Why Women Will Save The Planet Analysis

The economy creates systems of poverty for women in rural and developing nations. This is because the social construction of economic patriarchal systems fuels the deep connection between women and nature through three different aspects. First, economics is socially constructed as gendered and oppressive. Second, women have a special relationship with natural that can be examined in the evidence of women’s lack of autonomy in means of production that interlocks women and nature into continuous cycles of degradation and oppression. Third, these oppressive constructions create interlocking systems of poverty.

Economics is a socially constructed gendered and sexist system. Julie Nelson, of Why Women Will Save the Planet, describes economic systems

as “cognitively gendered as masculine” (WWWSTP, 2017). The construction of economics then has created production as a foundation that solely relies on capital and labor (Mellor, 1997). Capital and labor are male dominated spheres that are seen as “hard” and “active” forms of production (WWWSTP, 2017). Economics places a high level of importance on profit gained from these male-dominated fields. Susan Griffin, of women and nature the roaring inside her, affirms that these systems then place the roles of nature and women as being “passive” with unlimited resources to be preyed upon (Griffin, 1980).
Women living in poverty have a specifically direct and crucial relationship with nature and their environments. Impoverished women are responsible for food sources, shelter, water, and fuel (Steady, 1998). Because women are so dependent on nature, when nature is degraded and oppressed, women are then as well. For example, in Somalia and Somaliland, the crucial relationship between women and the environment fuels “livelihood, cultural identity, and security.” (WWWSTP, 2017).
High levels of poverty can be linked to women’s lack of access to economic means of production. When women’s participation and power within economic systems is lacking, their access to environmental education and appropriate funding for environmental sustainability are diminished. Anne Jerneck, of Understanding Poverty, affirms that the connection between development, gender and environment ultimately plays a crucial role in systems of poverty (Jerneck, 2015).
In conclusion, economics as a system fuels poverty because it is constructed a gendered and sexist, because women in poverty have a direct relationship with the environment, and because lack of autonomy and access to education in that relationship causes degradation and overexploitation of natural resources and lands.