Resolved: Just governments ought to ensure food security for their citizens.

I value morality. Identity construction is the basis upon which ethics is possible. Butler: “before we can speak about a self who is capable of choice, we must first consider how that self is formed. ... the sphere in which the subject is said to emerge is ‘‘ontological’’ in the sense that the phenomenal world of persons ... becomes available only after a self has been formed ... The possibility of this epistemological encounter presumes that the self and its ... world have ... been constituted, …” In constructing ethical theories the first evaluation is to allow for the formation of the “I” through contesting stable gender identities. Butler 2: ““effects” of gender hierarchy ... are ... foundations, ... There is no ontology of gender on which we might construct a politics, for gender ontologies always operate within established political contexts as normative injunctions, ... Ontology is, thus, ... a normative injunction that operates insidiously by installing itself into political discourse ... The deconstruction of identity ... establishes as political the very terms through which identity is articulated. ... If identities were no longer fixed as the premises of a political syllogism, ... a new configuration of politics would ... emerge ... Cultural configurations of ... gender might then ... become articulable within the discourses that establish intelligible cultural life, …” Thus the standard is disrupting fixed gender identities. The affirmative burden is to show that establishing food security enables the disruption of stable gender identities. Prefer this standard for 4 additional reasons:1 ) Absolute identities don’t apply to our actual life and are disjoined from the subject. Butler 3: “Symbolic order creates ... intelligibility through ... “having” ... and “being” ... Every effort to establish identity within the terms of this binary disjunction ... returns to the inevitable “lack” and “loss” ... and mark[s] the incommensurability of the Symbolic and the real. If ... understood as ... culturally universal ... it makes sense to ask: What ... signifies what ... in this ... crosscultural affair? This question, ... is posed within a frame that presupposes a ... dichotomy within ... the ... displacement of the subject. ... [for example] the sexes ... reveal the speaking “I” as a masculinized effect of repression, ... but whose very coherence is called into question by the sexual positions that it excludes in the process of identity formation. …” 2 ) Absolutist identities preclude moral language because they’re grounded in universal images which prevent different perspectives in discourse. Butler 4: “The ... plasticity of language, ... resists the fixing of the subject position as masculine. ... A woman cannot use the first person “I” because as a woman, the speaker is “particular” ... and the invocation of the “I” presumes the capacity to speak for and as the universal human: ... the speaking subject ... “reappropriates language as a whole, proceeding from oneself alone, with the power to use all language.” ... This privilege to speak “I” establishes a sovereign self, ... speaking establishes “the supreme act of subjectivity.” …” 3 ) Our view of the body must be contestable since a binary categorization precedes an accurate evaluation of epistemology. Butler 5: “Categories of ... gender, ... have constituted the stable point of reference for ... politics. These constructs of identity serve as the points of epistemic departure from which theory emerges and politics itself is shaped. ... the category of sex ... presuppose[s] a generalization of “the body” that preexists the acquisition of its ... significance. This “body” ... [is] a passive medium that is signified by an inscription from a cultural source figured as “external” to that body. Any theory ... ought to question “the body” as a construct of suspect generality when it is figured as passive and prior to discourse. …” 4 ) Ethics without fluid identity is a failed project, since it endorses ethical violence. Butler 6: “A subject who can never fully give an account of itself ... [is] a result of being related at non-narratable levels of existence to others ... If the ‘‘I’’ cannot ... be disjoined from the impress of social life, then ethics will ... presuppose ... social critique ... Such a move not only severs the task of ethics from the matter of social life ... but it fails to understand the resource of ... irreducible relations to others as a precondition of ethical responsiveness. ... one must ask how the formation of the subject implies a framework for understanding ethical response and a theory of responsibility. If ... inquiry return[s] us to … socially enforced modes of individualism, ... that ... leads to an ethical violence that knows no ... self-acceptance ... [and] it ... [is] obligatory, ... to return [to] the question ... ‘‘How are we formed within social life, and at what cost?’’” First, the food movement is and has been historically sexist against women. Walter:Walter, Pierre. "Educational Alternatives In Food Production, Knowledge And Consumption: The Public Pedagogies Of Growing Power And Tsyunhehkw." Australian Journal of Adult Learning Volume 52, Number 3. January 11, 2012. Web. February 08, 2015.. “the food movement, have been criticised in feminist scholarship as repositories of male, middle class norms, practices and oppressive gender relations … calls to return to more holistic, organic and local food production … mean additional labour for women, and family meals may be sites of violence against women, both symbolically and materially … scholars in the food movement have also begun to critique the structure and relations of social class, whiteness and power expressed in alternative food practices, pedagogies, spaces and community institutions in the food movement … Slocum argues for the importance of understanding and acknowledging the history of racism, colonialism, and class and gender oppression underlying the food system in attempts to enact local alternatives to it … that the US food system was built on a foundation of genocide, slavery and layers of racist institutions that have dispossessed racialized groups of cultural pride … it survives … through the work of people of color who serve, disproportionately , in the hazardous work of farm labor and food processing. Institutionalized racism intersecting with processes of colonialism, welfare ideology and gender and class oppression is also visible in the areas of food insecurity, disease and excess death …” And, women are the ones who are disproportionately harmed by food insecurity. Choudhary:Choudhary, Neetu. "Gender, Work And Household Food Security. "Economic and Political Weekly. October 02, 2007. Web. February 09, 2015.. “the household is not a homogeneous entity, and that the “right to equality” is frequently denied to women, with intra household factors influencing the distribution of resources and work within the household is by now fairly well recognized even if not adequately reflected in mainstream social science literature … women are losers in the household level distributive process and enjoy lesser rights for disproportionately higher work responsibilities … women's own status in terms of food … security is not commensurate with the huge contribution they make to household economy and food security … Despite the literal recognition of women’s role … there is a relative dearth of empirical work on how much women actually contribute to food security and through what ways. This leaves us with hardly any data to draw policy inferences …” The implications of food insecurity for women are things we ought to be solving for. UN:United Nations Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights. "The Right To Adequate Food." Human Rights Fact Sheet No. 34. December 12, 2003. Web. February 05, 2015.. “Women have specific dietary needs … in relation to their reproductive health. INfringement of the right to adequate food of women of childbearing age … could lead to life threatening complications during pregnancy or delivery. Malnutrition of pregnant … women can ... result in ... malnutrition … of their children … Women … in many countries … receive less food than the male members of the family, because of their lower status. Violence against women … may also contribute to women’s food insecurity … a preference for male children may lead to female infanticide, including by means of deprivation of food and water …” And providing food security that’s attentive to gender relations is key to preventing gender related violence. Sachs:Sachs, Carolyn. "Food Sovereignty: A Critical Dialogue, Feminist Food Sovereignty: Crafting A New Vision. "Agrarian Studies Yale University. December 12, 2003. Web. February 03, 2015.. “Poor people and women were particularly affected by these price increases and were unable to purchase sufficient food. bush such recurring fluctuations can continue to be expected in the global corporate food system where people in the global south are dependent on food for which prices are determined elsewhere with limited attention to the impact of commodity and food price increases on poor people. Conflict and civil unrest increase gender-based violence, disempowerment and food and nutrition outcomes. Women and girls tend to be affected differently than men and boys in emergencies due to … food emergencies. Women often lose their capacity to provide seeds, livestock, and food for their families unless emergency relief operations adopt gender sensitive approaches. In conflict situations, women and girls are more vulnerable to gender-related violence and may not be able to access their fields for growing crops or grazing livestock … Programs that are attentive to gender related concerns during periods of instability and emergencies will be more likely to provide food stability from year to year and throughout the growing season.”