Get Back to Earth

Climate change and global warming needs to be part of the feminist discussion. Sure, they sound like two unrelated topics but digging deeper the two cannot be separated. The fact is, we are living in a completely unsustainable way and soon there will be no natural resources for us to exploit. Our population has reached unprecedented and unmanageable heights! Family planning and access to contraception has become more important than ever.

The first people to feel the effects of climate change and overpopulation are those living in economically under-developed nations.  When we throw our trash “away”, it doesn’t actually go away...it goes onto the land or into the drinking water of people who don’t have the resources to stop it. And on these lands where we bring our trash, the first to feel it are the women. As these women try to provide for their families and maintain the health of themselves and their children, they are getting sick and unable to grow food. This year was a record-high for famine in Africa. Thousands are dying and equal wage debates will not stop it.

As more Carbon Dioxide leaks into our atmosphere and oil spills continue to happen, it is the women and oppressed groups who feel it the most. In the Amazon women are dying from infections from bathing in the rivers after pregnancies. In Mexico birth deformities and health issues are prevalent due to the maquiladora factories, in which majority of the workers are underpaid overworked women. Access to abortion will not clean these communities and guarantee a healthier and safer second generation.

This is not meant to undermine any work done by the feminist movements so far, we have come a long way. I just feel that the movements have become westernized and we have lost sight once again of the women suffering from a lack of the most basic needs. Without health, equal rights is pointless. Without clean water for a doctor to wash, there is no point arguing for access to abortion. Without clean air, there is no life. It is time that rights of nature and the issue of global warming enters the feminist discussion in a  forceful way. I have seen what women can do, locally and globally, and its time for us to band together again to get back to earth.