Green Group discussion

Let's have a thread where issues more of interest to women can be discussed.
Men and non-binary members are, of course, welcome to read, post and comment.
On other sites I notice that an issue relating to women gets more discussion by women than a topic which seems general.
Please post links to explain any item you believe is of interest.

Here is a story of an Indian entrepreneur who developed low-cost cellulose sanitary pads for low-income village women.
http://greenubuntu.com/true-story-pad...

Cool. Thanks for sharing. I switched to a menstrual cup a couple years ago and it's been amazing. I can't believe I used disposable materials before. There are a number of other multi-use options resurfacing, too.

In the Indian example I love that it gives women local jobs as well.

In my mother's day a pad was just cotton wool with gauze over it, and a string loop at each end to fasten to a little cotton belt because there were no sticky strips yet. All biodegradable but bulky and at that time it all went to landfill or got flushed.

Nappies / diapers were terrycloth tied with a big safety pin. They had to be washed. Twin-tub washing machines were new and welcomed.
A friend found a way to have cloth nappies with no washing - she could bundle them up in a sack and every few days a small van would come round and collect them and drop back the previous ones. They had been washed and sterilised. Some families didn't like the idea of not getting their own nappies back but she said it worked well.
Modern absorbent pads and nappies were developed by NASA for astronauts.

One action I take every couple of weeks is to give a woman in a developing nation her own bank account. She is given a biometric smartcard which establishes her identity, so that she can open her account. This is done through Opportunity International. They specialise in giving micro-loans and 95% of their customers are women.
With the loan a woman can buy a fruit stall or seeds and tools or educate her family.
https://opportunity.org.uk/
Best of all for me is that I can do this at no cost through Care2.com
http://www.care2.com/rewards/redeem.html

Wonderful idea!

Cassandra wrote: "Cool. Thanks for sharing. I switched to a menstrual cup a couple years ago and it's been amazing. I can't believe I used disposable materials before. There are a number of other multi-use options r..."

Found an instance of cups being sold in Pakistan, where many girls can't go to school during periods. They can't afford pads. As the cup is a one-off buy it may help.
http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-4357...

If NASA had not sent women to space, astronauts would still not know how to sew and quilt in zero gravity. Skills like these will be useful if we go to Mars or establish any off-Earth habitation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0c1C...

As if women hadn't enough to worry about, the cotton used to make pads and tampons is usually treated with pesticides, while more modern materials are not biodegradable.
Here's a look at the materials used over the years.
Some organic products are on sale, and as a previous comment shows, new products may reduce the need for pads and tampons.

https://www.care2.com/greenliving/a-b...

Women and photojournalism. Often, a female photographer can get access to places a man cannot. Such as a women's ward, or a women's school in Afghanistan.

https://www.care2.com/causes/why-news...

With a clip from Frame by Frame with a male and a female photographer in Afghanistan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_co...

From The Guardian -
Beginning with 20 villages in Amethi 10 years ago, Save a Mother has expanded to 1,100 villages in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Telangana. The maternal mortality rate for those villages has been reduced by 90% and infant mortality is down by 60%.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/201...

Some of the older women in Purabgaon talked candidly about the relentless pressure they were put under to give birth. “I had five children in quick succession, my mother-in-law kept saying she wanted a grandson. Then I married off my eldest daughter at 15. That was wrong,” said Urmila Devi. “I know better now. My youngest girl won’t get married before 20 and I will tell her to control her pregnancies.”

The Guardian online has a page dedicated to Global Development. This carries several articles each day ranging from the race to save banana plants to the global distribution of firearms, but also many on population, women's issues, ethical treatment of workers and humanitarian crises.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-de...

I notice that this page is supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Infographics on demographics. With the world population rising fast, and Nigeria to have a larger population than America in the immediate future, what is good, what is bad and what can we do?

https://www.theguardian.com/global-de...

Women are affected more than men by climate change and by disasters.

"The UN has highlighted the need for gender sensitive responses to the impacts of climate change, yet the average representation of women in national and global climate negotiating bodies is below 30%.
The numbers don't improve at the local level.
"Women are often not involved in the decisions made about the responses to climate change, so the money ends up going to the men rather than the women," environmental scientist Diana Liverman told the BBC's Science in Action programme on the World Service this week."

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-envi...

Using money to fix things seems like it should work but it ultimately re-enforces its own working goals.

Nature needs more women to work in STEM fields - Science, Technology, Engineering, Medicine - but according to a report just out, women in these fields often experience harassment.

https://www.care2.com/causes/half-of-...

When I started work on demolition sites, I was assured that the language cleaned up considerably.

While this article applies to everyone, women often make most of the family lifestyle choices, and can encourage other family members to choose better options.

How to slow ageing - food choices, exercise, brain activity and more. We are all likely to live longer so let's do it in a healthy manner.
https://www.care2.com/greenliving/14-...

NOAA sent an all female crew to hurricane hunt in a plane, off Hawaii.

https://earther.gizmodo.com/noaas-fir...

If any women Group members are working in jobs relating to the environment, let's hear from you.
I started in demolition and I am now a self employed tree surgeon.

Short hair is much better for the environment than long. It uses less product and water to keep clean, there is little or no need for heat drying and styling, and the wearer is not tempted to buy rubbish to put in or on the hair.

While I think some women with long hair look lovely, I have had short hair since I was seven and I would not want to waste all the time and money involved in keeping long hair.
You've heard the saying, we are the sum of our choices.

The flipside of the stabilising population and the growing proportion of older people, in developed societies, is that some women who expected to have one or two children find they don't have any. They don't have a partner.
Women are hoping to set up home with someone they can depend on, in my personal view, so as to support the family. An intelligent, accomplished woman finds few choices are free by the time she has made it. In Ireland we've had the emigration problem - the enterprising men go abroad.
A stark divide has been appearing; those with seven children get a council house, so they start families early and don't work, or not as much as someone, or some couple, who is childless until forty paying a mortgage.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandst...

Nevertheless, She Persisted: True Stories of Women Leaders in Tech

A good book of memoirs of several women working in STEM fields. Computer science and engineering are developing our future and cleaning up our environmental problems. We need more women leaders, and they need to be paid equally with men.
One lady got promoted from manager to director, and only on insisting to be shown salary levels, found that a male manager now under her was getting $50,000 more than her current salary.
Tech also seems to be less flexible about part time and shared jobs, so women often drop out of the industry due to family issues or are encouraged to take a backward step.

Women who are migrant workers have differing needs to men migrant workers, and may end up doing different jobs.

Here a course funded by the EU and UN helps indigenous women in Mexico to learn their rights and shape their futures. Some of the women go on to produce organic vegetables.

https://www.care2.com/causes/women-mi...

Clare wrote: "Nevertheless, She Persisted: True Stories of Women Leaders in Tech

A good book of memoirs of ..."

I'm a cybersecurity geek for my day job, and I'm actually very encouraged by the recent hiring trends I see. My own team at work is half female, it so happens, and the most recent hires include three extremely bright, talented, and dedicated young women in their early twenties. The cybersecurity / hacker conferences I've been attending for years are clearly including more diverse audiences. I believe the STEM careers are trending in a positive direction!

My experience, working in the science fields I have so far, has been primarily with females. When I was getting my Masters pretty much the whole program was females. And working out in the field with a crew of 90% ladies (and this isnt looking at flowers type of field work. This is trapping black bears). I work in a micro lab now and there is only one male in our crew.

Thanks Brian and Jes, good to know!

Thirty years ago it seems matters were not so promising, so a glacier has been renamed. Antarctica is not the place to have a personality clash.

https://earther.gizmodo.com/glacier-n...

Women do a great deal of fishing work around the world, but are often left out of decision making and information sharing. Partly this is because they are considered gatherers of shellfish, or fish packers, rather than fishermen, and partly because they may live in male dominated cultures, according to this article.

https://www.ecowatch.com/seafood-fish...

Books about the women who followed the Scots herring fleet in the past. Herring were salted and packed in barrels by teams of three women, working on a mass production basis, and sold to London or the Netherlands. This was a useful seasonal income and formed a part of a woman's independent life. Until the herring stocks crashed.

A Sparkle Of Salt

The Shimmer Of The Herring

Here is a book by a female swordfish boat captain, just as counterpoint.
The Hungry Ocean: A Swordboat Captain's Journey

Apparently an all-female team of vulcanologists is still unusual, so respect to the five intrepid women who went to Hawaii's recent eruption and took aerosol samples for three weeks.

https://earther.gizmodo.com/the-all-w...

PBS will start showing “Volcano on Fire” and “Volcano on the Brink”, starting Wednesday, October 10 starting at 9 PM ET. It takes place at Virunga Mountains in East Africa where two of the world's most powerful, dangerous, and least understood volcanoes are located. Kayla Iacovino, a world famous expert on volcanoes, took part in the study.

Sounds riveting! Thanks.

The fact of a woman winning a Nobel prize for physics should not be unusual, but apparently it is, so here, let's celebrate this winner. More women doing excellent physics will mean more female input into the work that is done. And, we hope, more good choices for the planet.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/scien...

"A trio of American, French and Canadian scientists won the 2018 Nobel Prize for Physics on Tuesday for breakthroughs in laser technology that have turned light beams into precision tools for everything from eye surgery to micro-machining.

"They include the first female physics prize winner in 55 years.

"Canada’s Donna Strickland, of the University of Waterloo, becomes only the third woman to win a Nobel for physics, after Marie Curie in 1903 and Maria Goeppert-Mayer in 1963."

It's probably not a complete lack of candidates, more like a lack of women being nominated as candidates.

Could be.

The reasons to educate women in STEM fields expanded: a 2018 Nobel-winning mother, for her chemistry work, has a son who is also working in STEM, first as heli mechanic, now with NASA's JPL.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.ph...

We know domestic violence is not limited to men hitting women. Yet, women are more vulnerable to this ill fate, and more likely to be unable to leave because they have children.
This article reiterates what I have read elsewhere; violence of all kinds including domestic violence rises right after a disaster. The victims have fewer resources or communications, no way to leave, no safe shelter. Everyone is more stressed.
Hurricanes provide an opportunity to study the effect.

https://earther.gizmodo.com/surge-in-...

The changing weather patterns are tearing apart a lot more than walls and roofs off of houses. It is exposing all the weak points modern society tries to ignore. Some believe that the willingness to overlook domestic violence is a product of mankind's treatment of the Earth.

Well, I tend to think it is a control issue, but maybe this reflects trying to control nature.

And there are many other forms which domestic abuse can take, such as controlling money, controlling social contacts, putting the other person down, especially in company, verbal abuse tirades and so on. But those are not in the scope of the study. Anyone concerned may find clarification in these books:

How to Find the Right Person to Date: A Step by Step Guide to Finding the Right Partner and Detecting an Abuser

If He's So Great, Why Do I Feel So Bad?: Recognizing and Overcoming Subtle Abuse

I'm just saying weather is forcing the issue of people helping helping people stuck in a bind through no fault of their own because they have no way to avoid a problem situation they find themselves in. People no longer have control over the weather. We use to be able to get out of the way, but that's no longer true. Even though we can clearly see it coming, our fortunes of life are wrapped up in a physical system which has no room for this kind of repeated activity. The social fabric is not immune from this kind of situation. There is another cat 5 hurricane on the way which will make more people homeless in their homes and subject to the everything you mentioned by the impact of the storm on their lives and everyone they know. These storms will continue to hit society month after month until the weather stabilizes. Since the poles aren't supposed to finish melting for another 80 years (which I don't believe for a second), the aggravating conditions are not going to magically disappear every time the sum comes out.

Agreed - that hurricane is Cat 5 on its way to Mexico.

I had never heard of Cover Girl cosmetics. This is a sub-brand of Coty.
This name is now certified by Leaping Bunny as cruelty-free. No testing on animals anywhere for any reason.

https://www.care2.com/causes/covergir...

The main reason firms still test on animals is because China is a whopping big market, and China insists on animal testing. So all the rest of Coty products are not Leaping Bunny certified even though many of them have been on the market for decades, or their ingredients have.
Choose wisely if you choose makeup at all.

Back to basics; educating older women in India. A lot of the time, the granny is left in charge of the kids, so she can pass on life skills if she has them.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-de...

Activists demand easy and cheap access to sanitary pads in Africa.

https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/cont...
'These girls often don’t have access to sanitary pads, and resort to using materials like rags, newspapers, or bark to manage their periods. Other times, they’re deterred from going to school because of stigmas that prevent menstruating girls from touching water or cooking, going to religious ceremonies, participating in community events, and more, according to the United Nations Population Fund.
These stigmas follow women throughout their careers and can lead to being fired, demeaned at work, or passed over for promotions, according to Ndwandwe.'

Its the practices of individuals and societies who have more than they need that holds back progress, not those who can't participate in it.

Or those desperate for jobs or advancement. If there are few jobs going and you can stigmatise another group, you have a better chance of getting that job.

This series of books about a girl called Ruby, helps kids learn coding. The author says in this video that she believes this is the last generation that will see computers as screen and keyboard; next, computers will be all around us. She wants girls to learn to be programmers.

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/technolog...

Hello Ruby: Adventures in Coding

A book tells us about the ways the world has been designed with men in mind, not women.
I agree that my leather work gloves are man-sized and gloves for women tend to be dainty cotton ones that are useless.

https://www.care2.com/causes/the-male...

Here is the book; I have not read it yet.
Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men

That was quite an eye opener.

Just as the 20% of people who are left-handed must suffer.

Some years ago my motor insurance firm had a policy for lady drivers. EagleStar was their name, since bought over. The policy was called Ladystar. This gave a discount to women on the basis that women had fewer serious crashes. Can't argue with actuaries.

However, I rang the firm and asked to be given this policy rate for driving my van.
The response; "Women don't drive vans."
I said "Here's one!"
As they already covered me and nobody else to drive it they conceded the point and I got my rate.
The EU has now made it illegal to offer better rates to women drivers on the grounds that it discriminates against men. So I have to pay more.

Women run fish selling businesses in Ghana but the fish catches are diminishing.

https://www.ecowatch.com/ghana-queen-...