Marilyn Waring's work, Counting for Nothing, presents the role of women as an invaluable asset whose value needs to be imputed in the gross domestic product of the nation. Waring analyzes and criticizes different ways economists have attempted to measure women's domestic labor (household labor and production), such as measuring opportunity cost, but doesn't ever present her own suggestion for its measurement. That got me brainstorming; how do you place a value on women's domestic labor? We could argue that reproduction, or the act of raising a child is intangible capitol as an asset that cannot be physically measured. Waring also believes that imputing value on reproduction wouldn't be morally correct. However, almost every other part of women's household labor can be physically measured in the economy. First, I thought that measuring value at a per/hour salary rate would be the easiest way to calculate women's domestic product. However, I forgot to take into account the different level of skill it takes for a woman to do various jobs--it really varies from cleaning to cooking to maintenance, all of which correspond to different careers with different salaries in the economy. A little of topic (but isn't that what our Serendip postings are for? :))...this past weeks reading reminded me of a discussion my AP English class had senior year. We wanted to calculate what a human life was worth. First, we thought of life insurance, but then realized that was just people paying to have risk taken away from them.

I wondered, after visiting the Cannery on Friday and discussing the level of privacy (or lack thereof) that the women feel there in terms of where they can find a silent moment for themselves. On the Bryn Mawr side, we discussed having semi-chaotic shared spaces, where roommates and friends keep us from having constant silence--which is often a good thing! But I do know that I often appreciate a little time to myself, a niche, if you will, where I can be silent and on my own, without those outside forces and people (which I usually enjoy and appreciate) coming into my space. I wonder how the women of the Cannery feel about this--would they like more "me" time, where they could be silent and alone? Is sacrificing that privilege just par for the course with being in prison? Of course, my "me" time doesn't take into account the time that I enjoy being silent with other people, so is that something of a substitute for alone time in the walls of a prison? Do group quiet activities like reading or praying take the place of a silent, solitary niche?

This was in an e-mail I received today! (from the Working Families Party)

...
But it’s really not about luck at all, and this is why we’re writing to the many WFP supporters who did not know Jessie or anyone else hurt in this hurricane. A few days ago, an environmental thinker and writer named Bill McKibben made a point worth repeating. 

It is time, he wrote, that we stop giving these storms the names of people, and start naming them after fossil fuel companies.

McKibben's point is that global warming makes normal storms into terrible ones, and terrible ones into killers. The oil and coal companies are the biggest contributors to the global warming that causes sea levels to rise and the waters to warm, which in turn boost the awesome, terrible power of a hurricane. They fund the lobbying and political campaigns that guarantee that we do nothing real to challenge climate change. And they fail to accept any responsibility for the death and destruction that result.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-11-07/women-winning-senate-races-will-set-record-in-january

I think this article is a good response to Marilyn Waring’s call for women to positions of power. So basically the feminist movement has been progressing positively. Not only can women now gain education and well-paid jobs but they are also take leadership roles to make changes. But the question is now whether this is just a short-term trend or it is the permanent equality we have reached, and how can we make sure that the rights women now have will not be taken all away again? Winona LaDuke has proposed “Seventh Generation Amendment” to protect the availability of natural resources for future generations, then perhaps there should also be another amendment to enhance the rights of women? Or are there already any?

Hedge fund managers and CEOs,
Captains of Industry, Masters of the Universe
Walk their little dogs down my street
Clutching
little bags 
of dog shit.

Does economic prosperity equal environmental destruction? Waring seems to think so. She talks about how CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) are actually counted as economic growth, not environmental degradation, and about carbon trading as an economic activity, much more like a service than an action that might impact various ecosystems. However, I think that her outlook on our relationship with nature (as humans wishing for economic prosperity) is quite dismal and I'm not so sure I completely agree with her. Granted, economic growth has taken its toll in the natural environment in the countries where it has been most apparent (Japan, USA, China, Germany, etc.), but to say that a country must be environmentally destructive in order to be economically productive is a little far-fetched. I'm thinking of Norway when I say this. Norway has fared quite well economically; while it has never been a global (or even European) economic superpower, it has certainly had one of the most stable economies, as well as highest life standards. Additionally, they have exploited very little of their natural resources when compared to other global economic powers of the same strength. Indeed, they have extracted a lot of petroleum and natural gas and have one of the largest global timber industries, but they also have vast expanses of untouched nature, a percentage of "natural purity" that countries such as the US can only dream about.

I was very interested in a particular allusion that seemed too often invoked in the conversation to be coincidental: the discussion revolving around “the void.” It is described as “not something created by patriarchy, or racism, or capitalism…. It is beyond personality; beyond who loves us or hates us” (191). The conversation creates the feeling of something not quite describable or fully explainable; something that lies just beyond and outside of words.