Gender plays a pivotal
role in our everyday lives. Some people choose to ignore it, but the disparity
of sex and the inequality between men and women is inherently evident in
society today. What Vandana Shiva argues in this article is that gender also
plays a role in the environmental policies and practices of the present: they
are inexplicably linked to a notion that women are subservient to men, and
subject to the hierarchy of patriarchy that is prevalent today.
As early as history seems
to dictate, women have played a lesser role to men in society. They were
unequal, treated unfairly, and scapegoated as the reason of sin and suffering
in the world. Shiva links these ideas together, and views the ideology of
patriarchy as a reasoning in why humanity has chosen to neglect and displace
different species in the biological world. The result is a loss of biodiversity
as patriarchal models push “towards monocultures, uniformity and homogeneity.”
The result is a system where the “marginalization of women and the destruction
of biodiversity go hand in hand.”
In Third World countries,
communities rely on biological resources as a source of economic prosperity.
Biodiversity, therefore, becomes a means of production. These communities make
their living by using aspects of conservation and sustainable practices in
order to survive. These practices, however, are often seen as primitive
compared to the practices we are accustomed to and are “displaced by
progressive technologies that destroy both diversity and people’s livelihoods.”
In these countries, agricultural responsibilities are dominated by women’s
work; however, these responsibilities are often ignored. The various jobs of
women that relates to inside and outside the household cannot be tacitly
measured in wages or salaries. It often goes unnoticed while women provide the
means of sustainability for families and communities.
In many cultures, women
have played an important role in the conservation of biodiversity. But seeing
that women are marginalized in the agricultural sector, the concern about biodiversity,
in this sense, stems from the resistance to the expansion of monocultured-based
agricultural production: “crop uniformity . . . undermines the diversity of
biological systems which form the production system as well as the livelihoods
of people whose work is associated with diverse and multiple-use systems of
forestry, agriculture and animal husbandry.” Farms are fragmented as a
patriarchal model based on maximizing profits enters into the fold. The
traditional roles of women in these communities are brushed aside as a new way
of living emerges—one that chooses to neglect the importance and need for a
biodiverse world.
Biodiversity has
intrinsic value: “women produce through biodiversity, whereas corporate
scientists produce through uniformity.” The increasing technological
advancements in agriculture, Shiva argues, have displaced women’s roles in
rural communities in India. Where the traditional roles of women were seen as
custodians of the land, they are now seen as consumers who need to subsist off
the product. This new model of agriculture, under a patriarchal hierarchy,
chooses to undermine the importance of women in these communities, and pushes
towards a practice that is complacent in its destruction of a biodiverse world.
In what sense, according to Vandana Shiva, is Third
World women’s work in agriculture “invisible”?
Because gender inequality exists in the developed world,
it comes as no surprise that women are marginalized in the Third World as well.
It is especially true given the circumstances of agriculture of rural
communities in India. Women’s work is not viewed as important in these
societies. Their work is often neglected, trivialized, and ousted as a new form
of technology displaces their traditional duties of the household. Not only
have women’s work in these agricultural communities lost their importance, the
work in and around the home go unrecognized as well; raising children, cooking and
cleaning, are all jobs that cannot be tacitly measured in wages or salaries.
Time allocated to the completion of these tasks are crucial to the lives under
the household.
Works Cited
Shiva, Vandana. “Women's Indigenous Knowledge and Biodiversity Conservation” Sources: Selections in Environmental Studies. Ed. Thomas Easton. United States, 2014. 200-203.
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