Finding balance...

A recurring theme keeps showing up in my life - women - so I am taking the hint and have decided to write something about it. Usually I start off writing a blog knowing exactly what I want to say, where humor can be injected, and how it will end. This time you know as much as I do, so let's get writing...or reading...

A few years ago I picked up a book at the UBC book store called 'Women and the Gift Economy'. It was my first foray into women-specific (read feminist) literature, and I was really moved by the idea that women offer a very unique perspective and set of values to the world. The idea of a gift economy, one based not on exchange but on giving freely whatever we could, really spoke to me. Giving something without any expectation of a return is a vastly different experience to 'exchanging' something, as we can all attest to. When a gift is given, its value continues long after the act has taken place, for both the giver and the givee. Yet with an exchange, the value of the gift is cancelled in the act of exchanging. Gift giving is based on offering what you can, while exchange is measured by what you have. One creates a sense of wealth, while other a sense of scarcity. Unfortunately I never made it all the way through the book; it was so dense and read more like a 4th year women's studies text book.

Last week I ventured to the book store, hoping to find something I could read to offer a new perspective on life, and came home with not one but four books. One of the books, 'Staying Alive', discusses women's inherent role as protectors of the environment and producers of much of the worlds food...that is until recently. The loss of knowledge, seed saving, and other important factors of sustainable agriculture are tied directly to womens' rights, or lack of, according to the book. For thousands of years women have been the nurturers of family and food; gathering, harvesting, and passing on knowledge of plants. Staying Alive points the finger directly at white, Caucasian males for the erosion of this traditional knowledge and the privatization and patenting of nature and indigenous knowledge. While I firmly believe that this is indeed happening around the world, I found the finger pointing distracting from the more important messages, and finally had to put the book down. My hope is that feminist viewpoints could be about celebrating women's role, not blaming the other gender for all that has gone wrong.

Flash forward to today; I came across an article that was truly a breath of fresh air on women's perspectives in sustainability. Ironically, it was written by a man. The article, titled 'The Essential Role of Women in a Restorative Future", discusses the need for gender balance in our communities, decisions, and boardrooms. There is no blaming or finger pointing, rather simply an acknowledgment that a lack of female representation in many areas has gotten us to our current situation. The author articulates that men, like women, don't have all the answers, but together we do. Analogous to your right and left brain, the two halves work together to produce the whole.