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Relationship Between Nature And Women

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In the previous post we learned about The concept of sustainable development . In this post, the interaction between nature and women is discussed. There are also several ideas listed about feminism and the environment.

Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Ideology of ecofeminism
  3. An alternative framework – Feminist Environmentalism.
  4. Women and natural resources 
  5. Summary

Introduction

In numerous environmental studies, the topic of women and the environment has been extensively studied. The investigations concentrated on the distinctions between the relationships that men and women have with the environment. Diverse perspectives are presented on this topic in ecofeminist literature. While the material foundation of this connection is highlighted in other parts of the world, especially India, it is discussed ideologically in the West, particularly in the United States (Agarwal, 2003). Interventions for sustainable development acknowledge the unique role played by women in the utilisation of natural resources.

Ideology of ecofeminism

The following reasons are presented by the ideological position of ecofeminism, according to an analysis by Agarwal (2003).
  1. There are significant parallels between the domination and oppression of women and the domination and exploitation of nature. 
  2. In patriarchal thinking, women are identified as being closer to nature and men, as being closer to culture. Nature is regarded as inferior to culture; hence, women are considered to be inferior to men. 
  3. Because the domination of women and nature have occurred simultaneously, women have a particular stake in ending the domination of nature and "in healing the alienated human and non-human nature”. 
  4. The feminist movement and the environmental movement both support egalitarian, non-hierarchical systems. They have much in common and need to work together to evolve a common perspective, theory, and practice to create a more just and fair society.
The ecofeminism ideology urges both men and women to rethink themselves and their connections to one another and the nonhuman environment in non-hierarchical ways because women and nature are, by patriarchal tradition, positioned hierarchically below men.

The notion that women are perceived as being more in tune with nature than males was first introduced into modern feminist discourse by Sherry Ortner in 1972. The most broad definition of "nature" is what she claimed "woman is being identified with-or, looks to be a symbol of something that every civilization devalues." The relationship between women and nature was explicitly anchored in the biological processes of reproduction in Ortner's early writings. One notable resemblance between women and nature, which also creates life, was the ability of women to procreate—bear children. Ariel Kay Salleh's approach, which grounds even women's awareness in biology and nature, is an extreme example of this viewpoint. Women's monthly cycle of fertility, the taxing symbiosis of pregnancy, the agony of childbirth, and the joy of nursing an infant, according to her, already firmly establish women's awareness in the understanding of being coterminous with nature. (1984, Salleh).

Ortner's viewpoint has evolved since that time. The reason for this is due to criticism, especially from social anthropologists who noted that the nature-culture barrier is not always present. Views of men, women, nature, and life itself vary throughout civilizations. Therefore, it is incorrect to try and force a single belief on everyone. Like Carolyn Merchant, many others contend that the nature-culture dichotomy is untrue. However, they also acknowledge that due of their biology, women are conceptualised as being closer to nature.

Merchant demonstrated that the conceptual association between women and nature in premodern Europe based on two opposing pictures that coexisted in people's thoughts at the same time. The initial illustration portrayed nature, and particularly Earth, as the protective mother. This perception prompted the deification of nature as well as its preservation and protection. The second, opposing picture, however, was of nature as being untamed and unpredictable, capable of causing violence, storms, droughts, and overall disorder. Those who shared this perception believed that humanity must control and dominate nature in order to transform the wild into civilised forms. To prevent river floods, bunds and barriers had to be built, and a forest had to be transformed into a carefully planned garden. This second depiction of untamed nature symbolised culturally sanctioned human control and dominion of the environment.

With the advent of machinery between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the western perspective changed to a mechanistic one in which nature was once more perceived as something that humans could master and control with the aid of technology.

Thus, the discussion of these pictures in ecofeminist discourse emphasises
  • Some key conceptual connections between how women are constructed symbolically in relation to nature and how we can interact with them
  • The same principles and objectives of the environmental movement and the women's movement; and
  • A different outlook on the future that is more equal and peaceful.
The ecofeminist argument is flawed, according to Bina Agarwal, since it fails to distinguish amongst women according to class, race, and ethnicity. Other types of dominance outside gender are ignored. In India, caste has a significant role in dominance. Second, it nearly entirely attributes the dominance of nature and women to ideology. The physical causes of this dominance—where the use of resources is motivated by political and economic power—are disregarded. In India, it is typical to see that women from higher castes have greater access to land, water, and other natural resources than do men and women from lower castes. Thus, it is impossible to consider all women as belonging to one large caste.

The ideological perspective says very little about the social, economic, and political systems that produce and change these conceptions of nature-women. The ecofeminist argument ignores women's material connection to nature, which results from their routine use of natural resources, and is solely based on ideology. The main argument against ecofeminism, which links women's relationships with nature to biology, is that it adheres to an essentialist view that says there is something about women that is inherently different from males and cannot be changed or reduced. The majority of academics today do not agree with such a dichotomy.

The ecofeminist discussion emphasises the crucial role that ideological frameworks have in determining power dynamics between genders and how humans interact with the nonhuman world, but more has to be done to question these assumptions. Examining the underlying causes of women's interactions with the nonhuman world at levels other than ideology is crucial (such as through the work women and men do and the gender division of property and power). Equally important is addressing how women of various social classes (or castes or races) may respond differently to environmental deterioration depending on the material reality in which they are anchored.

The prospect of environmental destruction has prompted women in the West to take specific actions, such as forming the Greenham Commons nuclear missile resistance in England and taking part in the Green movement across Europe and the US. As with the Chipko movement, eastern women have banded together to protect the natural resources that are the foundation of their nourishment and way of life.

The research on India by Vandana Shiva presents a different case. According to her, aggression toward both nature and women is ingrained in the very way that both are perceived. She contends that the dominant industrial/developmental model, which she sees as a colonial imposition, is fundamentally violent toward nature. According to Shiva, the adoption of this developmental model was accompanied by a radical conceptual departure from the conventional Indian cosmological view of (animate and in-animate) nature as Prakriti, as "activity and diversity," and as "an expression of Shakti, the feminine and creative principle of the cosmos," which "in conjunction with the masculine principle (Purusha).. creates the world."

In this shift, the idea of man as separate from and dominant over inert, passive nature took the role of the caring bond between man and nature as earth mother."

When viewed through the eyes of nature, or women who are a part of nature, the change was oppressive and brutal.

The passing of Prakriti marked the beginning of women's marginalisation, devaluation, displacement, and eventual disposability. The demise of the feminine essence is the fundamental cause of the ecological disaster."

According to Vandana Shiva, there is a tangible as well as an intellectual connection between violence against women and violence against the environment. For instance, women in the Third World rely on nature to provide for themselves, their children, and their civilizations. Therefore, destroying nature also means destroying women's supplies of "staying alive."

In order to safeguard and regenerate the forests in the Garhwal Hills of northwest India, Shiva drew on her experience working with female activists in the Chipko movement. She has therefore suggested that "Third World women" have a unique dependence on and understanding of nature. She claims that the influence of modern science has resulted in the systematic marginalisation of this knowledge. "Modern reductionist science, like development, turns out to be a patriarchal project, which has excluded women as experts and has simultaneously excluded ecology and holistic ways of knowing that understand and respect nature's processes and interconnectedness as science," she says. Shiva goes further than Western ecofeminists in examining the relationships between developmental processes, methods of thinking about development, and their effects on the environment and the people who depend on it for their way of life. These connections are quite important.

Her claim contains three major analytical flaws. 2003 (Agarwal).

Shiva lumps all women from the Third World into one group when she talks about them in general. She does make a distinction between Third World women and other women, like ecofeminists do, but she doesn't make a distinction between women of different classes, castes, races, ecological zones, and so on. In a country like India, the differences between women are important. Women in Northeast India have a very different role and status in society than women in Northern or Western India. The place and role of women in society are affected by many things. Even though it is clear that the relationship between nature and women is different, Shiva's writing doesn't explain why. Women do understand nature in a unique way, but how do they learn this? Shiva doesn't say how ideas about gender and nature have changed in India in terms of concrete institutions and processes. Shiva has also not written clearly about how different ideas can live together in a country like India, which has many different ethnic groups and religions. In fact, her focus on the feminine principle as the main idea in Indian philosophical discourse only applies to the Hindu discourse and can't be seen as being true for all Indians, whether they are Muslims, Christians, or have different tribal beliefs. Hinduism has many different ways of thinking that came about at different times over the last 3000 years. They have changed over time and space, and there are several different ways of talking about them that have different effects on men and women. In Shiva's writings, it's not clear how or when the idea of the feminine principle changed the way men and women related to each other or how people related to nature.

Vandana Shiva says that the history of colonialism in the Third World and the imposition of Western science and a Western model of development are mostly to blame for the destruction of nature and the real and symbolic oppression of women. There is no doubt that the effects of colonialism and modern development in Third World countries have been negative and harmful on the economy, institutions, and culture. But the colonisation process added to the economic and social differences that were already there. So, it's important to tell the difference between the model of modernization that many Third World countries (with or without a history of colonisation) have taken from the West and the socioeconomic base on which this model was imposed. Before the British came, India was very stratified by class and caste, especially during the Mughal era, but this was different in different parts of the country. Since the Middle Ages, different classes and social groups have had different ways of getting to and using natural resources. Less research has been done on how natural resources were used before colonisation from a political and economic point of view. But there is enough proof that peasant communities were very different back then. So, it's not right to make broad statements about the effects of colonial rule based on history. To wrap up this argument, Shiva hasn't put enough emphasis on the very real local forces of power, privilege, and property relations that were there before colonialism. She has put almost all of the "problem" in the Third World's experience with colonialism. What we see in India today is a complicated mix of the effects of colonial and precolonial times. These things have shaped the way people think and act about development, using resources, and social change today.

An alternative framework – Feminist Environmentalism

Bina Agrawal thinks that women's and men's relationships with nature need to be understood in terms of how they interact with the environment in the real world. So, if there is a division of labour and distribution of property and power based on gender and class (or caste/race), then gender and class (or caste/race) structure how people interact with nature and, by extension, how environmental change affects people and how they react to it. And since most of what we know about nature comes from our own experiences, the divisions of labour, property, and power that shape those experiences also shape the knowledge that comes from them.

For example, poor peasant and tribal women were usually in charge of getting fuel and food for the animals. In hill and tribal communities, they were also often the main people who grew crops. Degradation of the environment is likely to hurt them in quite specific ways because of this.

In the course of their daily interactions with nature, they learn a lot about species, varieties, and how nature heals itself. At least in rural areas, most women often pick vegetables and fruits from the wild. They know a lot about plants that can be used to treat common illnesses. In most places, women are in charge of gathering and taking care of good seeds. They decide what to plant in home gardens and small farms. These daily interactions require close contact with nature and build up knowledge that is passed on from women to women, like their mothers, mother-in-laws, or other women in the community. A simple recipe for making pickles, which tells how to store food in a certain way, is passed down from mother to daughter and is shared between women of the same caste and class. The same is true for making "masals," spices, and so on.

This shows that the effects of women on the environment and the environment on women are different from those of men in the same class. So, women will react and resist environmental degradation differently than men. Because women visit forests, grasslands, and bodies of water as part of their daily lives, they have a unique perspective on how the environment heals itself. The ideas of women can help come up with new ways to work on development.

Women who live in cities and don't use their knowledge of natural resources as much for their daily lives and don't have as much contact with the natural environment are likely to lose this knowledge over time. They won't give it to anyone else. So, the link between women and the environment can be set up by how production, reproduction, and distribution are set up by gender and class (or caste/race). Some of this structure may come from ideological constructions, but not all of it. Feminist environmentalism is the name for this point of view. From an action point of view, this kind of view would lead to fights over both resources and meanings. It would put women in conflict with the dominant groups who have the property, power, and privilege to control resources. On the other hand, it also causes problems with groups that control how people think about women through educational, media, religious, and legal institutions. An ad or movie that shows a "wild woman" who needs a man to control her is out of date and rude. Feminists need to have a better understanding of how men and women actually divide up work and natural resources. Environmentalists need to understand the relationship between people and nature, as well as how a few powerful people—the rich, the upper castes, regardless of gender—take advantage of nature's resources.

Women and natural resources

N. S. Jodha's work in the semi-arid parts of India has shown very clearly that the loss of common property resources like forests and grasslands hurts the rural poor much more than it hurts the relatively wealthy households in the same area. The effect is felt most by poor rural women who find it hard to get enough firewood every day or who can't get enough water for their families if the common water sources are lost or taken by other people. Girls in rural India often stop going to school so they can help carry the load of getting water from shared sources. When there is a drought, the girls have to skip school to help find water. So, the loss or degradation of natural resources hurts rural women the most because they are the ones who are most responsible for getting them, and the poorest women among them suffer the most.

In coastal areas, it was mostly fisherwomen who cleaned and sold the fish. But as commercial fishing grows, machines take over, and markets change, their role is becoming less important. This causes less respect in the community and the loss of a way to make a living, which is very different for men and women.

India's Green Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s was marked by better seeds, a lot of use of farm technology, better irrigation, and chemical fertilisers. Its main goal was to increase crop yields and make sure there was enough food for everyone. But its benefits did not lead to more food security or better economic opportunities and well-being for people at the bottom of the social ladder, especially rural poor and farm women (Bharadwaj, Satyavathi, Brahmanand, & Verma, 1999).

About 74% of the women who work in India do jobs in agriculture. But what women do and how much they do it in agriculture is very different from one region to the next. Also, male farm workers have a lot of time off during the off-season, but farm women still have to work during these times.

The Green Revolution has made it more important for rural families to have cash incomes to pay for the costs of new technology. This has forced women to work as farm labourers. It also increased the need for unpaid female labour in farming, adding to the already heavy work load of women, and mechanisation has taken away women's chances to make money. In Asia, for example, mechanisation packages put in place as part of irrigation plans changed the way farm work was organised, often replacing women with men (Sathyavathi et al. 2010).

In her 1986 report for the World Bank, "Gender-related Impacts and the Work of the International Agricultural Research Centres," Janice Jiggins suggests that women farmers be included in agricultural research and that their knowledge about indigenous varieties, different ways to use them, and processing techniques be recorded and used in research. Farm women need to be made more aware of their physical abilities to work, how to use anthropometric information, their religious and social beliefs, their socioeconomic status, their participation rate, the amount of hard work they do, how their jobs overlap, and the health risks they face on the job.

In the past few years, many agencies have noticed the link between women and the way natural resources are managed. The United Nations Development Programme, which worked to build peace in war-torn countries, especially in Africa, said, "In practise, women use and manage most of the resources in peace-building situations, but this responsibility rarely translates to the political or economic levels." This has to be different" (Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director). Peace and development can only happen when both men and women have equal and long-term access to and benefits from natural resources. The UNDP report urges governments and the international community to invest in women's political and economic participation in natural resource management and to end the long-standing discrimination women face when trying to access, own, and use important natural resources in a sustainable and productive way.

Summary

In this post, we looked at some of the most important ideas about the relationship between nature and woman. Ecofeminism, feminist environmentalism, and the ideas and actions behind them have been talked about. If we look around, we can find many examples that show how most people think about these relationships.

Bibliography

  • The United National Conference on Population & Development, Sept. 1994. World Resources-A Guide to the Global Environment. P.52.
  • Dr. Bonnie Lee Kettel in the “Women Economics and Sustainable Development”. Proceedings of a Regional Workshop of Government and Non Government Organizations. (East and South East Asia) 26-29 April 1994. Singapore. Pp 60-65.
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