Mandi’s Ecofeminism Blog

Checking in to talk about my week being vegan! On a side note, it feels weird thinking that this is something that can count as activism, because it felt like such a small step. Personal activism is still activism though, as it is important to hold ourselves accountable for our daily actions. They all add up to have a big impact! Being vegan for a week was a lot easier than I was expecting. As somebody with Celiac, I am used to constantly checking ingredients and being very conscious of what I can and cannot eat, as I can never have gluten. A lot of meat substitutes are made of straight up gluten, so I mainly avoided those and went the tofu/carb/veggie route. I think that being home in quarantine made being vegan a lot easier, as I wasn’t eating out at all so I had direct knowledge of what was going into all of my food.

The biggest motivation for me to keep going while I was avoiding animal products was doing research on the impact just me being vegan would have. As I included in my last post, I saved EIGHT animal lives just in a WEEK. It is so weird to even conceptualize, as I would never think that my daily eating habits affect other living creatures that much. That is more than one animal a day. I think my biggest takeaway from this is that I can make an easy adjustment to my diet and literally help save lives. It made me feel like a hypocrite. I love animals. I have three little dogs. Yet, I choose to continue eating animals which is literally killing them. If I choose to go even one day a week more meat-free, that can save an animal’s life. That is good to know and a lot to consider, and I think framing it like that for others will make an impact too.

Praxis is when theory becomes action. On this blog, we’ve been discussing many different ecofeminist theories. We’ve talked about ways women, nature and animals are oppressed. Today, I am going to take action to try to help in one way. Given the current pandemic going on in our world, lots of activism must take place in our homes. As we’ve discussed before, one person can make a change. Change begins with ourselves. I’ve decided that to make a difference, I am going to go vegan for a week in order to save animals and help the environment. I love animals, yet I eat them. I understand the hypocrisy, and I am not proud of it. I used the calculator on https://thevegancalculator.com/#calculator and saw how much I could help by avoiding animal products for one week! Why not try it?

 

I have Celiac, so I cannot eat gluten. That means most meat substitutes are out for me. I will be sticking with tofu and beans as my sources of protein. Honestly, I don’t really eat much of a balanced diet anyway. Since being quarantined in my house for the past few weeks, a lot of my eating has been thoughtless and from boredom regardless. This will be good for my health overall to plan my meals and consider the source. Tomorrow, I will go grocery shopping and pick up more produce and things like rice. I will also be buying premade vegan frozen things. I live with my mom and we eat a lot of meals together, so this will end up having a trickle effect over to her as well!

Change does not happen overnight.  It is a long process.  Sometimes our daily actions can seem so minuscule that we don’t necessarily reap the benefits for ourselves.  They are for future generations.  I feel like one of the biggest thoughts or fears that hold people back from trying to make a difference is, “I’m just one person, what can I do?”  However, there are tons of people who didn’t think like that and have helped to change the world.  For example, in the 1970’s, there was a woman named Amrita Devi that led a group of 84 villages.  They put their lives on the line in order to start something that came to be known as the Chipko (meaning “embrace”) movement.  This movement had the protesters holding onto trees in order to prevent them from being cut down.  This is where the term “tree-hugger” originated from, which eventually has come to be a derogatory term of sorts.  Though this protest is often referred to jokingly, it is one of the first notable examples of community activism making a difference.  This group of people saw nature being hurt as themselves being hurt.  The trees in question were in a field that were supposed to be taken away and used by a sporting goods company.  This is a perfect example of the rich and powerful trying to take away from nature and in return hurting the people who rely on that nature.

 

 

Material deprivation is basically when somebody has less than other people, typically referring to poorer or marginalized communities.  This is also the demographic that is more at risk of being hurt when the environment around them suffers, because they either rely on the environment or are the ones who have to deal with the cleanup.  In the article Sustaining the Environment to Fight Poverty and Achieve the Millennium Development Goals by Steve Bass it’s written, “Poor people depend more on environmental assets than those who are better-off, and yet they find these assets both difficult to access and increasingly degraded. This threatens poor people’s livelihoods and developing countries’ prospects for sustainable development. Governance failures, notably poor people’s lack of rights, limit how much they can benefit from environmental assets and, consequently, their motivations to invest in them. Elites are able to capture the benefits, through asset-stripping of, for example, forests and fisheries.”

 

Having money is a privilege and living in an area with a healthy environment is a privilege.  The latter should not be, but it is.  It is those without privilege that are oppressed, and they are the ones who suffer the most when the environment suffers the most.  This often leads to binding together and organizing in order to create change.  A recent example is Standing Rock.  This is when an entire community in North Dakota protested in order to stop a pipeline from being built, as it would have disrupted their entire lives and town.  The people that would be most affected were the Standing Rock tribe who, as Native Americans, are already an oppressed group in this country.  The stand they took and the outreach and support they received was a true testament to the power of local activism.

 

 

Works Cited:

Bass, Steve, et al. “Sustaining the Environment to Fight Poverty and Achieve the Millennium Development Goals.” Review of European Community & International Environmental Law, vol. 15, no. 1, Apr. 2006, pp. 39–55. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/j.1467-9388.2006.00502.x.

This article was written for the 2005 United Nations World Summit, and it is peer reviewed.  It has lots of information about how the environment relates to poverty.

Intersectionality is meant to be inclusive. Intersectionality in feminism means that feminist principles are not just for one kind of woman – they are for every person. Robby Soave, author of “Intersectionality 101,” offers a broad definition. In that piece, he wrote, “What began at the intersection of race and sex now includes economic class, gender identity (the gender category to which a person feels attachment, which may be different from the person’s biological sex), gender expression (the way a person looks and behaves), sexual orientation, immigration status, disability status, age, religious belief (though certain believers—such as Muslims—are perceived as more oppressed than others), and size (whether you are overweight or not).”

Intersectionality is important in feminism because it recognizes that there are many things people can be oppressed over, not just gender. Equality needs to be fighting for everybody, and fighting against oppression of all kinds. Intersectionality is thus related to ecofeminism. If ecofeminists are fighting against the oppression of the earth, and intersectionalist feminists are fighting against oppression of any kind, then they are easily on the same side.

In her piece “The Ecology of Feminist and the Feminism of Ecology,” Ynestra King writes, “Life on earth is an interconnected web, not a hierarchy.” This represents the blending of all forms of life on earth – not just nature, not just humans, but every living thing. King goes on to say, “A healthy, balanced ecosystem, including human and nonhuman inhabitants, must maintain diversity.” This is true for both intersectionalism and ecofeminism. All different forms of life (such as different races of humans, or different plants) have privilege and oppression throughout life.

The meshing of intersectionality and ecofeminism relate back to a topic we’ve talked about before – being vegan.  If all living creatures are considered equal, and we are trying to not oppress any living thing in order to have equality all over the earth, then humans should definitely not be killing and eating animals.   Greta Gaard writes about it in her piece “Eco-feminism on the Wing: Perspectives on Human Animal Relationships.”  She writes, “feminists who politicize their care for animals see a specific linkage between sexism and speciesism, between the oppression of women and the oppression of animals.”  If we are trying to not include living creatures in any form of opression, this trickles down to the earth and animals.

 

Works Cited:
SOAVE, ROBBY. “Intersectionality 101.” Reason, vol. 51, no. 3, July 2019, p. 57. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=136518165&site=eds-live&scope=site.
This is an article written by a college law professor. It cites all of it’s sources and was published in a feminist magazine.

When women politicians are running for an office, they are always set up to be scrutinized in a different way. Assumptions are easily made about what they should or shouldn’t be. While these women in politics are expected to display certain “feminine” personality traits (empathetic, patient, kind, etc) , they are also supposed to support “feminine” issues. One issue that is traditionally seen as feminine is the environment.

In a reading from Norgaard and York, they talk about the relationship between gender and the state. They believe that that state is typically patriarchal. They also argue that nations with a greater gender equality are more likely to protect the environment. This is for a few different reasons. One is what I mentioned above – according to research, women are more likely to defend the environment and think about the consequences of their actions on the environment. This will come to no surprise to anyone who has been reading my blog about the connection between women and the environment. It goes back to the very basics of how oppressing the earth is the same as oppressing women.

Another reason is that in nations where there is more gender equality, it is more socially acceptable to be somebody who supports the environment. That accepting, “forward-thinking” environment breeds the positive influence that wants to protect nature.

In American politics, a shining example of this theory is the Green New Deal. The Green New Deal is a plan that would massively change a lot of norms in our society in order to try to save our planet. It is controversial because of it’s extremities, but supported mainly by Democrats. The Democratic party is known for being more liberal, more feminist, and more concerned about the environment. There is a feminist sect of this deal from different political groups that can be read about here: https://wedo.org/feminist-green-new-deal-press-release/. The press release for this group says: “The 10 key principles call for advancing reproductive justice, the creation of regenerative economies centered on feminist analysis and understanding of the care economy, a shift from exploitative and unsustainable production patterns and a rejection of false solutions to the climate crisis” (WEDO).

Another example of Norgaard and York’s theory comes from a Yale study. The study states that countries with more female politicians pass more ambitious climate policies. This is almost exactly what the Norgaard and York reading said. Researchers studied the legislatures of 91 different countries, then compared the percentage of seats held by women. They found that the more women represented, the more the environment was too. To double check their work, they also compared education levels, overall political affiliations, etc. None of these influences correlated – it was only women. More can be read about the study here: https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2019/09/countries-with-more-female-politicians-pass-more-ambitious-climate-policies-study-suggests/

An interesting fact I found about how equality in governing relates to climate change came from Switzerland. Switzerland has made a plan to meet their Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. The government has been providing resources in order to help them meet this, and provided an image to show how women’s equality plays a big role in that. This is the government recognizing feminism and women’s equality, like the reading said.

 

More can be found here: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/09/why-women-cannot-be-spectators-in-the-climate-change-battle/

Works Cited:

Harrington, Samantha. “Countries with More Female Politicians Pass More Ambitious Climate Policies, Study Suggests ” Yale Climate Connections.” Yale Climate Connections, Yale, 9 Sept. 2019, www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2019/09/countries-with-more-female-politicians-pass-more-ambitious-climate-policies-study-suggests/.

Sinha, Vaishali. “We Can Solve Climate Change – If We Involve Women.” World Economic Forum, www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/09/why-women-cannot-be-spectators-in-the-climate-change-battle/.

“Women’s Rights and Climate Activists Launch a Feminist Agenda for a Green New Deal.” WEDO, 25 Sept. 2019, wedo.org/feminist-green-new-deal-press-release/.
This is a source that was recommended by my teacher. It is a real organization, not a random .com website. It provides additional resources and cites it’s sources.

Abortion is a sensitive topic.  There are many different stances on it.  There tends to be three main stances on abortion.  The first is the conservative view – this says that abortion is murder and should never happen.  The second is the extreme liberal view – this is pro-life and that women should always have a choice.  The third is moderate, which is a balance of the two extremes.  The moderate view tends to believe that abortion is wrong except in cases of rape or incest.

Ronnie Zoe Hawkins states that abortion is often seen as a “masculine” response to an unwanted pregnancy, and that it is seen as disrespecting the connection of women and nature.  However, Hawkins also argues that abortion is part of a needed human population limitation.   While in Western countries abortion should not be seen as a standard everyday birth control method for somebody, it is something that contributes to population control.  For less wealthy countries, abortion is sometimes the only access to a form of birth control somebody has.  Population control and population balance is something that is needed in order to preserve the Earth and its resources.

 

As a feminist, I believe that women have the right to choose what is best for their body.  I believe women should be able to choose if they have an abortion or if they have a bunch of kids.  At the same time, I believe that we have a responsibility to the world around us to not harm the environment.  Ecofeminism means respecting not only human beings, but the Earth as well.  If a person is pregnant and cannot have a child without it negatively impacting their environment, is it still feminist to have that child?  If adding to the population is hurting the overall quality of life and the Earth, how can somebody with good conscious reproduce?   In the article “Abortion isn’t about the right to privacy. It’s about women’s right to equality,” feminist writer Jessica Valenti argues that overall, abortion is good for women.   Not only that, it is a public good.

 

Population and the effect on the environment is a topic that rings true especially during times like we are currently experiencing.  We are currently navigating a national emergency, and a lot of people are making decisions on how to best protect themselves, their families, and the general public.  We are seeing in countries such as Italy and China that when a national emergency happens and a sickness strikes, there is not enough room and there are not enough supplies to take care of the people currently residing in those areas.  People are literally dying because we are not prepared.  This will be happening soon in America as well.  While we are experiencing this pandemic, how are people who are currently pregnant feeling about bringing another child into this world?  Is that an ecofeminist thing to do, to add another life?  With a virus running rampant, pregnant women and newborns are going to be more susceptible.  Would it not be safer for a woman, especially an at-risk one, to have an abortion rather than go to an overcrowded hospital to deliver a baby?  These are all personal decisions people need to be making in these trying times.  According to an article in the Journal of Public Administration, Finance and Law,  the number of induced abortions rose after the nuclear disaster of Chernobyl.  People were concerned about the unknown effects that radiation may have on their children.  This could be the same situation for the Coronavirus outbreak.   Considering it is a new strain of virus, we cannot be sure of the long term effects.  How is this going to impact the amount of children being brought into the world at this time?  Will this make people reconsider having children because of population control?

 

 

Works Cited

 

FRANȚ, Ancuța Elena. “The Link between Environmental Factors and Abortion.” Journal of Public Administration, Finance & Law, no. 7, Jan. 2015, pp. 158–163. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=108970440&site=eds-live&scope=site.

This source is from a peer-reviewed academic journal.  It was written by a faculty member of a university in Romania.  It cites multiple other publications.

 

Valenti, Jessica. “Abortion Isnt about the Right to Privacy. Its about Womens Right to Equality.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 14 Oct. 2014, www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/14/abortion-right-to-privacy-women-right-to-equality.

Most people are familiar with the concept that advertisements are sexualized. “Sex sells!” is what they say, right? As a society, we’ve become almost immune to seeing women in sexy poses or little clothing, often to sell clothing itself or often something completely unrelated. For example, look at this American Apparel ad that is supposed to be selling a turtleneck sweater.

This ad is not selling a sweater. It is selling an idea, a concept. It is selling sexuality. It is objectifying the woman in the ad in order to appeal to a hungry consumer. It is participating in a patriarchal society that wants to take away who the actual person is, but show what their body looks like in an alluring way.

The same concept applies to animals in advertising. Carol Adams, author of the book The Pornography of Meat, says that “Women are animalized and animals are sexualized and feminized.” She coined the term “anthropornography,” which means is when animals are shown as sexually consumable, in the same way that sexually exploits women. I never realized how common this was until reading Adams’ words. Let’s look at some examples.

 

This ad shows a pig’s head on a woman’s body. The body is wearing a bikini. She is covered in tattoos, which are traditionally viewed as risqué or promiscuous. She is lounging back in an alluring way. When translated to English, “fajna” means cool and “swinka” seems to mean pig. So what we’re looking at in this advertisement is a cool pig. I am not sure if this is for a specific brand, or if it’s literally just advertising the consumption of pork. Either way, it completely is taking away who the pig actually is. The fragmentation of both the pig and the woman shows complete disregard for who each actual is as a living creature. We aren’t supposed to think of them as living creatures. This ad is meant to entice men to eat meat. Eating meat is already viewed as a primarily masculine thing to do. This ad makes it look like this pig/woman WANTS to be eaten.

 

This ad is for the brand Skinny Cow, which is a diet ice cream brand marketed towards women. It features a cow with overtly feminine features, like it’s wearing makeup. The cow’s body is skewed and wrapped up in measuring tape to measure it’s waist. This whole campaign is sexist for so many reasons. First, the idea of normal ice cream being bad and this ice cream being better because it’s skinny is insulting to women. Women are supposed to feel guilty for eating full-fat items, so this product is telling them they can finally eat ice cream and have a nice body/lose weight. A cow does not have defined hips and a skinny waist. This logo totally morphs a cow’s body. A cow is also a term commonly used to shame a person for their weight. The morphing of the cow into something skinnier, thus better, is insulting for both animals and women. The cartoon aspect of the drawing takes away from the reality that this ice cream comes from a cow, who certainly did not consent to providing milk for a mass-produced frozen diet treat. The cartoon makes it seem lighthearted, fun, sexy, and cool. This is sending a message to women that if you eat this food, you will be those things too!

 

This third ad would maybe be considered more of a meme. It’s a “quirky” picture that was shared on Facebook. I read this and immediately thought, “ew.” This is obviously targeted towards men and the idea of masculinity laying in both eating meat and also being good in bed. It is suggesting that both animals and women are objects for consumption. It is going with the sexual violence theme of women “asking for it.” Even past misogyny, it plays up racism and privilege, as it shows a white pilgrim being so excited for his dinner. We’re just going to overlook the American history of genocide that white pilgrims caused? It also demonstrates Adam’s hierarchy, posted below.

In the chart, column A is the side that has privilege over column “not A.” You’ll notice that everything in the second column is what we typically see being used in advertisements for consumption.

 

This last ad is an in your face sexualized ad from Carl’s Jr. You look at it, and “BIG BREASTS” catches your eye. This ad is not shy in what it is trying to do. It’s saying, “hey you’re manly, you love boobs…you’ll love this chicken sandwich!” This is another example of fragmentation. By simplifying women down to a pair of boobs, and chicken down to just their breast meat, it makes it easier for a person to consume. At that point, they are not living, breathing creatures. They’re just parts. This ad is trying to be sassy and lighthearted, but it’s actually contributing to the normalization of exploitation of women/animals.

 

I just showed four examples.  There are countless others.  Now that you’ve seen it exemplified, you’ll see ads like this in your daily life.  Women are not objects, just as animals are not.  The way that advertisements make living creatures two-dimensional in order to sell a product is problematic, but our culture has become so immune to it.  Just being able to recognize it is a step in the right direction.

 

 

Works Cited:

Adams, Carol. The Pornography of Meat, NY: Continuum, 2003.

Kemmerer, Lisa. “The Pornography of Meat by Carol Adams.” Philosophy Now: a Magazine of Ideas, 2006, philosophynow.org/issues/56/The_Pornography_of_Meat_by_Carol_Adams.

Williams, Laura Anh. “Gender, Race, and an Epistemology of the Abattoir in My Year of Meats.” Feminist Studies, vol. 40, no. 2, 2014, pp. 244–272. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.15767/feministstudies.40.2.244. Accessed 1 Mar. 2020.

Laura Anh Williams is an assistant professor and director of the women’s studies program at New Mexico State University.   This source is well-researched and cites its own sources throughout.

The image above is up for interpretation. Immediately upon looking at it, I was confused. Who made this image? What is the point? Is that real meat? Did the artist waste actual meat in order to convey a point about not eating or wasting meat??? If I had to say what this image represents, I think it’s the mystery behind the meat industry. We see a nondescript white chef clip art character cutting into a slab of meat. The man is vague, and the action makes me want to look away – exactly like the meat industry. People want to ignore how the meat gets on the table. Paul McCartney famously once said, “If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian.”

Gendered eating is something that can be socially ingrained in us from the time we are young. It may be something we are not even aware of. I was not until I read the article “Meat Heads: New Study Focuses on How Meat Consumption Alters Men’s Self-Perceived Levels of Masculinity” by Zoe Eisenberg. The article says that genders are assigned certain foods, such as men with meat and women with salads. A google image search can back that up. I googled “man eating” and here are some results:

I googled “woman eating” and got these results:

I am not surprised.

Another gendered food conception is that healthier food in general is for women, and unhealthier food for men. A study was done with 93 adults where certain foods were shown to them, and they were to say whether or not they considered the foods masculine or feminine. For example, they were to label baked chicken or fried chicken. The results backed up that people have a perception of different foods, or even the way the are prepared, applying to different genders. (More about the study can be found here: https://time.com/4021781/food-marketing-gender/)

There are two main theories regarding how ecofeminists see humans’ relationship with non-human animals. One is from Greta Gaard. She believes that the next natural progression in ecofeminist theory is being vegetarian, just as the progression of feminism created ecofeminism. The other is Diane Curtin, who believes in contextual moral vegetarianism. This is basically saying that eating animals is wrong in cases that it is not necessary to do so. She argues that in some cases, it could be morally okay. For example, when a family has no other option for food supply unless it came from an animal. While these two theories do differ, they have some shared principles. In her essay “Vegetarian Ecofeminism,” Gaard said “One of the strengths of feminist thought is that it is never ‘just’ about women: it is a critical discourse that tends to ask uncomfortable questions about everything.” I like that this quote calls the conversation about vegetarianism uncomfortable. For some people, it is. Eating habits and what we consume daily are very personal, and some people are not open-minded to hearing other points of view about it. It can also be uncomfortable because a lot of people who consider themselves feminists may have never heard of ecofeminism, much less vegetarian ecofeminism.

Most people who aren’t born into a vegetarian culture but later on choose to become vegetarian do so out of sympathy for animals (Gaard 119.) The abuse and suffering of animals in the meat industry is well known. Many of us just choose to look the other way, or not think about it. Eating meat and other animal products is so ingrained into our culture. It is more taboo to be vegetarian or vegan than it is to be a meat consumer, despite the stigma the meat industry holds. By ignoring the suffering of animals, vegetarian ecofeminist believe that humans are being held to a higher regard than non-human animals. It is oppressing another living animal. That is when the concept of speciesism comes into play. Speciesism is “an arbitrary form of discrimination that gives preference to one’s own species over all other species and that functions in a way that is similar to racism or sexism” (Gaard 122). In vegetarian ecofeminism, oppression of all animals, human or non, is wrong. Curtain would agree with that in areas where people are financially well-off and can find other food sources, which is often the case in America. Curtain believes that vegetarianism should be followed unless there is an absolute real reason for it not to be, in the name of survival.

Works Cited:

Eisenberg, Zoe. “Meat Heads: New Study Focuses on How Meat Consumption Alters Men’s Self-Perceived Levels of Masculinity.” HuffPost, HuffPost, 13 Jan. 2017, www.huffpost.com/entry/meat-heads-new-study-focuses_b_8964048.

Gaard, Greta. “Vegetarian Ecofeminism.” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, vol. 23, no. 3, Sept. 2002, p. 117. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1353/fro.2003.0006.
This is a quality source because it is another writing from a man ecofeminist we are studying, Greta Gaard. This was published in an academic journal within the past twenty years. This source gives her argument for vegetarianism and includes some great quotes.

This is the Wisdom Tree. It is located at the top of a long, hard hike in Los Angeles. Being at the top of this spot made me feel like myself. To be straight up – I hate hiking. I don’t consider myself athletic. My friends convinced me to go on this hike, telling me I could do it. As I spent an hour going up, I struggled. I fell on the rocks. I was dirty. I was somehow both hot AND cold. Then I got to the top. Looking at the Wisdom Tree, I felt so much strength both in myself and in the tree! It’s just thriving alone in a dry, dirt covered area. It even survived a big brushfire on the mountain that killed off any other trees. According to legend, the tree was planted as a Christmas tree and somehow managed to survive (Aron.) Now tons of people go to it for inspiration. A man named Mark Rowlands took a box up to the tree and left some journals and writing utensils. Now, everyone goes up and can either share wisdom or read others. I sat on a log on the mountain reading all the inspirational messages others had written. Some were light hearted and fun, and others pored their heart out. All the inspiration came from the tree that had survived against all odds. This is something that I identify with. To me, this carries my history as well as many others.

 

I have always identified as an “inside person.” I’ve always either lived in suburbs or cities. I’ve always enjoyed the comforts of being inside. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve tried to branch out more. Although I live in Pennsylvania, I go to Los Angeles often. Although it may seem ironic because it’s a huge city, it’s made me appreciate nature more. Natural landscapes on the west coast are so different than the ones we have here. I realized at a certain time I had grown immune to recognizing the beauty in the greenery in my own backyard. The Wisdom Tree helped remind me of that. In her piece “Small Wonder” Barbara Kingsolver wrote, “People need wild places. Whether or not we think we do, we do. We need to be able to taste grace and know once again that we desire it.” This rang so true for me. I need to be reminded sometimes. I think we all do. Nature reminds us how small we really are. It reminds us of both our strengths and our weaknesses. It can give us hope. In addition to the spiritual/mental benefits that nature gives us, Kingsolver reminds us that nature physically gives us all the tools in order to live and have our creature comforts. She reminds us, “that the oxygen in our lungs was recently inside a leaf.”

Works Cited:

Aron, Hillel. “The Wisdom Tree Is Becoming an L.A. Landmark. But Will Fame Kill It?” LA Weekly, 22 May 2019, www.laweekly.com/the-wisdom-tree-is-becoming-an-l-a-landmark-but-will-fame-kill-it/.

This source tells about the way the Wisdom Tree came about. It shares it’s meaning. It also discusses how it becoming a hiking hot spot may one day put it at risk.   It is written by a staff writer to a popular Los Angeles magazine.  It includes linked sources.

A big part of growing as a feminist and as a global citizen is un-learning thinking patterns and language that we’ve been taught growing up. When I was in elementary school through high school, certain countries were always referred to as “third world” countries. I never saw an issue with this at the time. I was a child, and this is what the people I was learning from were telling me. I did not understand that the term “third world” can be socially insensitive, as it’s quickly translated to poor. Or, what makes up the first and second world? Why are we ranking?

A term that is used more currently is the Global South. This is based off geographical facts rather than a term that can be offensive. While there are many rich countries in the Global South (such as New Zealand, Argentina, etc), there are also a lot of impoverished countries. I want to focus on how women in these countries are affected by the environment.

A big way that women in the Global South are affected by environmental degradation is their water supply. There are a lot of countries where there is a lack of sanitation facilities, and the water supply may not be safe or may not even exist. This effects women for three main reasons.

1. Women typically hold the responsibility of getting the water. This can be very time consuming and also grueling.
2. It can be dangerous walking back and forth for women to a safe bathroom site. They are left vulnerable to attack.
3. Women have specific sanitation needs to attend to that men do not. They need to find ways to take care of themselves during their periods, pregnancy and raising children.

Being raised in an environment having to work hard for a basic human need like water definitely shapes part of who a person is. From an ecofeminist standpoint, it can be argued that women’s relationship to nature in this environment does not empower them. The relationship a woman has with nature in for example, the United States, versus the relationship a woman has in a country in the global south is entirely different. In dire situations like above, where a woman is typically unsafe in their day to day environment, they are oppressed just like nature is.

Eco-feminism from a non-western perspective views women as more of victims of their environment. At the same time, women have had a massive impact on different environmental movements, and have helped shape the environment in positive ways. Western feminism describes women as one with nature. Women are commonly associated with the beauty and softness of a flower. They are supposed to be united. It has been argued that the very life path of women, with menstruation, childbearing, etc proves that they are one with nature’s path. Non-western feminism doesn’t always view it that way.

A main difference that is found in western ecofeminism is that it can be privileged. Basically, western ecofeminism seems to view the relationship between women and nature mainly in the lens of how women treat nature. This is typically assuming that humans hold power over nature (besides in instances such as natural disasters) which is a privilege many of us don’t think about. Another difference between Western feminism and non-western feminism that Bina Agarwhal has pointed out is that Western feminism doesn’t necessarily include all kinds of women. Agarwhal writes in “The Gender and Environment Debate: The View From India” that this view describes “women as a unitary category and fails to differentiate among women by class, race, ethnicity and so on” (122).

The main thing that ecofeminism in the Western world and the non-Western world have in common is that they believe oppression of both women and nature exist, and that there is some sort of relationship. I don’t necessarily side with either belief. It is harder to understand how non-Western feminists feel because I have never personally endured the struggles a lot of women have. I have never had to worry if I was going to get water, or if I was going to be attacked on the way to the bathroom. I acknowledge their struggles and want my feminism to be inclusive and concern ALL people. This makes me feel like I cannot say I mainly side with Western ecofeminists, whose views Agarwhal called “idealogical” (120). To me, ecofeminism says that people and nature have a relationship, and we must care for the earth and it must care for us. To oppress and disrespect the earth is not feminist.

Works Cited:

Agarwal, Bina. “The Gender and Environment Debate: Lessons from India.” Feminist Studies, vol. 18, no. 1, 1992, pp. 119–158. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3178217. Accessed 8 Feb. 2020.

Jabeen, Neelam. “Women and the Environment of the Global South: Toward a Postcolonial Ecofeminism.” Women and the Environment of the Global South: Toward a Postcolonial Ecofeminism, North Dakota State University, 1 Jan. 1970, library.ndsu.edu/ir/handle/10365/25914.

UN-Water. “Gender: UN-Water.” UN, www.unwater.org/water-facts/gender/.