While I am no ecofeminist or at least not to the extent of some, I have decided that I still can help bring about change for women and for the environment in some way. That way, I have mentioned below.
THE IDEA:
An issue we know ecofeminists want to tackle is the oppression faced by women from environmental degradation. Environmental degradation can come from the pollution of air and water, deforestation, and climate change in general. While it might be hard to stop the oppression of women through movements or speaking to the people about the pressure women face every day, I could instead take action to help decrease the levels of environmental degradation we see today. After all, a lot of the climate problems we have today stem from human action. Examples include tearing down trees for more industrial buildings, tossing cigarettes on the ground, throwing trash on the ground, and one I find extremely important is how much humans use single-use plastic and dispose of it improperly.
THE PLAN:
The best place to start the implementation of my plan would be to start with myself. I could think about the amount of plastic I use whether its daily, weekly, monthly. When I think about it, I’ve used Ziploc bags for food and tossed them as soon as the food was gone. Anytime I go out to eat or order take out I use a plastic lid with a plastic straw on the cup. And who can forget the number of plastic bags I throw away after taking multiple trips to Walmart in a week. In stopping myself from wasting single use-plastic I will already be helping limit the environmental impacts plastic wrecks on our planet and the women on our planet. Plastic waste takes up to 1000 years to completely decompose WHEN PROPERLY Disposed Of in landfills after throwing them away. While one might not think that’s how you should properly dispose of them, not all plastic can be recycled. By properly dispose of, I just mean that it hasn’t made its way to our water systems. After changing my habits, my hope would be to change the habits of the rest of my family. Change can’t happen overnight, but small steps can lead us to bigger and better things and hopefully, those things are good for our environment.
In this assignment, it was mentioned that “the personal is political.” While I cannot go vegan for a week due to my own ignorance and love for certain foods, in working to eliminate plastic waste, not only am I taking small steps towards saving animals, but also relieving some of the pressures women face by feeling “environmentally responsible.” From reading studies such as the Norgaard and York study and hearing the achievements catered by women, I felt it was my own personal duty to start being more conscious of my actions and how it affects the environment. After all, from the statistics in the study, when women are left in charge of environmental policy, real change can occur. While I know I won’t be starting another movement such as the Green Belt Movement, I hope to stir up some changes in my own home.
Remember, the world can only hold so much waste. Try not to let single use plastics take over our beautiful planet.
Approaching this project was at first intimidating to me, I thought there was so much I could potentially do, so much that needs to be done. Yet after reading this week, I learned that it is better to focus your full attention on one issue, rather than getting overwhelmed on many problems. As one author said you can still care about other issues while focusing your attention on one that means a lot to you. Environmental degradation as we have read so much about is a huge problem that women face. Women are not only dominated and oppressed by men, but because nature is oppressed by the patriarchal system, the consequences fall greatly on women. It is not very surprising to me anymore that women are the bearers of all the damages done to the environment. Men often are the ones tearing down trees in order to build industrial buildings which leads to deforestation. Which makes it harder to find rich soil to grow food, or find wood to cook foods/warm the houses. Yet we can not say that women are completely innocent of degrading the environment as well. All human beings are somewhat to blame for the condition of the environment at this point. So many people around the world litter constantly and do not think of the consequences because it may not directly affect them. As we know women in the global south are at the most at risk when it comes to facing the oppression that comes from environmental degradation. So for example a wealthy white man in western society usually would not think twice about tossing a plastic bottle or cigarette on the ground. He is not worried about the damage it is doing to nature or the pressure he is indirectly putting on women on the other side of the planet. I think starting with yourself in regards to recycing is a really good start because as you said the personal is political. Maybe to take it up a notch as your ecofeminist action goes on, you can discuss with others the damage and oppression that can result from not properly disposing of plastic materials, and get others to join you in your action! 🙂
When considering what sorts of Ecofeminist action to take, I think it is important to consider how much needs to change in order for us to have a sustainable planet. Realistically, almost all humans need to move toward a vegan diet in order for us to save the planet. Along with this, your project idea surrounding plastics, is also an important step that we need everyone to make in order to have a sustainable future.
One example of how quickly we need to be implementing change is the Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement is a very outdated treaty that focuses on climate reform, but accomplishes so little that we could still see massive temperature increases. Similarly, I’ve blogged quite a lot about The Green New Deal, which, even for being so progressive, is still a moderate piece of climate action. Many people do not realize the severity of the situation.
I am not in any way trying to fault anyone, if anything this is the result of a capitalist government leading the people toward an unsustainable living, but I fear that in the coming years this is the sort of thing that will lower everyone’s quality of life dramatically, yet most people don’t even know that this is coming.
It’s very important that we all start thinking about the impacts that plastic has on our environment. Because it is in fact we human that has to suffer eventually. While I was reading your blog, I remember a movie that I watched this Wednesday that all of us might have watched it, ‘Aquaman’. Although it was based on getting a throne and being sea master etc. but there was a part that was about revealing a war upon surface as a revenge of how we humans have polluted their ecosystem and so many of them had to suffer. It made me wonder that what if it were true. That there may be a whole different life down there just like we have on surface and one day they took revenge upon us. Hell, I am scared of water. I will die of anything but drowning. And that also lead my thinking to all those times whenever there was tsunami in the world, that probably that is the seas way of taking revenge. So, I think before sea gets furious about it we need to make a full stop.
We need to think about ways we can stop using plastics. And that needs to start on personnel level. Starting from there we can extend it to our families and friends and let the chain expand. If there’s a will there’s a way.
I want to mention a way of replacing plastic bags that we use for shopping. Cloth bags. My grandfather makes a shopping bag using cloth and whenever they go for grocery shopping or even other kinds of shopping they use that cloth bag so that whatever they buy goes in the cloth bag rather plastic bags. So, this is one way we can replace and reduce plastic use.
I think this is a great idea. In fact, after reading what you’ve stated in your blog I think that I’m going to look into this myself. When I visited Sweden before all of this Corona stuff started going down, they were very environmentally conscious over there. They had everything from not using plastic bags to using paper straws… that sort of thing. My Swedish friend even lectured me on the beef industry and how its affecting the ozone layer. I’m sure if me and her lived in the same house she would want me to adapt this plastic free life style, and I can see why! I was entirely unaware about the fact of plastic taking 1,000 years to decompose. Imagine what the actions of one family could do to change the amount of plastic buildup in landfills! And I’m sure we’re all aware of photographs depicting sea animals getting caught on plastic or something similar to that. It’s always a terrible thing to imagine, and we all need to hold ourselves accountable for these things happening to creatures who have done nothing to harm us. It’s good that you’re thinking ahead for our planet; it’s something that more people need to do. And I think it’s a great idea to involve the rest of your family as well; it’s something I’m going to try to do on my own journey!
I think that the idea is great! I believe that this world needs a change. But it also starts with us. There are numerous ways that we can cut back on using plastic. For example when going to grocery stores we can use reusable bags instead of continuously using plastic bags. Also I have just purchased metal straw for my household instead of using plastic straws.