Tea Flower**Post edited to add photoA while ago I saw a thread of sentiment that indicated for many females the current ideas being spread around the concept of sustainability are a real back step for feminism. I have watched a few people that come out of the workforce because they truly want to be there for their children, then struggle with the feeling that by choosing to fully take up that role in an environmentally sustainable way it is totally contrary to their view of feminism. They stand back and look at the role divisions now in front of them and feel they are being lugged with all the work of "sustainability".
It was this that made me sit back and really think about the "practical green" movement and decide to really explore it.
Part of what I feel is going on is about the version of feminism we were sold growing up in the 70's. The vision we were presented with was very much "the woman who had everything" a wonderful family life, a fulfilling and meaningful career whilst still having the time to pursue creative hobbies. The reality shown to us by many of our mothers though was generally quite divergent from that ideal. It is that reality that has an increasing percentage of the Gen X females look at their life, and where finances permit choose to stay at home and care for their family. It seems though having internalised the "vision of feminist perfection" rather than the underlying ideas of choice many truly struggle, at least at the beginning, with feeling devalued and demeaned by the job they freely chose to take on.
It is this feeling I suspect that has caused a real mental backlash in some when they are presented with the facts that the easiest way to increase their household's sustainability means giving up a lot of the labour saving devices that were built into their perfect vision of a feminist life. It understandably jars against their underlying assumptions of what their life would be.
I will agree that much of the practical green movement tends to focus on ideas and changes that tend to traditionally be "womens domain". On reflection I think this is happening for a couple of reasons.
The first is that there is a whole reservoir of stay at home or part time home mums that have become aware of the impacts of the choices they make. Most recently they have been pushing forward much of the informal dialogue on this issue and their realisation that the thing they can control in this debate is their own personal and in some cases household change has become a powerful voice. They are the members of their household who potentially have the time to be out in their community and they are more likely to reach out on the internet looking for connections if they are having trouble reaching like minded locals.
Not surprisingly females in this situation tend to have access to more time than money, it makes sense that the mitigation techniques they are coming up with focus on the activities they perform every day. In their situation an increased time commitment wouldn't necessarily be considered a large impediment where as spending more money often might be.
I suspect that very few of them would try and suggest that all females should go home and chain themselves to the sink. In fact I am rather certain of it, what the underlying dialogue is saying is that the person in the household, be it male or female, who does this work should be looking at lower impact ways of doing it. Now those lower impact ways might be directing the cleaner who comes in weekly to use bicarb and vinegar or it might be something done more personally, like starting to make bread for the family rather than buying it at the supermarket.
The problem for the message they are communicating is that it will tend to be extremely gendered. The main reason being due to where most of the voices are coming from within the population, females occupying a pretty traditional female role. This means you get lots of people talking about line drying and preserving rather than movements to bring back the scythe to mow the lawn (a more traditionally male job).
I am sure it doesn't help that under the banner of that feminist ideal many of these women have had their choice to stay at home, making their primary job that to care for their family, actively denigrated by a percentage of the the females that work. Now this is not a guilt free exercise I will freely admit these types of harsh and unnecessary judgements about another persons life choices can, and are flung from both sides. In relevance to the green movement though, it seems in many cases that doing things simply, and with a green focus, give these females a new pride in the work they do. Be that because they now feel they are serving the good of wider community, not just that of their family I am not sure or because in the process they find a community that supports what feels right for their life I am not sure but I certainly have seen it enough times to acknowledge that it's real.
The second is that changes at home are accessible, you don't have to negotiate your way through corporate or political systems to enact change. Just as importantly the effects of those changes are tangible to the participants. Seeing the power bill go down because someone took the initiative to find a way to do things that used less becomes a real change in the amount of money expended by the household. The positive effect of the changes are easy to track, and notice, as such they are intrinsically more motivating to the participants.
Bottom up practical changes for traditional male roles are always going to seem to have less impact time wise simply due to the fact that as a percentage of work done, there are simply less traditionally male home jobs. In this day and age that generally isn't because they are lazy or they don't care, it's because when they are shouldering the traditional male role of "bread winner" there is simply a whole lot less time spent in the home.
The main exception I see to this is households where the income required for the household to live, their personal version of, comfortably means that to varying extents both partners can work part time. This is where the feminist ideal of role sharing can be realised, this often happens pretty naturally if both partners are working full time but the time to commit to changes that require more time are reduced overall. It's in this space of more life and less work that the full load of sustainability changes can fall across two backs rather than one. In these households more often than not we actually see a change in the way traditional male roles are performed. These are the people likely to be scything or hand mowing their block or finding way to increase the transits they can do by bike.
In contrast initiating change in the workplace is much more challenging to get off the ground. Success in both actually getting the idea through all the talking to the action of instating it, as well as participant compliance is a whole lot harder to control. That doesn't even include the hurdle of reporting, which is essential to help the people involved feel like they are actually achieving something other than more work for themselves.
It's the personal autonomy of time and space that makes bottom up change at home achievable in a way that it simply isn't in a work situation. We need to keep the first steps simple, have them easily within someone's personal control to allow people to gain momentum and confidence in their ability to affect change. Many who gain confidence at home then move to make changes wider either, as part of community organisations or within their workplaces, at the point they feel they have the ability to challenge the system.
It is because of all of these factors that the practical green dialogue may seem strangely skewed toward changing traditional female "work". The problem, as I see it, seems to be more related to the fact we are trying to function effectively in two worlds, the sustainable and the consumer, which puts a lot of pressure on both the male and the female partner to perform extrodinary feats, of stretching to make things work, rather than an issue related to feminism.
