Luvei Times Kenya's Social Online Magazine

Is Kenya’s Professor Wangari Maathai an unsung ecofeminist at home?

Elegant, Wangari Maathai with President Barack Obama

This month women all over the world are celebrating their Month, which officially kicked off last Monday. International Women’s Day (8 March) is an occasion marked by women’s groups around the world. It is during this occasion that women on all continents, often divided by national boundaries and by ethnic, linguistic, cultural, economic and political differences, come together to celebrate their Day. They are supposed to look back to a tradition that represents at least ten decades of struggle for equality, justice, peace and development.
Understandably, The International Women’s Day and in fact Month is the story of ordinary women as makers of history. It is rooted in the centuries-old struggle of women to participate in society on an equal footing with men. Though the significance of this month, especially to Kenyan womenfolk, might eventually pass unnoticed, it is important to note that this year’s occasion comes at a critical moment when progressive voices are calling upon women to take active roles in the process of rewriting our nation’s history. With our country’s eagerly waited draft constitution already generating heated political debates attention should greatly be focused on contributions of women toward particular gender-related clauses. At the center stage are such issues to do with religion, land and life.

Struggle for equality

Having produced one of the internationally celebrated women, one expects the women of our country to be among the happiest lot. Professor Wangari Maathai is among the living symbols that aptly capture the centuries-long struggles for equality between sexes the world over.
A few days ago I interrogated some scholars across our academic disciplines seeking to know how we have positioned the likes of Professor Maathai within our academic discourses. On this we should be ashamed by the fact that while we simply gloss over Maathai’s celebrated achievements, her work and activities have become among the major points of reference in the Western world. For your information, The Green Belt Movement and Professor Maathai have been featured in several internationally recognized publications including: Speak Truth to Power (Kerry Kennedy Cuomo, 2000), Women Pioneers for the Environment (Mary Joy Breton, 1998), Hopes Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet (Frances Moore Lappe and Anna Lappe, 2002), Una Sola Terra: Donna I Medi Ambient Despres de Rio (Brice Lalonde et al, 1998), Land Ist Leben (Bedrohte Volker, 1993.

Green belt movement in Kenya

One is so much inspired by the fact that when citing examples of leading Ecofeminists in the world most of the Western Academies top Professor Wangari Maathai and the Green Belt Movement on their lists. For instance in their text Ecofeminist Visions, written in 1991, revised 1993 & 2003, Cathleen McGuire and Colleen McGuire write, “A few inspiring examples of ecofeminist activism (from the early 1990s) intended to right the balance include Wangari Maathai’s formation of the Green Belt Movement in Kenya in which rural women planted trees as part of a soil conservation effort to avert desertification of their land.”
Professor Maathai is internationally recognized for her persistent struggle for democracy, human rights and environmental conservation efforts. She and the Green Belt Movement have received numerous awards, most notably the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize. Other awards include the Disney Conservation Award (2006), the Paul Harris Fellow (2005), the Sophie Prize (2004), the Petra Kelly Prize for Environment (2004), the Conservation Scientist Award (2004), J. Sterling Morton Award (2004), WANGO Environment Award (2003), Outstanding Vision and Commitment Award (2002), Excellence Award from the Kenyan Community Abroad (2001), Golden Ark Award (1994), Juliet Hollister Award (2001), Jane Adams Leadership Award (1993), Edinburgh Medal (1993), UN’s Africa Prize for Leadership (1991), Goldman Environmental prize (1991), the Woman of the World (1989), Windstar Award for the Environment (1988), Better World Society Award (1986), Right Livelihood Award (1984) and the Woman of the Year Award (1983).
Maathai has also written three books of her own: an autobiography, Unbowed: A Memoir, 2006; an explanation of her organizational method, The Green Belt Movement: Sharing the Approach and the Experience, 2003 and a description of what Africans can and need to do for themselves, The Challenge for Africa, 2009

Feminists who focus on the environment

Maathai’s energies and efforts in initiating programs aimed at reconciling man and nature, man and woman have seen her become the greatest proponent of the Ecofeminist movement in the modern times. Eco feminists are often perceived as environmentally-oriented women who are feminist, or alternatively, as feminists who focus on the environment. Such women affirm qualities traditionally considered “female” such as being cooperative, nurturing, supportive, nonviolent and sensual. They further strive for a balanced integration with qualities traditionally deemed “male” that in appropriate contexts are valuable, such as competitiveness, individuality, assertiveness, leadership, and intellectuality.
Throughout our history nature is portrayed as feminine and women are often thought of as closer to nature than men. Women’s physiological connection with birth and child care has partly led to this close association with nature. The menstrual cycle, which is linked to lunar cycles, is also seen as evidence of women’s closeness to the body and natural rhythms. Our cultural image of the ‘premenstrual woman’ as irrational and overemotional typifies this association between women, the body, nature and the irrational. Eco feminism focuses on these connections, and analysis how they devalue and oppress both women and nature.
In opposition to such a frightening mindset, ecofeminism offers radical alternatives for reconstituting life on Earth. They seek to conjure new post patriarchal ways of being based in part on pre patriarchal values that resurrect and restore our original profound oneness with nature. They believe, “By reactivating the ancient spiritual power of the feminine principle and balancing it with the male principle, men and women together can abandon dualistic thinking, ‘grow up,’ and live as sensitive, mature human beings in harmony with other animals and nature.”
And according to Wangari Maathai, the preservation of the land and the planting of trees is more than about enriching the lives of people. It is about bringing back animals to deprived ecosystems.

aludanngunzulu@yahoo.com