free of chemicals to revitalize an organic food market in India. [17] She has received many honorary degrees awards. In 1993 she received the Alternative Nobel Peace Prize, also known as the Right Livelihood Award. In 2010 Sydney Peace Prize and in 2011 she received the Calgary Peace Prize. In addition, Vandana Shiva was named "one of the 7 most influential women in the world." by Forbes.[15]

Kenya

Wangari Muta Maathai

In 1940 Wangari Maathai was born in Nyeri, Kenya. She attended Mount St. Scholastica College in Kansas and received her degree in biological sciences in 1964.[18] This was apart of the 1960 'Kennedy Airlift' which brought 300 Kenyans (including Barack Obama's father Barack Obama, Sr.) to the United States to study at American universities.[19] She then obtained her M.S. from University of Pittsburgh in 1966 and her Ph.D. from the University of Nairobi. She was the first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctorate degree.[18] Wangari Maathai was a relentless advocate for human rights, preaching the necessity for democracy. Her passion for environmental conservation lead her to found the Greenbelt Movement in 1977. Wangari Maathai's personal life was turbulent with divorce and jailings, as well as constant confrontations with the Kenyan government. Her push to protect national land from development made her less than favorable to Kenyan president Daniel arap Moi, who served from 1978-2002. In 2004, Wangari Maathai received the Nobel Peace Price making her the first African woman to win, a prideful moment for the people of Kenya.[20] On September 25, 2011 Wangari Maathai died of ovarian cancer. BBC World News noted this as a 'Death of Visionary'. [21]

Russia

Maria Cherkasova

Maria Cherkasova (1938 - ) is a journalist, ecologist, and director of Centre for Independent Ecological Programmers (CIEP). She is famous because of coordinating a 4-year campaign to stop construction of hydro-electric dam on the Katun River. After Cherkasova's involvement in the student movement on environmental protection in 1960’s, she began to work for the Red Data Book for the Department of Environmental Protection Institute. She researched and preserved rare species until she became the editor of USSR Red Data Book. She co-founded the Socio-Ecological Union, which has become the largest ecological NGO in the former Soviet Union. In 1990, she became director of CIEP, which arrange and drives activities in an extensive range of ecologically related areas on both domestic and international fronts. Cherkasova recently has shifted her focus on children rights protection to live in a healthy environment and speaks for both inside and outside Russia.[9]

United States

Rachel Carson

One of the outstanding women environmentalists is Rachel Carson. Rachel Carson (1907–1964) was a scientist, writer, and ecologist. Rachel Carson went to the Pennsylvania College for Women, majoring in English, but she was inspired by her biology teacher so she switched her major to biology. She became more interested and focused on the sea while she was working at the Marine Biological Laboratories in Massachusetts. Her eloquent prose let to the publication of her first book, Under the Sea-Wind: a Naturalists’ Picture of Ocean Life , in 1941. In 1949 she became chief editor of the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). Her second book, The Sea Around Us, won the National Book Award and sold more than 200,000 copies. After that she retired from FWS and became a full time writer. After her third and final book about the sea, The Edge of the Sea, Carson focused on effects of chemicals and pesticides on the environment. That is when she wrote her book about environment, Silent Spring. The book was about what man has done to the nature and eventually to himself, and started a modern environmental movement. Carson believed that human and nature are mutually dependent on each other. She argued that industrial activities such as pesticides use can damages the earth ecosystem and will have far-reaching ecological consequences such as future human health problems. Today, scientific studies have demonstrated these consequences.[9]

Ecological movements initiated by women

Chipko movement

One of the first environmentalist movement which was inspired by women was the Chipko movement (Women tree-huggers in India). "Its name comes from a Hindi word meaning “to stick” (as in glue). The movement was an act of defiance against the state government’s permission given to a corporation for commercial logging. Women of the villages resisted, embracing trees to prevent their felling to safeguard their lifestyles which were dependent on the forests. Deforestation could qualitatively alter the lives of all village residents but it was the women who agitated for saving [End Page 163] the forests. Organized by a non-governmental organization that Chandi Prasad Bhatt led, the Chipko movement adopted the slogan “ecology is permanent economy.” The women embracing the trees did not tag their action as feminist activism; however, as a movement that demonstrated resistance against oppression, it had all the markings of such.".[22]

It began when Maharajah of Jodhpur wanted to build a new palace in Rajasthan which is India’s Himalayan foot hills. While the axemen were cutting the trees, martyr Amrita Devi hugged one of the trees. This is because in Jodhpur each child had a tree that could talk to it. The axmen ignored Devi and after taking her off the tree cut it down. Her daughters environmentalists like Chandi Prasad Bhatt and Sunderlal Bahuguna

Green Belt movement

Another movement, which is one of the biggest in women and environmental history, is the Green Belt movement. Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai founded this movement on the World Environment Day in June 1977. The starting ceremony was very simple: a few women planted seven trees in Maathai’s backyard. By 2005, 30 million trees had been planted by participants in the Green Belt movement on public and private lands. The Green Belt movement aims to bring environmental restoration along with society’s economic growth. This movement led by Maathai focused on restoration of Kenya’s rapidly diminishing forests as well as empowering the rural women through environmental preservation, with a special emphasis on planting indigenous trees.[23]

Navdanya also known as the 'Nine Seeds Movement' seeks to empower local Indian farmers to move away from growing any genetically modified organism (GMOs) on their land and return to organic, chemical-free practices. This movement has reached over 5,000,000 Indian farmers and created over 65 seed banks around India.[24] Navdanya fights to eliminate the commercialization of indigenous knowledge also known as 'Biopiracy'.[25] Navdanya addresses multiple other international issues including climate change, food security, misapplication of technology, food sovereignty, fair trade, and many others.[24] This movement also created a learning center entitled Bija Vidyapeeth. Bija Vidyapeeth, in collaboration with Schumacher College in the United Kingdom, seeks to educate participants in sustainability and ecological principles.[26]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c Abzug, Bella. (1995). Women and the Environment. International Authors Series. New York: The Department of Public Information.
  2. ^ a b Mellor, Mary.(1997). Feminism & Ecology. New York: New York University Press.
  3. ^ Merchant, Carolyn. (1996). Earthcare: Women and environment. New York: Routledge.
  4. ^ a b c Jiggins, Janice. (1994). Changing the Boundaries: Women-Centered Perspectives on population and the Environment. New York: Island Press.
  5. ^ a b c From Silent Spring to vocal vanguard.(1997, January). United Nations Chronicle, 34(3), 35-38. Retrieved December 13, 2006, from ProQuest database.
  6. ^ Jiggins, Janice. (1994). Changing the Boundaries: Women-Centered Perspectives on population and the Environment. New York: Island Press.
  7. ^ Wenz, Peter S. (2001). Environmental Ethics Today. New York: Oxford University Press.
  8. ^ Rodda, Annabel. (1991). Women and the Environment. New Jersey: Zed Books Ltd.
  9. ^ a b c Cite error: The named reference Breton, Mary J. 1998 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  10. ^ Equalogy.com. February 9, 2010. Accessed March 1, 2012. http://equalogy.com/tag/sustainable-consumption.
  11. ^ Friends of the Earth (Hong Kong). Accessed March 1, 2012. http://www.foe.org.hk/welcome/geten.asp
  12. ^ United Nations Environmental Program. Global 500 Environmental Forum. 2011. Accessed March 2, 2012. http://www.global500.org/Roll-of-Honour-/-Laureate-Database/Mei-Ng.html.
  13. ^ Friends of the Earth (Hong Kong). Accessed March 1, 2012. http://www.foe.org.hk/welcome/geten.asp?id_path=1,%2011,%20479,%20508,%20538.
  14. ^ Hoskins, Leigh Ann. Davidson College. Accessed March 5, 2012. http://www.bio.davidson.edu/people/kabernd/seminar/2004/GMbios/LH.html#bibliography
  15. ^ a b Vandana Shiva. Accessed March 5, 2012. http://www.southendpress.org/authors/17
  16. ^ Shiva, Vandana. The Impoverishment of the Environment: Women and Children Last. Environmental Philosophy: From Animal Rights to Radical Ecology (Fourth Edition). 2005. Pearson Education Inc. Upper Saddle River, NJ.
  17. ^ United Nations Environment Program. Accessed March 5, 2012. http://www.unep.org/women_env/w_details.asp?w_id=107
  18. ^ a b Nobel Peace Prize Forum. Accessed March 2, 2012. http://www.unep.org/women_env/w_details.asp?w_id=107
  19. ^ The Guardian. "Wangari Maathai obituary". September 26, 2011. Accessed March 2, 2012. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/26/wangari-maathai
  20. ^ The New York Times. "Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Dies at 71." September 26, 2011. Accessed March 2, 2012. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/27/world/africa/wangari-maathai-nobel-peace-prize-laureate-dies-at-71.html?pagewanted=all
  21. ^ BBC World News. "Wangari Maathai: Death of a Visionary". September 26, 2011. Accessed March 2, 2012. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15060167
  22. ^ Grewal, Jyoti. "Theorizing Activism, Activizing Theory: Feminist Academics in Indian Punjabi Society." NWSA Journal.Volume 20, Number 1, Spring 2008 [1]
  23. ^ Green Belt Movement. (2006). Retrieved November 15, 2006 from http://www.wangarimaathai.or.ke/
  24. ^ a b Navdanya. Accessed March 5, 2012. http://www.navdanya.org/home
  25. ^ Yamey, Gavin. "The Bittersweet Sounds of the Modern Food Chain." Plos Biology. February 2006. Vol.4, Issue 2, pp. 0165-0166. Accessed March 5, 2012. http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.0040047
  26. ^ Navdanya. Accessed March 2, 2012. http://www.navdanya.org/earth-university
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