Month: April 2020

Toxic chemicals in our water is a big issue for many neighborhoods particularly, poor ones.   Living in the city of Boston, I’ve noticed and influx of new developments – commercial and residential.  With these new developments comes the use for more resources and whether, they are natural or unnatural, the waste seems to end up in the urban waters. The contaminants that flows from one waterway to another such as city streams, rivers, channels or any body of water, ends up in harbors. They range from plastics and medical waste, to trash like alcohol bottles and needles left by party goers and they, ending up in our food, whether seafood or vegetation.  How can I affect change?

Boston’sForte Point Channel which connects to the Boston Harbor

 

 

 

 

With this thought in mind, I decided first to have conversation with my building (residents and management) to see if they noticed, or maybe get them on the same page. My hope was to get them involve by showing them how this water pollution in our surrounding environment is also having a direct affecting on our health. I also thought that if all went well, we would spread the word to other business as well as residential buildings in the neighborhood (especially new ones). My approach was to see what policies are already in place, address how they are being enforced and/or find new policies that would bring change. Thereby broadening the conversation to deeper issues beyond the surface of just the water, or what we are able to see in our waters.  Because what we do not see are the diseases that live right under our noses here in the urban waterways, that destroy humans mentally, physically and economically.  Also at the foot of the environmental destruction is any wildlife that lives in the city.

After a conversation with a few neighbors in my building I found out some of them were already involved in neighborhood plans such as planting spring flowers around the neighborhood and creative programs like art near the waterways. This made the conversation much easier to have.  I gathered a network of people as well as resources like “Clean Water & Air of Massachusetts” to whom I’ve emailed and awaiting a response. Part of their mission that I felt would help mine was due to one of their slogans that stated “clean air to breath, clean water to drink”.  Some other feedback I got from neighbors in my building included women in another organization “Clean Water Action “ , who also contribute toward clean water projects in Boston.  I was given contact information as well as an offer to mentor my advocacy because of our likeminded thought.  Lastly, after my feedback from neighbors, I found out that the Mayor’s office has a program called “Women’s Advancement”, which helps women with a number of issue from pay equity and racial disparities to women moving ahead in politics.  My contact told me that once every few months there is tea or lunch with the Mayor to discuss how to help women in their initiatives.  My fingers are crossed for this to happen after “COVID-19”.

With everything I have learned about advocacy in this class as well as read and analyzed the above-mentioned organizations, contacts and their strategies, I came up with two conclusions. One would be to narrow down a list of concerns for a partition to be signed by all of the neighbors who are on the same page. The second would be to go to the next meeting the Mayor is having. This way I could request an official meeting with him to address the issues, thereby bringing the partition in the hopes of enforcing or implementing policies that really work to keep our waters clean.

The connections seen throughout the readings between the oppression of women and the oppression of nature, is activism due to the impacts of environmental degradation. This was exemplified in Kenya with the “Green Belt Movement”; In India with the women of “Chipko Movement”; as well   as in Brazil, where notoriety via article with a boy swimming in a river of trash, meant for the NGO to take action. Or even here in the United States, where Native American women in South Dakota was jailed for trying to protect a pipeline that provides clean drinking water. These are a combination of some of the ways in which women, globally, speak up for the injustices due to environmental degradation. And in all of these instances women’s oppressions are similar because they are left fending for access to natural resources. Domination starts from the top of hierarchal system – governmental organizations, and in some cases, men from the communities do not defend the land because they only look at the economic gain, meanwhile women struggle to conserve natural resources.  A woman’s view of nature is like her children, “when you plant a tree and you see it grow, something happens to you. You want to protect it and value it” (Maathai).

In Kenya, environmental activists like Wangari Maathai heads-up movements like the “Green Belt Movement”, which fought against Parliament for the right to plant trees. The idea behind this movement was to take back the power that was replaced by “fear” in the people of Kenya. Trees symbolized the connection that women had to nature; in that the trees gave them everything they had, whether that was food, water, or just having an untouched place where people (not just women) can go for a breath of air (that is not polluted). Maathai wrote, “they needed clean drinking water, but the pesticides and herbicides used on farms to grow cash crops polluted the water…the women feel their families are now very weak and cannot resist diseases, that their bodies are impoverished because of an environment that is degraded”(Maathai). As I read on, I kept wondering how many women and children suffered by something that seems to be so fixable, especially since the scarcity of natural resources is not their fault to begin with. But this is not the case when we are talking about an institutionalized system that kept depleting them of such. And making matters worse, women were arrested and jailed in protestation of these basic necessities.

Similar to Kenya, the degradation of land forced the women in India to build the “Chipko Movement” which was the hugging of trees to prevent them from being cut down. The article stated that “mainly village women, have successfully banned the felling of trees in a number of regions and influenced natural resource policy in India” (Chipko Article). The Chipko Movement is another heartbreakingly example because women it seems, are at the center of exploitation in less developed countries, where there is a need for more economic gain. Some countries appearing more urbanized and who have larger populations, can barely provide livable conditions for overpopulation. In our reading, this is seen not only in India but also places like Brazil, which have not found proper ways to get rid of waste, so rivers become dumping grounds. “According to government estimates, some 6,500 children live in the slums in the Arruda and Campina Barreto neighborhoods on Recife’s north side” (Talita Correa, Vice)

Why is this an issue that women globally should be concerned with? Because it affects all of us. From the beginning of time, women have been exploited; sex exchange for food or being in abusive relationships. A study put out by Sustainability Times shows “researchers examined data and case studies from more than 1,000 sources and documents on the links between environmental pressures and gender-based violence. When natural resources are limited, exploitative social behaviors such as sexual abuse can become more dominant, especially affecting girls and women” (Cross, Sustainability Times). Not just in less developed countries but globally, there is a lack of policies to protect women and children from environmental degradation. Maathai’s great example of this was the “wrong bus syndrome” – almost as saying, we have to take matters into our own hands by getting into the driver’s seat. We all have to learn how to save our environment – not just women but men also. In Maathai’s Greenbelt Movement, when women became empowered by the planting of trees, “the men joined in because they saw that the women were doing positive work”.

If the solution is advocacy, then we need to become aware of and, thereby educated about what we are advocating for.  Out of the articles, Maathai said it best “blame is placed on the side that has power”, which is, blame can only go but so far, which I find is true in many circumstances.  While it is good to know who caused these issues, it is equally important that we should be looking for ways to solve them, and this is where our connection to one another should grow – in movement. This action was also illustrated in the “Pipeline article” where a North Dakota activist name Prairie McLaughlin and other women stood up to protect the rights to clean drinking water. “Officers took her to a North Dakota jail…where, she says, a group of male and female guards forcibly removed her clothes when she refused to strip in front of them.  But, when asked if she was prepared to keep defending the Standing Rock tribe’s water, McLaughlin’s face hardened. “Everyone needs to stand up,” she said” (The Guardian).  Like Maathai, McLaughlin is the prime example of how women who stand up for what is right by protecting what we should all (men too) want to protect – the environment.   Instead, they arrested and dehumanized by male dominated system.

I wonder if I have the strength to become a women’s advocate like Maathai, McLaughlin, or even the women in Chipko and Greenbelt movement? Saying I want to be is one thing, but doing the actual work is much harder as I’ve learned in this course and other WGS courses. I guess it depends on what I’m advocating for. According to Maathai, “fear is the biggest enemy you have. I think you can overcome your fear when you no longer see the consequences” (Maathai).

Annotated Bibliography

Cross, Daniel T, Environmental degradation ‘leads to gender-based exploitation’February 2, 2020

https://www.sustainability-times.com/environmental-protection/iucn-environmental-degradation-leads-to-gender-based-exploitation/

This article talked about the kinds of exploitation women face due to environmental degradation.  It covered a study that showed how women compete for food and, how the lack of natural resources was used by a male dominated society to dehumanize them.  In another study, researchers observed some illegal activities, like ‘sex-for-fish’, a practice due to the scarce resources from environmental degradation.