Women and Population

This weeks readings were around the issues of women's vulnerability to climate change. In Tuesdays reading on Women in Katrina a story that stood out to was "We like to think Houma women are very strong". It chronicled the movements of the chief of the Robichaux tribe during Katrina, how she rallied behind her people to maintain their survival during a time were they were subject to extremly harsh environmental conditions. In other terms it is called the United Houma Nation for generations. In Thursdays reading about Infertile Ground, the arguments about population growth and women's role in population growth along with the NGO and international development response to the arguments about population growth being the number 1 indicator of climate change were discussed. The author spoke of different theories and how she wanted to see a new era/generation of people act upon the population argument. She called it sexual stewardship which she says is the emphasizing of women's empowerment through voluntary access to contraceptives within broader programs supporting women's SRHR in a human rights framework. Her argument was for the linkage of environmental problems to women's agency through responsible reproductive management.

I really enjoyed the Infertile Ground readings because they argued for a more humane and human rights based activism towards the malthusian approach to population growth and climate change. The authors argument for populationism and its popularity among young people was really interesting to me. Instead of placing the blame on women's womb, it framed the problem around circumstances and developed a method that did not diminish womanhood or place blame on it but encouraged freedom through knowledge and access of good healthcare.

Some key terms I learned from the Infertile Ground reading were:

Malthusianism: political-economic concept couched in the language of biological fundamentalism

Populationism: upholding Malthus policy while adhering to the human rights and international and development strategies

sexual stewardship: emphasizing women empowerment through voluntary access to contraceptives within broader programs supporting women SRHR in a human rights framework

GPEP: Global Population Environment Program: designed to develop a new generation of global population policy advocates by advancing global reproductive health and sustainable development initiatives.