Second Wave Of Feminism - Sisterhood

The discussion of sex and gender often returns to the potential of collective feminist action. Many political groups strive to create a sense of community among its members. 

The second wave was sparked by Beauvoir's demand for female unity in liberation tactics.

Solidarity, on the other hand, may take various shapes. 

'Sisterhood' is one model. Sisterhood is a concept of female togetherness, or the idea that all women are sisters. 

What, on the other hand, makes women sisters? 

Sisterhood, according to one theory, is based on shared oppressive experiences. Our shared worries, sorrows, and difficulties may be a source of female bonding. 

Take, for example, a typical aircraft trip. 

• Except for a few niceties spoken here and there, the majority of passengers on any given trip have no special connection or link with the other passengers. 
• However, if anything occurs during the flight, this changes. 
• Let's say there's a lot of turbulence, to the point that the trip is unpleasant or scary. 
• For example, imagine the aircraft bursts a tire on takeoff, making it unclear whether it would be able to land safely. 
• Could the passengers become more united as a result of these tough, hazardous, or frightening circumstances? 

The more terrible the circumstances in which individuals are forced to suffer or survive, the more likely they are to reach out to one another in some manner or at least feel linked simply because they have shared an experience. 

Sisterhood is a connection that is comparable to these. 

• Perhaps women have a connection or want to connect with other women because they share the difficulties of being oppressed, being victims of violence, being stereotyped, being excluded, or being oppressed in some other way. 
• Women who work in a workplace where there are obviously sexist behaviors that impact them may commiserate with one another, and this may grow and spread well beyond the office. 

There are many advantages of basing sisterhood on similar oppression experiences. To begin, naming an issue is beneficial. 

• Sexual harassment was not recognized as an issue until women began to share their workplace experiences and emotions of annoyance, frustration, and unhappiness. 
• In reality, sexual harassment was not officially recognized as such until the late 1970s. 
• Women chatting to other women and sharing their stories were crucial in bringing it to the public's attention. 
• Domestic violence, date rape, and gender discrimination all rose to prominence as they moved out of the private lives of individual women and were identified as societal issues. 

Another advantage of the sisterhood approach to female relationships is that when women share experiences of abuse or oppression, they may become more feminist-aware. 

• The feminist movement's consciousness-raising clubs started as small gatherings of women discussing their personal experiences. 
• They soon grew into more structured support systems for other women. 
• The organizations also provided information and educational tools, which were especially useful for assisting women who had been victims of sexual harassment or domestic abuse in navigating the social and legal systems to help them rectify their unfair position. 
• There is also the personal advantage of telling one's tale and understanding that one's experiences of violence or persecution are not unique. 

When women are sisters, they encourage one another and have an underlying understanding. 

• Sisterhood, in other words, entails moral and epistemic ties between women, regardless of whether or not they know one other. 
• The concept is that all women are victims of sexist abuse, marginalization, and exclusion, and that this subjugation brings women together. 
• Sisterhood should imply that sisters help one other when they are in need. 
• Women, on the other hand, do not always or even often react compassionately to other women. 

Women often blame one other for the violence they experience, such as when a woman says to a friend, 

"Why doesn't she simply leave the violent relationship?" 

or 

"If she hadn't dressed like a slut, she wouldn't have been raped." 

Sisterhood is problematic in a variety of other ways as well. 

Not everyone has experienced persecution in the same way. If feminist organization is based on a connection amongst women that is based on a common experience of oppression, then if there is no shared experience of oppression, no bond will develop, and feminist organizing will be paralyzed. 

Furthermore, a woman's sense of oppression may be influenced by a variety of factors. Take, for example, the issue of sexual harassment. 

• A white-collar worker who is sexually harassed at work is likely to have access to attorneys, counselors, and psychiatrists who can help her preserve her self-esteem and fight the injustice. 

• A woman in a low-paying profession that needs minimal training, on the other hand, is likely to be concerned about her job security and may be hesitant to report the harassment. 

• She would also be unlikely to have the financial means to hire attorneys and psychiatrists. 
• If she decided to report her harassment, she would have to depend on her employer's goodwill – which is frequently lacking, or impossible if he is the harasser – and, if the matter went to court, she would almost certainly have to rely on legal aid or pro bono help if she could find it. 

• It's difficult to strategize for feminist action when people's experiences of oppression are so diverse. 

• It becomes even more complex when we consider how much feminist thought and action comes from bourgeois and upper-class women and men. 

• Some feminists may be unaware of the complexities of issues that women face regardless of their social status or ethnicity. 

Another significant issue with sisterhood is that it emphasizes victimization. 

• Clearly, recognizing and identifying an issue that others are experiencing is critical. 
• The first sensation of increasing awareness is empowering for many women. 
• However, concentrating on the many ways in which women are abused may be exhausting and debilitating. 

Sisterhood will never be able to change the social and political structures that produce victimization if it focuses only on how women are victims together. 

Women must go beyond victimhood in order to recognize and act on the numerous qualities they possess for the greater benefit of everyone.

 ~ Jai Krishna Ponnappan

You may also want to read more about Feminism and Activism here.

Second Wave Of Feminism - Gender Vs Sex

Many feminist theorists see Beauvoir's words as establishing a sex-gender difference. From the 1960s until the late 1990s, this difference was widely used in feminist thought, and it is still relevant in certain situations. 

The biological categories that are assumed to be natural, given, or apparent are referred to as ‘sex.' 'Gender,' on the other hand, denotes social classifications. 

While the terms "male" and "female" refer to biological sexes that are differentiated by their reproductive functions, "masculine" and "feminine" refer to culturally distinct social categories that vary over time and include a broad range of traits and roles. 

Take, for example, the subject of body image. 

• What is considered feminine in one culture may be very different from what is considered feminine in another society at the same time. 
• Within any particular culture, social expectations or cultural mores regarding haircuts, clothes, comportment, and even typical breast and hip sizes of women appear to vary significantly. 

• These are gender characteristics that are the consequence of societal norms or socially created expectations of femininity. 
• This sex/gender difference has many ramifications for comprehending women's subjugation. 

• To begin with, when gender is seen as a social construct, much of women's oppression is viewed as a product of society rather than being rooted in the character of women. In some ways, this gives the issue a new lease of life. 

If societal practices define woman in such a manner that individual women are unable to exercise self-determination or pursue freely chosen initiatives, altering gender social conceptions may be a solution.

 

• Feminist attempts to alter uneven social connections would be fruitless if women are inherently inferior to males. If, on the other hand, any inferiority stems from perceptions or varying gender roles, feminists fighting for societal change may genuinely achieve gender equality. 

• Second, feminists may imagine political unity among women because of gender as a social construct. The premise is that through discussing similar oppressive experiences or gender norms, women can find common ground and band together for political action. 

Consciousness-raising groups were widely utilized during the second wave to capitalize on the revelations concerning gender social construction. In the following section on sisterhood, I go through this specific social and political feminist approach. 

Gender as a social construct means that a woman may be a woman but not a ‘woman,' and a man might be a man but not a ‘man.' 

• Biological men and females may choose to acquire feminine gender features, whereas biological females could choose to adopt masculine gender traits. 
• A person may even choose to combine features from both genders. 

• Recognizing gender's pliability, if it is a social construct, implies allowing for a wide range of gender characteristics to be combined. 
• However, some feminists dispute the tight separation of sex and gender. 

• Perhaps biology is socially produced in a variety of ways as well. 

Even Beauvoir, like Friedrich Engels before her, recognized the physical consequences of social activity. 

Perhaps the idea that men and women have distinct muscular-skeletal systems is a consequence of societal conditioning that is reinforced through breeding and handed down from generation to generation. 

• Women, for example, are often considered to be physically weaker than males. 
• If biology, like gender traits, is a social construct, then women's physical weakness may be attributed to a long history of insufficient physical exercise. 

• Genetics and natural selection have virtually eliminated the muscular groups. 
• Intersex persons, who are born with ambiguous genitalia or more than one XX or XY chromosome, may be regarded as evidence that there are more than two sexes. 

• The socially created dichotomy between biological man and female obscures intersexuality. 

A related question is if there is something fundamental about being a ‘woman.' 

Some postmodern feminists argue that the term "women" does not exist since there is no universal trait or experience shared by all women. 

• To put it another way, they contend that the term does not relate to a metaphysical category since it lacks a defining characteristic. 
• Because it rejects their significance - they don't refer to anybody – such a stance may be helpful in confronting sexist notions of women. 

• However, many feminists are concerned that the rejection of the category of "woman" eliminates the potential of a group that might wield political power for constructive social change. 
• Between stating that women do not exist and arguing that gender is still an appropriate category for defining a social construct, there is definitely some middle ground here. 

• For example, some feminists believe that "woman" is and will continue to be a useful term as long as there are political grounds for it. 

When certain individuals are targeted for exclusion, marginalization, or violence based on sex or gender categories, whether those categories are perceived, natural, or socially created, terms like "woman," "gender," and, of course, "feminist" are still useful.

 ~ Jai Krishna Ponnappan

You may also want to read more about Feminism and Activism here.

Second Wave Of Feminism - THE SECOND SEX?

Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) is the lady most often recognized with ushering in the second wave of feminism. 

• Beauvoir was a prominent thinker of the twentieth century, and her book The Second Sex (1949) was a groundbreaking examination of women's cultural beliefs, social norms, and living circumstances. 
• She asks, "What is a woman?" using existentialism, a philosophical philosophy prominent in France in the twentieth century. 
• In The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947), Beauvoir offers an explanation of existential ethics, which she utilizes as a technique in The Second Sex. 

Freedom is the most important virtue, and every endeavor that a person does should embrace freedom in some manner, allowing greater freedom for oneself and others. 

• Another way to look about it is that through behaving in the world, each individual makes himself or herself. 
• When a person behaves in a manner that restricts freedom, he or she begins to resemble an object rather than a person. 
• For example, if a person decides to be a housewife and then allows that position to dictate her choices to the point that she no longer behaves as a free creature, she has effectively walled off her freedom. 
• Of fact, in certain cases, the social environment may be the first to stifle freedom. 

Beauvoir highlighted the many ways in which women's circumstances limit their capacity to act freely. 

• Women's oppression differs from other kinds of oppression, such as racism or classism, in that it seems to have no historical origins - women have always been oppressed. 
• Women live and work in solitude when their societal responsibilities compel them to be spouses and mothers. 
• This eliminates at least some of the options for solidarity. 
• Because women live in separate homes, there is no solidarity of job interest, and there is no solidarity of location (as in ghettos) for the same reason. 
• Women typically have more in common with their socioeconomic class's males than with other women. 
• This makes collaborative emancipation attempts much more difficult. Beauvoir's goal in The Second Sex is to promote women's freedom, but she demonstrates that this is a difficult task. 

The book is divided into two sections, the first of which investigates why women are oppressed. 

She searches for a solution in all of the areas that others have mentioned — historical materialism, biology, and psychoanalysis – but none of them really answers the issue correctly or fully. 

• Instead, she claims, women's whole position is oppressive: a slew of variables collide to produce the unique scenarios in which each woman finds herself. The book's second section details the circumstances of women. 
• Beauvoir also dispels misconceptions about women, parenting, feminine sexuality, and other elements of women's life. 
• She looks back in time to examine how women have been treated and what efforts have been done to liberate women from oppressive situations. 
• She also provides a literature review to demonstrate how symbolic depictions of women become more than just representations; they become benchmarks by which actual women are judged. 

According to Beauvoir, woman is characterized as "other." 

• Because they are both identical to and distinct from males, men are the One or the norm, while women are the Other. 
• Women, like men, are free human beings who are also subject to nature. That is to say, humans are natural creatures with bodies that are often unexpected or uncontrolled. 
• Men dread nature because they want to be free and establish their own meaning in the world; as a means to control it, they make woman the embodiment of nature via myth and tradition. 

To keep women oppressed, males construct the religion of the "feminine" or the "feminine mystery." 

• Women are taught how to be women, i.e. passive, object-like, free creatures who have been misled into thinking that they are bound to certain "natural" roles that limit their freedom. 
• As a result, a young woman is taught to think that her destiny is to be a wife and mother, and that she would be happy in these duties. 
• Her independence, or her capacity to act on it, has been curtailed. 

To further describe women's position, Beauvoir used the ideas of "immanence" and "transcendence." 

• Immanence is a state of stagnation in which monotonous tasks are constantly repeated (like dishes that once washed will get dirty and need to be washed again). 
• Transcendence is extending its reach into the future via initiatives that promote liberty (like a profession that continually opens new possibilities). 
• Despite the fact that every human being is both immanent and transcendent, and must engage in both types of activities, certain social practices may seem to trap one in immanence, preventing one from achieving transcendence. 

In every instance of tyranny, this is what occurs. 

• Men inhabit the realm of transcendence inasmuch as they labor on important tasks that extend into the future, while women are relegated to the field of immanence due to oppression. 
• The beginning of the monthly flow, according to Beauvoir, serves as a reminder to the girl of her immanence. 
• Menstruation serves as a monthly reminder of her relationship with her body as a servant to the species via reproduction. 

This, among other things, distinguishes women as being more ‘natural' or susceptible to the vagaries of their bodies than males. 

• Beauvoir also claims that women are culpable in their own enslavement, arguing that women absorb the male gaze and gender roles expectations. 
• Women judge themselves and one another based on socially created and changeable attractiveness, behavior, activity, and sexuality norms. 
• According to social myth, the ‘eternal feminine' is the imagined essence of femininity that all women are expected to posses. 
• Of course, being an existentialist, she thinks that such an essence does not exist. 
• Women and men, on the other hand, accept the myths as fact and judge one other severely for failing to live up to them. 

The famous statement by Simone de Beauvoir, "One is not born, but rather becomes a woman," serves as a focal point for The Second Sex. 

• It represents a transition from her depiction of traditional myths to an examination of women's issues. 
• She claims that each woman will be in a position that is unique to her because of her childhood experiences, her connection with her own sexuality, the social environment in which she finds herself, and cultural marital traditions or expectations. 
• Although boys and girls seem to have similar levels of freedom in infancy, by adolescence, females have realized both that they are free and that their oppression makes exercising that freedom virtually difficult. 

According to Beauvoir, this is what creates the adolescent crisis. 

• The dissatisfaction of not being able to act on one's independence may last throughout adulthood, or a woman may accept the responsibilities that have been assigned to her. 
• Individual and societal transformations are equally involved in liberation. 
• Woman must view herself as a subject, not an object, like a man. 
• She must accept her independence and participate in initiatives that promote it. 

Women, on the other hand, must view themselves as a social group. 

Failure to do so aids in the perpetuation of oppression; women must see the unity in shared oppressive conditions, in other words, they must identify the mystification of the eternal feminine. 

(1)Women must go to work; 

(2) women must study and engage in intellectual activity; 

(3) women must express their sexuality in freedom; and 

(4) women must struggle to change society into a socialist society and seek economic fairness, according to Beauvoir. 

Beauvoir paved the path for women all over the globe to realize the social and political significance of personal experience by articulating the many ways in which women feel the limits of femininity in vivid detail. 

• Because she had the guts to make women's social, family, physical, political, and cultural experiences public, her book ushered in a new era of feminist action. 
• Even sixty years after the publication of The Second Sex, she wrote about topics that had previously been forbidden, and she talked with a clarity and honesty about women's bodies and sexuality that many people still find startling. 
• Although some may dispute whether women are still the "Other" that Beauvoir portrays, reading Beauvoir's study of women's position may provide us with important insights into the form and substance of oppression. 
• ‘Like the universe itself, representation of the world is the product of men; they depict it from their own point of view, which they mistake for ultimate truth.' 
• The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir (1949) Similarly, Betty Friedan (1921–2006) is credited for reviving the feminist movement in the United States with her very important book The Feminine Mystique (1963). 

Friedan discovered what she referred to as a "problem without a name." 

The overall melancholy that many middle-class women felt in their households typified this issue. 

• They had been taught to think that being a wife and mother would bring them happiness, but instead, they frequently felt sad, lonely, or unsatisfied. 
• Friedan started her research for this book by surveying her Smith College class of 1942, an all-college women's in the United States. 
• Despite the fact that her sample group was very restricted, the issues she covered in her book sparked a movement: many women learned they weren't alone in their feelings of dissatisfaction with family life and being dismissed by society. 
• Friedan believed that women should work outside the home. She claimed that the issue was caused by the suffocating life of a housewife, rather than some hidden feminine illness that could only be discovered via psychoanalysis.
• She advocated for a new perspective on family and a new social life for women. 

 ~ Jai Krishna Ponnappan

You may also want to read more about Feminism and Activism here.

Climate Change Politics And Diplomacy Outstripped By Geophysics

Global warming is a deceptively backhanded problem in which thermal inertia produces consequences half a century or more after we cause it by burning fossil fuels. 

Our political and diplomatic discussions are triggered by outcomes. 

Political inertia, combined with thermal inertia, offers a challenge to the human species and the planet we govern: design a new energy future before sheer necessity—the hot wind in our faces—compels action. 

Global warming is hazardous because it is a stealthy, slow-moving catastrophe that requires us to recognize a fact decades in the future with a past-tense system of private, legal, and diplomatic response. 

• Two scientists from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California–San Diego published research in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in September 2008 that showed that even if greenhouse gas emissions were completely eliminated by 2005, the world's average temperature would still rise by 2.4°C (4.3°F) by the end of the twenty-first century. 
• The latest carbon dioxide statistics and study, according to Richard Moss, vice president and managing director for climate change at the World Wildlife Fund, indicate that “we're already locked into greater heat than we thought” (Eilperin 2008; Ramanathan and Feng 2008). 
• These estimates have been around for more than a decade. These have been wasted years in terms of global diplomatic reform. 

A second key factor that affects climate change, in addition to thermal inertia, is feedback, which includes albedo (light reflectivity).

• In the summer, when the sun shines at the top of the globe, melting Arctic ice reveals open ocean. 
• Because dark ocean water absorbs more heat than lighter ice and snow, it heats up and melts faster. 
• Meanwhile, permafrost on land surrounding the Arctic Circle melts, releasing even more carbon dioxide and methane, hastening the natural process that feeds on itself. 
• When you add the trigger of rising human emissions to these natural processes, the situation becomes much worse. 

Climate change is a cumulative phenomenon. 

Many of the feedbacks that contribute to increasing temperatures tend to speed up with time, reinforcing each other. 

• For example, increasing human-caused emissions cause permafrost to thaw, releasing even more carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere. Melting ice darkens surfaces, allowing more heat to be absorbed. 
• Meanwhile, rising seas are soaking coastal soil, destroying crops, and polluting fresh water sources in low-lying island countries like the Marshall Islands. The Marshall Islands' foreign minister, Tony deBrum, stated, "The groundwater that sustains our food crops is being flooded with salt." ‘The green is becoming brown,' says the narrator. (Davenport et al., 2014). 
• “Runaway growth in the emission of green house gases is swamping all political efforts to deal with the problem, raising the risk of ‘severe, pervasive, and irreversible impacts' over the next decades,” wrote Justin Gillis in The New York Times (2014, August 26). 

Diplomats and climate scientists gather every year in an attempt to arrange a global pact to halt the rise in greenhousegas emissions, despite a growing chorus of warnings that the results will be too little, too late. 

• As temperatures rise and raging weather becomes a staple of daily headlines, diplomats and climate scientists gather every year in an attempt to arrange a global pact to stall the rise in greenhousegas emissions amid a rising chorus of warnings that the results will be too little, too late.
• By 2015, global diplomacy's attempts to deal with climate change and its impact on everyday weather had fallen behind. 
• As wind and solar expanded throughout the globe (Germany, the world's fourth biggest economy, drew one-third of its power from renewable sources by 2016), a renewable energy infrastructure emerged, but it was too sluggish to keep up with the increase in temperatures. 

The fundamental issue is: can mankind alter its energy paradigm fast enough to prevent irreversible environmental damage? 

• While James Hansen believes the 2°C goal is overly ambitious, some experts believe it will never be met due to the global momentum of greenhouse gas emissions. 
• In Nature, David Victor (a professor at the University of California–San Diego) and Charles Kennel (of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography) stated, "The objective is essentially unattainable" (Kolbert 2015, 30). To meet the target, global greenhouse gas emissions would have to decrease to almost zero in the second half of the twenty-first century. 
• Even if all diplomatic recommendations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions made in 2015 were implemented, global warming by the end of the twenty-first century would be restricted to 6.3°F, compared to 8.1°F if emissions remained at current levels (“Climate Scoreboard” 2015). 

If all countries fulfilled their commitments, global emissions would begin to decline within a decade or two, but only slowly and insufficiently to prevent thermal inertia from increasing temperatures, melting glaciers across the globe, raising sea levels, and wreaking havoc on flora and wildlife. 

• Countries' commitments made before the global climate conference in Paris at the end of 2015 were "a significant step forward, but not enough—not even close," according to John D. Sterman, a management professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Gillis and Sengupta 2015). 
• In 2014, the US and China signed their first-ever agreement, which included a joint statement that the US will reduce emissions by up to 28% by 2025 and China's emissions would peak by 2030. 
• The government of India, the world's third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases in 2014, does not anticipate emissions to peak until at least 2040. 

As carbon dioxide and methane levels continue to increase, every action to decrease emissions is “on speculation”—in the future. And as long as these levels increase, humanity will lose the fight against global warming.

~ Jai Krishna Ponnappan

You may also want read more about Global Climate Change here.

The Political System Is Behind The Times

Nearly all of President Barack Obama's measures in the United States were done without the approval or permission of a Republican-controlled Congress, where climate change denial (and unwillingness to accept fundamental geophysical truths) has become a political litmus test. 

Obama's measures include a June 2014 directive from the Environmental Protection Agency requiring significant emissions reductions from coal-fired power facilities. Former US Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson (a Republican) linked the climate catastrophe to the 2008 financial crisis: 

• We are accumulating excesses (debt in 2008, greenhouse gas emissions that are trapping heat now). 

• The policies of our administration are faulty (incentivizing us to borrow too much to finance homes then, and encouraging the overuse of carbon based fuels now). 

• Our specialists (first financial experts, now climate scientists) attempt to make sense of what they observe and predict potential futures. And the enormous dangers have the potential to be disastrous (to a globalized economy then, and the global climate now). 

• We barely averted an economic disaster at the last minute by using government intervention to save a failing banking system. 

• Climate change, on the other hand, is a more intractable issue. We are releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which will stay there for millennia, heating up the planet. 

• That means the choices we're making today—to stay on a nearly carbon-dependent path—are locking us into long-term repercussions we won't be able to alter, but only adjust to, at great expense. 

• It is estimated that protecting New York City against rising oceans and storm surges would cost at least $20 billion in the short term, and much more in the long run. And that's only one of the coast's cities. 2014 (Paulson) 

The Prince of Wales, who also believed that the biggest financial collapse since the Great Depression of the 1930s would be overshadowed by ecological concerns, particularly climate change, echoed Paulson's view. 

• “This [the financial crisis] we can solve pretty easily,” Prince Charles said as he accepted an honorary degree from the London Business School. 

• But there is another systemic risk that, in my opinion, is far more serious in the long run: the threat of increasing and accumulating environmental collapse, with its devastating consequences not only for us as a species, but also for the countless others who shape this planet alongside us and on whom we rely for our survival. 

• Our blind resolve to disregard the realities and go on as normal, I believe, is increasing the danger of a collapse that will be much more spectacular and difficult to recover from than anything we have seen in recent years. (2011, Prince of Wales) 

• In 2014, Paulson collaborated on an economic study of climate change costs called Risky Business with Michael R. Bloomberg (former New York City mayor and investment company owner) and Tom Steyer (retired hedge fund manager). 

• They support a carbon price and the phase-out of fossil-fuel subsidies. “The greatest lag is in the political system,” said Princeton University geoscientist Michael Oppenheimer. 

• He believes that the severity of the danger has been debated for the last two decades, and that another 20 years may pass before a global diplomatic response is in place. 

• In the meanwhile, the window of opportunity for feedbacks to take control is shrinking. “We can't afford to take a wait-and-see approach,” Oppenheimer added. “The most pressing issue is when will we commit to [limiting global warming to] 2 [degrees Celsius].” 

There isn't a whole lot of headroom left. We'd best go to work.” According to Roger Pielke Jr. of the University of Colorado in Boulder, the present pace "isn't going to accomplish it" (Kerr 2007).

You may also want read more about Global Climate Change here.

Consequences of Climate Change

 

Given current emissions, scientists predict that ice would melt much quicker than previously anticipated. 

The scientists were taken aback when their model predicted that half of Antarctica's (and, by extension, the world's) ice would melt within 1,000 years, causing sea levels to rise at a rate of a foot per decade for centuries, a rate that "would almost certainly throw human society into chaos, forcing a rapid retreat from the world's coastal cities." 

• To put it simply, if we burn it all, we melt it all, according to Winkelmann, a researcher at Germany's Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (Gillis 2015, September 12). 

• London, Berlin, Paris, Shanghai, Sydney, Rome, Tokyo, Miami, New York City, Boston, New Orleans, Houston, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Venice, Buenos Aires, Beijing, and Washington, D.C. are just a few of the coastal cities that may be flooded. 

• Caldeira said, “This is mankind as a geologic force.” “We [humans] aren't having a subtle impact on the climate system; we're hammering it with a hammer” (Gillis 2015, September 12). 

• An average global temperature increase of around 20°F would cause ice melting, with more at higher latitudes and interior regions and less in the tropics and near shorelines. 

• According to Justin Gillis of The New York Times, “vast sections of the Earth will certainly become too hot and humid for human habitation, causing food production to fail, and driving much of the planet's plant and animal life to extinction” (Gillis 2015, September 12). 

• “The effects of human-induced climate change are being felt in every corner of the United States,” scientists reported in 2014. 

• “Water is becoming scarcer in dry regions, torrential rains are increasing in wet regions, heat waves are becoming more common and severe, wildfires are becoming more severe, and forests are dying under attack from heat-loving insects” (Gillis 2014, May 6). 

• “Summers are longer and hotter, and prolonged spells of exceptional heat persist longer than any living American has ever experienced,” according to the National Climate Assessment released by the United States Global Change Research Program. 

• Winters are usually milder and shorter. Rain falls in torrential downpours. People are noticing differences in the duration and intensity of seasonal allergies, the plant varieties that flourish in their gardens, and the types of birds they observe in their communities in any given month.” Richard B. Alley, a climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University who was not involved in the report's drafting but saw a late copy, said, "Yes, climate change is already here."

•  “However, the expenses thus far are still modest when compared to what will be standard practice by the end of the century” (Gillis 2014, May 6). 2016 was by far the warmest year on record, marking the third year in a row of record temperatures. 

• The only places with colder-than-average temperatures in 2015 were the seas off Greenland and Antarctica, where fast melting ice was cascading into the oceans, cooling the air above. 

• The margin of error for the new record was astounding—0.23°F (0.23°C) (according to NASA) and 0.29°F (0.16°C) (according to NASA) (as measured by NOAA). 

• New global highs and lows are often recorded in tenths of degrees. A powerful El Nio had a role, but so did long-term global warming driven by human greenhouse gas emissions. 

• Gerald A. Meehl, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, stated, “The entire hole system is persistently warming” (Gillis 2016). 2016 continued 2015's hot trend, with the largest deviation from the average of any month on record. 

• The Arctic saw the most extremes, with some places exceeding 6°C (13°F) over the 1951–1980 average. 

• The Arctic as a whole was 4.0°C (7.2°F) warmer than it was over the same time period. Global warming is more than just a matter of temperature rises. 

• Warming temperatures alter the hydrological cycle's behavior, increasing the severity of storms as well as the frequency and intensity of droughts and deluges. 

• Because warming also increases evaporation, a warmer atmosphere may retain more moisture, enhancing the explosive nature of precipitation. 

• As a consequence, drought and flooding may occur at the same time in different parts of the country—or even alternate in the same location. 

• Changes in precipitation patterns may vary dramatically over time and location, according to theory and an increasing number of daily weather reports. 

• Temperatures appeared to be shifting faster than the hydrological cycle. Such shifts will be uneven, episodic, and often unpleasant. 

One of the most startling results of the National Climate Assessment was the increasing frequency of heavy rainfall. 

For decades, scientists have predicted that more water would evaporate from a rising ocean surface, and that the warmer atmosphere will be able to retain the extra vapor, which will subsequently fall as rain or snow. 

Even the most seasoned specialists were taken aback by the severity of the impact. 

• The National Climate Assessment concluded that “the eastern half of the [United States] is getting greater precipitation in general,” according to Justin Gillis of The New York Times on May 6, 2014. And the percentage of precipitation dropping in extremely heavy rain episodes has increased by 71 percent in the Northeast, 37 percent in the Midwest, and 27 percent in the South during the last half-century.” Such developments are taking place all across the globe. 

• In the summer of 2010, for example, floods ravaged Pakistan, but an exceedingly unusual downpour flooded the town of Leh in Ladakh, India, which is located in one of the world's driest deserts. The hamlet is located in a high-altitude desert that is shielded from the majority of precipitation by neighboring mountains. 

• In August, the average rainfall is 15 millimeters, or a fraction of an inch. However, a half-hour downpour on August 6, 2010, washed most of the town away, killing 150 people and left hundreds more missing. The storm was so powerful, yet so remote, that it missed a meteorological station in the valley and remained unnoticed. 

• In 2013, significant sections of Nashville, Tennessee, were flooded by almost 20 inches of rain, while parts of Colorado got a year's worth of rain in a single week. As much as two feet of rain fell in as little as 24 hours in parts of the Florida panhandle. 

• At the same time, sand dunes erupted over most of the Navajo reservation in New Mexico and Arizona, which is normally dry, as precipitation dropped from meager to virtually none—except for a brief but intense rainfall. Early in October 2015, parts of South Carolina got two feet of rain in three days. In some parts of southern Texas, 20 inches of rain poured two weeks ago.

You may also want read more about Global Climate Change here.

Climate Change Bills Are Over-Due

The bills for our fossil fuel use are finally being paid. In 2015, experts concluded that “burning the presently available fossil fuel resources is sufficient to destroy the [Antarctic] ice sheet” (Winkelmann et al. 2015). 

Although this research is focused on Antarctica, all other ice would melt at the same time. How much time will it take to create an ice-free planet? 

No one knows for sure. 

• The actual combustion of fossil fuel reserves may happen within a thousand years if present rates of growth continue. 
• Taking into account thermal inertia delays, complete melting of the ice might take thousands of years—but the momentum of this inertia would be irreversible. 
• “The legacy of what we're doing over the next decades and centuries is really going to have a dramatic influence on this planet for many tens of thousands of years,” Ken Caldeira, a researcher at Stanford University's Carnegie Institute of Science and one of the study's four coauthors, told Chelsea Harvey of the Washington Post (Harvey 2015). 

As the world's carbon dioxide pollution from humans continues to increase, the geography of generation has shifted. 

• Since the beginning of the Industrial Age, the relative proportions of carbon dioxide emissions have shown the rapid growth of China and India, as well as the continuing importance of the United States and Europe. 
• This is significant because CO2 is released and stays in the atmosphere for hundreds of years.

 According to data collected by the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and revised by BP in 2014, China accounted for 25% of global CO2 fossil fuel emissions, the US 15%, and Europe (including a tiny portion of Eurasia) 13%. Europe and a tiny portion of Eurasia have a combined stake of 29 percent (1751–2014); the United States has a share of 20 percent; China has a share of 10%; and India has a share of 3%.

You may also want read more about Global Climate Change here.

Fossil Fueling Climate Change Disaster

The fossil fuel era began as the United States grew to become the world's most powerful economy, with a growing territory and rising immigration (mainly, but not entirely, from Europe). 

• Between the mid-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, the extraction of coal, oil, and natural gas brought machine labor equal to one billion horses (or 3 billion human slaves). 
• Human slavery, maybe not coincidentally, became economically and politically outdated. Consider how much human work was shifted to fossil-fueled machinery between 1800 and 1970: the number of human hours of labor required to produce an acre of wheat decreased from 56 to 2.9. The same number fell from 185 to 24 for an acre of cotton. 
• Food production has become as automated as any other industry: in 2014, seven calories of energy (mostly fossil fuels) were needed to create one calorie of food ( Johnson 2014, 14, 19, 39). 
• The production of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere surged as a result of this energy revolution.

The greenhouse effect (also known as "infrared forcing") is essential to life on Earth as part of the planet's natural cycle. 

• The planet's average temperature would be - 2°F without it. The additional heat caused by human burning of fossil fuels creates a concern. 
• A little, like chocolate, is OK; too much is harmful to the body. Fossil fuels provide us with comfort and ease, and changing their usage fundamentally offers the century's—and, most likely, many centuries'—challenge. 

Unless we rapidly wean ourselves off fossil fuels, the major difficulties will emerge after the middle of the twenty-first century. 

“We are nearly to the threshold of irreversible collapse, and will cross it shortly if we are not careful,” Sir John Houghton, one of the world's top experts on global warming, told The Independent (London) (Lean 2004, 8).

You may also want read more about Global Climate Change here.

Women's Rights ARE Human Rights

Countless modern feminists are dedicated to the advancement of women's rights. 

Indeed, feminism is frequently connected with women's equality, with the struggle to achieve and protect reproductive rights frequently at the forefront. These rights provide women some control over when and if they get pregnant. 

With the title of her book, Are Women Human?, Catharine MacKinnon, on the other hand, urges us to return to the opening question. The essential argument here is whether women have human rights or are protected by them. Human rights are often seen as fundamental responsibilities that mankind owe to one another. 

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) by the United Nations is the most commonly acknowledged statement of human rights, with the first article asserting the freedom and equality of all human beings. 

Nonetheless, the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights may be criticized for its Western bias - even the word "rights" shows a uniquely Western perspective on human responsibility. Many nations disagree with certain of the document's contents because they are incompatible with their cultural beliefs or traditions. 

The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights is difficult for women since women are not yet recognized as fully human or deserving of human rights protection in all countries, and they do not yet have equal political position with men everywhere. Furthermore, it does not address challenges that are unique to women. 

Women's rights infractions, according to MacKinnon, are frequently disregarded because they are considered gender-specific concerns rather than violations of women's fundamental rights. 

The problem now is to persuade the UN and the rest of the international community that gender-based concerns like rape are deserving of human rights attention. 

The UN has published a number of following papers and agreements that aim to address gender specific concerns, at the insistence of feminists and women's activists all around the world. 

The United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women (1993) strives to extend to women the rights outlined in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Global feminists advance the cause of women's human rights by forming cross-border coalitions of feminist organizations and pursuing shared aims for future alliances. 

The activism around female genital cutting, also known as female circumcision or female genital mutilation depending on one's point of view, is an example of feminist attempts to secure human rights while simultaneously acknowledging the gendered dimension of a violation. 

Female genital cutting (FGC) is a term that refers to a group of activities that the World Health Organization has divided into four categories. 

1. The first is clitoris removal, often known as clitorodectomy. 
2. The clitoris and labia minora are removed in the second procedure (and possibly the labia majora). 
3. These excisions are included in the third version, which additionally sews up or plugs the vaginal orifice. Infibulation is a condition in which just a tiny hole allows urine and blood to flow through. 
4. The fourth category, according to the WHO, is a catch-all for various types of ceremonial genital cutting, such as piercings, which may or may not involve the loss of flesh. 

Female genital cutting, in all forms, is a cultural practice that takes place on females from infancy to maturity, but most typically between the ages of five and thirteen. 

Those who contend that genital cutting is a human rights violation point out that it is frequently done without the girl's or woman's permission and in unclean settings. 

They portray it as a form of violence against women that is often accompanied by a general disregard for women's human dignity, hence the term "female genital mutilation," which distinguishes it from male circumcision. 

Activists who oppose FGC see it as a blatant infringement of women's rights. 

FGC, in particular, infringes on the rights to physical integrity, sexual expression or enjoyment, and personal security. 

In addition to physical scars, it is reported to leave a plethora of psychological scars. 

Nonetheless, FGC remains a contentious issue within feminism. 

Some societies maintain it as a traditional ritual with important meaning, with the help of women. Some feminists even support the practice, claiming that those who oppose it are imposing their own cultural norms or human rights notions. 

Those who advocate FGC point to religious and cultural freedoms as justifications, claiming that while some female genital cutting occurs in harmful settings, the majority does not. 

This argument exemplifies some of the challenges that many women face in obtaining full human rights protections. Because the issue or act is not considered a matter for human rights talk, because women are not the subjects of human rights, or because of conflicts between cultures, traditions, and approaches to justice – the very nature of human rights is, after all, rooted in a Western ethos – efforts to bring about change can become much more complicated. 

The French prohibition on religious attire and other symbols in schools is another recent instance that has drew the attention of feminists concerned with human rights problems. 

This restriction, which the European Court of Human Rights deemed to be in conformity with human rights, is intended to promote a form of secularism that is seen to contribute to a feeling of national community. However, the restriction places an excessive hardship on Muslim girls and women who prefer to wear the head scarf as a symbol of their faith or are required to do so. 

The scarf, worn at school, has been ruled to be in breach of the prohibition, despite the fact that little Christian crosses are permitted. The reasoning is based on the perception of conspicuous religious symbols as disrupting social cohesiveness or detracting from school lectures. 

This topic raises questions of sex and gender inequality, but it may also be viewed in the context of France's colonial past. 

Human rights activists and feminists underline the intersection of problems here. On the one hand, there is the freedom to openly express one's faith in public or private as long as it does not endanger others' rights. 

The ability to openly express one's religious views does not appear to be upheld by a clothing prohibition that looks to be focused especially at Muslim girls and women. 

It also doesn't appear to treat everyone equally, considering that the effects are most noticeable among schoolgirls. On the other side, there is the right to equal protection and security in one's person (particularly in educational settings), as well as the state's responsibility to provide it. 

If France perceives religious symbols as representing a possible threat to a person or a group, and believes that prohibiting them is the best way to safeguard those persons, it may be argued that the state has every right to implement the prohibition, even if it looks to be targeting Muslim females.

Furthermore, feminists disagree on whether the head scarf and other kinds of veiling constitute signs of sexual inequity or otherwise dehumanize women. Some say that wearing a head scarf or veil is liberating because it shields women from at least some of the objectifying gaze of men. Others believe that in some cultural and religious traditions, the veil is a sign of women's servitude and lack of autonomy. 

Regardless, despite the challenges in defining what that means, feminist attempts to achieve human rights worldwide are significant extensions of feminist efforts to achieve the legal, social, political, and economic rights of women inside their own country. 

Women have made significant progress around the world, but there is still much more to be done. 

Women continue to be more likely to be victims of abuse, to care for babies and children disproportionately, and to be underpaid in comparison to their male counterparts. 

Some legislative changes now need to be accompanied with cultural shifts that impact how laws are executed. Furthermore, not all forms of oppression can be addressed by changes in laws, economic structure, or even social and political shifts. 

Internalized oppression is when oppression is ingrained in one's thoughts about oneself and others. Beyond inequality, second-wave feminism examines some of the ways oppression is constituted. 

We still need to examine how oppression impacts agency, identity, and embodiment, as well as feminist recommendations for changing how we act, think about ourselves and others, and feel our bodies in the world.

~ Jai Krishna Ponnappan

You may also want to read more about Feminism and Activism here.

First Wave of Feminism

The first wave of women's social, legal, and economic rights. All of the feminist schools as well as many more that I haven't named or that are still forming, start with the same premise: women are oppressed.

They disagree considerably in how they comprehend or explain oppression, what reform or revolution techniques they recommend to end oppression, and even who counts as a "woman" or if such a category exists at all. 

I examine several types of ongoing oppression of women in our global human society here, including social, legal, political, and intellectual inequality. 

The focus of feminism's first wave is oppression of these kinds. 

The first wave focuses on human rights, civic, social, economic, and intellectual/educational equality, as well as women's political and legal standing. 

It allows us to look at a variety of topics that are still relevant to women and men today, as well as part of the historical evolution of feminism in the Western world. 

Because of the cultural importance of rights found in Anglo-American feminism, this essay is centered around and devoted to it.

The first wave still prevails across several regions of our collective global society.

Along with the second and third waves, the first wave is a parallel struggle that is staggered and ongoing till every last Woman and Girl is accounted for.

Please click on the links below to learn more about the First Wave of Feminism in detail:

1. Women are Rational, Autonomous and Equal
2. Social and Political Rights for Women
3. Legal Rights for Women
4. Economic Rights for Women
5. Women's Rights ARE Human Rights

~ Jai Krishna Ponnappan

You may also want to read more about Feminism and Activism here.