Women, food and violence

In my own home, food chores and responsibilities are shared by my husband and our family cook, something I put down in writing without any shame or embarrassment. It’s just the way things are!

But elsewhere in this country and in the world, it is the women who are traditionally the main food providers for their families. Although the male breadwinner may earn the cash with which to buy food and other essentials, it is the wife and mother who must budget, shop, prepare for and cook the food that nourishes the family. This, even if she, too has to work outside the home or contributes to the family income. And in situations of hardship or want, it is the woman who must make ends meet, cutting corners, incurring debt, or going hungry herself.

Which may be why it is only appropriate that an all-woman panel presented early this week their positions on “the right to healthy food” during a forum marking the observance of World Consumer Rights Day on March 15, calling on government to “support a shift towards climate-resilient ecological agriculture and embrace solutions that will reduce the nation’s vulnerability by ensuring food and nutrition security across the Philippines.”

Indeed, even as poverty already makes it extremely difficult for mothers to meet their families’ food needs, climate change and fluctuations in weather, soil conditions, availability of water, will make providing food even more challenging and extremely difficult.

The women in the panel—representing women’s, consumer rights and environmental organizations—warned that the country, facing climate change and worsening extreme weather impacts, “needs to take urgent measures to adapt and ensure food production is sustainable and does not harm the environment.”

* * *

“Consumers must have access to full information about healthy, sustainable food on the one hand and unhealthy, not environmentally-friendly produced food on the other. Furthermore, they should be able to exercise their right to choose between the two with proper labeling of food that people are wary of, like chemically grown and/or genetically modified food,” the groups said.

At the same time, the women in the panel also shared stories proving that healthy and nutritious food choices can still be made even during climate disasters. For instance, the Negrense Volunteers for Change Foundation Inc. (NVCF) presented their Mingo Meals, a powdered combination of malunggay and mungo beans that, when mixed with water, turns into a nutritious porridge.

Camille Genuino, NVCF spokesperson, averred that the group “has proven that it is not difficult to make nutritious food readily available every day or even in times of disasters.” The Mingo meals, she said, have been distributed in areas severely affected by Typhoons “Ruby” and “Yolanda,” helping children and families in need.

Elsewhere, woman farmers are choosing to adopt “ecological agriculture” which, said Monina Geaga of Kasarian-Kalayaan Inc. (Sarilaya), a women farmers’ organization, “works in harmony with nature,” unlike chemical-reliant conventional agriculture methods. These, said Geaga, “pose health risks to farmers and society in general,” with the chemicals “harmful to the environment and producing food that is neither safe nor healthy.”

Indeed, women are not just food producers and preparers in their own right, they also constitute the front line in the fight for food sustainability and security for their families and for the rest of us.

* * *

“India’s Daughter,” a documentary which is set to be aired in seven countries on Sunday,

March 8, International Women’s Day (sadly, the Philippines is not included), but aired earlier the other day in the United Kingdom by BBC, has sparked international outrage and revived the same passions aroused when word about the rape case that inspired this got around.

Adding fuel to the widespread anger was the interview with Mukesh Singh, one of five men convicted over the 2012 rape, where Singh declared that the student who died from her injuries sustained in the attack should not have been out at night.

“He showed no remorse,” said documentary-maker Leslee Udwin. She described her session with Singh as “chilling,” adding that she “got an insight and understanding into the way he views women, and that is what is extremely shocking.”

As it is, Udwin had to leave India before the documentary’s airing, saying she was “very frightened” at the possible consequences of the renewed attention on India and the “culture of rape” that prevails in that country.

* * *

Indeed, “blaming the victim” seems to be a common practice whenever yet another rape case hits the news in India—and elsewhere in the world.

Speaking to reporters after a special screening of “India’s Daughter,” Udwin recounted how Singh, who was driving the bus where the attack was carried out, showed “no regret for one second out of 16 hours [of interviews], no regret. In fact, the opposite. Mukesh’s attitude is ‘Why are they making a fuss about us, everybody is doing it.’”

Singh even suggested that her killing was the young woman’s fault, that she would not have been killed if she had not fought back against her attackers, saying she was not behaving like “a decent girl.” “When being raped, she shouldn’t fight back. She should just be silent and allow the rape. Then they’d have dropped her off after ‘doing her,’ and only hit the boy.” (The victim was accompanied by a male friend when she boarded the bus.)

Oh, well, the struggle continues, but it certainly rankles that, as the saying goes, “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”