Is the World Water Crisis a Feminist Issue?

Hello Readers!

Today, I'm going to discuss an issue over which many people have very strong opinions. Of course, many feminist publications such as Ms. Magazine discuss the World Water Crisis, as much or more than say "Newsweek" or "The Economist".

Why is this? Is it because the world water crisis is a feminist issue? Or is it simply because self-identified feminists are more likely to take an interest in such issues than most of the population at large.

The simplest answer would be "probably a bit of both". Obviously in a time period where a high percentage of women (and to a lesser extent men) agree with most feminist principles, but very few will use the term "feminist" to describe themselves, that people who buy and read explicitly feminist magazines would likely tend to be more political and more interested in global issues, than the population average.

Is the global water crisis a feminist issue. As it turns out this is a common debate among feminists. Many of which argue that women suffer more from the water crisis, on average, than men do. Some of the more essentialist ecofeminists go further to argue that women are innately more connected with nature. Of course, many anti-essentialist feminists reject this and claim that such arguments about the "nature" of women would be a great one-way ticket right back to the "barefoot and pregnant" paradigm. Often pointing out that women can do things like engage in mindless consumerism, glorifying war, or adopting right wing politics, "just as well as men". (However, some misogynists and anti-feminists go over board with this claim and argue that women are the ones who are "really" driving these things, and men are duped into going along by their "female wiles".)

The less well known anti-essentialist argument in feminism is that patriarchy has prejudicially equated women with nature, and in the process have managed to mystify, misunderstand, obfuscate, and devalue both. As one proponent of this view pointed out, "To use the term 'rape' to speak of the destruction of a forest by logging, is to trivialize both acts." Ancient Greece in particular is often pointed to, as an example of a culture that both equated women with nature and where men dreaded both (As a result many feminists and environmentalists have questioned Jungian notions of looking to Greek mythology for an understanding of the human psyche and a model for psychotherapy and personal growth.) Furthermore, the ideal of an "earth mother" was very fashionable in both Victorian Britain and Nazi Germany.

As an anti-essentialist feminist myself, I'd have to think the most relevant question is whether or not the world water crisis, hits women harder than men.

And the answer depends heavily on how male dominated society is. Also on how severe the water crisis hits the people in general.

In the US and most of Europe, men and women largely experience water and environmental issues in ways that are more alike than different. To some extent issues such as wage inequality and the "feminization of poverty" as it's been called, can tie in with the fact that the poor generally hit harder by these issues than the more middle classes and the affluent. But leaving more complex analysises of class and gender to other people, I'd call that a minor. Also some of the medical problems that can result from drinking contaminated water are sex specific, many others are not. Furthermore, cases of large numbers of people getting sick from local pollutant and their tap water, is NOT something that the majority of Americans experience-fortunately. And in general men and women, boys and girls experience these things in ways that are drastically more alike than different.

However this is not the case in much of the world. In many countries if somebody has to spend many hours a day walking to the safest water source and carrying it for often miles, that someone is not likely to be male. In most of Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Carribean, and the Pacific Islands carrying water is a woman's job (as it was in Colonial America contrary to popular images), and men often consider it beneath them. Sometimes women are unable to look for paying work or make/grow things they can sell because they spend so much time carrying the water. This not only means less income, but it also means the men keep control of the money. Also in countries where there is a large gender gap in school attendance, many girls are being kept home to help their mothers. And spending hours a days fetching the water is not unusual.

In 2001, there were news reports of a Turkish town called Sirt where the water system broke down and apparently was not fixed promptly. The women who were expected to fetch the water during this time, felt that the men didn't care about how promptly it was fixed, and decided to launch a "sex strike" where they would refuse to have sex with their husbands until the water system was fixed.

As one might expect this story was often compared to the Greek play Lysistrata, and inspired it's share of jokes. Plenty of people debated whether this story reflects some eternal "battle of the sexes", the dynamics of power in that community, or whether the women were simply not in the mood because they were tired and/or mad at the men for their indifference.

Either way, it seems that the fact that the men of the community didn't start to push the authorities to fix the pipes or give them the parts, until the sex strike says something about their attitudes. Namely that they didn't care when it was simply their wives having so much extra work as long as it didn't affect them getting what they wanted. When it first made the news my then boyfriend quickly pointed out that gender roles must be fairly rigid, since the women apparently didn't seem to see fixing the pipes or directly appealing to the local authorities themselves as options.

I can't comment on how representative this village is of Turkish society at large. But I think, it does illustrate a situation in some of the more male dominated societies, where as long as water as deemed as a "woman's problem" it is not likely to be taken seriously.

Even in the US or Europe where water problems are usually not that serious (yet!!), and where gender is not that large of a factor in how they effect people, politicians might also take a more subtle but equally "macho" form of indifference . As psychoanalyst Stephen Ducat pointed out in his book "The Wimp Factor" many sexist and conservative male voters, see a laundry list of issues which include things like preserving the environment, helping the poor, and domestic "kitchen table" issues such as infrastructure (as opposed to foreign wars!!) as "feminine". And the obsession of some politicians with "macho" politics goes way beyond what their corporate sponsors think.

While one could question whether or not Ducat's Freudian explanation for these guys' problem is the correct one, he makes it very clear that such attitudes are not to limited to village men in the poorer parts of the world.

That's my take on a complex issue.

Say Goodnight Readers!