Feminist insight crucial to building a better world- 1AC reliance on atomized economic methodology makes systemic change impossible

(Vanaja, Globalization: Discourse of Inevitability, and a Quest for a Just and Caring World, Society-Societe, 24:2)

Feminism provides an alternate world-view where the life sustaining activities women are assigned the position of prominence they deserve. Critical analysis of the current state of affairs by feminists has led to envisioning a better future. Many feminists have articulated these visions. There is a remarkable convergence o f broad principles underling these visions. They include a way of life where there is harmony with nature, cooperation and mutual respect among people and a pervasive concern for justice and care for all people. Such visions promote a holistic, interdependent world-view and social relations that emphasize cooperation (Mies and Shiva 1993; Gross 1996; Cooey 1991; Goldenberg 1990). A holistic approach to life includes several interrelated, interconnected and irreducible goals. Within this perspective, reproduction of life and the maintenance of health and well-being of all people are placed at the front and center of societal and individual objectives. This means that success in life is not measured by the amount of money one has or the number of goods collected, nor by the degree of control held over other lives. It means that we become conscious of the impact of our own lifestyles on others, and learn to live our lives so as to promote, not only our own health and well-being, but everyone else’s. We learn to resolve conflicts through peaceful means resisting the waste of resources for military build-up and armed conflict. The consequence is that resources can be spent on the reproduction of life and peaceful coexistence. We learn to think that difference does not mean inequality and that one style oflife is not necessarily better, as long as it is lived in a nonexploitative manner. A holistic approach also means that we do not consider nature/environment as something that is ‘out there', but consider it to be intimately connected to our lives. If we ruin the environment, we ruin our own health and well-being. The tendency to think in dualistic terms is avoided. This is important because one of the problems with the current life style is compartmentalization of activities in life. As producers/paid workers we do not care whether a given product has use value and whether it promotes human welfare. The only concern is whether it can sell and make maximum profit. Therefore slick advertising and sophisticated public relations strategies are adopted to sell the products. The products can be toxic chemicals, biological weapons of human destruction, or genetically modified food, the impact of which is not yet established. In addition, no attention is paid to environmental depletion, degradation or pollution. We, as consumers, must demand clean air and water, a safe environment and healthy food. As investors and shareholders of various financial institutions, the overwhelming concern is the return on our investment. Often no attention is paid as to how these returns are obtained. They may easily have been obtained by depriving people of their livelihood. We demand lower price on quality products but do not generally stop to think how it is obtained. As citizens we show concern about child labour in developing countries and make pronouncements of condemnation without stopping to think that, in most cases, child labour is required to make ends meet as the people are exploited by capitalistic greed. Relational analysis is required to shed light on these inconsistencies. Such practices are in vogue not only because pursuit of self-interest is promoted, but also because we are given to believe that some people are more deserving than others. This is particularly evident in contexts where people are different on the basis of gender, race/ethnicity, class or sexual orientation to name a few indices of social status. Difference often means hierarchy. PhilomenaEssed(1991), for example, has argued that EuroAmericans believe in racial and ethnic hierarchy because the belief systems made popular during colonialism and imperialism have become part of common sense knowledge. In general people do not see any inconsistency between believing in democracy and individual rights and considering non-white people as inferior. Such a belief in the coexistence of democracy and racism is labeled as democratic racism by Francis Henry (1995). Audre Lorde argues that much of western history has conditioned people to see themselves “in simplistic opposition to each other dominant/ subordinate, good/bad, superior/inferior” (1984:114). Such a belief system, she argues, is functional because, in a society, where good is defined in terms of profit rather than in terms of human need, there must always be some group of people who, through systematized oppression, can be made to feel surplus to occupy the place of the dehumanized inferior. (1984:114) She continues, somewhere, on the edge of consciousness, there is ... a mythical norm. In North America it is usually defined as white, thin, male, young, heterosexual, Christian, and fi nancially secure. {116) Under these circumstances acknowledging and respecting differences is threatening. Vandana Shiva (1994), arguing in a similar vein, writes that there is a link between the West’s long thought-war against cultural diversity and its legal and economic war against biodiversity, which currently threatens the global environment. She shows how knowledge monopolies work by enclosing, controlling and privatizing both biodiversity (diverse species) and cultural diversity (marginalized and third world knowledges). Her account of the links between western knowledge systems and the world-wide environmental crisis illustrates that neoimperialism is a world-system that privileges western countries and transnational corporations and those institutions they control, such as the World bank and the IMF. Coalition building is a difficult task under these circumstances. It requires patience and perseverance. Difficulties are mainly due to differences in power among groups due to the historical legacy of exploitation and domination. Patricia Collins (1986) proposes a model which she labels ‘matrix of differences’ to make a relational analysis among groups and individuals. She argues that various dimensions of social status such as gender, race, ethnicity and class are all simultaneous systems of action and meaning that intersect with one another and are interlocked to produce particular types of experiences for all people. These experiences become crystallized in institutional structures. Unequal relationships among people are routinely reproduced. To build coalitions across such differences, Kate Young (1988) argues that everyone, those who are in positions of domination and those who are in positions of subordination, must agree that it is in everyone’s strategic interest to stem the tide of environmental destruction, global poverty, consumerism and deterioration of quality of life. (7-9)