Conference turris::womannotes-v3

179.0. "Stewards of the Earth" by DEVIL::BAZEMORE (Barbara b.) Tue Jun 05 1990 21:02

The following is an editorial from the June 1990 Earthwatch magazine.  It 
should provide some food for thought as well as a basis for discussion.

		Stewards of the Earth

For better and for worse, men have been the principal architects of the 
conversion of the Earth's resources for the benefit of our species.  Yet
the evidence shows the conversion has been a joint effort.  Women, for 
their part, have borne the children, worked the fields, gathered the wood,
prepared the food and nourished the family -- but have not shared equally 
in the benefits or the wealth.

Societies have invested unequally in the sexes, especially when it comes to 
education.  Of one billion adults who can neither read nor write, 98 percent 
live in the developing world, and two-thirds are women.  Of 100 million 
children who have neither schools nor teachers today, two-thirds are girls.
While Asia has the most illiterates, Africa suffers the highest illiteracy
rate (54 percent).  The oversight continues.

Barriers to the global education of women are high.  Women who give birth
every two years rarely have the time or the energy for learning.  Societal
attitudes, low self-esteem, and rural isolation are major deterrents. 
Domestic tasks, working in the fields, and childrearing are not easily 
delegated.  "The greatest hurdle in educating women, however," says Vandana
Shiva, visting professor in women's studies at Mt. Holyoke College, "is the 
crisis in foreign debt and international trade."  Shiva points out that 
women are especially vulnerable to global economic twitches, which can wipe
out an entire country's export base overnight - and push women further from 
economic equality.

The consequences of women's limited access to education are severe.  Illiteracy
is inextricably tied to poverty, rapid population growth, and underdevelopment. 
Precisely because women's labors ar so long, the motivation persists to 
have large families to provide child labor to help work fields, gather fuel,
and fetch water.  The developing world is trapped in a cycle where child 
mortality is high, growing populations ravage the land, and rising literacy 
rates barely keep pace with population growth.  As the land gives out, women 
and children become the majority of the Earth's environmental refugees -- 
banished by nature.

Ironically, we have sidelined the best environmental sensors.  Because the 
poorest women are those closest to the land.  They are the natural stewards
of the Earth.  Resource allocation is a family's first priority.  The family 
of man is no exception. Give the seed corn, the fertilizer, and a fair share
of the profits to women, and see how the crop flourishes.  The global 
education of women would make productive use of the greatest untapped source
of knowledge and life experience available to resource managers.

The empowerment of women in the developing nations need not wait for literacy,
but should begin immediately drawing on the role models, life experiences, 
and traditional wisdom of those who have learned their lessons the hard way.  
Even if the teacher cannot read, she can help us learn.

			Brian Rosborough