Women’s precarity in a globalised world: an ecofeminist perspective
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.38140/aa.v56i2.8971Keywords:
women's precarity, ecofeminist perspective, housewifisation, social justice, feminisation of povertyAbstract
As French philosopher, anthropologist and sociolo gist Bruno Latour noted, “[f]rom the time the term ‘politics’ was invented, every type of politics has been defined by its relation to nature” (2004 [1999]: 1). When the exploitation of nature became a subject of profit and global political discourse, women’s situation in the labour market underwent significant changes, resulting in precarity and exploitation due to their perceived proximity to nature. This presumed connection between women and nature has been studied by ecofeminist thinkers, revealing its profound influence on women’s roles in the labour system, particularly in capitalist societies where diversity is often sacrificed in favour of uniformity to facilitate the sale of products to a global audience (King 1986: 184). This contribution aims to explore, from an ecofeminist perspective, statistics regarding women’s precarity worldwide, with particular attention to the situation of migrant women in the global North and native women in the global South.
Downloads
References
Adams CJ. 1993. Ecofeminism and the sacred. New York: Continuum.
Albelda R, BellPasht A and Konstantinidis C. 2019. Gender and precarious work in the United States: evidence from the contingent work supplement
-2017. Boston, MA: UMASS. https://doi.org/10.1177/0486613419891175 Biehl J. 1991. Rethinking ecofeminist politics. Boston, MA: South End Press. Boserup E. 2007 [1970]. Woman’s role in economic development. Abingdon:
Earthscan.
Buckingham S. 2004. Ecofeminism in the twentyfirst century. The Geographical
Journal 170(2): 146154. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.00167398.2004.00116.x Cassegård C. 2021. Toward a critical theory of nature: capital, ecology, and dialectics. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. https://doi.org/10.5040/978135
Chant S. 2006. Rethinking the ‘feminization of poverty’ in relation to aggregate
gender indices. Journal of Human Development 7(2): 201220. https://doi.
org/10.1080/14649880600768538
Chant S. 2013. Cities through a ‘gender lens’: a golden ‘urban age’ for women in
the Global South? Environment and Urbanization 25(1): 121. https://doi.
org/10.1177/0956247813477809
Chant S. 2014. Exploring the ‘feminisation of poverty’ in relation to women’s work
and homebased enterprise in slums of the Global South. International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship 6(3): 296316. https://doi.org/10.1108/ IJGE0920120035
Dalla Costa M and James S. 1975 [1972]. The Power of Women and the Subversion of the Community. Richmond: Falling Wall Press, 1975.
Deplano V. 2013. Madre Italia, Africa concubina. La femminilizzazione del territorio nel discorso coloniale fascista. Genesis 12(2): 5574.
DesJardins J. 2013. Environmental ethics. an introduction to environmental philosophy. 5th Ed. Boston, MA: Wadsworth.
European Institute for Gender Equality. 2017. Gender, skills, and precarious work in the EU. Research Note. Vilnius: EIGE.
European Institute for Gender Equality. 2019. Gender equality index, work in the European Union for 2019. Available at: https://eige.europa.eu/gender equalityindex/2019/domain/work [accessed on 21 February 2024].
European Institute for Gender Equality. 2023. Gender equality index 2023. Towards a green transition in transport and energy. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union.European Parliament. 2010. European Parliament resolution of 19 October 2010 on precarious women workers (2010/2018 (INI)). Available at: https://www. europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA720100365_EN.html [accessed on 21 February 2024].
Fiadzo C, Buckingham S, Dalla Pozza V, Todaro L, Dupont C and Hadjivassiliou K. 2020. Precarious work from a gender and intersectionality perspective, and ways to combat it. Brussels: European Union.
Grossman R. 1979. Women’s place in the integrated circuit. Manushi (4): 4855. Hinze SW and Aliberti D. 2007. Feminization of poverty. In: G Ritzer (ed). The Blackwell encyclopedia of sociology. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
https://doi.org/10.1002/9781405165518.wbeosf046
International Labour Organization. 2015. ILO global estimates on migrant
workers. results and methodology. Geneva: ILO.
International Labour Organization. 2021. ILO global estimates on international
migrant workers. Results and Methodology. Geneva: ILO.
Jinnah Z. 2020. Negotiated precarity in the Global South: a case study of migration and domestic work in South Africa. Studies in Social Justice 14(1): 210217.
https://doi.org/10.26522/ssj.v2020i14.1971
Khosla R. 2013. Addressing gender concerns in India’s urban renewal mission.
New Delhi: United Nations Development Programme. Available at: https:// www.undp.org/sites/g/files/zskgke326/files/migration/in/addressing genderconcerns.pdf [accessed on 5 November 2024].
King Y. 1986. Per un femminismo ecologico ed una ecologia femminista. In: J Rothschild (ed). Donne, tecnologia e scienza. Torino: Rosenberg and Sellier.
Kunieda M and Gauthier A. 2007. Gender and urban transport: smart and affordable. In: Sustainable transport: a sourcebook for policy-makers is developing cities. Eschborn: German Technical Cooperation. Available at: https://ppp. worldbank.org/publicprivatepartnership/sites/default/files/202408/ GTZ_GenderandUrbanTransport_EN.pdf [accessed on 5 November 2024].
Latour B. 2004 [1999]. Politics of nature. How to bring the sciences into democracy. Translated by Catherine Porter. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Luxemburg R. 2003 [1913]. The accumulation of capital. Translated by Agnes
Schwarzschild. London: Routledge.
MacGregor S. 2010. A stranger silence still: the need for feminist social research
on climate change. The Sociological Review 57(2): 124140. https://doi.
org/10.1111/j.1467954X.2010.01889.x
Marcoux A. 1998. The Feminization of poverty: claim, facts, and data needs.
Population and Development Review 24(1): 131139. https://doi.org/10. 2307/2808125Melo CL. 2019. The feminization of poverty: a brief analysis of gender issues and poverty among women and girls. The Canadian Journal of Critical Nursing Discourse 1(1): 7381. https://doi.org/10.25071/22915796.6
McKinsey Global Institute. 2015. The Power of Parity. How Advancing Women’s Equality Can Add $12 Trillion to Global Growth. McKinsey and Company. Available at: https://bit.ly/3CZMqJn [accessed on 5 November 2024].
Merchant C. 2020 [1980]. The death of nature. Reprint. New York: HarperOne. Mies M. 2014 [1986]. Patriarchy and accumulation on a world scale: women in the international division of labour. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. https://doi.
org/10.5040/9781350221703
Oddo VM, JonesSmith JC, Knox MA. 2023. Changes in precarious employment
and health in the United States Amidst the COVID19 Pandemic. Preventive
Medicine Reports (31): 17. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pmedr.2023.102113 Orav A and Killmayer L. 2023. Migrant women and the EU labour marke: overcoming double discrimination. Briefing from the European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS). Available at: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/ etudes/BRIE/2023/747905/EPRS_BRI(2023)747905_EN.pdf [accessed on 5
November 2024].
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. 2023. Gender
Discrimination in Social Norms: Measuring the Invisible [online]. Available at: https://www.oecd.org/stories/gender/socialnormsandgenderdiscri mination/ [accessed on 22 February 2024].
Pearce D. 1978. The feminization of poverty: women, work, and welfare. Urban and Social Change Review 11(1): 2838.
Peterson J. 1987. The feminization of poverty. Journal of Economic Issue 21(1): 329337. https://doi.org/10.1080/00213624.1987.11504613
Radel C. 2009. Natures, gendered. In: R Kitchen and N Thrift (eds). International encyclopedia of human geography. Oxford: Elsvier. https://doi.org/10.1016/ B9780080449104.005733
Robbins P (ed). 2007. Encyclopedia of environment and society. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications.
Shiva V. 2016 [1988]. Staying alive: women, ecology, and development. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 2016.
Sombart W. 1988 [1913]. Lusso e capitalism. Translated by Mauro Protti. Milano: Edizioni Unicopli.
Sweeney R. 2020. Cherishing all equally 2020: inequality and the care economy. Brussels: FEPS, TASC.UN Women. 2011. Progress of the world’s women 2011-2012: in pursuit of justice. New York: UN Women. Available at: https://www.unwomen.org/ en/digitallibrary/publications/2011/7/progressoftheworldswomen inpursuitofjustice [accessed on 22 February 2024].
UN Women. 2019. Progress of the world’s women 2019-2020: families in a changing world. New York: UN Women. Available at: https://www.unwomen. org/en/digitallibrary/publications/2019/06/progressoftheworlds women20192020 [accessed on 22 February 2024].
Warren KJ. 2000. Ecofeminist philosophy: a western perspective on what it is and why it matters. Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
##submission.downloads##
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2024 Francesca D’Alessio
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
