Food is a Feminist Issue: Keeping the Third Horseman At Bay

And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand... And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, "A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine. - Revelations 6: 5, 6.

Perhaps this is something of a Sunday Sermon, but it's more a reaction to our latest news about the world's rice shortage and impending wheat crisis. Current events that are starting to mimic biblical prophesy in ways that those of us who are both academic and spiritual don't always like to acknowledge.

Now, I'm not a the*logian (but know enough to use this gender-neutral spelling to challenge male-dominated language and imagery to describe the divine), so I won't even pretend to understand the symbolism used by St. John of Patmos, the attributed author of this mysterious scripture, which I suspect had far more to do with writing a letter in secret code (seeing that he was a prisoner at the time, who probably was not at all free to write openly with guards looking over his shoulder) than it does with predicting future events, let alone events pertaining to us in the 21st century.

Of course, it is my own spiritual and intellectual belief that great literature stands the test of time, precisely because of the timelessness of power, privilege, oppression, and the resistance of those who are marginalized. The Book of Revelations is relevant to our own time because its author, St. John of Patmos, like many other marginalized and decolonized freedom fighters (fighting the imperialism of ancient Rome during his time while we fight against the global white corporate imperialism in our own time), was divinely inspired to call on oppressed people to rise above the material power of imperialism and place their faith in a higher power based on social justice and a new earth - a lovely vision that this frighteningly dark book ends with, out of the darkness and horror is a perpetual light shining and an endless supply of running water to replenish the earth and all the earth's living creatures.

But, before we even get to this New Earth, we first encounter some frighteningly mysterious "four horsemen," each representing some devastation: First Horseman = pestilence; Second Horseman = war; Third Horseman = famine; and Fourth Horseman = death.

We've witnessed our fair share of pestilence and warfare, but is the world really ready for worldwide famine? Really?

What seemed like some apocalyptic vision that only Christian fundamentalists could dream of is now becoming all too real. Here I'm reading reports from science magazines, the BBC News, and the New York Times warning us that, thanks to corporate greed and scientific ignorance, we are now facing a severe food crisis with the increase in pesticides that have destroyed crops and with the reduction of biodiversity through the patenting of seeds (htp Vandana Shiva's important work on this issue - see her books, Earth Democracy and Biopiracy - both published by a great feminist press, South End Press) and the deforestation of our last rainforests, from the Amazon to the Congo - where I've already called your attention to the horrific rape epidemic occurring there at present - we're now in trouble.

Had there not been so much ridiculous racism among feminists in the blogosphere (thanks Seal Press and Amanda Marcotte, who by the way, from what I understand, have had that controversial book cover since August 2007 but only took this past weekend to apologize for it) and even more sexism (or what Gina over on WAOD calls "foolishness") with our black communities and popular culture, I might have done a more thorough analysis that links the Congolese war and sexual violence to this larger global context of our food supply and how this all connects back to our rampant greed in this corporatized consumer culture.

I'm not saying that it was wrong of me to focus on the problematic issues of plagiarism, appropriation, and dismissal of women of color among bloggers and publishers, but we really do need to ask the question: what does it mean for feminism and women's studies to take the lead in addressing these severe worldwide problems, especially with regards to food?

And let's be clear, ladies and gentlemen. While publishers like Seal Press (against which I'm still supporting the Girlcott) would have us believe that women's issues are all about sex and body image, where is the attention to the access and politics of food? Both the production of it and its consumption? After all, for centuries, indeed millennia, food production was "woman's work" and "woman's domain." As is the purchasing of food. Whether I'm at my grocery store, a farmer's market, or at the market square in the Caribbean, or even when traveling in other countries, women are still primarily buying and preparing food. Before corporations took over food production, we were the ones in charge of growing, gathering, and planting. This isn't to minimize men's roles in farming, but to seriously remind us that food is very much part of women's lives and, therefore, a feminist issue.

And when corporations rape the land (while raping our bodies in the process), they appropriate all of our knowledge and our labor, and render us impoverished...leaving many in the dust to starve.

Those of us on the receiving end of the food imbalance - you know, us over here in developed nations, who are consuming a good deal more than we should without paying attention to what's genetically produced or what's organic - are certainly not doing ourselves any favors. Our culture has created a terribly unhealthy relationship to food while also blinding us to a much larger crisis on our hands.

For if the wheat supply (which is largely imported to us from other countries, like Australia, where their wheat has been infected by a rare bacteria - thanks to seed patents and lack of biodiversity) is wiped out, we'll be going without bread for a long, long time. And I'd like everyone to imagine, for a moment, what life could possibly be like without bread on the table.

Well, my mom has already calmed my anxious self down and told me to go to the grocery store this weekend and start stocking up on bags of rice and flour. At least, those don't spoil over the years. But perhaps now is the time to start growing our own vegetables (including potatoes) - whether you live in the countryside or the city. A radical colleague of mine is a strong advocate of guerrilla gardening. Even though a good friend of mine has already warned that few seeds are available that have not already been genetically altered.

We can argue till the cows come home what the verse "see thou hurt not the oil and wine" really means, but in light of our oil wars, has everything else been sacrificed? More importantly, can we begin to change our way of living to reverse the values we've placed on modernity?

We must sustain our environments to sustain ourselves!