[Stoves] another thought on Women's empowerment

[Nikhil Desai]

Dear Dr Lange:

I agree. Permit me to make two observations: a) The "domestic reform
movements" in the Western world started in the 19th Century and the ideas -
in particular, girls' education - spread to the colonies and elsewhere;
over time, women drew inspiration from the pioneering women, the
trailblazers, and fought their new battles, continuing to date; b) when you
mix money and collective power, you get gender politics. Close to the focus
of discussion, I have seen and heard hundreds of Indian city women
protesting increase in kerosene prices, and similar protests elsewhere
about charcoal prices.

Somehow we seem to have ignored the collective -- trying to clean one lung
at a time a la Kirk Smith -- and have an aversion to politics -- even
though Mrs Clinton could do things on "clean cookstoves" front that nobody
else could have done earlier.

We in the "stoves community" may rue both these.

Nikhil


On Sat, Oct 7, 2017 at 7:07 AM, Lange <rbtvl at aol.com> wrote:

> The way to tell if someone is empowered is to see if they have more power.
>
>
> then what is power?    power is the capacity to get things done that you
> want done, and to have the freedom to be able to think practically about
> what you want.
>
> We find, as all organizers do, that power of women comes when they get
> organized in new ways to do things together.  It is not usually an
> individual characteristic.
>
> I feel we are empowering women when we help them awaken that part of
> themselves that says, "oh my!!!, things really don't have to be just like
> they are.  And our normal lives can include rewarding work together to make
> things different.  and when our normal lives include working together to
> make things better, life is better, more interesting, and more satisfying,
> even if we don't achieve everything we set out to do."
>
> power is sometimes strongly linked to access to money.   and access to
> money is often linked to education level even if the education is not very
> good.  so money and education can be needed for power in some situations.
>    but power is about the capacity to do things.
>
> bob lange
> Maasai Stoves and Solar
> the ICSEE
>
>
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