Chapter 3- Challenge #2: Unfairness
Summary
Chapter 3 highlighted the accessibility of water and sanitation throughout the world, focusing on the struggles of the lower class people of Mumbai, India. He raised many questions about how to address circumstances like those in Mumbai, which are far from an acceptable standard of living. He looked at what exactly the situation is, highlighting accessibility to resources, unfair social systems in place within the poor communities and the classes above them, the political corruption and the sewage and water systems currently in place. It's not just a question of how bad the circumstances are, but "how might one figure out what is fair, what is socially just?" (35). It's not just a question of accessibility. We need to consider social factors, political factors, and environmental factors. It's a question of making a new system that will sustain itself and propel itself forward into a better standard of living.
When it comes to fairness, we all have a clear idea of what is fair for everyone to have. The hard part comes in when deciding exactly how much that is, under what circumstances should someone get what amount of anything, and who is going to continue to decide that. In Woodhouse's words, "by what criteria would you propose to determine who deserves what?” (43).
Analysis & Synthesis
The U.N. made a goal to reduce the percent of its population without access to sanitation and water by half. This seems like a modest goal, which “suggests the problem must be widespread and difficult to solve" (36), because we all know how it goes, "politicians tend to over-promise”(36). This is the stem of the lack of action towards better water and sanitation. These shiny promises create huge disconnection between technosocial innovation and the public. We expect it to happen so we wait...and wait...and wait...And nothing gets done. Then the promises made next time are lower and lower until a new person steps in. It's a vicious cycle.
Other vicious cycles are in place within the areas with poor access that prevent them from developing and progressing. Women and girl children walk miles a day to get water, keeping the girls out of school for their necessary labor, which slows their social and economic development. They cannot improve their lifestyle if they cannot get educated and get jobs, and so they are stuck their whole lives.
I was severely shocked by the danger that lack of sanitation puts onto these women. When there are no bathrooms available, people take it into their own means to dispose of their waste in public areas, sides of roads, railroad tracks, bushes, etc. With this lack of privacy, women are regularly molested, to the point where they decrease their food intake to avoid taking the risk. No human should ever be forced to compromise their health even further to compromise their safety.
What also surprised me was how much people's health is being compromised and yet nothing is being done about it. With people defecating in public areas and being pressed into tiny urban spaces germs have spread extremely rapidly, with “cholera cases increasing by some 500 percent” over the past 20 years (39). Why, then, would the more well-off people do something to help these people if it would help keep themselves healthy?
In terms of what's being done, many organizations “are attempting to raise necessary funds, muster expertise, organize residents of poor communities, and encourage city officials to tackle the challenge more vigorously” (41). This sentence made me hopeful, because it’s NOT just an institutional problem, it’s not JUST an accessibility problem, it’s all of the above and all of the above is necessary to improve people's lives. It's about making utilities "more responsive to a diversity of needs through enhanced public scrutiny of administrative and financial actions”(41)—THIS is social problem solving, this is progressive, this is sustainable, this is toilets as social justice.
