Melinda Watson

Simay Çetin

Melinda Watson, founder and director of RAW (Realizing Another World) Foundation and RAW Bottles, is an environmental activist, mother, sea lover, and teacher. RAW Foundation has been raising awareness and actively campaigning on pointless plastic use and pollution, and other types of waste since 2010, by helping festivals and events (like  Glastonbury and Shambala) go plastic free and by providing Plastic-Free Guides for events organizers and  supplying reusable water bottles. Recently, they have spearheaded a Plastic-Free Campaign in Turkey. You’ve got Feminist Mail talked with Melinda about ecofeminism, the impact of Coronavirus on the environment, and whether we should go back to normalcy at all. 

Could you briefly explain the work of RAW Foundation and RAW Bottles for our readers?
“I wrote a chapter in The Handbook of Sustainable Literacy, called ‘Materials Awareness’ in 2009, looking at the hidden story of the everyday products we engage with. It focused on key waste streams, such as plastic, which was beginning to grow exponentially. Disillusioned with the ‘formal’ educational environment, I decided to take the learning to an informal environment: festivals. Because these are creative spaces for change. However, the flow of plastic waste continues to increase exponentially, encouraging a throwaway society - across the world. Sadly, all fruits and vegetables are now sold in plastic here (in Turkey), because of the pandemic. It is contributing to climate change hugely, contaminating our precious water systems, passing up the food chain, affecting human health, and infiltrating other cultures, which is what I have seen first hand in Africa, South America and the Amazon.” 

I’ve read several articles on how air pollution in Europe and China has decreased, but as you were saying, most products in the Netherlands as well are being sold in plastic bags at the moment. What do you think the long term consequences of this pandemic on the environment will be? 
“People are waking up to the fact that the recent pandemic is a direct consequence of our human ‘treadmill’ activity, particularly our global financial and economic systems that prize economic growth at any cost. On top of the explosive growth of air travel, frenetic working lives, sitting for hours in traffic in polluted cities, away from our loved ones and utterly miserable, we are recognising that the current system is broken and ‘business as usual’ isn’t working. So the deep question we have to ask ourselves is: do we really want to go back to that?”

Read the complete interview with Melinda Watson on the FEL website.

Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Development by Vandana Shiva

Sophie Jansen

Full disclosure: when we decided on this newsletter’s topic I was quite ignorant of ecofeminism and why it’s a thing. Of course I’m a feminist and yes, I do care about the future of this earth, but why are those two connected? I decided to do my homework and read ‘Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Development’ by Vandana Shiva. This book, originally published in 1988, is widely regarded as one of the most influential ecofeminist texts.
 
A blurb on the book’s cover describes Shiva as ‘one of the world’s most radical scientists.’ Words like ‘radical’ are spoken far too easily in promotional contexts but in this case it’s right on the money. Shiva wastes zero time as she dives right in, to explain that the earth is dying, how this is related to women’s issues and why it’s all the patriarchy’s fault. The fact that this book was written over thirty years ago and nothing much has improved is disconcerting, to say the least. 
 
The word ‘development’ will never be the same again after reading Shiva’s scathing description of how this term is used for the implication of western patriarchal values and against diversity – diversity of crops and diversity of human values, both of which are essential to earth’s and humanity’s survival. Shiva’s own Indian background and point of view are refreshing, considering that we (or at least I myself) often consider the west as ‘standard’. So much of what we know and the way we see the world has been shaped by the ideas of white men, as Shiva very eloquently describes in her epic takedown of the Enlightenment. When it comes to the survival of the planet, we really can’t afford such a narrow point of view.
 
Although I enjoyed Shiva’s radicality and harsh words, it must also be said that this is not an easy read, especially during a global pandemic. Cooking, easily my number one hobby at the moment, just loses some of its appeal when you’ve just read how the food industry is a slippery slope that will eventually destroy everything. Oh well, at least I’m a little better informed now. And a lot more stressed out.

Willemijn Schmidt

We kunnen het bijna niet ontkennen: het verschil in leiderschapsstijlen tussen de vrouwelijke en mannelijke machthebbers tijdens de coronacrisis. Trumps laatste bizarre ingeving om desinfectiemiddel toe te dienen bij wijze van vaccin is de kers op een torenhoge mind fuck-taart. Daarentegen kwamen steeds meer internationale nieuwsplatformen (Forbes en de The Guardian) en Nederlandse media (d.m.v. een ingestuurde brief van feminist Jelle Havermans in De Volkskrant en het AD) met de mededeling dat de vrouwelijke autoriteiten het indammen van het virus beter lijken aan te pakken. 

Kan dit vertoon van vrouwelijk leiderschap iets betekenen voor de klimaatcrisis waar de corona uitbraak wel degelijk een onderdeel van was? Van de redenatie ‘vrouw = zorgzaam = goed voor de natuur’ word ik zelf een beetje mismoedig. Als vrouwen alleen de klimaatcrisis kunnen oplossen doordat ze biologisch (brr) empathischer zouden zijn, worden vooroordelen over vrouwelijkheid, macht én het belang van een goede relatie met onze aarde alleen maar bevestigd. Het zoeken naar een echt radicale en duurzame oplossing, voor zowel emancipatie van vrouwxn en onze natuur, wordt op deze manier effectief vermeden. 

Toch wil ik graag inzoomen op een van deze staatsvrouwen: Jacinda Ardern van Nieuw-Zeeland. Ardern noemde klimaatverandering als de grootste crisis van onze tijd en klimaatbeleid staat bij haar hoog in het vaandel. Het is haar gelukt om de meerderheid van haar land en regering achter een nieuwe wet te scharen, die de afspraken van de klimaatconferentie van Parijs verankeren. Naast deze ‘Zero Carbon Bill’ wordt er een onafhankelijk klimaatverandering commissie ingesteld. Ook zijn het planten van 1 miljard bomen en als het verbieden van ‘single used plastic’ opgenomen in haar beleid. Hopelijk werpt haar leiderschap licht op de bizarre trekjes van conservatieve en autoritaire leiders, en een voorbeeld van hoe het óók kan gaan.