Tag: domestic

Is Radical Homemaking the New Feminism?

  • Author Shannon Hayes says raising chickens and growing veggies is a new route for women who consider themselves feminists. (Photo courtesy of Nathan & Jenny CC-2.0)

Women who consider themselves feminists might be shocked to hear what some are calling the new wave of feminism: women heading back to the kitchen – and the garden. Julie Grant reports:

Transcript

Women who consider themselves feminists might be shocked to hear what some are calling the new wave of feminism: women heading back to the kitchen – and the garden. Julie Grant reports:

When Shannon Hayes was finishing her PhD, she made a list of all the female professors she’d ever had. There wasn’t one who had tenure who was also married with children. Hayes wanted a husband and family, and realized that if she wanted a big university job…

“I was not going to have these things. And they were as important to me as having a career. In fact, in truth they were more important to me.”

So, much to the dismay of her PhD committee members, she headed back to the northern foothills of the Appalachian mountains near the family farm where she grew up. She bought a teeny house with her husband. People whispered. What had gone wrong?

Once there, Hayes couldn’t even get a job interview. To make things worse, her husband lost his job two weeks after buying the house. So, they fell back on their domestic skills.

“Well, if something broke, we fixed it. If something ripped, we mended it. I was very good at canning, so any food we didn’t grow on the farm or didn’t grow in our gardens I wold go to the local farmers when it was in peak season and I would can it, freeze it, lacto-ferment it.”

Hayes says her idea of success changed. Spending time with her parents and children, cooking family meals – those are her successes.

And she’s found that more people are realizing the power of homemaking.

Hayes has now written a book called Radical Homemakers – which profiles twenty families that are saying “no” to regular jobs, and are instead raising chickens and growing veggies.

Hayes says homemaking is a new route for women who consider themselves feminists.

“I think that a lot of feminists are realizing that the family home life is extremely important. I do think that this is part of the next wave of feminism.”

One feminist blogger asked with disgust:
Are you telling women to get back in the kitchen?

Traditional feminists don’t like the sound of this one bit.

Brittany Shoot is another feminist blogger. She’s concerned with calling homemaking feminism. Shoot writes about eco-feminist issues for Bitch Media and The Women’s International Perspective. She says just because some women are doing it, does NOT make it feminism. She says Hayes’ message could be considered a step backward for women.

“I can’t imagine saying to my grandmother, ‘I’m going to stay home and just hang out.'”

Shoot says her grandmother struggled to attend university, and didn’t have nearly the choices Brittany has for a career. She would want Brittany to make the most of her opportunities.

“We’ve come so far. Why would you make this decision when you have the ability to have a career that may not only be lucrative, but fulfilling.”

But Shannon Hayes says we’ve been conditioned to want the money and status of a big job and that’s proving to be as empty for many women as it is for many men.

Hayes says being a housewife in the ‘50s and 60s was limiting. Back then, when Betty Friedan wrote The Feminine Mystique, women were depressed by their role as homemakers. Women were losing their own identities to serve their husbands and children. But Hayes says women today are losing their identities to the workplace. She also says corporations have largely taken over in the home.
She says when women left the kitchen to join the workforce, that’s when everyone started eating processed, unhealthy foods.

“I think everybody should get back in the kitchen, not just women. But that’s because I don’t think you should be buying processed foods, and I don’t think you should be supporting industrial agriculture, and don’t think that you should be supporting food traveling thousands of miles.”

Hayes says becoming a homemaker isn’t abandoning feminism, it’s redefining it on her own terms. She’s sharing homemaking with her husband… and both are finding more balance between home life and work.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

New Bi-Partisan Climate Change Bill

  • Darren Samuelsohn says the bill will also include a national renewable electricity standard, requiring more power to come from sources other than fossil fuel such as coal. (Photo courtesy of NREL)

A long-awaited climate change bill in the Senate is to be released next week. A prominent Republican says the bi-partisan bill won’t pass. Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

A long-awaited climate change bill in the Senate is to be released next week. A prominent Republican says the bi-partisan bill won’t pass. Lester Graham reports.

Senators John Kerry, a Democrat, Joseph Lieberman, an independent and Lindsey Graham, a Republican have been working behind closed doors for six months to draft a climate and energy bill. They’re supposed to release it next Monday.

Darren Samuelsohn covers Washington for ClimateWire. He says no one knows everything the bill will include… but some points have been revealed.

Samuelsohn: Price on carbon emissions across multiple sectors of the economy: power plants, heavy manufacturing and transportation and then trying to ramp up a range of domestic energy supplies from nuclear to natural gas to oil.

Samuelsohn says the bill will also include a national renewable electricity standard, requiring more power come from sources other than fossil fuel such as coal.

Samuelsohn speculates this bill could pass in the Senate… but it will require some arm twisting and deal making by President Obama.

The Senate’s chief climate change denier, Republican James Inhofe told Fox News the bill won’t get half the votes it needs to pass.

For The Environment, I’m Lester Graham.

Related Links

Migration Season Brings Bird Flu Worries

  • Julie Craves stands in the area where she sets up mist nets during migration to catch land birds. (Photo by Christina Shockley)

Researchers have been monitoring the spread of a potentially deadly strain of avian influenza overseas. Health officials worry the H5N1 strain could mutate into a form that could infect humans. Some researchers say the virus could make its way to the United States as early as this fall… by way of wild migratory birds. The GLRC’s Christina Shockley reports:

Transcript

Researchers have been monitoring the spread of a potentially deadly
strain of avian influenza overseas. Health officials worry the H5N1
strain could mutate into a form that could infect humans. Some
researchers say the virus could make its way to the United States as early
as this fall… by way of wild migratory birds. The GLRC’s Christina
Shockley reports:


Wild birds carry all sorts of influenza viruses. Most are of no threat to
people, but the H5N1 strain is different. When it gets into people… it’s
often fatal. Overseas the strain has killed whole farms of poultry such as
chicken and ducks… it’s also infected other types of animals, including
cats.


The H5N1 strain has not been found in the United States, but most
experts say it’s just a matter of time before it is. Some say infected
domestic poultry or smuggled pet birds will likely bring the virus to the
U.S. Others say the virus could come here by way of migrating birds…
that are on the move now.


Steve Schmitt is the lead veterinarian for Michigan’s Department of
Natural Resources. He says birds from Asia… that are possibly infected
with the H5N1 strain are on their way to Alaska right now. There, they
could mingle with birds that will later fly back to the United States.
Schmitt says there are four major flyways over the U.S.… the Pacific,
central, Mississippi, and Atlantic.


“There are birds that will winter in Asia and then come back and nest in
Alaska. If they bring the virus back with them, then they could transmit
that to birds that are in Alaska that come down any of these four major
flyways, and that of course is a big concern, moving it all over the
country.”


Schmitt says most birds that nest in Alaska use the Pacific flyway along
the Pacific coast… to migrate south to the U.S. and Mexico. He says
that means, if the virus were to come to the United States via migratory
birds, the pacific coast would probably be its first stop in the lower 48.
Schmitt says then, birds that use the other flyways could become
infected.


“Most of the migration is north-south, but you do have a few that will
move – jump over to another flyway, and when that happens, the
potential to move the virus to that new flyway happens. Once it’s in a
new flyway, that north-south movement would take over.”


Programs are underway an Alaska and throughout the United States to
test wild birds for various strains of avian influenza, including H5N1.
Experts say waterfowl and shore birds are the most likely carriers of the
dangerous strain, but some say land birds – such as migrating songbirds –
should be tested, too.


(Sound of birds)


Julie Craves studies land birds at the Rouge River Bird Observatory on
the University of Michigan’s Dearborn campus. She catches and bands
thousands of wild birds each year during their spring and fall migrations.


This year, Craves will participate in a study that hopes to eventually test
hundreds of thousands of birds across the U.S. and Latin America for
avian flu strains.


“It’s just a great opportunity with people handling birds already, we may
find out some very interesting things about which subtypes are present in
land birds, and if indeed this disease does come to North America, we
will have a head start on seeing what types of migratory pathways are
being used by birds.”


Craves says very little is known about how avian flu moves among land
birds, and experts say each time the virus is transmitted to a different
species it mutates, and each time it mutates, the chances are greater that
it will change into a form that’s easily passed among humans. That’s a
big concern, because such a mutation could lead to a quick spread of
human cases across the globe.


But some say that might never occur… they say the strain might be
unable to mutate into one that’s dangerous to humans.


Arnold Monto is a professor of epidemiology at the University of
Michigan. He says there will be a problem if the strain mutates, but it’s
unlikely people will get the virus from migrating birds.


“I doubt very much whether we’re even gong to see even a handful of
cases in the United States, should avian influenza arrive, and it probably
will, with the migratory birds coming down from Alaska, perhaps next
fall.”


Monto says most of the human transmissions overseas have been from
poultry being raised in the back yard, and not from wild birds. That
means visiting the ducks and geese in the park… and feeding songbirds
in the back yard… are not high-risk activities. Monto says people should
take basic precautions, such as washing hands, to avoid contracting any
sort of flu virus.


Many experts say, on the list of things to worry about, catching a deadly
form of avian influenza is no where near the top of the list of dangers.


For the GLRC, I’m Christina Shockley.

Related Links

Report: Forest Service Should Change Mission

A new report by a forest protection group says the increase
in logging in National Forests shows no signs of slowing. The uptick in logging is also happening in the Great Lakes region. The National Forest Protection Alliance says the U.S. Forest Service needs to re-evaluate its mission. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tracy Samilton has this
report:

Transcript

A new report by a forest protection group says the increase in logging
in National Forests shows no signs of slowing. The uptick in logging
is also happening in the Upper Midwest/Great Lakes region. The
National Forest Protection Alliance says the U.S. Forest Service needs
to re-evaluate its mission. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tracy
Samilton has this report:


Logging companies are going after more acres in National Forests
because trees have regenerated after the large-scale clear-cutting of a
hundred years ago. But Jake Kreilick of the National Forest Protection
Alliance says the logging is a net loss for taxpayers, because the U.S.
Forest Service is heavily subsidizing it by building roads to get the
trees out. And Kreilick says it’s unnecessary – because lumber
companies have more domestic and global sources for wood than ever
before.


“The federal government does not need to be in the logging business any
more.”


But logging companies say with half the nation’s softwood in National
Forests, they do need the wood. They say the Forest Service is doing a
good job in managing the multiple users who rely on National Forests
for recreation, hunting and logging.


For the GLRC, I’m Tracy Samilton.

Related Links

Poll: Americans Want to Reduce Dependence on Foreign Oil

As President Bush prods Congress to pass his Energy Bill, a new poll suggests nine out of ten Americans want to reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign oil. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports:

Transcript

As President Bush prods Congress to pass his Energy Bill, a new poll
suggests nine out of ten Americans want to reduce the nation’s dependence on
foreign oil. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports:


The Yale University survey suggests that anxieties in Washington over America’s reliance on foreign oil match people’s concerns at the dining room table and around the water cooler.


Dependence on imported oil was ranked highest on people’s list of concerns – above jobs and the economy, high gasoline prices, and pollution.


Dan Esty is the director of the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy. He says the survey also suggests that Americans don’t want to develop more domestic fossil fuels.


“They don’t want to drill in Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. They don’t want to have more coal-based power, even though that might come from domestic sources. They really want to see a big new push for some alternative energies, and for some new technologies.”


Nine out of ten people surveyed also cited higher fuel economy standards as a good way to reduce foreign oil dependence. But lawmakers have so far rejected efforts to impose new efficiency mandates.


For the GLRC, I’m Sarah Hulett.

Related Links

Feral Pigs Run for the Border

  • Feral pigs have become a nuisance in Wisconsin, and DNR officials fear that if their numbers do not decrease, they will do a significant amount of damage. (Photo courtesy of the Wisconsin DNR)

Ag officials are tracking a big pig problem across Wisconsin. Since 1999, growing numbers of feral swine have appeared across the state. And as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Brian Bull reports, officials now fear the spread of the wild pigs:

Transcript

Ag officials are tracking a big pig problem across Wisconsin. Since 1999, growing numbers of feral swine have appeared across the state. And as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Brian Bull reports, officials now fear the spread of the wild pigs:


The woolly porkers have appeared in 23 of Wisconsin’s 72 counties. They’re damaging crops, digging out ground-nesting birds, and killing small deer. They may also cary pseudorabies and swine brucellosis, threatening domestic pigs.


Wayne Edgerton is agricultural policy director of Minnesota’s DNR. He says the problem could easily spread into his territory.


“They can certainly walk across the ice, so this time of the year they can come across to Minnesota. And I’ve heard they’re actually good swimmers. So even in summertime, they could get their way over to northern Minnesota.”


Some people have speculated that Minnesota’s intense winters would kill off any feral swine crossing the border. But Tim DeVeau, a veterinary medical officer of the USDA, says that’s unlikely.


“As long as they’ve got food, and they’re gonna put fat on, they’ll be well-insulated.”


DeVeau adds that in order to keep wild pigs’ numbers under control, at least 75% of the population has to be destroyed every year. He says that’s not happening.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Brian Bull.

Related Links

Lobbying for a Second Carp Barrier

A new barrier is being constructed to prevent the Asian carp
from getting into the Great Lakes. But this year, a Congresswoman
will seek money to keep an existing barrier in operation, as well. The
Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

A new barrier is being constructed to prevent the Asian carp
from getting into the Great Lakes. But this year, a Congresswoman
will seek money to keep an existing barrier in operation, as well. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:


The permanent underwater electronic barrier that’s being built in a canal near
Chicago is close to a temporary barrier that’s wearing out. But Illinois Republican
Judy Biggert
contends the new electronic fence will not be enough to keep out the voracious
invasive species
known as the Asian carp.


“Now I wish that I could say that with the construction of this permanent barrier
that our work
would be finished and the carp would never again threaten the Great Lakes, but I
cannot.”


Biggert wants to make the temporary barrier permanent, too. She also wants to make
sure there’s
federal money to operate and maintain both underwater fences over the long term.
So, Biggert is
seeking co-sponsors for a barrier bill that she says she plans to introduce early
this session of
Congress.


Her aides say she may also try to get the several million dollars needed for the
project put in the
budget for the Army Corps of Engineers. But many new domestic spending proposals
could face
a tough time in Congress, if conservatives try to reduce the federal budget deficit.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

Related Links

Senate Debates Fuel Efficiency

Few U.S. Senators in the region supported stricter fuel standards in the most recent vote on the issue on Capitol Hill. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett has more:

Transcript

Few U.S. Senators from the region wanted stricter fuel standards in the most recent vote on the issue on Capitol Hill. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports:


The legislation called on domestic car makers to produce fleets of vehicles that get
better gas mileage. The standard called for an average fuel economy of 40 miles per gallon by 2015. The current standard is 27-and-a-half miles per gallon. Three of the region’s senators opposed the measure for every one senator who supported it.


Anne Woiwode is with the Sierra Club. She says foreign automakers are producing
more fuel-efficient cars. Woiwode says that competition will hopefully spur lawmakers from
car-producing states to push for stricter fuel standards in the future.


“It’s going to be harder for the states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Illinois – the whole Great
Lakes region – to compete.”


Critics of higher fuel economy standards say they would force domestic automakers to
produce smaller, less safe cars. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Sarah Hulett.

Related Links