“Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace…
As we kayaked in the mangroves of Costa Rica, just escaping the funhouse of mangrove roots, Meagan began to sing,”imagine there´s no countries”…I felt myself begin to cry, maybe it was being in a tropical rainforest, maybe it was the tranquility of the water or maybe Meagan is just a great singer, (though most likely it was a combination of all three). A moment of peace, amist the chaos of travel and constant plans, I felt myself let go and just be.
Costa Rica proved itself to be everything we discussed in class, Bullet Ants and all. Throughout the trip, we opened up to each other and slowly began to peel back the layers of comfort most of us stayed in during the semester. Teachers learned from students, students learned from teachers, students learned from other students, and soon enough, the word “ecoleader” didn´t sound as intimidating anymore. Our trip was riddled with inspiration, from the personal narrative told by the researcher at La Selva, who talked of his childhood battle with cancer that was easily solved by a now disappearing flower due to deforestation to the speech given by an Earth University student, asking each and everyone of us at the round table discussion exactly what we were going to do to stop Climate Change. And with these ideas in mind, I would like to take a different tone to my last blog post, drawing from the inspiration I felt and experienced in Costa Rica. My usual topic, which discusses observations about ´women and nature´, often ends my blog posts asking the reader to ponder the inequalities women face and how this can overall impact the world´s committment to the environment. In this last blog post however, I find myself torn between expressing the joy of travel and adventure with the reality of it, leaving me feeling conflicted but ironically hopeful.
Let me begin,
I love Costa Rica, I love the United States and I´m deeply in love with Colombia. Costa Rica has shown me just how possible it is for a country to develop an attitude of conservation and exactly what that looks like. Colombia has shown me one of my favorite cultural attitudes by far “full tummy, happy heart” (shoutout to Carlos´ family for all the food) and that living simply is not only the least expensive choice but often, the happiest. The United States will always be in my heart because it´s my home and after being away for half a month, I don´t think I´ve ever felt happier to be from the United States. Throughout these joys of traveling, I´ve found it hard to keep focused on the idea of my blog post: women and nature. Mostly because when discussing the realities behind gender inequalities, there´s a certain downcast it puts on a sunny experience.
For instance, during our first full day in Costa Rica, when the class found themselves building a greenhouse unexpectedly, I felt instantly excited about the depth of manual labor we were about to get into. See, I come from a family of construction workers, people who are good with their hands and excellent at maintaining determination under burdensome conditions. Yet as soon as I found myself climbing up the metal foundation of the structure, I was met with resistance in the form of subtlety.”Just hold this piece. Are you sure you got it? Are you okay? I can just do it?” Yeah, and so can I! To the outside observer this interaction may not have sounded like a big deal but when your family are sculpters and someone doesn´t trust you to hold a vase, then you can understand. Eventually, I climbed back down and met up with Melody, who had the same experience. Now, knowing Medody, I can assure you two things about her. 1) She is extremely capable, and can physically hold her own with more confidence than most people. 2) She has one of the most optimistic and unconditionally happy attitudes I´ve ever had the pleasure of being around. That being said, it was to my surprise that her help was also not desired in the construction of the greenhouse. For those of you that were there, how much farther do you think the construction would have gone if women were more empowered to help out with more than just holding the cover down?
How about how the involvement of the local women didn´t surpass cooking (with the exception to the one female guide at La Selva)? Anyone notice that? (By the way, please feel free to comment on the blog if you can remember other females who took leadership roles. I welcome the opportunity to be proven wrong. Growth right?)
The second subtle inequality I noticed occurred on the second day, at Le Selva Biological Station. When we were presented with the opportunity to do transects, I was again, excited as can be. Having done transects as field research before during my first summer at St. Edward´s, I feel confident that I know how to do them. However, my guide did not notice or trust my ability. At every single transect, I was corrected on my hand position, the way I held the tape, the straightness of my measuring and so forth… Now, I know what you´re thinking, maybe you´re just not as good as you think you are, Chelsea, and I assure you I´m probably not, but when the guide said “perfect” about one of my collegues ability to measure while he was looking away, I put some faith in the possibility that maybe I wasn´t making this up.
During my junior year at St. Edward´s, I took a class called American Dilemmas, a class everyone is forced to take and because such, most people strongly dislike this class. However, I had the oppositive reaction. I loved that class, and if nothing more than because of this, that upon observing and measuring historical gender norms, they change, because BAM! gender is a social construct. Meaning that while sex is identified as biological parts, gender and its qualities change with time, meaning that perceived gender differences are about as innate as who will become president. Gender is continually taught and reinforced. What caused me to have this realization, was the reading of one transwomen´s testimony about how changing gender changed social reinforcements. In an article posted in New Republic called ´Transgender people can explain why women don´t advance at work´, in an interview with a transgender biologist at Stanford, she states “men are assumed to be competent until proven otherwise, whereas a woman is assumed to be incompetent until she proves otherwise.”
Costa Rica ranks 38th in the world in the Global Gender Gap Report. Lower than the United States, but 4 ranks higher than Colombia. While adventuring in Colombia, gender inequalities were difficult to notice and if it wasn´t for interviews with some of the people I met while here, I wouldn´t have been able to notice subtle inequalities.
One of the things that surprised me in Colombia is that there are female construction workers, something I´ve never noticed in the United States. Upon further inquiry, I decided to interview one of the people I met in Colombia about these observations..
Me: Do you think Colombia is equal in the opportunites provided for men and women compared to the U.S.?
Carlos: No, I think that women have more opportunities in the United States.
Me: Why is that?
Carlos: I´ve never seen a housekeeper who was male. I have also never heard of Women´s Suffrage Movements in Colombia. For instance, I was never educated in school about Women´s Movements, compared to the United States history of Women´s Movements. In my personal life, I know that my aunt was told by my grandfather that she couldn´t be a doctor. However, she did go on to become one so perhaps the opportunites are there but there´s still a heavy culture that believes women shouldn´t do certain jobs.
On the other hand, when discussing the issue with Carlos´s sister, Marta, the inequalites were more prominent.
Me: I don´t think I´ve seen that many differences of gender inequalites, do you notice any differences between here and the U.S.?
Marta: Oh, for sure. The United States is so much more safer for women. Harassment is much more prominent in Colombia, for example walking down the street. I feel much more safer in the United States walking down the street alone, than in Colombia walking down the street alone. There´s a machismo culture here that leads men to believe that constantly hitting on women is normal and doesn´t teach them when to stop.
Carlos, his grandmother (Olga), me and Marta
In an article entitled Colombia´s Gender Problem, I found a prominent example of an well known and successful Colombian speaking about rape, all too casually and accusatory about women. In a case where a women was raped in front of the restaurant he owns, the man stated that “she was asking for it because of how she dressed”. Comments he did not apologize for or make amends over. The article then goes on to draw attention to the fact that violence against women in common and often goes unpunished. Only 21% of women seek help from doctors or clinics and about 1/3 of those women were not informed about placing a formal complaint.
However after addressing these inequalites, I want to, as forementioned, take a more optimistic stance on these issues, by also addressing the ways in which these countries are improving. According to the North South Institute in 2012 Colombia “established a 30 percent quota of women candidates in all elections. The same percentage of women must occupy the highest level of the government’s public service. (By comparison, the Latin American average for female representation in legislatures was 22% in 2010).” Not only is changing happening at a political level, but it is being fueled from the social level. New organizations such as the Political Advocacy Roundtable of Rural Women, which works to give voice to the concerns affecting rural women living in Colombia. In Costa Rica, there is a similar situation going on. The Quebrada Grande de Pital Women’s Association took it in their own hands to combat deforestation and have challenged the male leaders of their community with taking the initiative with land use and reforesting areas that had been cleared. What started out as a small group of women, 14 total, led the country in inspiring rural womens group to stand up and start reforesting projects on their own. In a country where the majority of farmers are men, women´s participation grew by 185%.
What I found in these obersvations was this, that while these countries are certainly excelling at some things, namely conservation, they still have areas for growth, specifically gender equality. This being said, I realize that different cultures have different beliefs, customs, and ideas, however deforestation is bad for any culture. Isn´t it bad to cut down all the potential of possibilities for one gender and blame it on cultural differences? I´ve come to view the gender inequality as an area in need of growth, one, like conservation, needs steps to replant the seeds of change and human potential. I think that while there is a strong patriarchial culture embedded in the world (some places greater than others) there is an even greater potential for change and an untapped potential for connection. If this trip taught me anything, its that the ability of nature to connect people is far more grand than we can ever imagine.
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one.
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/johnlennon/imagine.html
https://newrepublic.com/article/119239/transgender-people-can-explain-why-women-dont-advance-work
http://reports.weforum.org/global-gender-gap-report-2015/economies/#economy=CRI
http://www.worldpolicy.org/blog/2013/11/25/colombias-gender-problem
Carlos Gutierrez
Marta Gutierrez
http://www.nsi-ins.ca/newsroom/gender-policy-is-failing-women-in-colombia/
http://www.mujeresruralescolombianas.org/