n this paper I argue that the similarities between women and ecofeminism
must be documented, understood, emphasized and exploited for communal well
being. Men and women are different and it is a fundamental truth. It is the way
it ought to be, and they must remain so. Every effort must be made by all
humanity to preserve and promote the retention and full expression of this
difference.
There must never exist a law that hinders the full expression of the
potential of any human being. That human beings should be allowed to express
their full potential is vital for the survival of the human species. What we
see as the full picture of human life on earth is only a direct reflection of
the composite of all the lives of each one of the people that have and continue
to exist. If this picture of the world is not a good one, then acts of omission
or deficiencies, requiring redress in the individual persons are responsible. On
the other hand, in the pursuit of empowering women, we must not be quick to
enact laws that are founded on limited knowledge. There is a danger in creating
laws that, thinking that they would lead to the facilitation of the full
expression of the potential that women possess, would only succeed in promoting
that which is not possible. Such an environment has the potential of
frustrating the whole human race.
Ecofeminism describes movements and philosophies that link feminism with ecology. The
term is believed to have been coined by the French writer Françoise d'Eaubonne in her
book, “Le Féminisme ou la Mort (1974)” Ecofeminism connects the exploitation
and domination of women with that of the environment, and argues that there is
a connection between women and nature that comes from their shared history of
oppression by a patriarchal Western
society.
Vandana Shiva claims
that women have a special connection to the environment through their daily
interactions with it that has been ignored. She says that women in subsistence
economies who produce "wealth in partnership with nature, have been
experts in their own right of holistic and ecological knowledge of nature's
processes.
In some countries, women, by law or decree are not allowed to show their
faces. This is so behind. In some countries again, women are not allowed to
drive vehicles. This too is not necessary. In other countries, some of them in
the West, that part of the world that often brags about being the bastion of
liberty, only until recently, women were not allowed to vote. It must be noted
that this was a shameful anomalous fixture in the lives of human beings.
The importance of women is fundamental. To state only a fact, the
survival of the human species hinges on women. . Dr. Jamal A. Badawin, in a
September 1971 article entitled The Status of Women in Islam published in the
Al-Ittihad Journal of Islamic Studies, stated the following: 'The status which
women reached during the present era was not achieved due to the kindness of
men..’ It was rather achieved through a
long struggle and sacrifice on woman's part and only when society needed her
contribution and work, more especially, during the two world wars, and due to
the escalation of technological change. The day women shall conquer poverty
that is the day poverty shall be ceased in the world. It is clear that there is
a direct link between the current status of women and global poverty. That
there exist many declarations, platforms of action and resolutions on women's
advancement (Beijing, Cairo, Nairobi, etc) is a clear global confession that
women are indeed disadvantaged and that this is not their natural condition but
an artificial one
For instance, in Zambia, There is not a single law in our country that
keeps women shackled. Though this is the case, it is not uncommon for some
sections of civil society to continue to argue, for example, that Zambia needs
more women in politics, leadership positions, and decision-making portfolios
and so on and so forth. There is strangeness to this; the strangeness of these
calls lies in the advocates’ failure to learn just exactly why women are not
equal in numbers as men in the targeted positions. It is vital to undertake a
thorough study just to see why such number disparities exist to which the
evidence would indeed be revealing.
An argument could be made that even if legally, religiously or economically the
playing field were to be equal, levelled or permissive for both sexes, women
would still be less in number than men in the said positions. This is a curious
assertion; I say that this is a curious assertion because what is observed
might merely be an accurate reflection of the order of life that ought to exist
as determined by the blueprint of human life. Going against this blueprint
would surely have very dire consequences in communities and globally.
Women do not realise just how powerful they really are. Nature is on the
side of women. The progression of some diseases is deliberately slower in women
than in men. At any given time, the odds of a woman dying are less than those
of a man. Women have the ability to endure more than men. Worldwide, even in
poor and developing nations, women, on average, live longer than men. In
addition, deliberately, when all the sums are done, there are more female
children born than men. This is truly deliberate. All these observations are
vital because they clearly illustrate that the survival of the human species
hinges on women.
Even stranger, the same laws or decrees that men over the millennia have
enacted that have disadvantaged women might have been made with the view that
they would be beneficial to women. The only downside to this behaviour is that
these laws or decrees were made in an environment replete with ignorance. Women
need to be comfortable with being women. They must never aspire to be like men.
Such an attempt on their part would lead to terrible human conflict, the
collapse of the human family as we know it and profound frustration of not only
the women themselves but of men as well. What is fundamentally important is
that in many developing societies, more women need education and improve their knowledge.
There is no better person in the world than a knowledgeable or educated woman.
She makes a good mother, wife, manager and administrator.
Failure and frustration awaits the woman that views success as becoming
man-like. Women should remain women/female but they must live in an
environment, a world that facilitates the full expression of their potential, a
world that does not have man-made barriers to their survival and prosperity.
Marginalising women is synonymous with marginalising human life. Man cannot do
without a woman, and vice versa.
In conclusion, the
empowerment of women must not be aimed at creating an independent, arrogant and
disrespectful entity. It must be focused on creating an interdependent and
healthy human family which is in the same line of respecting the environment,
not polluting it among others, the two complement each other. One will never be
a substitute of the other. it is only
when the twoecosystem and woman, become one, when they live in the harmonious
way that is their purpose that survival, peace and prosperity shall truly reign
on earth.
MacGregor, Sherilyn (2006). Beyond mothering earth: ecological
citizenship and the politics of care. Vancouver: UBC Press. p. 286
Shiva, Vandana (1988). Staying alive: women, ecology and
development. London: Zed Books.
