In an interview with The Asahi Shimbun, Indian environmental scientist Dr. Vandana Shiva discusses the impact of gender bias on environmental issues.
Born in 1952, Shiva received her doctorate in quantum mechanics at the University of Western Ontario in Canada. As a university student, she became involved as a volunteer with the Chipko environmental movement. Led mainly by village women, this movement (the name of which means ''tree-hugger'' in Hindi) was responsible for stopping logging abuses in Uttar Pradesh in the Himalayas in the 1970s.
In 1982, while working as a professor at the university, she established The Research Foundation for Science-Technology and Ecology. She is the author of the books ''The Violence of the Green Revolution'' and ''Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge.''
The following are excerpts from the interview.
Q: How would you describe the gender issue in terms of the environmental issue?
A: Women are important to environmental protection both because they have a different world view from the patriarchal world view and secondly because in the division of labor, women have been left to look after food and water and health.
When children start to get too (many) asthmatic problems, they know it's the air that's polluted; if they start to get cancer, they know it's something in the environment. When there's less food, women know; when there's less water, (the) wells go dry, women find (others). Women are the first to know something's going wrong. Environmental problems translate into problems of food and water and health.
It's epistemological, as we say, epistemological and also cultural and political, because of (the) division of labor. And for women, to provide food and water and environmental care, nature is a source of life. And since women also provide life, they understand the value of that.
Q: Are women participating in peace and environmental movements in a big way?
A: Yes, women more than men because they care about life.
In industrialized societies, the issues might not be forests and water. After Chernobyl, all the people said we will not allow you to continue to spread nuclear hazards in Europe. I know women's groups who said we will not accept nuclear hazards.
I believe that economic systems and development models that have a gender bias are also destructive of the environment.
And in that kind of thinking, that kind of world view, both nature and women are denied their creativity and productive power.
And if you look at these men who have shaped technology, who have shaped (the) economy, they see women's work as non-work. So the gender issue in relationship to the environment is both the destructiveness (of) patriarchy as well as the resistance (of) men.
Q: Isn't it also necessary to resolve the division of labor issue?
A: In terms of what I call the division of labor, the fact that women are not performing the role that they traditionally performed, that will change, of course.
And while women are taking up jobs and becoming economically independent, my hope is that women will use their newfound independence to shape a new future for humanity.
When I started to go to the villages (to do a study on mining in mountains in 1982), the women said, ''(The mining) is robbing our water.'' The women knew that water (was) disappearing. The scientists only said, ''Oh my God, the place looks ugly.'' They didn't understand the ecology; the women understood the ecology.
So let me put it this way: If I'm a farmer here or in the villages on the mountains, through my role in production I understand what environment means. But women who move into other jobs, who are university professors, who are medical doctors, they need to have (an) even higher awareness of environmental issues, not less.
Q: You have been involved in anti-globalization activities, haven't you?
A: Globalization is a patriarchal project, and reclaiming our economies and our democracy is, in my view, the most important feminist project of our times. We've got the violence of the economic system, which is taking over people's livelihoods and job security. And this economy is also committing violence against the Earth. It's pushing Indian farmers and Japanese citizens to suicide. In India, per year about 5,000 (farmers commit suicide over) the last three or four years. I read that (in Japan) there's a mountain (where) after winter they find lots of Japanese people who've committed suicide.
Because of globalization, big multinationals have come into India, where they didn't exist before. And they sell very costly seed to farmers with false promises. The yields are not as high as they promised, the income is not going to be as high. And those seeds, which are hybrid seeds and genetically modified seeds, need a lot of chemicals, so the farmers get into very deep debt. The farmers are stuck in this debt. (In India,) we used to have 200,000 varieties (of rice). (But now we) have 2,000 varieties.
The Green Revolution destroyed them. The Green Revolution was based on monocultures and it was based on the idea that indigenous varieties should be wiped out and all seeds should come from companies and industry.
(The) economy runs on oil. And on the one hand it gives us climate change and disasters of climate, and on the other hand it is giving us wars. It's creating people who are becoming desperate. They are becoming terrorists.
Q: Will the gender issue help solve problems resulting from globalization?
A: Economies existed before globalization. The difference between globalization and other forms of economic organization is that globalization is taking over two sectors which have been women's sectors: water, through privatization and corporate control over water, and food. Growing and making of food was women's work, but now the biggest returns, the highest returns, on investment are in the food sector.
And women created that wealth around biodiversity, around food, around water, and worked on these issues in order to sustain life. So the role of gender in globalization is that globalization is allowing what was women's wealth creation, women's knowledge creation, to be taken over, to (create) corporate wealth.
And the corporations are taking this over. And they are taking it over to create wealth by destroying life.
On the local level and national level, women are very active in fighting globalization. But at the international level, the number of women is not (so high).
They might have become financially liberated but they also have to be part of the struggle to defend water as a common (resource) and not as corporate property. They might be at the privileged end of the chain, but they will still be slaves.
Globalization is a patriarchal project, and reclaiming our economies and our democracy is, in my view, the most important feminist project of our times.
Unleash the power of women to protect the environment
