The Eco Gender Gap, Ecofeminism, and Plastic
It is widely known that there is a gender gap in society, and that women fall onto the most vulnerable side of the spectrum. This is not due to their lack of capabilities, but rather that society has been run by the same system for centuries, one that undermines women’s self-esteem and place in society. There is a gender gap in salaries, women are also more susceptible to violence in their own homes and outside of it, and they are disproportionately affected by crises and conflicts. There are many layers to women’s oppression, one of them being that they are more affected by environmental issues than their male counterparts. Furthermore, women are the ones currently carrying the burden of caring for the environment. For that reason, the term “the eco gender gap” has been created by Mintel, a market research firm [1], who found that eco products are more successfully marketed towards women than men.
Plumwood and Ecofeminism
A woman choosing to live a more sustainable life should not become a controversial topic. However, there is a binary and harmful separation in society that has assigned different roles to women and men, in a way that the former is carrying a burden, instead of simply choosing a lifestyle. Val Plumwood, an ecofeminist scholar, explains the concept of ecofeminism through her lenses, and her view can help us understand why women carry this burden alone.
Plumwood [2] has talked about how the role of women and nature in society are blended into one, whereas men take reason as belonging to them. In this separation, females and nature are envisioned as background for men, existing to lift men up. Their knowledge and wisdom are useful only to serve. Women are put in a place of servitude and inferiority, less human, more like a form of nature. In that aspect, nature and women are exploited and used as resources, not as an entity in itself.
There is, however, a strand of feminism that accepts this place as their own. Not of inferiority, but the place of “mother nature”, that is, the idea that women are one with nature. Plumwood calls it the “feminism of uncritical reversal” [2]. Her criticism of this approach is that it does not confront the binarism behind men and reason vs women and nature; in other words, it does not confront the idea that men don’t belong to nature, and women don’t belong to reason. As such, Plumwood talks of an ecofeminism that breaks these barriers, and in a way, breaks the binary notion of separation between these two genders in society.
Women in the Plastic Crisis
It is hard to disagree with the statement made by Plumwood. Women are indeed in a place of servitude, along with nature, and both are seen as a resource to be exploited. In the plastic crisis, this is not different. That is because of the roles assigned to women and men in society. As the ones most responsible for household chores, and consequently, the groceries, females wind up being the ones cruising through the myriad of products, and being the ones that decide whether to buy the eco-friendly and plastic-free one, or the alternative. Women also suffer more pressure in regards to their appearances. For example, they are the target audience for cosmetic products, which can contain a large amount of microbeads - fortunately, banned in Canada and the US. With all of these responsibilities falling onto them, women are the ones that are exposed to eco-products more, and therefore are the ones burdened with the role of being more sustainable [3].
A great example of this is the pollution pads and tampons made on the planet, and how it is now females’ responsibility to buy a cup or reusable pads [4]. Similarly, women are most responsible for the children, and plastic diapers are also an issue in the long run [3]. Therefore, women are yet again in a place of choosing between the toxic and plastic-filled product, or the reusable product that will increase their work*.
Why should women take on the responsibility of solving a problem that was created and sustained by men? Plastic was created by a man, Leo Baekeland. Moreover, the current top plastic polluters in the world are Exxonmobil and Dow [5], and their CEOs are Darren Woods and Jim Fitterling, respectively. They are both men and they are both white.
Women are the ones taking care of their households, along with cleaning up the messes men are making. This is precisely what Plumwoods exposes, where women and nature are in the background, serving men so they can live to their full potential - or what is considered full potential in our society. According to her, however, accepting or rejecting the role of women as a part of nature is not the answer, rather “Both men and women must challenge the dualized conception of human identity and develop an alternative culture which fully recognizes human identity as continuous with, not alien from, nature” [2].
Final Considerations
In conclusion, change can hardly be made by only one side of society, especially if that part of society is the one with the least power. The expectation that women should be sustainable, should take care of the household, and should be in the background of men’s accomplishments is outdated and harmful to society as a whole. Expecting women to be responsible for a plastic-free sustainable life is unsustainable. The binarism placed by this idea also ignores the different genders that exist outside the scope of men and women. In short, to properly address the issue of plastic and the environment, we need to address the gender gap and the dualism entrenched in our identity first.
Editors: Anne Richard and Jennie Lin
References:
[1] Mintel - "The Eco Gender Gap"
[2] Plumwood, V. (1993). Feminism and Eco-feminism. In Feminism and the Mastery of Nature (pp. 19-40). Routledge.
[3] WECF - Plastics, Gender and the Environment
[4] The Guardian - "The Eco Gender Gap"
[5] CNBC - "20 Companies responsible for 55 percent of single-use plastic waste"
Notes:
* CP3 recognizes that women are not the only ones that need to be concerned with sanitary products concerning menstruation, but recognizes that they are the targeted audience for the product.
