During the lecture that Dr. Dharamsi gave on Socially Responsible Approaches to Global Engagement, he opened his lecture by saying, “Today, write down words that strike you. And keep those. And reflect.” So during the lecture and discussion, I bolded words in my notes that stood out to me in some way. One of the very first sentences in my notes was, “We live in a hyper-competitive world.  Who’s the fastest woman in the world? We live in a gendered world.”

This statement stood out to me, mainly because the class was quite dumbfounded: not a single person knew who the fastest woman in the world was. It also tied in to what we later talked about in my LFS class – food citizenship. There our instructor stated, “There was a perception that being tied to the kitchen was quite demoralizing…the devaluing of the home economy and the work of a housewife was quite strong.  This has implications for our food system.” The disconnect from food has been ever-expanding in our modern world, due in part to this push to have women in the workforce, and at demanding levels. He went on to say, “So women aren’t valued unless they’re CEO’s? Unless they’re a part of our economy? I’m not saying that women should go back to the kitchen, but -someone- should.”

These statements got me thinking about gender differences and equality and how things are in our current world. It is true that the world is gendered, and it always will be. I think that people are coming to terms with that, by which I mean that the somewhat overly-specific, second-wave feminist movement is being replaced by a more holistic view of women. There are also many articles emerging about the balance that women must find between their place in the public sphere and their place in the private sphere. The fact that the world is hyper-competitive leads into a struggle between whether to pursue a dream career, or raise a family. It is often the woman who must make this choice, despite rising number of stay-at-home Dads in the late 20^th century. It is difficult to Granted work and family do not have to be entirely separate paths, but they are definitely difficult to strike a balance between.

The competitive nature of our current society, in addition to the desire to break out of gender roles, has lead to a lot of people being very disconnected from the food that they eat. As our instructor said, it’s not necessarily women that need to get back to preparing food, but our society as a whole. The Slow Food movement is a good example of this philosophy: a movement which, “believes in recognizing the importance of pleasure connected to food.” They are of the opinion that, “We should learn to enjoy the vast range of recipes and flavors, recognize the variety of places and people growing and producing food. We should respect the rhythms of the seasons and conviviality.” (©2013 Slow Food Canada. All Rights Reserved.)

There is not any easy or immediate fix to a problem that has arisen over the last sixty years, however I do believe that there is a growing recognition of this problem within society. It seems to me, coming from the country, that it is much more prevalent in cities. And despite the fact that people acknowledge these problems, it is easier to simply call and order-in than to make time for home-cooked, seasonal food, and family.

On November 26^th the lecture in Land and Food Systems 250 was about Food Literacy, and to prepare for class we had to read two articles, one entitled “Forget Shorter Showers”, by Derrick Jensen, and the other “Civic Agriculture and Community Problem Solving” by T.A. Lyson. Together the articles are a very interesting juxtaposition of opinions, and it was well worth reading them together. I was very intrigued by the article on Shorter Showers. Despite being a less-polished text, Jensen had some very interesting ideas on the subject of environmental change. He advocated that what we need for change to happen is not personal change at an individual level, but policy change on a large-scale governmental level.

This, of course, is a very controversial argument. A lot of people right now are invested both physically and mentally in the “green” movement. Jensen brushes off these small-scale movements, in order to emphasize his thesis. On this point I disagree with him – I think that in order for things to change people do need to have a personal, vested interest in conserving energy, reducing waste and water consumption, choosing local products etc, and that discouraging this philosophy is of no advantage. However, I do agree that to be considered an “activist” one must be “socially or psychologically risky and not just sit around at home and eat vegan food” (Valley, Lecture). That said, I don’t really think that everyone wants or needs to be an activist. Everyone supporting the movement in whatever way they can is of benefit, in my opinion, but recognizing that for radical change to happen, radical efforts will be needed is also important. And Jensen’s points about needing to pressure government into change are of interest to me. From what I gathered, he was of the opinion that we are in need of a social revolution, rather than the social reform that has slowly been starting to take place.

Perhaps this idea resonated with me because I have been questioning what I want to do with my degree, and have been considering the option of somehow becoming involved with policy or politics. As one of the instructors said during lecture, “Political is almost like a dirty word right now.” To me that really rings true, and so in reading the article on Shorter Showers, I suppose it allowed me to open my mind to viewing political career options in a more positive light. Jensen questions whether or not becoming food literate is enough, and suggests that there is a limit to what individuals can do. He believes that we need to engage with the political system, and that regulatory control is what makes the big differences. An example of this would be the eventual ban of lead gasoline use, which resulted in the biggest improvement in our air quality in years.

That is not to say that I have now decided on a career path or know exactly where I want to take my degree, but it opened my eyes to viewing more positively the option of becoming involved with policy. At the same time it has provoked many questions about our current approach to change. It is true that the social and political structures around us have a profound impact on what we do. It is hard to imagine a revolution taking place anytime soon, but maybe that’s what is really needed.