Eco-parenting and women's work?

[wastingaway]

Some interesting points came up on this thread, about whether eco-parenting and green living in general tended to create more work for women?

It was also suggested that in fact modern conveniences act to disguise the inequality in relationships.

As I sit contemplating the bucket of shitty nappies that I will be putting in the washing machine, I am wondering about this a lot.

What do you think?

So we need to wrest power from the bastards then eh?

Well that should be easy enough

Is that what DH does in the toilet? He takes a bloody age in there, I had no idea he was struggling with golden eggs

Please keep going all of you,you are all so articulate,it's giving me hope.

Just knowing there are others out there thinking the same way is encouraging.

I thought that too about the credit crunch -- that we'd be forced into simpler frugal living,but am really saddened by politics since the election, because sustainability seems to be completly off the agenda

No, funny is good,ISNT!

Carry on being a lighthearted,green feminist,its great.

Got to balance serious stuff with humour!

yep[nodding]
actually at the time i was worried thats what the swine flu was all about.

It's all big industry (mainly oil) stifling progress with other forms of power.

As long as they can make their cash, they're going to keep at it, and suppressing the competition, even if it means polluting the planet and causing war after war... There are other better ways of doing things but they don't get done as the oil companies are just so powerful.

Having said that, you've got to start somewhere. Raising the profiles of these issues at home filters through eventually. Many companies now have green policies and ethical policies and so on. Although quite often these are not genuine (recent investigation showed that so-called "ethical funds" on teh stock market were still buying into the same old unethical companies/countries etc).

but still. You can now buy 100% green electricity on more than one tarriff and it's not cost prohibitive, the Green party has more members than ever before and an MP for the first time, many people are thinking about things like not using the tumble dryer so much and driving less and switching things off at work, even if they're not quite acting on them yet.

The world is waking up to how dependency on fossil fuels is neither big nor clever, countries being scared shitless of being in thrall to other more turbulent countries for energy will push economies towards more self-sufficiency with energy, which will inevitably drive green energy IMO. i reckon in a decade it will be quite usual to see solar panels on people's roofs, things like heat sinks are no longer only for eccentrics. All of these technologies are becoming more efficient (an age old problem) and more affordable. You can now sell excess electricity you generate back into the grid - how brilliant is that!

Sorry will stop now

Of course this doesn't help things on a global level, but my feeling is that on this verdant and temperate and fairly well run little Island things will probably be OK.

What to do about parts of the world where things are really bad is just another question altogether.

Also. Thinking about your point Iswalllowed, Compost, wind turbines, selling power to the grid, solar panels, all sounds like "mans work" to me...

It's big business who are the bad guys here.

not heat sinks what are those things called

Not sure. Geothermals?

I used to go round turning everything off at work as well.

One problem is that the government soils itself with terror every time businessmen (they are men) make a grumpy face.

So if there's even a hint that businesses should actually perhaps lift a finger to reduce their energy consumption/stop polluting/maybe not employ 7 year olds, then the CBI just needs to wag a finger at whichever lily-livered lily-complexioned bloke is in power, and he will back away saying "sorry".

Well, business is hardly going to be throwing parties to celebrate being forced to clean up their waste, or pay workers a living wage or turn off their f-ing machines are they? No-one expects individuals to look delighted about paying more taxes or having to insure their cars do they? And yet somehow the government are pant-wettingly scared of bad words from the big suits, in a way that they aren't scared of a letter from Mrs Missenthwaite saying she objects to the VAT rise.

Someone needs to get some guts and enforce the laws about pollution and the environment as they apply to big businesses. Yes maybe their profits will fall. Boo hoo I say.

I'm sure someone will come along and explain to me why anyone except the share-buying classes needs to start chewing their nails about dividends being reduced because corporations are being held to the same rules as the rest of us.

Absolutely, eco-living takes an awful lot of time: sorting your rubbish and taking it to myriad destinations for recycling, walking to the shops and carrying your shopping home, hanging your washing out to dry, cleaning with inefficient ecologically-aware products, staying in bed when ill...

yes. and people say "well that's capitalism for you" but actually we have laws other than "just make as much money as possible as sod anyone in your way" in this country. Something about politicians that makes them dissolve to a jelly in the presence of rich men.

Must be the lust for power thing I guess

wastingaway - I dont think this is a feminist issue per se but what you are rightly highlighting is the great big fat shiney economic lie that sits behind the vast majority of 'eco' or 'green' initiatives.

The practical fact is that if the UK (or any country) were to pursue an extreme 'eco' or 'green' set of policies economic growh would collapse and that would hit women the hardest as cost of living and unemployemnt would sharply rise.

Whether it be washing nappies or sorting recyclable materials that involves more work than disposable nappies or dumping all your rubbish in one bin and then landfill. The cost of an eco or green lifestyle usually is paid for by someone having to do low value or even unpaid work. I wrote on another thread about recycling household rubbish. It just would not be economic for councils to collect and sort recyclable waste unless the majority of the primary sorting were done by househlders - and mostly women. Same with washing nappies rather than using disosables. If the labour that does that work is unpaid or low value (and that is is more likley going to be women) then it makes economic sense but if the labour is valued (and that is more likley going to be men) then it does not make economic sense.

Same with buying 'green' elecric. It costs twice as much as normal electric and forcing low paid people (again which are more likley to be women) to buy 'green' electric makes them signifcantly poorer than if richer people buy it because poor people spend more of their income (as a percentage) on fuel, heat and light.

TBH I get annoyed by the entire 'eco' or 'green' industry which has sprung up and largely populated by well off people who often either work or Govt or receive Govt subsidies who then push their agenda on a population that increasingly cannot afford the economic cost.

Interesting.

The majority of work goes unpaid though Beta, if we started expecting to be paid for the work we do, the economy would truly collapse.
Some might say that was a good thing.

"economic growh would collapse and that would hit women the hardest as cost of living and unemployemnt would sharply rise."

In an 'extreme' eco world, economic growth is a red herring.
Economic growth benefits the few. It annoys me that white western imperalists are obsessed with the 'economic growth' of developing countries, which roughly translates into 'disenfranchising the local people, especially women, by claiming their sustainable land and forcing them to work on it for a pittance for mutlinational conglomerates". This is all "economic growth" means.

Women, given the choice, would fight for a world where sustainability, not 'economic growth', would take precedence.

Capitalism relies on unpaid labour, by women.