Ecofeminist, seed activist, theorist and author Vandana Shiva reminds us that the terms ecology and economic come from the same Greek etymology “oikos,” meaning home. Economics, in its original sense, was concentrated on the basic needs of women centered households. With the rise of today’s capitalist economic model of growth and production, women’s housework and reproductive labor have been rendered invisible, while women’s traditional land labor is often unrecognized and undervalued even though women produce the vast majority of the world’s food. Climate change is a result of an economic model that only considers economic growth as valuable and thrives on the exploitation of natural resources and women’s work. Shiva encourages us to do away with the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) scale and focus on concepts like gross national happiness instead. Photo credit: Joe McNally/Getty
