michelle's garden makes pesticide-lovers "shudder"

i've got to give props to the obamas on their domestic endeavors at the white house. if you're going to have two things that really make a house a home, a puppy and a garden are pretty good choices.
here's a the layout of michelle obama's garden:

click for a closer look

i love all the leafy greens and herbs. and i love the message she's sending about the importance of eating locally, knowing where your food comes from, and connecting with the earth through raising plants.
but not everybody loves that message. listening to democracy now! earlier this week i heard the following report:

Pro-Pesticide Group Criticizes First Lady’s Organic Garden

And First Lady Michelle Obama is coming under criticism from a pro-pesticide industry group for deciding to plant an organic garden at the White House. The Mid America CropLife Association recently wrote to the First Lady to urge her to consider using pesticides, or what they call "crop protection products.” One official with the pro-pesticide group said, “While a garden is a great idea, the thought of it being organic made [us] shudder.” Mid America CropLife represents agribusinesses like Monsanto, Dow AgroSciences and DuPont.

i am amazed, first of all, that there are people who shudder at the thought of organic vegetables and that anybody is willing to publicly support putting chemicals on our food - knowing what we know about the effects of these chemicals (remember DDT?) on our bodies and our environment. you can read the full letter here; i especially like that they address the letter to mrs. barack obama. what year is it?

i know a thing or two about pesticides, and i'm learning more through my work with breast cancer action. yesterday i was on a call with dr. tyrone hayes, of uc-berkeley about his research on a pesticide called atrazine. atrazine is the second most commonly used pesticide in the u.s. and it is the most common contaminant in our water - drinking, surface, even rain. it's used in incredible amounts on the corn fields in the midwest. it's also an endocrine disruptor - it converts testosterone into estrogen. i'm particularly interested in this because estrogen is what regulates the growth of breast cancer tumors - and pretty much everything we know about breast cancer: how it develops, how to treat it, has to do with regulating exposure to estrogen.
Figure 1. Map showing distribution of atrazine-use by state. Atrazine use by crop is also shown. Map courtesy of United States Geological Service (USGS).

so being exposed to additional estrogen-like compounds from our environment is of particular concern when we're thinking about the breast cancer epidemic - and it is an epidemic. in 1964 a woman's lifetime risk of developing breast cancer in the u.s. was 1 in 20, today it's 1 in 8. which, incidentally, is a trajectory that coincides with the "green revolution" here in the u.s. where we took the chemicals left over from wwii and found new uses for them as pesticides and fertilizers on our food crops.

so while we're waiting to see the results of this unofficial experiment that's been happening by exposing people to chemicals through our food and water, tyrone hayes is trying to find some quicker answers by studying frogs. frogs synthesize hormones the same way vertebrates, including humans, do, and when you expose male frogs to atrazine - some end up "feminizing" - their vocal box changes and their testosterone levels drop - and some end up changing sex entirely - they develop eggs in their testes and mate successfully with male frogs.
and if you look at exposing rats, even to small amounts of atrazine in the womb, their offspring have problems with mammary gland development.

other studies have been recently in the news, such as this one, suggesting babies conceived in the spring and summer are more likely to be born with a range of birth defects because of the contamination of pesticides and other agrichemicals in the water during that time of year.

so where are the regulations on this? well, there really are none to speak of. the only federal regulation on chemicals is the toxic substances control act of 1979. and it's pretty irrelevant to what we're dealing with now.

yesterday, the EPA announced it's going to require pesticide manufacturers - for the first time ever - to test the chemicals in their products to see if they are endocrine disrupters. it's never to late to start, i guess. what i found interesting is that our friends from CropLife showed up again in the news - saying "For pesticides, we think the likelihood is extremely low we'll have any concerns come to the surface."

and i'm sure they will do their best not to find any problems with their pesticides- so we'd better have our eyes open to the kind of studies coming out of industry about their own products.

or we can all start growing our own in chemical-free neighborhood gardens, which is pretty damn subversive and seems to really piss them off. though i'll argue that we need to do both, since those pesticides have legs - atrazine can travel over 600 miles from the point of application.

ps - until your garden gets big enough to provide all your food needs, here's a handy shopping guide about what vegetables are the most and least pesticide-ridden, so if you have to make decisions about what to buy organic - and who doesn't in this economy? you can see which fruits and veggies are safer than others.

solidarity crafts

e ala e - israel kamakawiwo'ole
[click that play button, this is the soundtrack for this post]

to wrap up the series of hawai'i reportback posts, i offer a different kind of craft: activism.
marty and i are both involved with creative direct action, and when we're home visiting kaua'i we do what we can to stand in solidarity with kanaka maoli - native hawaiian people - and support the struggles for self-determination, cultural revival, and environmental preservation.
on our previous visit to the islands, we talked about direct action, social movements, and roles for allies in solidarity organizing with katy rose, host of kaua'i community radio's show, out of the box. You can listen to our interview here.


during this last visit, we were called to action by the incredible attempt of hawai'i's governor, linda lingle, to steal and sell lands belonging to the native hawaiian people. governor lingle has filed a u.s. supreme court appeal to overturn the moratorium her own supreme court has put on selling off lands that were held "in trust" for native hawaiians since the illegal overthrow of the hawaiian government in 1893. these lands are commonly referred to as "ceded" lands, though they were "ceded" to the u.s. government by the very people who called for and supported the military coup that deposed queen lili'uokalani and then instated themselves as the new "provisional government," under the leadership of lorrin a. thurston and sanford b. dole (yes, Dole as in pineapples).


as if kanaka maoli aren't suffering enough from displacement, occupation, cultural and physical genocide, this is governor lingle's attempt to once and for all dismiss any claim that native hawaiians have any rights to their own land. really, that's what she's saying.


marty and i joined the kaua'i alliance for peace and social justice for a sign-holding demonstration on the main highway in lihu'e, kaua'i, supporting native rights and calling on lingle to withdraw her supreme court appeal. we made a number of signs for the demonstration, and a banner featuring the first flowers marty has ever painted on a banner (they look good, right?) these are some photos of the signs we painted.

that last sign aunty nani is holding refers to the akaka bill - a congressional bill introduced by senator daniel akaka of hawai'i that would give native hawaiians the same recognition as native americans. this might sound like a good thing, since kanaka maoli don't have any recognition right now, but it in fact would quash the claim for sovereignty and obfuscate the fact that native hawaiians never gave up their sovereign rights. and as marty and other native americans say of native recognition by the u.s. government, "you do not want to be treated like an indian in this country."
many see the "ceded lands" attempt by the lingle administration as paving the way for passage of the akaka bill, especially now with a democratically controlled senate and the support of president obama. read the open letter to president-elect barack obama, urging a moratorium on the akaka bill - written by kanaka maoli kupuna - elders.


our signs made a reappearance this week at another sign-holding demonstration on kaua'i - marking the 116th anniversary of the illegal overthrow of the sovereign hawaiian government. an estimated 5,000 people demonstrated in waikiki on friday, with the same message of opposition to the governor's attempt to sell "ceded" lands.
more to come this year, as the state prepares to mark the 50th anniversary of "statehood."

the cult of domesticity

Charles Dana Gibson, No Time for Politics, 1910


Ulali- Mother
 
A note on the naming of this blog:
i chose the name “cultivating domesticity” as a play on “the cult of domesticity,” an ideology coined in the nineteenth century that said a woman’s place was in the home. also known as “the cult of true womanhood” this ideology laid out the cardinal values all [white middle/upperclass] women must display: piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity. the woman’s biological imperative was to create a tranquil domestic sphere for her husband – as women were ill-equipped to do the things men do in the outside world. these ideas pervaded all forms of popular culture at the time, and were buttressed by a lot of pseudo-scientific evidence of female inferiority: we have smaller bodies and smaller brains, more delicate constitutions, and things like menstruation and masturbation make us insane.
i learned all about the cult of domesticity studying at smith college, where generations of (mostly white) women before me had come to buck the system and break out of the domestic sphere, proving their ability to challenge male domination in all aspects of the outside world. which is incredible, and necessary – because we’re obviously not over the belief that women are inferior and incapable of doing certain things men do (physical labor, politics, being decisive, etc), so while i take issue with the white privileged backbone of the feminist movement, i do think the sentiment is necessary and the fight is still relevant.
what i don’t like is the implicit devaluing of domestic work. in a sort of animal farm–ish move, feminism takes on the assumption that traditionally-male work is more valuable and desirable than roles traditionally done by women (and people of color). so i walked away from my feminist education thinking that i ought to get an impressive job and higher degrees to show the world that i can beat men at their own game. and while i do think i can beat men at their own game, i also think that cooking and washing and mending clothes and raising families are some of the most important and critical roles in a society. Unlike some of the best-paid jobs in this country, if someone isn’t making food and babies nobody’s going anywhere.
and i don't think these realms are mutually exclusive, in fact i think the realms are constructed to be separate (and unequal) in order to maintain a system of domination and destructive policy.
so what i’m saying with this blog is that i value those necessary roles as much as i do the flashy positions in male-dominated spheres, and i think it does us good as a movement, as a people, to pay tribute to and cultivate the art of caring for our family, friends and homes, and to bring that energy into our work in our communities and the world.