ecofeminism

I had so many ideas I want to present that are both personal and on general level. When I thought about going vegan, I thought that I cannot. Because for me I need milk and to very least amount eggs. This is because from the very beginning I am hearing from my elders that for girls, eggs are very important. I don’t drink milk but I use it for my tea. So it will be hard for me to go vegan. I can be vegetarian because I don’t eat meat that often I can stay without meat for 2 weeks. I do eat a lot of vegetables and fruits, so I can survive on that. And just because of these reasons I found no fun being personal. So I am deciding to use Whatsapp instead. And with Whatsapp group I have decided to discuss issues regarding use of animal skin or fur, leather etc. There are so many products that use animals like, Cheetah, sheep, etc.

Now that I have thought about my idea I will implement it by making a whatsapp group by name ‘Together We can Make a Change’. I’ll add all the ladies on my phone list and ask them to add from their list. We’ll discuss about all the brands that are out there who use such products and will make out plans how to stop purchasing those brands. We know it’s baby step especially for those who aren’t feminist at all. So I need to first explain them very briefly about what this activity is about, little bit of ecofeminism. We can probably start with not using any product that we have with animal skin or fur used. This can be extended to male products that uses animal skin and fur. Let see what are the results after doing this.

This picture is the tea that we drink. Name ‘Doodh pati’, tea with milk.

Just for a brief moment, ponder upon your life if you have become racist or sexist. If not, wonderful. Now that we have known ecofeminism, we should be avoiding discrimination. We need to understand the connectedness between human and nature. Human here includes all morphological forms of human, either black, white, male, female, younger, elder etc. Bell hooks in article, ‘Touching the Earth’ quotes; “How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?” that “The rocky crests, the juices in the meadows, the body heat of the pony, and man- all belong to the same family” How can intersectionality exist if we own nothing? How can one be superior over the other if all of us our the same? If you think, not only humans but animals have the same internal structure, same mechanism of regulation and they function similarly. So apart from the skin color, the religion we inherit, the class we belong to, we are the same. Then why discriminating?

Although ecofeminists claims that they do not do intersectionality but in fact they are doing it. Perhaps they do not realize that they are doing intersectionality but it does exist among ecofeminism. Racism within ecofeminist and feminist does require a solution. “Though paying significant attention to diversity, white ecofeminists have often essentialized racial difference. (Hobgood-Oster)”. Hobgood-Oster in ‘Historic and International Evolution’ mentioned about how few women of color remained in leadership position in activist organizations. “Even the designations “white” and “of color” seem to maintain a binary within ecofeminism as it tries to subvert all such labels. (Hobgood-Oster)”.

“Ecofeminism lacks black women’s standpoint and focuses on white women’s oppression. (Cacildia Cain)”. In her writing ‘The Necessity of Black Women’s Standpoint and Intersectionality in Environmental Movements’ Cain talks about that how during environmental movements black women’s point of view are unheard. Now imagine in a family, the elders decides to shift to other place for family’s betterment, but they never ask younger about what they think. Do you really think that it would be betterment for the family or just the elders? Similarly, in such environmental movements which are done for the protection of the environment, not having women of color’s point of view means that it is not an ecofeminist but a white feminist who is protesting for their interest. In virtue of the racism that exist in ecofeminism, the black women are the ones who suffers the most from environmental degradation.

Cain mentions about the suffering of black women during hurricane Katrina which was not the same as for others. She quotes; “…It is important to note that, ‘Low-income African American women faced different, and often more challenges because they were more likely to be displaced to unfamiliar places, to lack agency in that decision, and to have fewer resources’ (Peek & Fothergill, 2008, p. 97), ” (King 22-23). Black women participate in environmental movements to survive because environmental racism is affecting their home, families and communities.

Apart from understanding the connectedness between humans, we also need to understand the connection between human and nature. Rachel Carson very beautifully explains the sea life. She says that “to sense this world of waters known to the creatures of sea we must shed our human perceptions of length and breadth and time and place, and enter vicariously into a universe of all-pervading water (p.63)”. She explains the dependency of marine species upon each other. How one benefits other the same way we humans benefit from each other. The same way we human depend on each other. This is where we and they are connected. We have diversity in all forms of color, religion, class, caste, sex and so do they. And we need to understand that if poverty never existed then there wouldn’t be any rich, similarly if there was no diversity then Earth wouldn’t have functioned. Because every being on this planet no matter the very large organism to microscopic organism, everyone is equally important for natural sustainability of life.

So to answer the question of my first paragraph last sentence; why discriminating when we are same is because we don’t perceive this similarity as being the same. We don’t want to understand the connection because perhaps we love being dominant, whether that be men dominating women or white dominating black.

Throughout this semester we were enlightened by the concept of ecofeminism and how in the world women and nature are oppressed by patriarchal, male dominant society. Such topic was argued on by, Wangari Maathai and Ivone Gebara. Most important thing which I think is very disturbing is, not only our patriarchal society oppresses women and nature but religious entities too. And I don’t think so that any religion existing on this planet ever allows that, but rather ask us to preserve nature and to respect women.

I guess that was never the case before and to some extend even today. “In this cultural context of masculine and white domination, in Christian churches, feminism and ecofeminism are not well known and are sometimes considered a kind of heresy disturbing the community. (pg.93)” Ivone mentions her experience in Brazil in a conference where she realized that “word ecofeminism is not in Brazilian dictionaries”. She goes on explaining and describing three points, 1) Ecofeminism as an echo of feminism; 2) beyond Theology; 3) A new Utopia for our time. She argues that while discussing theories to understand women’s life and ecosystem, we often forget to find solutions for our ecological crisis due to which so many living things are getting killed for. She explained the cycle of a girl who experience pregnancy in their teenage. This restricts them from gaining education and limits their choices in life because education to get a better living is vital. Ivone further explains that how “women in Latin America  feels that traditional theology rooted in patriarchal anthropology does not have a path for women’s emancipation and autonomy. A new Utopia for our times. In literal meaning, Utopia means “an imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect.” According to the feminist perspective, Utopia is in “general the construction of new human relationship among women and men based on justice, equality and solidarity. It is not simply a place for women in this same hierarchical and unfair social structure, but a place, a glimpse, of utopia, built on new relationship. (99) ”

Wangari when narrated her experience about her ‘Green Belt Movement’ mentioned the violence that she had to face. When she was asked to call down her campaign she refused to do so, due to which she had to deal with harassment campaign and threats. She was hospitalised after pro-government thugs beat her and other protesters. She was further threatened to mutilate her genitals in order to force her to behave ‘like women should’. These sufferings of Maathai, protesters, marginalized women are all evidence of oppression on women by male dominant patriarchal societies.

Now comes the oppression of nature which is also very common. The protest that Maathai was doing and suffered for was all because of protecting nature. Now the question raised in my mind was that is nature worth protecting above our own life? If you are not feminist or ecofeminist you would definitely say no!! but if you are, your answer would be yes. Same was for Maathai too. For her, protecting the life of nature was important than her own life. Whole point of her ‘Green Belt Movement’ was to stop erosion, provide shade , and create a source of lumber and firewood. If you think about this movement by being mean, all of this is actually for us only. Because its we who need all these resources. Once these resources wouldn’t be enough, we will be the ones to suffer the most. But the only reason she was being punished, was because she protested against a male president who wanted to build the longest skyscraper on the only park that was left in Nairobi. So if you see, it wasn’t the protest it self that risked her life it was actually whom that protest was against to. Which again reinforces the idea of how women and nature are oppressed by patriarchal society.

Ivone also highlights the importance of nature. How the argument of what ecofeminism and feminism is and all the theories people have, women and nature meanwhile are being affected the most which is neglected. ” While all these discussions are going on, the destruction of the Amazon forest, the rain forest and others continue. While this discussion is taking place… women and children are starving and dying with diseases produced by a capitalist system able to destroy lives and keep profit for only a few. (94)” I want to focus on one point which raised in my mind while reading all these articles that if you think about it all these nature protecting movements done were by women only. There were no men who initiated any movement like, ‘Green Belt Movement’ or ‘The Chipko Movement’; protest by a lady and followed by many villagers, to prevent deforestation and preserve nature.  Men that participated in the protest was only because they saw that women were doing something which is giving them more attention and also because of their own benefit. “A lot of women participated in the planting, though not in the nurturing of the seedlings at the nursery as the women do… they will have huge trees to sell (Mathaai, 2000).

Material deprivation and cultural losses of marginalized and poor lies in the deeper issues of disempowerment and environmental degradation. According to me, both of these are a result of patriarchal societies. “Throughout the Africa (as in much of the world) women hold primary responsibility for tiling the fields, deciding what to plant, nurturing the crops, and harvesting the food…; they can see it in the tears of their children and hear it in their babies’ cries.” It’s the women who have nurturing abilities and not men. Disempowerment of women is because these male dominant culture doesn’t allow women to be higher than men and it’s men who only sees nature as of their benefit. The best quote that relates this is from Ivone’s reading. She says, “Female Poverty depends on the destruction of ecosystems.”  It wouldn’t be wrong to say that material deprivation affects marginalized, especially marginalized women and poor. I would like to quote from Mathaai’s article which I liked, “Environmental protection is not just about talking. It is also about taking action.”

We all know that women from the beginning were excluded from politics. The first time in history since the world has came to its existence, women were allowed to vote in mid 19th century during suffrage and since then many women have made their way into government. But we still find gender inequality in politics.

Such argument was shed light on by Kari Norgaard and Richard York in their ‘Gender Equality and State Environmentalism’. They write, “Indeed, whether individual women vote for or against specific legislation, gender equality may affect behavior of both women and men, creating an atmosphere in which environmentally progressive state behavior is viewed as positive (508).” To test this and other feminist, sociologist theories, Norgaard and York conducted an experiment to find out the correlation between women and state environmentalism. In their experiment they studied different places to deduce the correlation if any. According to the results they obtained from their study, showed that women has greater impact on state environmentalism when there’s gender equality in politics. They compare two places; Norway and Singapore. Norgaard and York find out that Norway has higher number of women in parliament and environmental treaties. However, Singapore on the other hand does poorly on both women in parliament and the behavior of the state with respect to the environment.

In Norgaard and York’s reading, they mentioned how there is a connection between women in political power and state environmentalism. Specifically, they mentioned how women policy makers and social movement participants are needed in order to create a more positive state behavior. The Women’s Earth Alliance reinforces this idea. Through this organization, they support women leaders across the world to push for more environmental legislation and changes. In Indonesia, there are many grassroot and community-based organizations that help advocate for the ban of single-use plastics. At the forefront of this battle is Tiza Mafira, a lawyer and director of Gerakan Diet Kantong Plastic Indonesia. Through her campaigning and her leadership skills in policy making/coalition-building, she was able to put in place plastic bans in four different cities and is hoping to expand this to the whole country. This is especially essential in Indonesia, as they are the second leading contributor to the plastic trash crisis in the oceans, behind China. Mafira believes that women in power should take initiative in the country’s environment and to create a change, you have to do this through “…policy – if we are talking about nationwide change, something that includes up to 240 million people then we’re talking about a policy – and that is what I am trying to do” (Womens Earth Alliance).

Another example that reiterates this notion, is the effect of women leaders on the European Parliament. As this study showed, when there’s no women in power to create policies, the environmental protections that are needed will not be passed by their male counterparts. There is a noticeable disparity world-wide regarding environmental policies and women tend to have a more pro-environmental stance than men. For example, in the Swedish polity there are many varying attitudes regarding this matter based on the gender of the politicians. They have noted how women legislators show greater environmental concern than men, but in the case of nuclear power, there is a higher amount of opposition which differs from their male counterparts (Lena…). In conclusion, more research needs to be done to determine if there is truly a connection between women in power and state environmentalism. However, this is the issue as there is an under-representation of women in the political arena and as Norgaard and York mentioned we need to create programs that ensure this.

One such step to determine the connection between women in power and state environmentalism is taken by Canadian president Justin Trudeau towards gender parity. Carles Muntaner and Edwin Ng in their article, ‘Here’s Why Having More Women in Government is Good for Health’, mentioned about Trudeau who formed first gender balanced cabinet in Canadian history in which 15 out of total 30 members were women. Based on public health research to find out the correlation between women and population health, showed that women in government do have positive impact on public health as evident from the graph bellow.

They researched about other relations between women and death rate, expenditures and working in collaborative way. Preceding to their research, Carles and Edwin find out that as the number of women in government has increased, mortality rates has decreased. This mortality rate was decreased by virtue of four types of spending: medical care, preventive care, other social services and post secondary education. They also find out that women in government work in collaboration rather than leaning towards one side.

Thus, I’ve chosen the above example because I think that the idea Carles and Edwin have showed strong connection to what Norgaard and York findings were. They both conducted researches to show relation between women in political power and environmentalism. Though Carles and Edwin’s research is limited to one country only but it gives us a central idea similar to Norgaard and York’s findings.

References

If you were given an option to abort, would you?

Today we are discussing about abortion and what is it’s significance in our society and for women.

There are many ways to scrutinize abortion. One such way Ronnie Z. Hawkins, in his “Reproductive Choices: The Ecological Dimension” use to highlight some of the important facts about environmental stress and abortion. But in his writings it happens to be ecological aspect of abortion rather than feminist aspect. Hawkins argues that, ” while poor may seek to have larger families as a way of coping with their immediate economic conditions, providing more hands to work and offering an increased chance that parents will be…., while the resources of meeting them will be proportionately less.” In this statement he addresses the environmental issue; poverty as being one of the factor due to which abortion becomes indispensable but because of the pressure on women it cannot come about. Women in poor families has to suffer the most. Not just in agriculture but women who works as a maid in third world countries like mine, belong to a very poor family with no shelter. Women are forced to bare children so that they can earn for their family. The more people work, the more money. But because of this, population increases which have different affects on countries economy as well as environment.

Not only in poor families but there are so many middle and upper class people that plan to have more than two children, sometimes seven or may be more, who knows. Leading to this higher number of members in a family not only the entire population is affected but the resources each family member gets are reduced too such as education, health, etc. Such arguments was made by Sean and Tim in their blog, ” Part 1: Is population good or bad for economic development?”, “Larger families therefore spread their resources more thinly to support more children. This leaves less for saving and investing in growth enhancing activities. It also reduces spending on enhancing the economic potential of each child (e.g. through education and health expenditures).” Considering poverty factor, if a woman gets pregnant by mistake it should be okay if she wants to abort. If society allows abortion, it can be one way to reduce population. But then the question arise that should abortion be only allowed for the sake of reducing population? What about other circumstances?

Poor people have economic pressure due to which they bare more children to get help financially, understood, but it results in increase in population when lower population size is required. “It is at this critical period of time, when smaller family sizes are becoming desirable but contraceptive use is unfamiliar or unavailable…”(Hawkins). Using contraceptive in some cultures are considered wrong as it is believed that using contraceptives is going against God. By virtue of this believe such societies have greater population. More people per given land means less space to accommodate them which also leads to health related issues. Emma in her article talks about overpopulation and abortion, she says, “The perceived needs of ‘humanity’, as an abstraction, should not be allowed to undermine the rights of actual human beings (Emma, 2016).”

Poverty, population and environment all though allow abortion but it isn’t the only reason it should be allowed. Abortion is more of an individual (women) issue rather than ecological. Despite the fact that Hawkins mentioned, abortion should be considered as a serious issue and how critical it is for women. There are multiple reasons of abortion. One of the reason which is most serious then all is when a woman gets pregnant because of rape. Recently, president of United States of America, Donald Trump stigmatized abortion by announcing punishment to women who decides to abort. Regardless of being raped, abortion was not an option. In our society abortion is considered as taboo. Religious or social, either way abortion is considered wrong. Pregnant women are held responsible and accused in all circumstances. Rape is a criminal offense and pressurizing women to not to abort, I think is greater offense. As John-Stewart Gordon in his article writes that, “Forcing her not to abort is to remind her of the rape day-by-day which would be a serious mental strain and should not be enforced by law or morally condemned.”

I do agree with Hawkins ecological approach towards abortion that environment, poverty and overpopulation demands abortion, but I don’t think so that to avoid these matters abortion is the only option. There could be other ways to control overpopulation. There can be laws enforced for poverty. But abortion needs to be address from different angle too especially from feminist aspect.

References

We already know the fact that women and animals are both oppressed by male dominant societies. But Adams reading give us a broader view that helps us contemplate the idea of objectifying and sexualizing animals and women by our patriarchal societies. This is achieved by many means such as, advertisement, pornography, butchering etc.

The very moment I saw this picture I decided to use this and that was only because before writing the blog or even having knowledge of this pictures’ existence in one of the options, I already thought of adding picture of KFC poster. After reading Adam, I thought that there are so many fast food restaurants that are owned by men and there’s no single fast food restaurant __ from what I know__  owned by a women. For me this is the best association of men and meat. As you can also see from the billboard the sandwich with chicken meat, if I am not wrong, is referred as manliest. I will never understand this connection of manliness with meat.  Why would you think so that eating meat would make you a “MAN” ? Or eating meat means you are sexy? And then comes this picture showing how an animal is being womanized.

Pornography is a wide platform due to which women and animals are objectified. “Animals in bondage, particularly farmed animals, are shown “free” __ posed as sexually available as though their only desire is for the viewers to want their bodies”, says Adam (pg.15). The meat in above picture has been tied up. I have never seen anything like that after an animal is butchered and served for meal, but this picture does not represent that meal that family sits and have together, for me this is the representation of a how women and animal are there to fulfill the desire of consumer (men). See the picture carefully, how the chicken is being tied up. You’ll notice that the hands, neck part and belly area are tied up and the lower part is available. It reinforces the idea of how animals and women’s body is available to ‘eat’.

In pornography, we have seen how women are tied up which we call “bondage” and act as a submissive, and that too of a men. From what I think tells us that the women is bound to submit their body to men. An animal before being butchered is first tied up, especially bigger animals like cows. Tying of animal shows the authority of men over the animal that is being butchered, it is being forced to death, which I would name it as a murder. As Adam also says, “there is another name for that which destroys__ eliminating someone else’s energy __ and that name is murder” (pg.17). I take this energy as animals life which is taken by someone for their own energy.

The picture bellow is one more example of objectifying women and sexualizing animal as a women. Eat me. Late nite menu. No! it is not the late night eating menu but you are representing eating a women in the night with different options. I see a beef patty in the sandwich which reminded me of intersection example that Adam highlighted, ” in the famous Chick-fil-a advertisements that show a cow writing, the cow always misspells words…. unlettered class is rarely the professional, middle or upper class ” (pg. 17). Although in this picture there is no cow writing but yeah the beef patty and spelling of nite relates to the idea of cow being of lower class and should be lettered. Then there is drawing of two circles. Hmmm! is this a pair of glass? I asked my self. But when I looked carefully I figured that no it’s not, these circles are drawn to show buns but it actually represents the breasts. Breasts what? A breast piece? it might be.

I was thinking along while going through Adams that who gave the name “breast” for chicken meat? And whoever did was just to womanize animal because women and animal is said to have same body parts which is there for the consumer (men) to consume.

Adam in her writing mentions about a reality show of America’s Top Talent in 2008 where contestants were ask to pose in meat locker wearing bras and underpants that were made from recently killed animals called it “raw meat”. Since years we are hearing that animals are being killed for fur and leather and as the demand of these things increases more animals are being killed. But why raw meat Adam asks, “It is as though through the use of raw meat there’s some sort of fantasy that one can experience life again as “raw, fresh, and tasty”… those lives that are static feel fresh” (pg. 14). When I read this statement of Adam’s it sort of formed a connection of raw meat with virgin women. In my mind that how in my society, I don’t think so there’s same concept in western society, but is this want of marrying or having a virgin women by men, because for them it gives more pleasure and is fun. I see a connection of the wanting of fresh raw meat that is demanded for making fur and other purposes with the demand of virgin women which is also fresh and untouched.

So now it is clear for all of us that who are the primary consumers, we’ll say men and all those who are dominant over others. And the consumable are those who are inferior to dominant like women and animals. There is a chart shown on Lisa Kemmerer writing which basically is a chart by Adam in which she categorizes dominant ones in same category and inferior one under same category. “Those in category ‘not A’ are consumables: women, people of color, and animals” writes Lisa Kemmerer (pg. 3). I’d like to end my blog by saying that we not just need to stop killing animals for their meat but we need to stop using animal products to reduce their slaughtering.

“Speciesism is defined as the oppression of one species by another”, says Greta in her Ecofeminism on the Wings: Perspectives on Human-Animal Relations. As per her perspective, speciesism, sexism, classism, racism are all the same with different names. In her article she mentioned Marion Young’s perspective of non-human oppression by defining five conditions, exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism and violence that he believe is experienced by non- human animals. On the other hand, in Contextual Moral Vegetarianism by Deane Curtin, sees our relation with non-human animals as vegetarianism or more specifically moral vegetarianism.

Women and animals are both being oppressed by patriarchal society and that also, in terms of body. As Curtin talked about the expectations of body shape from women by patriarchal society, I believe that these same patriarchal societies have expectations of body mass from animals too. In our societies, women are expected to have what we call “zero figure”. People especially men see women’s body. Slimmer a woman the more beautiful she’d be. Similarly, the more mass the more meat. And so industries are after giving steroids injections to produce more meat and milk despite the fact that the meat and milk which is produce artificially is the one they’ll get effected from.

As read in an article by Zoe Eisenberg, she beautifully compared the foods seen as gender specific. Meat for man and vegetable for woman. Term vegetable is also used as connotation for women as described in Curtin’s article, ” Don’t watch so much TV! you’ll turn into vegetable”.

Young Woman Cooking in the kitchen. Healthy Food – Vegetable Salad. Diet. Dieting Concept. Healthy Lifestyle. Cooking At Home. Prepare Food

Based on this concept I choose this image above which clearly explains that women are linked with vegetable diets in order to live healthy life style. And men on the other hand is linked with meat. As you can see from the picture bellow, these men are having food that contain meat only. I can say that because the men in this image is my country’s politicians.

Moreover, the image bellow is the comparison of food between different food choices by men and women. Men eat meat as evident from the image however, women eats chocolate. It’s also said that the chocolates are for women and men don’t eat chocolate because that’s too girly.

Furthermore, when talking about keeping animals, having pets isn’t wrong according to me. From my perspective, keeping pets is good for them too. Rather than roaming in streets and having unhealthy stuff it’s better to have a home, being pampered and have healthy diet. Yes no one can ignore the fact that their integrity is being hurt because they cannot live according to their own rules but can you do both? Can you not hurt their integrity and also care for them simultaneously?. I think it is better than being told how to live and make pets learn the way human live rather than being raised and slaughter. I really feel bad after knowing that one of my friend keep and raise goats for months, give them food, shelter but in the end they kill them for the meat. How can you kill an animal after keeping them as a pet? So cruel for human being.

So as far as non-human animal and human relation is concerned both women and animal are being oppressed by patriarchal society especially men. And then the stereotype of men linked with meat eating is also displayed in the picture which shows a man slaughtering meat. You can see in the picture that the guy has one leg on the cutting board, from this I perceive that the guy is showing authority over the meat, as if he has the authority to kill animal for that meat and it is him that can consume the meat.

I would end my blog by coating from Greta, “… pets are offered room and board, and the possibility of affection. If the situation were offered to humans, we’d call it slavery”. She hope that one day non-human animals can live freely, but I think it cannot be achieved. No matter how much we aware people of non-human animal rights, not all of them but most of the people will not quit eating animal food. They simply don’t care enough. But your opinion can be different from mine and if they are, I’d be happy to know about your opinions.

In the huge country India, exists a microscopic land, my village. This is not a fancy picture. You might haven’t expected this. But this is my identity, my place where my history exists. Although I haven’t lived here ever, but my parents did. As you can see from the picture it’s a small village, Karan. It’s pronounced as Ka-run. When I was young about 4 years, my parents took me and my brother who is 2.5 years elder than me , to visit this place. Yeah you might be thinking that at that age how can I remember all this, but trust me I do. I do remember because of the beauty of this place. By word beauty I don’t mean the fascinating and delightful scenery that people usually expect. But it was a beauty of nature that you can now see haven’t prevailed. It’s just the wilderness that remained unnoticed. The nature was at its most. My brother and I used to visit the farms my grandfather had. It was extraordinary. The greenery, the agricultural products produce. I still remember the excitement I used to have when my grandpa took us for land seeing. Above all, which I think was the most beautiful was the love and care that everyone had for each other. Everyone in the neighbor regardless of religion, cast, they cared for each other and lived as one, which doesn’t exists anymore.

While going through Kingslover’s reading he mentioned, “On a given day I may walk the half mile down our hollow to the mailbox, hail our neighbors… (Kingslover)”, reminded me of that day when my brother and I took money from my mother and went to buy Popsicle. We bought the Popsicle and enjoyed the taste of it in that sunny day, but we forgot our way back home. When we finally re-united with my family, we both were scolded and spanked. It always bring smile on my face whenever I think about it, even now. Like Kingslover said ” I think of the children who will never know, intuitively, that a flower is a plant’s way of making love, or what silence sounds like, or that trees breathe out what we breath in (Kingslover)” made me ponder that generations after us whose family resided in this village would never know that love that people had, the smell of the farm land, the way people use to live, their struggle and still being happy.

“When we love the Earth, we are able to love ourselves more fully (bell hooks, 363).” This isn’t a statement that bell hook just said but it has a deeper meaning in it, or as what I believe. I’ll give my example, when my room’s messy I get all stressed out and nothing feels good. It feels like I can’t be there anymore if it’s not clean. So when I am done with the cleaning I feel proud of my self in a way that I did it. Similarly, Earth is our home. Loving it will protect us only because destruction of Earth cause consequences that harms us. Skin cancer is one of the example. If we want to love ourselves we need to love our mother Earth and then only wilderness can be prevented and nature can prevail.

It touched my heart when I read through Williams writing which I think best explained the idea of bedrock democracy showing the connection between human and Earth is, ” In an ideal world, a world we might well inhabit one day, we may not need to “designate” wilderness, so evolved will be our collective land ethic, our compassion for all manner of life, so responsive and whole…I pray there will indeed come a time, when our lives regarding the domestic and wild will be seamless (William).” I guess we all will agree that we too hope to see a future with nature in it’s purest form and may one day come when we don’t need to use the word “wilderness” anymore.

I am a city dweller but I belong to 20th century where still I got chance to see the connection between nature and human. The way they took care of it. But today’s generation won’t be able to see the actual connection of nature and human, that’s mostly because the land that were use to be symbol of nature’s beauty are no more. They are somewhat connected to the Earth but it still lacks the original feeling of that connection people used to have.  I couldn’t agree or disagree to Barbara Kingslover’s desire of wildness as I don’t understand what she’s trying to say. So I don’t think any of us would need wildness unless we want to harm ourselves.

I personally apologize for mentioning this tradition and it is not to demean any religion or to criticize it. This reference is just for the blog purposes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlBWWDPekSo

Uploaded video shows the cruel tradition performed in Hinduism name “Sati”. Sati  is a ritual in which a widow is burned alive after her husband dies. As you can see in the video, the widow is thrown in the pier and as this happens drums and all sort of music starts to play to avoid the sound of her screams. They believe that it’s a way for women to enter heaven. This tradition according to me supports the idea of violence against women in Hinduism. Although practicing Sati was abolish in December 4th, 1829, it still did exist. Bina Agarwal in her article mentions Shiva’s finding about the violence against women and nature, “violence against women and against nature are linked not just ideologically but also materially.” The above tradition was based on the violence based on the beliefs hold by Hindu culture. Hobgood-Oster and Warren both talks about oppression with women and culture but that is restricted-for most of the parts- with the concept of dualism, hierarchies and by those in power and not violence.

Apart from the violence especially in the rural areas there are still many examples where women are being dominated by men in different ways. In third world countries like India and Pakistan, most of the women are not allowed to study at all (rural areas) or till college (urban areas). The only purpose of women in such areas are to get married and take care of their family. These norms or cultural values as you can say are not due to religion but solely those in power. In Islamic book, Quran, the very first Quranic verse revealed, “Read in the name of your Lord who created, created man from a clinging form. Read! Your Lord is the Most Generous, who taught by means of the pen; taught man what he did not know. (96:1-5) (Onaid,2014)”. To emphasize, the word man is not use to refer to men but humanity.

Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H), prophet of Muslims said, “He who has a slave-girl and teaches her good manners and improves her education and then manumits and marries her, will get a double reward; and any slave who observes God’s right and his master’s right will get a double reward (Onaid,2014).” This is evident that religion does not oppress women but it is cultural norms that do so.

According to Agarwal, her understanding and perception about ecofeminism is different than what Hobgood and Warren had. From what I perceived, Agarwal sees ecofeminism as two divergent theory which she called “feminist environmentalism”. However, according to Warren, the existence of ecofeminism for feminism, environmental philosophy and philosophy is to consider each other issues significant . Where on the other hand Hobgood states the different aspect of looking at ecofeminism that is, ecofeminism argues that all sorts of oppression are connected and should be looked completely.

Agarwal unlike other ecofeminists does not only connects women and nature but she also idealize people and nature. By people she means both women and men. She highlighted some common concepts found in ecofeminism by different ecofeminists. She talks about how there are things that is still needed to be discussed in ecofeminism which particularly in western society is the idea of liberal, radical and socialist feminism. Thus she believes that ecofeminism has not been completely shaped but rather is developing. Similarly, Warren in her article also questioned about these feminism theory as there isn’t any fixed answer to it. Such as liberal feminism in western society which believes that society give full freedom to individual to pursue their own interest. Radical feminism argues that “women are closer to nature than men” (Warren, 2014).

As you can see from the picture above, women in rural areas in India do the labor work together with taking care of a child. The third picture tells us how it is women’s responsibility to walk miles to get water for their families. This is how women and nature are related. Both have nurturing abilities that are regardless being dominated by our patriarchal society. Destroying nature affects these women living in rural areas.

People in rural areas depend on nearby trees and other related sources to gather wood, food, fodder, bamboo etc for survival. Destroying the environmental sources leads to adverse affects such as, with fewer trees comes soil erosion making land less fertile for cultivation, fewer trees less rain. In agriculture, rain is very important. Production of crops required water which is obtained from rain. So, less rain has affects on crop production. Environmental degradation and depletion of natural resources affect people differently. Obviously the richer has all the benefits while poor suffers the most (Agarwal).

I like Agarwal’s perspective more appealing because she not just talked about the general notion of how nature and women are being oppressed by men and how they are connected in ways which they are being dominated but also she has different perspective of how women and nature are also affected by environmental degradation. Also unlike Hobgood and Warren she not only just talked about Indian cultural but also compared between both Indian and western culture at some point.

I am a person who believes that both women and men should have equal opportunities and should get equal rights. According to me equality is not just about getting equal rights in job, politically or any other position but equality should be in its totality. I don’t exactly blame men for every kind of oppression with women and nature. Somethings are already there. For example nature is to benefit living, similarly animals are for human consumption. Now the word human includes both men and women. Benefits from nature and animals is not only obtained by men but also women. Women are also the part in destroying nature. Not ignoring the fact that both are being dominated by power of men but there is some dominance of women over nature too, or probably we can say that women does have some part in nature’s destruction. But as Agarwal in her article states that there are so many organizations that campaign for environmental degradation, they not only have women but men too are part of such organizations protesting against other men. So I ask you, does all men are to be blamed or are men entirely are to be blamed for such patriarchal male dominant society?

References

Brendan, and Brendan. “Warren’s Introduction to EcoFeminism.” There It Is Org, 21 Jan. 2014, thereitis.org/warrens-introduction-to-ecofeminism/.

Ecofeminism: Historic and International Developments. users.clas.ufl.edu/bron/pdf–christianity/Hobgood-Oster–Ecofeminism-International Evolution.pdf.

University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. UMassD Logon – UMass Dartmouth, www-jstor-org.libproxy.umassd.edu/stable/3178217?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=Agarwal&searchUri=/action/doBasicSearch?Query=Bina+Agarwal&acc=on&wc=on&fc=off&seq=35#page_thumbnails_tab_contents.

“Role of Indian Women in Agriculture.” Agropedia, agropedia.iitk.ac.in/content/role-indian-women-agriculture.

Ciat. “Himachal Pradesh 68.” Flickr, Yahoo!, 15 Nov. 2011, www.flickr.com/photos/ciat/6348260166/.

Tech@whyislam.org. “The Importance of Girls’ Education in Islam.” WHY, 1 Dec. 2017, www.whyislam.org/social-ties-2/the-importance-of-girls-education-in-islam/.

YouTube, YouTube, www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlBWWDPekSo.

Ecofeminism, a word that is self explanatory. It’s a social issue that has to be considered vital and to find a solution for.

Everyday now we get to hear that Earth is facing global warming, animals going extinct, every now n then there’s a new disease. Why is this? Why living in such advance world we still have to face these serious issues? That’s when nature comes in play. Natures importance is being compromised by dominant system resulting in these outcomes.

Talking about dominancy, rings a bell, a word “Woman”. It’s not just the nature that is being oppressed but woman are oppressed too by the patriarchal society. Also stated by Hobgood-Oster; “These socially constructed oppressions formed out of the power dynamics of patriarchal systems.” Which is needed to be solved. And that is what ecofeminism is. A notion which connects nature and woman.

This image for me has a deep meaning. It not just shows that a women has some kind of connection with this tree but also they both have one thing in common. For me both woman and nature are the roots to the development. Keeping a child in her womb for nine months and watching it develop into an adult. Teaching her child the difference between right and wrong for better society. Roots hold stronger to held tree upright so that it can develop into a fully grown tree without collapsing. Providing food, shelter and so many things for humans. As traditional Marxist feminism theory in Warren’s article suggest that natures job is to fulfill the demands of human. To some extent it is true, but is that the only job of nature? I’d say no. Nature has it’s own balance, disturbing the balance would cause consequences.

Women exploitation is not new. Of course it’s not the same but it still exist. Advertising women’s body, representing women as a sexual object, to fulfill men’s desire, considering women to only bear children and stay in the kitchen are all examples of oppression with women (Warren 2014). Ecofeminist consider racists aspect. There are some racism issues within ecofeminism. Discriminating by color exist in feminist organizations where women with dark colors do not held position for long (Hobgood-Oster 2002).

Before ending my blog I’d like to quote from Hobgood-Oster’s writing which encourage us all to take action, ” Things will not just happen…women must do something” (Gaurd, ed., 3).

Reference

Brendan, and Brendan. “Warren’s Introduction to EcoFeminism.” There It Is Org, 21 Jan. 2014, thereitis.org/warrens-introduction-to-ecofeminism/.

Ecofeminism: Historic and International Developments. users.clas.ufl.edu/bron/pdf–christianity/Hobgood-Oster–Ecofeminism-International Evolution.pdf.

Divinity, Dakota. “Understanding Ecofeminist Activism In The Face Of Global Climate Change.” SLUTMOUTH, SLUTMOUTH, 27 June 2018, slutmouth.org/sluts-new/2018/6/26/understanding-ecofeminist-activism-in-the-face-of-global-climate-change.

“How Feminism Can Do Better in 2019.” Sleek Magazine, www.sleek-mag.com/article/feminism-2019/.