Admittedly looking in the subject of ecofeminism, I was not very familiar at all with this idea of joining together gender and the environment. I’ve always enjoyed discussing gender politics however so this was definitely something that I was interested to further look into. Looking further into the subject of ecofeminism, I eventually stumbled upon photographs of the Montreal Botanical Garden. I’m absolutely enamored with this depiction of mother nature. I believe it’s absolutely breathtaking. Thinking about it further and considering Karen Warren’s eight connections between women and nature, I have found that both women and nature are beautiful and something to be appreciated. I personally enjoy intertwining subjects such as this with artwork. I consider myself a passionate artist, and I honestly have always enjoyed different depictions of mother nature in various pictures of artwork. I remember fondly having an assignment in high school where we were instructed to design an illustration that would appear on the side of a bus. We were also told to have an eco-friendly message and bring awareness about how susceptible the environment is and how we should take care of it. There were a wide variety of ways to tackle this, but I chose to draw my own depiction of mother nature. I wish I had kept these drawing and sketches from middle school, but unfortunately they have become buried underneath all of my other school assignments and classwork. I remember looking across the web at different iterations of mother nature and finding many of them beautiful.
Hobgood-Oster describes that “ecofeminism asserts that all forms of oppression are connected and that structures of oppression must be addressed in their totality. Oppression of the natural world and of women by patriarchal power structures must be examined together or neither can be confronted fully.” Having taken a gender studies class in the past and thoroughly studying intersectionality, I fully agree with this statement. When people are marginalized, it is usually due to elaborate systems of oppression that are working together side by side. I find that this can be true about our relationship with the environment as well. We have found many different ways to exploit the Earth of its natural resources and have taken plenty of time to be careless with how we preserve our ecosystem and species found in the wild.
I’m very interested to delve into more about this subject, and I’m looking forward into learning much more. I’m always interested in learning other perspectives especially when it comes to gender studies.
Hi Ateena!
I so wish you had kept your old drawings it would have been really neat to see how eighth grade you interpreted mother nature and what she represents within our society; kids always have a really unique interpretation of things, and sometimes I wish it was how we all viewed the world. I too had little to no knowledge about ecofeminism and what it stands for when starting this class. Once I learned what it is or at least a generalized definition I became really excited for this semester because as a WGS minor obviously feminist issues are something I’m passionate about. But I was also raised in a very eco-friendly house so sustainability and taking care of the environment has also been really important in my life.
I loved the photo you briefly discussed; I almost chose the same photo to post in my own blog. My family is actually from Québec so all my cousins and grandparents have actually seen this depiction of mother nature, my Memere (Grandma) even has a picture of her hanging in her house. I’ve never been able to go but it’s definitely on my bucket list. I think this photo can be analyzed with Karen Warren’s first connection in mind; Historical. The idea of mother nature has been traced back to Ancient Greece, so she’s been around for a long time. There’s a reason that nature was given a gender, a female gender. Thinking critically of this we can make assumptions and create discussions, but I think the biggest reason nature is so connected to the ‘woman’ is because for centuries nature has been seen as this extremely fragile thing than men wanted nothing to do with. But this couldn’t be farther from the truth, just like women nature is resilient and fights everyday to survive despite man kind’s constant destruction of it. I’m glad we are so connected to nature and everything that is stands for.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, I look forward to reading more.
Hi Ateena, I was also not at all familiar with Ecofeminism, and that there was any type of connection between women and nature. I agree with what you said about women and nature being two things that need to be fully appreciated, these two are the most unappreciated, not because people don’t care for them, but due to the fact that their daily impact on our lives is overlooked. In my post I discussed how Ecofeminism is the process of removing the systematic hierarchy our society has in place. Ecofeminists view feminism in a more environmental perspective with connections to nature. I agree with your statement that “When people are marginalized, it is usually due to elaborate systems of oppression that are working together side by side. I find that this can be true about our relationship with the environment as well. We have found many different ways to exploit the Earth of its natural resources and have taken plenty of time to be careless with how we preserve our ecosystem and species found in the wild.” We are constantly taking and taking from the earth and not only that but we don’t add anything essential to it. We don’t take into account how much we take, this reminds me of the story, the giving tree, the little boy took parts of the tree everyday until there was nothing left to take. We need to reevaluate what the earth and women do for us and cherish it by not draining all they have to give. I am also so interested in learning more about Ecofeminism and all the different ways that nature and women relate. This is a different perspective I never looked at but i’m ready to learn more and broaden my knowledge on feminism as a whole, this will be very informative in a multitude of ways.