Women in the fight against the commodification of nature and life!

Women and men around the world are resisting the fact that nature is considered as a resource at the service of corporate profit, that is unlimited or just another product, and that becomes increasingly expensive as it becomes more and more scarce due to improper use.  We women, in particular, are very active in these struggles.  Our experience of being made invisible and with the devaluation of the work we do to care for others is very similar to the invisibility and devaluation of nature. The time and energy that women spend in providing care, cooking, giving affection and listening are not visible and are elastic. In most families, women are the first up in the morning and the last to go to bed at night. The time and energy required for nature to regenerate itself are hidden and treated as an obstacle to overcome in order for the consumerist machine to continue operating at full throttle. Women continue to be pressured to adapt to conflicting attitudes and times – that of life and that of profit – and then to deal with the tensions that arise. Our work is instrumentalized to ease and to conceal the injustices brought about by multilateral institutions, governments and corporations.

Capitalist, patriarchal society is structured around a gender-based division of labour, that separates men’s work from women’s work, and promotes the idea that men’s work is worth more than women’s. Men’s work is associated with production (of items sold on markets) and women’s work, with reproduction (creation of human beings and interpersonal relationships). Representations of what is masculine and feminine are dual and hierarchical, like the association made between men and culture, and women and nature.

At the World March of Women, we fight to overcome this gender-based division of labour and, at the same time, for the recognition that reproductive work is at the very core of sustaining human life and the relationships between family members and society. We believe it is possible to establish (or, in some cases, reestablish) a dynamic and harmonious relationship between people and nature, and that women, due to their historical experience, have much to say on this topic.

In Rio+20, we will continue to fight against green capitalism

 and affirm women’s alternatives

Between June 15th and the 23rd, the People’s Summit for Social and Environmental Justice: against the commodification of life and in defence of the commons will be held in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The event will take place at the Aterro do Flamengo, in parallel to the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, Rio +20. The official meeting marks the 20^th anniversary of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (Rio 92 or Eco 92). 

The People's Summit is a broad space for debates and proposals built by global civil society in order to propose a new form of life on the planet, one that is based on solidarity, against the commodification of nature and in defence of the commons. The official agenda of Rio +20 privileges the so-called “green economy”, whereas the global social movements and networks who are organizing the People’s Summit - in which the WMW participates - are against this new disguise for the same capitalist production and consumption model that it is responsible for the current global crisis.

More than 30,000 people are expected to take part in the actions. The Brazilian Civil Society Facilitating Committee (CFSC in Portuguese), consisting of social movements, NGOs, collective groups and networks, is taking care of the details (such as methodology, communication and mobilization). The CFSC is coordinated by the “Articulation Group”, which brings together many social movements and national networks, such as the WMW, CUT, Via Campesina, Brazilian Network for People’s Integration (Rebrip), the youth and environmentalist movements. Based on the debates held in these spaces, the following agenda for the Summit activities has been developed:

June 5: Global Day of Action Against Capitalism

15th and 16th: Self-organized activities (organized by networks and/or coalitions)

17th : Pre-assembly plenary of convergence

18th: Self-organized activities and mobilizations (morning) and Pre-assembly plenary of convergence (afternoon)

19th: Self-organized activities (organized by networks and/or coalitions) + Mobilization (morning) + People’s Assembly -- Structural Causes and False Solutions (afternoon)

20th: National /Global Day of Mobilization. A major demonstration in Rio de Janeiro and in several Brazilian cities to express the peoples’ struggle against the commodification of nature and in defence of the commons.

21st: Self-organized activities (organized by networks and/or coalitions) + Mobilization (morning), People’s Assembly - Our Solutions (afternoon)

22: People’s Assembly – Agenda for campaigns and struggles (morning) + Closing Cultural Activity (afternoon)          

23: Evaluation of the summit

Within the summit, together with other social movements that share our anti-capitalist, anti-patriarchal and anti-racist political vision, we, the women of the WMW will be putting emphasis on the People’s Permanent  Assembly (APP in Portuguese). The APP is a space where, through testimony and analysis, exchanges and solidarity, mobilizations and concrete actions, we will have the challenge of strengthening existing struggles and call for new actions and initiatives that will generate new platforms of unity.

The APP will be organized around three axes:

- the structural causes of the current crisis of civilization, based on concrete examples such as the energy, financial, food and environmental crises, yet without fragmenting them. 

- the reaffirmation of our practices of resistance and new paradigms and alternatives built by people

- the political agenda/calendar of action for the next period

The Methodology Working Group is discussing what the best way to organize the APP is in order to give it visibility and to assert new paradigms.

The WMW in the debates on Rio +20

We are part of this construction process,  part of a broader global process to resist capitalism, which is patriarchal and racist and that nowadays, is increasingly invading all spheres of life. Through our participation in the process towards Rio +20, we aim to, even before the summit starts, give visibility to the processes of struggle against false solutions and green capitalism that we are involved in in our own countries. And, from a feminist standpoint (anti-systemic and critical), we seek to provoke an open debate in order to expose transnational corporations' and governments' intentions behind the green economy concept and its effects on women’s lives. Through our active participation and in alliance with other movements, we also aim to give visibility to the alternatives for the good life and coexistence proposed by women. We have, as a starting point, the discussions and actions organized throughout our history as a movement which have been synthesized in our action areas, particularly that of “Common good and public services” (http://www.marchemondiale.org/actions/2010action/text/biencomun/en)

We position feminism with the criticisms of the false solutions to the environmental crisis and we assert that the new discourse of capitalism, hidden today behind the mask of “green economy” concept, is the same market model that commodifies our lives, our bodies, and our territories. We say NO to the false solutions proposed by the market and its agents, such as carbon markets, agrofuels, REDD and REDD++ mechanisms and geo-engineering. We do not accept solutions than only generate more business and do not change the production, consumption and social reproduction model. Moreover, we defend that the alternatives built and proposed by the peoples must integrate a dimension that generates equality, emphasizing that to become real global alternatives, these must include equality between women and men, the right of women to live without violence, and sharing of housework and care-giving between women and men. To do this, we must start with the knowledge we have accumulated in the area of feminist economics, establishing the sustainability of human life as a challenge.

This critical debate on capitalism and the development of alternatives does not take place within the institutional frameworks of the UN or in its spaces of dialogue with civil society. There, often only gender clauses are added to treaties, as leaders or negotiators follow a rationale similar to that of the negotiations at the World Trade Organization (WTO).

We believe that the debate on alternatives can only progress through extensive efforts to build awareness among women and in spaces of alliance with other social movements that are also fighting against the patriarchal and racist capitalist system. From this perspective, then, we were present in several peoples' spaces created in parallel to official summits such as the COPs (Conference of the Parties) of the UN Convention on Climate Change in Bali (2008), Copenhagen (2009), Cancun (2010) and Durban (2011). We also participated in processes built together with the peoples, particularly the Peoples' Summit on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, in Cochabamba, Bolivia, 2010, and in the Thematic Social Forum "Capitalist Crisis, Environmental and Social Justice", in Porto Alegre, Brazil, January, 2012.

Actions already planned by the WMW

In all international processes in which we participate as the WMW (such as World Social Forums and counter summits), our strategy of intervention is built in dialogue with the dynamics and orientation provided by the NCB that hosts the event. Thus, in addition to participating in the “Articulation Group”, the WMW NCB in Brazil has been deepening the discussion about Rio +20 and the People's Summit with its grassroot groups in national training activities and in debates held during its national coordination meetings since 2011. .

We are coordinating our presence in the activities and demonstrations together with other allied social movements (Via Campesina, Friends of the Earth, etc.). During the event, we plan to organize the following spaces:

1. A WMW camp for around 1,000 women: this is a space for accommodation, organization and sharing, for both the Brazilian delegation and the WMW international delegates from other countries who might be in Rio. The WMW committees at the Brazilian state-level are already organizing training, mobilization and fundraising activities to guarantee their delegations' presence in Rio.

2. Participation in debates within the spaces of the People’s Summit: we are organizing our activities so as to emphasize the construction of the various plenaries of convergence and the Permanent Peoples' Assembly, ensuring that the feminist perspective is part of these processes.

3. Demonstrations/Mobilizations:

- We are planning with our allies to have a lot of action on the streets during the days of the summit. We are in the process of giving visibility to the feminist agenda in these mobilizations. For example, in the fight against mining (mainly the Vale transnational corporation), we want to denounce how capital's offensive moves into territories also advances on our bodies, the issue of violence and prostitution.

- On June 18, we will hold a women’s day of mobilization, organized by the ensemble of Brazilian women's movements and women of mixed movements allied with the WMW, in which we will express a strong feminist position against green capitalism.

Internally, the WMW, the International Committee and Secretariat set up  a working group to share information, produce documents to assist in the training for action and political action, give visibility to our participation in the summit, evaluate the follow up after Rio+20 and coordinate the actions of our members who follow the issue in different countries.

June 5th: international day of action

Aware of the need to expand the process that criticizes the green economy, during the Thematic Social Forum "Capitalist Crisis, Environmental and Social justice", held in Porto Alegre (RS), Brazil, from January 24 to 29, 2012, the Social Movements Assembly decided to organize a global day of common action on June 5^th in order to send a strong message to all of our governments before the UN Rio +20 Conference. On this date, which coincides with the World Environment Day, we want to clearly show our position against policies that are at the service of transnational corporations and result in the commodification of nature, of our lives and our bodies, and to voice our alternatives.

As part of our alliances, we have been strengthening our common lines of struggle, defined in Dakar in 2011: against transnational corporations, for climate justice and food sovereignty, against violence against women and war, colonialism, occupations and the militarization of our territories.

Click here to read the declaration of the Social Movements Assembly in Porto Alegre 2012.

In Brazil, during the Rio+20 events, a demonstration with strong national and international presence is being planned for June 20^th.

Rio +20: an overview of the official process

In January 2012, the United Nations launched the Zero Draft preparatory document for the official debates with the title, “The Future We Want.” The draft contains several problems: it proposes the green economy and the participation of the private sector as solutions to the problems they themselves have created. It also reiterate support for the WTO Doha Round , the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and COP-17 – which are agreements that favour the interests of the corporations. Finally, as a concrete measure, it proposes the establishment of Sustainable Development Goals. For those who follow this issue, it draws our attention to the fact that these are none other than a repetition of the Millennium Goals, agreements that completely disregard all agreements from the cycle of UN social conferences of the 1990s.

We, from the WMW Brazil, were never very enthusiastic about the results of the UN Cycle of Conferences. We are very concerned with the signature of widely accepted agreements that establish the basis for new business, such as the Dublin Agreement, which later led to the privatization of water services.

In the official process, there is the 'Major Group of Women', who has made contributions to the Zero Draft in November, 2011. In their document, there are elements that we agree with, such as the proposal of concrete measures for the rapid phasing-out and ban of dangerous toxic compounds used in pesticides and fertilizers; the elimination of subsidies for unsustainable energy sources like nuclear energy and tar sands; the affirmation of the precautionary principle; the need to protect traditional knowledge systems of indigenous women from appropriation and exploitation by corporations. The group also criticizes the term “green economy” and proposes instead “equitable and sustainable economy”, describing its principles. In addition, it stresses the limitations of using GDP as a measure of welfare, and proposes indicators to evaluate gender impacts.

However, those contributions were not included in the UN's Zero Draft. The document only makes a generic reference to gender inequality, mentioning that sustainable development depends on the contribution of women, that barriers that prevent their participation in the economy must be removed, and measures promoting gender equality should be promoted. The draft also incorporates the need to develop indicators that simultaneously include economic, environmental, and social aspects.

We believe that an analysis restricted to gender impacts may be limited to describing the positive and negative impacts in a fragmented way. For instance, at the peak of neoliberal globalization, the increase in paid jobs for women at the “maquilas” and export-led agriculture were seen as positive effects: women had their own income, and therefore, they tended to have more autonomy. However, there were also negative impacts, especially poor working conditions. According to that rationale, positive and negative aspects balance out. However, we prioritize a perspective that analyzes how capitalism uses the patriarchal structures in its current process of accumulation.