Megan King PHL 307 Blog

This week, I want to make a few simple changes to how I go about my daily routine. I’m going to start using a washcloth instead of cotton rounds, switch out my plastic body wash bottles for a bar of soap, and carry a reusable stainless steel water bottle instead of buying plastic ones. None of these are huge changes on their own, but I’m hoping they help me be more thoughtful about the stuff I use every day. I just want to slow down a bit, pay more attention, and see how it feels to shift away from habits I usually don’t think twice about.

I think small changes like these matter, especially through an ecofeminist lens. A lot of the products we’re told we need—especially in the realm of self-care—are wrapped up in messages that push constant consumption, often aimed at women. There’s this pressure to buy more, do more, and somehow be more. By choosing simpler, reusable things, I’m trying to step outside of that cycle a little. It’s a way of taking care of myself without feeding into the systems that encourage waste and insecurity. It feels good to know that taking a gentler approach with myself can also be gentler on the planet.

Ecofeminism focuses on the intersectionality of the oppression of women and nature. To explain this in terms understandable across cultures, Ivone Gebara has taken a different approach in defining the complex and loaded term. She separates the two in her lectures, explaining ecology and then feminism and the ways in which they impact each other. She writes, “I try to be an ecologist in a feminist perspective and a feminist in an ecological perspective. I try to explain ecology as one of the deepest concerns of feminism and ecology as having a deep resonance or a political and anthropological consequence from a feminist perspective. Both feminism and ecology want to understand human beings as female and male living in a complex web of life inside different cultures and ecosystems” (Gebara, 94). The destruction of nature directly correlates to the struggle women (especially those in underrepresented communities) face across the globe. The issue of ecofeminism should be considered not only locally or nationally, but internationally. 

Women have been fighting the destruction of the ecosystem in powerful ways for decades. In the 1970’s there were 2 major movements, the Green Belt Movement in Kenya (1977) , and the Chipko movement in India (1973). Starting with the former, the Green Belt movement in Kenya was a women lead initiative to save the ecosystem and speak for the people which were being oppressed by a border-line dictatorship under Kenyan President Moi. Maathai, with the help of a handful of other women, helped to undo some initiatives set by the government which would have destroyed ecosystems and led to the downfall of communities who directly relied on forests and clean water, which was already on a decline. “The Green Belt Movement in Kenya started in 1977, when women from rural areas and urban centers, reflecting on their needs at organised forums, spoke about environmental degradation. They did not have firewood. They needed fruits to cure malnutrition in their children. They needed clean drinking water, but the pesticides and herbicides used on farms to grow cash crops polluted the water” (Maathai). Maathai was threatened and hunted down by the government, but she held her ground and prevailed in the end, for example by dissuading investors from destroying a popular natural park for the purpose of building a skyscraper with a four story statue of Moi to match. Women made a difference in the lives of everyday folk who depended on that park to rest, gather, and be free. 

The Chipko movement in India was the start of the ‘tree hugger’ term we hear being used today. Although it is often used as a negative connotation, the origin of the term came from the sacrifice and bravery of those who risked their lives, and sometimes lost, to save the trees and other natural resources from being cut down in the name of capitalism. “We need movements like the Chipko movement now more than ever. A time when it is estimated within the next one hundred years, there will be no rainforests left whatsoever when 20% of the world’s oxygen is produced by the Amazon forest alone. Although forests still cover roughly thirty percent of the earth, we lose an area roughly equivalent to the size of Panama in forested land every year” (Edugeen). The sacrifice of these communities, and most notably the women in these communities, helped to save some parts of the world from deforestation, which is one of the largest contributors of climate change and loss of biodiversity. The awareness being raised by the communities most affected by the destruction also raises a very grim question, best represented by the powerful inclusion of a real 911 call made from a bystander at Standing Rock who asked “who protects the people from the police?” in the video Prolific the Rapper x A Tribe Called Red during the peaceful protests of deforestation which resulted in militia style police attacking protestors. We need to ask ourselves whether turning a profit is worth destroying nature.“We choose the life of the planet and the respect of all living beings or we choose to die by our own bad decisions” (Gebara, 99). Movements like these are necessary in order to reverse the damage that has been done. Those who are oppressed, especially women, must fight to preserve nature now more than ever if we want to 1) enjoy this one planet we share for generations to come, and 2) ensure that there are generations that follow. 

The struggle of all people on earth is the inability to decipher “us” from “them.” We are all connected in this life, through nature. The interconnected web in which we all intersect is what makes up the ecosystem. The web of struggles which we all face, is also an example of intersectionality. Intersectionality, to me, is the crossroads of experiences which define us as individuals, but also as types of people. I am a white middle class educated woman. My little (step) brother comes from a poor family, and he identifies as gay. We live together and love one another, but our intersectionality of experiences has led us to live different lives, even after being raised together for many years after our parents were married. His experiences and mine will continue to define us as individuals. Intersectionality and ecofeminism is a fascinating study to me, best explained in a quote by Ynestra King; “Life on earth is an interconnected web, not a hierarchy. There is no natural hierarchy; human hierarchy is projected onto nature and then used to justify social domination. Therefore, ecofeminist theory seeks to show the connections between all forms of domination, including the domination of nonhuman nature, and ecofeminist practice is necessarily anti hierarchical” The Ecology of Feminist and the Feminism of Ecology (1989). I particularly enjoyed this week’s reading from Dorothy Allison and her in depth explanation of what led her to accepting herself as someone who truly believed she was “trash,” into the queer activist and survivor that she is today. She spoke of the different instances of intersectionality which she encountered as obstacles in her life as a poor lesbian woman from a broken and abusive home, and how she worked to combat these obstacles to create a new life for herself, one which would not let her be defined by societies ‘isms’. Allison writes,“What I know for sure is that class, gender, sexual preference, and prejudice—racial, ethnic, and religious—form an intricate lattice that restricts and shapes our lives, and that resistance to hatred is not a simple act. Claiming your identity in the cauldron of hatred and resistance to hatred is infinitely complicated, and worse, almost unexplainable” (Dorothy Allison, History is a Weapon, A Question of Class). The resistance to the common oppressors of women and nature is also not a simple act, and one that is also not so often blamed on one villain, but a result of centuries of idealism and intersecting notions which when examined closely, are a result of hiding ourselves, as Allison did for much of her life, and of human versus nature being “us” and “them,” the animals we consume and sexualize as a part of a normalized capitalism and overconsumption driven world. True change will take time and effort from us all, with cooperation from those who we would consider our oppressors. “Rebellion is only an occasional reaction to suffering in human history; we have infinitely more instances of submission to authority than we have examples of revolt. What we should be most concerned about is not some natural tendency toward violent uprising, but rather the inclination of people faced with an overwhelming environment of injustice to submit to it. Historically, the most terrible things – war, genocide, and slavery – have resulted not from disobedience, but from obedience —Howard Zinn” (Dorothy Allison, History is a Weapon, A Question of Class). We must free ourselves from the oppression of ‘isms’ within intersectionality. Women and nature must rise above domination and strive to raise awareness and support for their interconnected cause. In one of the first ecofeminist books, New Woman/New Earth– Ruether, states: “Women must see that there can be no liberation for them and no solution to the ecological crisis within a society whose fundamental model of relationships continues to be one of domination. They must unite the demands of the women’s movement with those of the ecological movement to envision a radical reshaping of the basic socioeconomic relations and the underlying values of this [modern industrial] society (204)” (Hopgood- Oster). Women and nature merge under oppression which in turn leads to damage on the ecosystem as well as the very ones who rely on it the most, “ecofeminist intersectionality recognizes that women are likely to be amongst those most affected by environmental degradation, with those at the margins of society often experiencing these effects earliest and to the harshest degree. The attempt to reconcile and improve upon the relationship between humankind and nature is central to ecological feminist thought, as is the belief (in some cases at least) that by applying the lens of intersectionality to analysis, one is better able to understand and assess the complex relationship between humans (specifically women) and the natural world. (AE Kings, 71). The web of interconnectedness does not only apply to societal norms such as class, race, sex, or sexual orientation-but arguably more dangerous between humans and nature since the degradation of either is a threat to the other. We must work together to heal nature but this can only be done by first healing society and freeing ourselves from oppression by others. 

 

Women are more connected to the environment than men. Whether it’s through pregnancy or policy, numerous sources concur that women are at the forefront to protect the environment over men, again and again. The work of Norgaard and York supports this theory about ecofeminism. Ecofeminism is the movement which combines feminism with environmentalism which argues that both fall under the oppression of patriarchy and capitalism worldwide and which also advocates for a change in thinking and policy making in order to heal not only our perspective of women, but nature as well. The world would be a better place with more women in positions of power, especially women at the helm of governments globally. In Norgaard and Yorks paper they state, “research indicates that women are more likely than men to express support for environmental protection and that women consider a variety of environmental risks, from nuclear power to toxic substances, to be more serious than do men” (Norgaard, York, 508). Men, as in patriarchy, are more inclined to support capitalism in all of its destruction, than do women. “Explanations for the gender gap in environmental concern have built on this work, suggesting, for example, that women are more concerned about the environment because they have been socialized to be family nurturers and caregivers” (Norgaard, York, 508). Women have been known across cultures and history to be the caregivers to not only our children, but to our ecosystem. More women in positions of power directly correlates to better protection of the environment, according to Norgaard and York. How does this happen, you may wonder? Well, women have long been oppressed under men as well as many other groups of people such as indigenous people and people of color- all of whom have great ties to nature over that of the culture of colonialism and capitalism which we experience today. “This occurs because powerful groups or individuals can force the less powerful to pay the costs of environmental degradation, as is the case when young girls are employed in dangerous situations in factories because they are seen as passive and less likely to organize or when toxic materials are produced and disposed of in poor communities” (Norgaard, York, 510). Ecofeminism implies many specific ways in which gender and the environment intersect in its degradation, one being the tie between nations with higher gender inequality having less environmental responsibility as a mindset due to patriarchal standards of domination. Second, for the same reason, men are less concerned than women about the protection of the environment as it is seen (similar to childcare) as a woman’s domain. Women must see parity across international governments in order to scratch the surface of the wrongdoings against ecofeminism and the environment as a whole. “In 1990, the UN Commission on the Status of Women estimated that for women to influence key outcomes and be taken seriously, a threshold of 30 percent women in Parliament was required” (Norgaard, York, 514). The fact of the matter is that women are not being taken seriously in the global community as leaders, especially regarding concerns of the environment since it does not serve capitalist endeavors. “Global efforts aimed at developing environmental policies should therefore concentrate more on improving the status of women, including especially those efforts aimed at increasing women’s political representation” (Norgaard, York, 519). We should focus on voting for more women into positions of power in order to heal our environment, as well as our communities. The comparison goes hand in hand, as ecofeminism implies, since women and nature are both explicitly oppressed by men in the sense of patriarchy and capitalism- both of which dominate the global sphere today. According to the national library of medicine, “ecofeminism is richer than any other branch of feminism in that it strives to expose the connections between the myriad forms of oppression rooted in man’s efforts to control nature” (Dong). Men in positions of power have a long history of oppressing people and political obstacles which do not align with the patriarchal agenda. Climate change and women’s rights are both constantly pushed to the side under male dominated global government, which is why it is more important now more than ever to start to take women seriously as leaders in order to reverse and amend the damages done. According to Earth.org, “women have often been found to be more invested in social issues, including education, healthcare and environmental impacts. Research also indicated that women who hold an elected office tend to prioritise resolving tangible issues that directly affect other women, families and children. Given that women and children are disproportionately affected by climate change, women in politics have shown themselves to be more aware of environmental impacts, and integrate relevant solutions into their policy agendas” (Bove). It is essential for policy makers to understand how social issues such as feminism and environmental issues such as climate change impact all of us the same. Only when women see parity in global governments will ecofeminism be given the platform it deserves as both question and answer to the modern day struggle against patriarchy and capitalism. An illustration of a statistic which I would like to highlight is figure 3 from the source listed below from Earth.org which shows the “age and gender demographics of climate activists across 66 countries worldwide; Boucher et al; Energy Research and Social Science; 2021. The degree of women under 65 years of age and older, which goes to show the urgency and current struggle of ecofeminism is evident in this graph chart since across the board, more women than men are seen as environmental activists and at younger ages than many men who currently hold office or men in general. Women are at the forefront of the cause for environmental change worldwide, and we need to begin to take them seriously as leaders if we want this world to be habitable and equitable for all genders and races in the future. 

Bove, T. (2021, November 1). Ecofeminism: Where gender and climate change intersect. Earth.Org. https://earth.org/ecofeminism/

 

Dong, W., & Kim, S. (2022). [Retracted] Promotion and Protection of Feminism Creativity for Public environment: The integration of Ecofeminism and Public environment. Journal of Environmental and Public Health, 2022(1). https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/5706699

 

The sexualization of meat is inherently tied to the objectification of women, without the acceptance of one, however hush hush, there would not be the acknowledgement of the other. If women were not on some level oppressed, sexualized, consumerized by the “A” column in life, then meat as it is culturally sexualized would not be so widely accepted. I mean this because the advertisements we see everyday have deeper meaning to them then a lot of people give them credit for. What do I mean by the A column? In Kemmerer’s article on Carol Adams, she discusses the likes of consumers and the consumed. In column ‘A’ we have the consumers: “Man/male, culture, human, white, mind, civilized, production, capital, clothed.” On the other hand, there are the consumed, or ‘Not A’:’ “woman/female, nature, nonhuman animal, people of color, body, primitive, reproduction, labor, naked” (Kemmerer). The importance of ‘A’ and ‘Not A’ to ecofeminism is best described by Kemmerer as, “those in category ‘Not A’ are the consumables: women, people of color, and animals. Adams analyzes advertisements with African American women, revealing African Americans as more likely to be linked with animals and nature, available to white men, and insatiable. She offers examples of African American men being linked with beasts, portrayed as savage, and as of less worth than their Caucasian counterparts” meaning the work of Carol Adams (Kemmerer). This leads me to the analysis of the first image below of world famous rapper Ludacris pictured with the logo of a chicken and beer joint, hot sauce and fried chicken, although it is not the meat he is captured as about to bite, but the shiny shaven and fit calf of a black woman. This directly correlates to the point Adams makes as pointed out in the article by Kemmerer as people of color, especially black women, are seen in the public eye as “consumable.” This is a form of anthropornography, which, “…gives you a hooker on your plate. Nonhuman animals are whoring for you. Nonhumans want you, too. Suffering? Slaughtering? Inhumane acts? No. They want it” -Adams, (Kemmerer). Not only do we see the disrespect of women, intersected with race as women of color often experience the brunt of the objectification of most races of women throughout history, but coupled with the comparison to meat as being consumable is an ecofeminist issue which demands a re-evaluation of the way we think and advertise. The second photo I chose, in the line up below, is of a news anchor comparing meat to the sexuality of men. Specifically, the photo is of a Fox News anchor holding a (gross looking) steak(?) with the caption “Study: Meat Makes Men ‘Sexy.” The correlation seems ridiculous at first glance, but having read several weeks worth of material for this particular Eco Feminism class, I see that the masculinity of men is fragile and holds on by a thread to the importance of certain cultural phenomena such as that men eat meat, and women eat salads (a point I made in my previous blog about eco-feminism and vegetarianism). This is celebrated so much, especially in the US, as pictured below in the third photo I chose from Adams’ gallery which depicts three men wearing matching “Got Maat?” t- shirts which have the outline of a scantily clad woman with the head of an animal, and a banner that reads “meat club,” at what appears to be either a tailgate or a fair booth. The club mentality of men and masculinity being tied to meat and sexuality is most obvious from this photo, in my opinion. A photo which I found on my own, pictured last is a photo taken of a billboard for a restaurant called “Mannys” which claims to have “great legs,” and to drive the point of the sexualization of meat home, there are three turkeys under the logo with women’s legs instead of turkey legs. This directly correlates to the content in the interview with Carol Adams about anthropornography as she states, “anthropornography means animals (usually species of animals presumed to be literally consumable) are presented as sexually consumable, in a way that upholds the sexual exploitation of women” (14). Turkey, which is a meat that is widely accepted as consumable on its own, is advertised further as being even more appetizing through the sexualization of meat by feminizing it. Adams states, “women are animalized and animals are sexualized and feminized” (13). Women are constantly sexualized in pornography, and since men crave the consumability of women, it is normalized and widely acceptable to compare this craving with the consumability of meat. Meat is therefore feminized regularly in advertisements. This is a concerning aspect pointed out in eco feminism, and Adams, as a vegan herself, believes that the need for the exploitation of women by men is directly correlated to the oppression and exploitation of nonhuman animals in nature as consumable by right. 

I cannot embed the mentioned photos from Adams Gallery but they are described in great detail above.

Mannys Has Great Legs Link:

https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20150527/loop/mannys-huge-turkey-legs-wont-be-at-taste-they-might-not-be-back/

The visual which accompanied this week’s readings is of a little faceless presumably male chef, similar to the Pillsbury Dough Boy, this dough boy is carving a piece of meat and another knife stabs the uncut part of the meat, to beat a dead horse. The connection between that of the visual and the readings from Eisenberg, Curtin and Gaard are the similarities between the oppression of women and the oppression of animals specifically in a patriarchal food chain, and how men perceive both women and meat. 

According to Curtin, one such example of the connection between women and meat and how men perceive both is how each can be sexualized or used to stroke the male ego,“the connection of women and animals through pornographic representations of women as ‘meat’ ready to be carved up” (Curtin), which perfectly describes the visual for this week. Also, in the article by Eisenberg, one study showed that simply the availability of a meat dish after “a threat to [a man’s] masculinity… lowered their anxiety back to the level of an unthreatened group.” This connection, in my opinion, highlights the need men feel to hold tightly onto their masculinity through the nutrition of meat and its perceived symbol of manliness, and also the nurture of a woman, which often crosses a line into the oppression of said women, which intersects within ecofeminism to bring the discussion full circle. 

Another phenomena about men and women when it comes to eating habits is that food is gendered, and it’s based in some truth- typically, men are expected to order the steak or a burger, and women are often expected to order a salad. “This visual paints the picture that plant food is for ladies, and perhaps cows, but men? Not so much. For many men, meat is an inarguable symbol of masculinity. We’ve been fed this idea for decades. If you are what you (m)eat, and you’re a man, then you eat meat” (Eisenberg). Women are oppressed by a patriarchal society which body-shames them and uses propaganda to control the narrative of what foods women should and should not eat, “the experiences of women in patriarchal cultures are especially valuable because women, more than men, experience the effects of culturally sanctioned oppressive attitudes toward the appropriate shape of the body” (Curtin). In almost every way, women face oppression from men and male gendered aspects from the food we eat to the workplace. 

This oppression women experience is not so different from the oppression we put nonhuman animals through everyday. Whether its a domesticated animal or an animal raised in captivity, as humans we perceive ourselves as the top of the food chain (although put me in an African safari with a pack of hyenas and i’m sure I would quickly fall to the bottom of that food chain) and so we believe it is up to us to make decisions for nonhuman animals in many ways. This is extremely similar to the patriarchal society, especially our government, in the ways that it controls women, one example being the struggle for the right to bodily autonomy.  “Zoo animals also experience powerlessness, as do most other nonhuman animals who are powerless at the hands of humans, who hold life-or-death decision making power over them on multiple levels” (Gaard, 20). This connection is central to ecofeminism since women and nature are both oppressed by men. Ecofeminism where vegetarianism intersects is interesting in Curtin’s essay about what we are willing to count as food. Curtin begins by highlighting the fact that vegetarianism is a form of “moral obligation that results from rights that nonhuman animals have in virtue of being sentient beings” (Curtin). This perspective is a humane and ecofeminist one because it is inclusive of the rights of nonhuman animals and the cruelty and oppression that they face in order to satiate the never ending human hunger and over consumption. ‘Moral vegetarianism’ which Curtin is committed to, does not exclude all instances of meat eating such as in the case of life or death for herself or a loved one. As someone who eats meat myself, I do not condemn meat eaters or the eating of meat as protein because I was raised on it, but instead something that resonates with me which Curtin writes about is the Ihalmuit people whose terrain does not allow for them to forgo eating meat, so their tradition is to thank the animals whom they hunt and kill as a ‘gift’ of a meal for them. In the modern capitalist world, not many of us witness the entire process of the meat which we consume. This sort of desensitization has led to an over consumption of meat and further separates and oppresses the nonhuman animal as things to be used by humans.

The central point of the readings from this week is meant to make us aware of the innate connection humans have with nature and how as humans we have lost touch and must realign once more. Homesteading as a way to live off of the land and to grow our own food for health reasons or other. Many women in the story by Shana Tiayo experienced a sort of natural healing through the act of homesteading. A lot of the reason why we have become so out of touch, in general, is tied to the fact that “more than half of all humans now live in cities. The natural habitat of our species, then, officially, is steel, pavement, streetlights, architecture and enterprise—the hominid agenda,” -Barbara Kingsolver. Especially the Great Migration of black agrarian southerners and the effect this had on them, since “industrial capitalism was not simply changing the nature of black work life, it altered the communal practices that were so central to survival in the agrarian south” (Hooks, 366). We don’t have to move to a farm or buy 10 chickens to be able to reconnect with nature, though. Planting a garden and consuming home- grown produce, etc is enough to make a lasting change.

The “place” which informs who I am the most would be the beach. Although I am not the most avid beach-goer of my friends and family, I have always known salt water. The town I grew up in, Scituate MA, has 5 beaches (Minot Beach, pictured above). Today, although I traded south shore beaches for the north shore Revere Beach, I can’t help but notice how at home I feel living by the water and how the salty air here reminds me of home. “Each of us belongs to a particular landscape, one that informs who we are, a place that carries our history, our dreams, holds us to a moral line of behavior that transcends thought. And in each of these places, home work is required, a participation in public life to make certain all is not destroyed under the banner of progress, expediency, or ignorance” (Williams, 19). Revere Beach has come a long way from the days of being a tourist attraction, complete with a roller coaster, to a more reserved and nature centered public space. I noticed while walking the beach this past summer that a stretch of sand was taped off. The sign posted informed me that it was protected for bird mating. Considerations such as these, even though it seems small in the grand scheme, add up to balance the ecosystem. It is our duty to protect the other inhabitants of this planet, human or otherwise, to ensure the natural order of the ecosystem continues to run smoothly as God intended. “I believe that spiritual resistance- the ability to stand firm at the center of our convictions when everything around us asks us to concede- that our capacity to face the harsh measures of a life, comes from the deep quiet of listening to the land, the river, the rocks. There is a resonance of humility that has evolved with the earth. It is best retrieved in solitude amidst the stillness of days in the desert” (Williams, 17). This all being said, I agree with Kingsolver that “wilderness puts us in our place,” in the way that it gives us perspective of just how little the things we stress over like paying the mortgage, or which gym we hold a membership to, really are compared to the worries of a wild and beautiful bobcat who loves its life for the simplicity of it all. I think this reminder is one that we as humans can benefit from manifesting since we have turned away from the natural jungle, and embraced a concrete one instead- causing us to lose touch with not only nature, but eachother.

Women in the global south are more disproportionately affected by environmental degradation than their western counterparts. Women’s access to natural resources such as water is threatened in the global south by western ideals and specifically, a phenomenon called “biopiracy” (coined by Indian physicist and social activist Vandana Shiva) which refers to stolen indigenous science and common knowledge for capital gain, and which affects people in developing countries who do not have the same privilege to resources such as clean, running water and even naturally growing plants, which we take for granted in the West. In an interview with Scott London, Shiva offers an example of this. “Pesticides made from the neem tree in India are patented. There is now a patent restricting the use of an herb called philantis neruri for curing jaundice. An even more blatant example is the use of turmeric for healing wounds, which is something every mother and grandmother does in every home in India. Now the Mississippi Medical Center claims to have “invented” the capacity of turmeric to heal wounds.” This is reminiscent of the ideals which Gandhi fought for when the British tried to create salt monopolies in India. Gandhi famously said of salt, “Nature has given us this for free, it was meant to sustain us, we will not allow it to become a monopoly to finance the Imperial Army.” Shiva’s current battle against the monopolies who threaten ecology and the freedom of the use of nature for all is a resurgence of Gandhi’s satyagraha– which translates to “struggle for truth” as a direct defiance of cooperation in a growing capitalism dominated ecological system. Navdanya, an organization promoting biodiversity conservation and food sovereignty founded by Shiva stresses that, “all humans have a fundamental right to ecological, economic and political security, to the protection and defense of their resources, their livelihoods and production and consumption patterns shaped by people through their participation. Biodiversity provides the basis of livelihoods of the marginalized majority – of women, peasants, tribals, fisher folk. Biodiversity offers the potential to overcome poverty and powerlessness.” The perspective of ecofeminism from a Western perspective, although aligned in some ways, has many differences to the non- Western perspective. From the Western perspective, Hopgood- Oster emphasizes the symbolic connections between the oppression of women and nature and defines women as “closer to nature” than men which can be counteracted through writing and policy change. On the other hand, Agarwal focuses on the material conditions, economic structures, and political inequalities which stem from ecofeminism and the oppression of women and nature and the role of capitalism (the West) through the fight for land rights, water access, and sustainable agriculture as threatened by globalization and which can be counteracted by environmental justice movements. The two agree, however, that the environmental oppression of women stem from patriarchy which exploits women and nature alike. Both women advocate for sustainability, equality and justice, and that women especially in marginalized communities, bear the brunt of environmental degradation. I believe that the non- Western perspective of ecofeminism as described by Agarwal is more compelling and offers a more clear visual of just how detrimental western practices can be to the environment and how the male dominated control of women and nature must be dismantled if we are going to heal nature and support women who in turn populate our planet and are responsible for nurturing not only our children, but our planet as a whole. A thought I would like to conclude with is a point made by Vandana Shiva’s interview with Scott London in which India has surpassed the West by having a female head of state, a fact that I think is important to think about going forward as we talk about women and nature being dominated by men and how this might be reversed if more women see parity with men on a global scale.

Ecofeminism, as explained in the readings from this week, in my opinion ties directly to a piece of artwork created by Judy Chicago called “The Dinner Party” in which a banquet table is set with 39 place settings in honor of women throughout history. Each plate symbolizes the power of women in all forms physical, spiritual and reproductive. The tie between women and nature is obvious through her intricate place settings as organic and uncompromising cogs in the wheel of life which is seen across all walks of life from plants to insects, to nonhuman animals to human women alike. Only women hold the power to reproduce, and “The Dinner Party” is a beautiful tribute to the female species of not only humans, but all species which are blessed with the ability to create from themselves. Women and nature have been systemically oppressed by a male majority history, which we have witnessed throughout multiple eras of societal and technological advances. “Oppression of the natural world and of women by patriarchal power structures must be examined together or neither can be confronted fully”(Hopgood-Oster, 1). Ecofeminism highlights the connection between life and the oppression experienced specifically by women under the thumb of the male species. Judy Chicago honors the female role in creating and sustaining life, and the environment. An example from nature that I would like to emphasize in this explanation is the role of bees and the ecosystem. The role of the “queen” bee is essential to the hive, which follows the queen, even if removed from the hive. Without the queen, who is responsible for populating the colony, the bees would be lost, and as a result they would wither and die. Without bees, the earth as we know it would also die since bees are responsible for most of the pollination of plants, which are vital to the ecosystem. Ecofeminism calls for a re-centering of the importance of women, as well as respect for nature. Hopgood-Oster’s work specifically explores the intersections of ecofeminism with storytelling, emphasizing the role of the importance of the creation of life, which is the sole responsibility and possibility of women.  A strong example of the connection between women and nature in literature from an ecofeminist perspective is Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. In this piece of classical literature, a man made attempt at creating life goes horrifically wrong. The story of Frankenstein and the mad scientist who attempts to create artificial life serves as a warning to all of the dangers of the domination of men in their ever expanding audacity to play god. The main character’s attempt to create life from science is a metaphor for the dominance of men over the feminine role of the creation of life by way of artificial means as opposed to the natural order. This concerns me with the new age inventions of AI and human-like robots as it depicts a futuristic interpretation of Frankenstein not with morbid use of human body parts and lightning, but with the intelligence of human consciousness and sentience. This example embodies the need for the male species to dominate the role of women and the environment, as well as the role of god. The end result for the mad scientist behind Frankenstein ends in destruction because it violates the laws of nature. The male species should not only respect the role of women, but take caution in their pursuit of domination of women and nature to avoid real life disasters as prophesied through works of literature or examples of the natural order, such as the man made result of the extinction of such species as the Kauai O’o bird from Hawai’i.

https://www.nastywomenwriters.com/feminist-artist-judy-chicagos-the-dinner-party-celebrating-women-across-time/

https://www.1st-art-gallery.com/article/the-dinner-party-by-judy-chicago/?srsltid=AfmBOopY4HPFj4Vd2FqNF7RZKrPJk1uxuFPuxzn53C-yS-JhrM_HuYMj

https://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.item?id=TC-SSU-201110150&op=pdf&app=Library&is_thesis=1&oclc_number=1032993515#:~:text=Victor%20and%20the%20creature%20are%20presented%20by%20Shelley%20so%20as,on%20a%20gothic%20ecofeminist%20spectrum.

https://scholarworks.merrimack.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?params=/context/soe_student_ce/article/1082/&path_info=Barbuto_B.CapstoneCommunityEngagement.pdf

https://www.jmis.org/archive/view_article?pid=jmis-10-4-301

Hi everyone, my name is Megan King and I’m a graduating senior this semester at UMASS Dartmouth. I’m 27 years old and I live in Boston, I work full time as a bar manager and my major is philosophy with a second concentration in political science. I hope to use my undergraduate degree to pursue a graduate degree in law. I would love to pursue a career in environmental law, or injury law, either way I hope to help people, or our planet.
For this weeks blog, since I am a philosophy major, I chose from the philosophy options, and one blog that peeked my interest was called Will AI Destroy the Academy? |: Cheating with AI. In this article, the author, who has been a philosophy professor since 1993, speaks about how cheating and plagiarism have existed since the conception of academy and language, respectively, and about the problems the “academy” or educational institutions, benefit and struggle with the ever increasing AI technology which has become exponentially available over the last 15 years, and more recently since 2023 when Chat GPT and Turnitin were introduced to the education system. Although cheating and plagiarism, according to this author, have not spiked much with the increase of AI, the concern for combatting it arises since the detection of cheating becomes a problem the more AI advances. At the same time that students and companies are gaining access to this AI, institutions and employers must be willing and able to counter it by accepting and utilizing the same measures to ensure that learning, etc. is original and not the work of AI.
As aforementioned, I am from the Boston area, and as such I have a particular proclivity for the assurance of the well-being of the New England area (not to mention their sports teams). The environmental issue I will mention here is that of the unnatural and rapid heating of, specifically, “the Gulf of Maine (which) has warmed faster than 99 percent of the global ocean”(Fisheries). This is particularly concerning, since our geographical area is warming at a greater rate than anywhere else (and if you know of or are from the area, it is not a warm climate regularly, at least year round). Climate change should be taken seriously, and I hope the Trump administration addresses these issues accordingly, and as such I hope to explore this issue and learn more in order to educate myself and others of the perils of climate change, and global warming.

Fisheries, Noaa. “Climate Change in the Northeast U.S. Shelf Ecosystem.” NOAA, www.fisheries.noaa.gov/new-england-mid-atlantic/climate/climate-change-northeast-us-shelf-ecosystem.

LaBossiere, Michael. “Will AI Destroy the Academy? I: Cheating With AI.” A Philosopher’s Blog, 27 Jan. 2025, aphilosopher.drmcl.com/2025/01/27/will-ai-destroy-the-academy-i-cheating-with-ai.