Going zero waste is a lot of work. Does too much of it fall to women ? - Vox
▻https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/the-goods/2019/5/9/18535943/zero-waste-movement-gender-sustainability-women-instagram
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The world of zero waste is fronted by female influencers who DIY their beauty products, keep immaculate white-walled households, and grocery shop with pretty white net bags. Lauren Singer of Trash Is for Tossers, the young face of the movement, focuses on the kitchen, bathroom, and wardrobe, and Shia Su of Wasteland Rebel has tips for washing your hair and making almond milk.
“People would consider my blog girly,” says Florine Hofmann, a sustainability blogger from Germany whose zero-waste articles talk about silicone menstrual cups and grocery shopping. “I can’t imagine my ex-boyfriend googling something about how to make the perfect candle.”
Why is it that the everyday work of reducing our plastic use and keeping our oceans and rivers plastic-free seems to fall into women’s domain?
Why is zero waste so feminized?
In theory, anyone could do it, though that is a controversial statement when you take into account the privilege of having access to bulk bins and the time needed to go to several stores instead of your local Walmart.
It’s sort of like a game. How normal can you be while saving the environment? If you can fit all your year’s waste into a jar, then you’ve become the zero-waste zen master.
It’s essentially another layer to “having it all”: a career, a family, a perfectly Instagrammable life, and now you’re saving the planet, too. In practice, this can be a lot of undervalued, unpaid work, more added to the “mental load” that women carry, which — as illustrated in this comic by the French artist Emma — is the list-making and calendering that women do to administer the household.
“The reason why people started buying things premade is because they were working longer hours,” Susan Dobscha, a professor of marketing at Bentley University who studies gender and sustainability, says. When I tell her about zero waste and describe the Instagram images of perfect pantries of glass and beans, she compares it to “the 1950s housewife’s ideal of perfection. Back then the pantry was perfect when they put all these fancy brands in like Nabisco crackers. But now the narrative has shifted to make having the perfect house more labor intensive.”
n order to participate in society without using disposables, a typical zero waster will carry reusable utensils, a reusable straw, a mason jar, a cloth handkerchief, and a metal tiffin for premade snacks or leftovers. Women are used to having a purse full of stuff with them — what’s a few more accessories if it’s for the planet? But asking a “phone-keys-wallet” guy to carry all of that?
“This is just another manifestation of the bar being higher for women in order to avoid public criticism, much like women running for office. Now it’s couched within this appropriated narrative of we’re doing good for the planet.”
Marketers have found that women are more easily swayed by eco messaging, perhaps because men view green products and behaviors as inherently more feminine.
But those are just bottle caps in an ocean. Since 2010, the fossil fuel industry has poured $180 billion into new plastics manufacturing facilities, and experts say global plastic production will jump by 40 percent as a result, irrespective of whether we bring mason jars with us to the grocery store. According to a 2017 analysis, the global oil and gas industry has fewer women in leadership positions than in other industries. Given that only 5 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs are women, that’s a low bar ... and indicative of how little influence women have over the tons of plastic flowing into the ocean.
She talks about the women she met while working on her dissertation on gender and sustainability 25 years ago. They were pioneering zero-waste living, but it didn’t have the same … let’s call it branding.
“One woman didn’t use feminine hygiene products, because it’s wasteful,” Dobscha says. “One woman cut open her tube of toothpaste and scraped out every bit of toothpaste. One woman, her roll of aluminum foil lasted her 10 years because she copiously washed every piece and reused it until it fell apart. My mind was blown.” To her, these women were rebels.
Franchement, mettre sa bouffe en vrac dans des pots, ça veut dire aller faire ses courses en caisses. Je les mets dans des sacs papier mais je suis à vélo...