In famine, a focus on women and children highlights biology: here is a mother who cannot feed her child, a breakdown in the natural order of life. This focus obscures who and what is to blame for the famine, politically and economically, and can lead to the belief that a biological response, more food, will solve the problem. Sharman Apt Russell
About This Quote

The role of women in famine is often omitted from the conversation. Famine is a political and economic problem. It is largely caused by an absence of food. From there, the discussion has nothing to do with biology. When a mother cannot feed her child, a breakdown in the natural order of life, the focus should be on the person who caused the famine and not on the biology of those who suffer.

Source: Hunger: An Unnatural History

Some Similar Quotes
  1. I don't care a damn about men who are loyal to the people who pay them, to organizations... I don't think even my country means all that much. There are many countries in our blood, aren't there, but only one person. Would the world be... - Graham Greene
  2. I can see how it might be possible for a man to look down upon the earth and be an atheist, but I cannot conceive how a man could look up into the heavens and say there is no God. - Abraham Lincoln
  3. Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing. - Robert E. Howard
  4. In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress. - Peter Stone
  5. You know what's truly weird about any financial crisis? We made it up. Currency, money, finance, they're all social inventions. When the sun comes up in the morning it's shining on the same physical landscape, all the atoms are in place. - Bruce Sterling
More Quotes By Sharman Apt Russell
  1. In famine, a focus on women and children highlights biology: here is a mother who cannot feed her child, a breakdown in the natural order of life. This focus obscures who and what is to blame for the famine, politically and economically, and can lead...
  2. The women in the kitchen sang: Sarampión toca la puerta. Viruela dice: ¿Quién es? Y Escarlatina contesta: ¡Aquí estamos los tres! The cook would sometimes shout a little madly, “Sing it again! ” And the women would sing again: Measles knocks at the door. Smallpox...
  3. Now she could smell what the jaguar could smell, odors deeper and richer than anything she had experienced before, layers of smell she could read like Fray Tomás had read the words in her father’s book: the wet decay of leaves, the death fear of...
  4. Cabeza de Vaca had wrapped her in his arms and in his language, whispering about a life she did not understand although understanding seemed to form just beyond the sea and sand, waiting there for her to grow older. Even when the story confused her,...
Related Topics