IDEA. Michael Kitson in “Vegan Man” stated that finances-saving money, is one of the reasons people become vegans. There is a “misconception that eating a healthy vegan diet is going to cost a fortune. Fresh meat, poultry and seafood are increasingly expensive, cutting these reduces the weekly grocery bill.” He contends “vegetables and fruits especially seasonal, and locally produced are good value for money, and exotic foods like quinoa are cheaper weight for weight than many animal products.” (11)
PLAN. The intent is to help reduce my abusive footprint against animals and nature, by eating a vegan diet. I found recipes and would chose the ones that seem easy to prepare, and I hope would save me money on groceries. I want to experience new foods like tofu and Bulgar wheat, soy milk, and hemp seeds, some new spices like sumac and create smoothies with fruits and vegetables. I hope to convince some friends or relatives to try a vegan diet with me for a week.
HOPE to ACHIEVE. I would like to experience the taste for meatless dishes by preparing new recipes found in “Vegan Man”and to reduce my grocery bill as suggested by the author; doing so, by adhering to the recipes, my journey into veganism should be effective and bring unexpected ‘beneficial’ results as touted by food experts.
Source. Kitson, Michael. Vegan Man. February 2019.
Gebara states that “Christian traditional theology is a way without concrete ways to overcome injustices and alienation and submerged by hegemonic dehumanization and provides an irrational stimulus to forget unjust patriarchal order.” (102) This is disingenuous. True Christianity teaches and practices the teaching of Jesus which eliminates this. Slave owners were Christians, phobias are spread by many who identify with Christianity. These teaching were brought to the world by white men, but they could not obscure the humane underpinnings of Jesus’ inclusive and non-discriminatory teachings. Professor Wangari took refuge in a church for a year. Gebara informs us that most women in Latin America believe that traditional theology rooted in a patriarchal anthropology shows no path of their emancipation or autonomy. (97) They -the patriarchy, have corrupted the teachings of Jesus.
“The challenging question for me is not the struggle among ways of interpreting women’s lives, but the destruction of life while we are discussing the theories.” (95) I wonder if this statement is borne from Gebara’s statement that “marginalized people are growing; because the richness of the world is becoming more and more in the hands of a small elite.” (101) That is evident in the videos of the indigenous women Land is identity and Violence against the land. Anne Marie Sam claimed that her people’s identity comes from the land, and the imposition of the mines in their community was seen as producing jobs with lots of money, instead of asking how this would impact them. Indigenous people state the narrator, are violated, and experience loss when the land is harmed.
Gebara argues that oppressing women results in marginalization of they and their dependants. “Daily life for these women is like a jail, monotonous and limited.” (96) They are concerned about providing food and healing for their families, and concerns for the world around them is overwhelming and not understood. Most of these women were thrusted into womanhood by ages 13 or 14. Just as indigenous women feel dislocated from their land with the imposition of mines and join the group of the marginalized, because the financial windfall from mines trickle slowly to them. This other group of women, I believe feel dislocated from themselves-thrusted into womanhood so early in life. Marginalized people especially women become victims of sexual harassment or victims of rape. One video states that resource extraction leads to increase violence against women and girls. This is true in Canada because with revenue increase brings increase in alcohol and drug use. In addition, women in some indigenous communities reputation gets tarnished, the community accuses them of going to meet men, although many of them worked as housekeepers for mine workers.
How are these problems resolved? Gebara argues that feminists and small groups of women believe that resolutions to these problems cannot come from the patriarchal structure (who then?) because it is not rooted in egalitarian principles; only “reproduces the circle of dependence and violence.” (96).
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
“In India, Indigenous Tribes Clash With Government Over Trees.”
A government campaign to plant more trees in India has sparked a backlash from Adivasi-indigenous tribes. They express their rights are being violated. When “the trees grow, nothing else can take root here.” Said resident Yadav. Government planters, complain the locals, plant more trees, lots of it, like teak saplings because they are more lucrative. This results in dense root systems, not allowing any other plant growth. Del Bello reported that the locals complain “the animals relying on other types of vegetation, migrate further reducing the biodiversity of a once healthy resilient forest.” Yadav prefers bamboo-used for local construction, instead of teak-trucked off to make furniture. The UN climate reporter Krishnaswamy, writes that India’s greening initiatives are too “carbon and tree centric.”
“The absence of feminist methodologies for the use of intersectionality is concerning.” King, A.E. (Changing Face of Ecofeminism)
Intersectionality is defined as a “web of entanglement where each spoke of the web represents a continuum of different types of social categorisation of gender, race, and sex. While encircling spirals which depict individual identities. These spirals collide with each spoke at a different level of the continuum.” How is identity represented on this web? In (The Complexity of Identity. B.Tatum) “Identity is complex, representing the individual characteristics of family dynamics, social and political context and historical factors,” which I liken to the web, and the collision of these creates an identity further influenced by non-static processes, like the media’s representation of that individual, or interpretations of people’s opinions on such person, or the community to which this person belongs, or belonged. Does identity change? Tatum seem to posit that puberty brings on a “self-creation of one’s identity” experienced in developed nations. She continues “the foundation of identity is laid in the experiences of childhood …” Are these experiences only in developed nations? Should one assume that non-western individuals’ identity is arrested in childhood? Are the distortions in our identities part of the non-western identity also?
The interconnectedness of women in rural India with poor menstrual hygiene collide on the same spoke on the web. Interestingly, women in India were involved in the environment three hundred years ago when they sacrificed their lives to protect the sacred Khejri trees. Yet these poor women have been lost by ecofeminists who focus only on gender as a significant mode of oppression and not the multiple intersecting factors which influence menstrual hygiene and its environmental impacts. King stated, in India 128.000 schools have no functional toilets, and 61.000 schools have no running water. Some girls are forced to stay at home during menstruation, and others go to school, but both suffer with poor sanitation dilemmas. The well-intended Western company Procter and Gamble spend $5millions dollars to introduce western sanitary protections. But many communities have no garbage collection, so waste is burned, buried or thrown away, eventually polluting streams. The West often believe throwing money at (fill in the blank) makes it better.
The intersection of race and gender for African Americans collide differently, the women face unequal pay, dismissive justice courts, the men mass incarceration, but the communities often face environmental degradation. Majora Carter in her Ted talk spoke of her neighborhood with its 40% city waste, and a sewage treatment plant, and a myriad of environmental hazards, and no parks. Environmental justice she states, focus on race and class, as good indicators-the white areas have parks and trees, less environmental burdens as compared to black areas. This inequity is seen in the staggering numbers of children in South Bronx with asthma-1 in 4. Carter was able to get a park built in her neighborhood, after being without one for sixty years.
D.Allison in (A Question of class) sexual identity was not influenced by puberty, instead was constructed by her class and regional background. Born in 1949 in South Carolina, Allison was “blending in for safety, as she did in high school and college, part of a habit of hiding after realizing she was queer. She hid to survive this identity.” No woman dared to express such at that time in history. Allison said she ignored who she really was and became an automation, by constructing an identity “in which I took pride.” Allison was sexually molested until a teenager and was physically abused; she is attracted sexually to the physically aggressive and leather fetishism. What is Allison’s true identity? “Claiming your identity in the cauldron of hatred and resistance is complicated, almost unexplainable” (Allison)
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
“The ecofeminist movement gained steam in the mid 1970s, in the Global North.” (Perrin.) “Second wave feminism shifted from suffrage to dismantling workplace inequality and increasing political female representation But the critics claimed it only focused on white middle-class women, disregarding experiences of other gender groups, ethnicities and sexualities.” Such criticisms argues Perrin led to an array of ecofeminism scholarship, theology, ecowomanism and queer theories. The underlying message posits Perrin was “regardless of diversity within maligned groups and ecosystems, oppressive groups was perpetrating the degradation of nature and oppression of minorities for the same reasons.” Perrin quotes Birkland. “ecofeminist’s lack of intersectionality were a misconception, poor understanding of ecofeminists positioning of patriarchal dominance over nature and ‘woman.’” “Woman,” she continued, did not represent a homogeneous whole.”
Perrin, Sam. Ecofeminist: Struggles with Intersectionality. ecologyfor themasses.com. November 2019.
Finding female parliamentarians with legislative power on crafting environmental legislation is limited. Sweden according to Norgaard and York have a large female representation in parliament, are more prone to ratify environmental treaties. (512) While Sweden ranks as number #1 in representation, it ranks number #10 environmentally, while Spain ranks number #16 for representation, it ranks #1 environmentally. Recent data suggest that Rwanda ranks number #1 for female representation-globally, and Singapore number #1 in Asia, neither have an environmental ranking. Wealthy nations that cause the most environmental damage, support environmental treaties. The reasons are unclear. One assumes these capitalist nations throw their weight around and sign treaties out of political correctness.
“No quantitative empirical work has tested whether gender equality does in fact influence state behavior with respect to the environment” (Norgaard and York. 508) Norgsaard and York continue, “explanations for the gender gap in environmental concern suggest that women are more concerned about the environment because they have been socialized to be family nurturers and care givers. “(508) Ecofeminists imply gender inequality may be linked to environmental degradation because nation states with greater gender inequality may be less environmentally responsible due to the hegemony of the logic of domination. These authors believe that societies with greater female representation in parliament are more prone to ratify environmental treaties. (512) Not in the following countries.
Singapore women earn $0.90 cents for every $1.00 earned by men. Currently 23percentage of their parliamentarians are women, but only make up 10 percentage of the cabinet. The number of women has progressed in the last two decades. (Agarwal Chirag) These women emerged from The Singapore Council of Women (SCW) a civil rights group formed in 1954 after the ending of Japanese occupation. . They created a heightened consciousness of what women could achieve, by creating an identity. Agarwal reminds us that “in spite of the positive improvements in Singaporean women’s lives, Singapore remains largely a ‘woman unfriendly state’” The few women who enter the domain acknowledge politics is an “androcentric arena.” Women therefore cannot choose to differentiate themselves from men during discussions in parliament. This imbalance of power and domination exercised by men leave women feeling as the “second sex.” (47-48)
Rwanda boasts the best record for female representation -61.3percentage, after the genocide ended. (Dudman, Jane. The guardian) Dudman argues that “behind the headlines is the anxiety of women’s lives. Domestic Violence remains widely accepted. 1 in 5 women experience sexual violence at the hands of their husbands. “That’s how marriages work”-local saying. Josette Uwanziga (in Dudmans’ piece) social campaigner agrees with the United Nations assessment that the poorest citizens are women, who states Uwanzinga, are beginning to have “a monopoly on poverty.” “The parliamentarians she argues, have a good salary, but it’s like a vase in a living room: smells and looks good, but ultimately it does nothing.” How are their lives in private? One parliamentarian told Justine Uvuza-Ph.D research student, her husband expects her to polish his shoes, iron his clothes, and fear her husband like other women fear theirs. One even told her she contemplated suicide because she felt trapped. These women wrote Uvuza, “don’t want to stand under the banner of feminism, “that’s for Westerners.”” These women’s lives could be seen through the lens of Shulamith Firestone’s “the freeing of women from the tyranny of their reproductive biology and the diffusion of childbearing and childrearing.” This freeing she cautions, “would threaten the social unit organized around biological reproductions and subjection of women to their biological destiny, the family. (206-207)
Empowering women is a responsibility, not a favour. Rwandan parliamentarians.
Sources.
Firestone, Shulamith. The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for a Feminist Revolution. New York. 1970.
Dudman, Jane. Lesson from Rwanda’s female-run institutions. the guardian.com. July 2014.
Agarwal Chirag. We need more women in Singapore politics. today online.com, March 2018.
Warner, Gregory. Uvuza, Justine. It’s The No.1 country for women in Politics-But not in Daily Life. NPR.org. July 29, 2016.
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY.
The SCW-(mentioned earlier) flourished under the leadership of Feminist Extraordinaire Shirin Fozdar. It affiliated itself with leading overseas women’s rights groups. The SCW became increasingly concerned with prostitution in Singapore, with the rising numbers of girls and women from China and Hong Kong sold to brothels. Fozdar criticized the government at the Afro-Asian conference in Colomba in 1958, it triggered an uproar with the government. SCW pioneered the setting up of creches in factories with working women to provide child care; they provided counselling for many hapless women deserted by divorce, and in 1953 drafted an ordinance against bigamous marriages. In 1959 it ended abruptly with a political victory by a party using the slogan” one man one wife.” The SCW is credited with awakening Singapore’s women to a new consciousness of themselves as humans with a purpose and a goal.
Lian Chew, Phylli Dr. Blazing a Trail: The Fight for Women’s Rights in Singapore. BIBLIOASIA. 2009.
Abortion-: expulsion of a foetus naturally or by medical induction from the womb, before it is able to survive independently. (Oxford Encyclopedic English Dictionary.)
The world has enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed. (Mahatma Gandhi)
No one addresses the role of men in the abortion debate. I put this question to Georgia’s governor, and Ed Setzer-author of Georgia’s new abortion bill. (No reply)
Hawkins posits the beneficial effects of abortion on the environment. Frantz posits the harmful environmental effects on a pregnancy resulting in abortion.
“Usually when we think of abortion, we focus on criminalizing abortion, the fetus’ right to life, and the mother’s right to choose. And we neglect prominent and important issues. People’s influence over the environment can identify environmental factors which influence the evolution of pregnancy.” (Frantz, Ancuta 158) Ronnie Hawkins argues environmental considerations are relevant to the abortion debate…” (690) Dr. Paul Ehrlich in “Does Abortion Help Save The Environment?” stated that approximately 97percentage of the earth’s land surface is empty-there is no shortage. Ehrlich argues that analysts state that the world’s population may max out at 8billion between 2040 and 2050, then plummet significantly. The Food and Agriculture of the United Nations stated there is plenty of food for everyone, and a relatively high population create large markets and cheap goods. Those with no access to food are from corruption, war, or bad economic policy. (Does Abortion Help Save The Environment?)
Hawkins argues that the maximum persons the planet could accommodate varies, but the link to population growth, poverty and environmental degradation are documented. The poor she writes, live on marginal land with deforestation, and overgrazing and further exacerbating their poverty, which results in their migration, and the start of the destruction again. (690) The population in the developed world though less in growth, cause more stress and consumption of global resources from 15percentage to more than 100 hundred times compared to citizens from poor countries. Pope Francis when asked, stated that “concern for the protection of nature is also incompatible with the justification of abortion. To blame climate change on population growth instead of extreme and selective consumerism on the part of some, is one way of refusing to face the issues.” (Lerner. Adam)
What are the effects on safe abortions in some poor countries when American aid is tied to no abortions, by government or other agencies, as in The “Mexico City agreement” signed in 1984. Some can lead to infection in the body, or death. Hawkins fail to (1) address some problems with safe abortions, like infertility (secondary), serious health complications-even death, depression or guilt. (2) the population decline of some countries, like Andorra-3.6% from 2010-2015, or Japan-0.12%. (Dillinger, Jessica) This results in fewer care facilities, care givers, and accessibility for the elderly. China realised this and changed the one child only policy. (3) natural disasters wipe out large numbers of populations annually. Ehrlich reminds us “the cause of the problems of poverty and environmental degradation is not overpopulation. And the unborn is not the enemy.”
Sources.
Ehrlich, Paul. Does Abortion Help Save The Environment? whyprolife.com 2011
Lerner, Adam. What does abortion have to do with climate change? You’ll have to ask Pope Francis. Politico.com June. 2015
Dillinger, Jessica. Countries With The Biggest Population Decline. WorldAtlas.com. Mar,2018.
Frantz, Ancunta. The Link Between Environmental Factors and ABORTION. Romania. University of Iasi. July 2015.
Annotated Bibliography.
Frantz states that “studies conducted on the issue of environmental influence over pregnancy revealed unexpected results. In China, a study proved that the exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons for a pregnant woman can lead to miscarriage. (160) “The risk” Frantz continues, “is higher for those living near intense car traffic.” (160) This study was replicated in California. Women living with in an area of 50metres near an intense circulated road increased the risk of spontaneous abortion. (160) The toxic environmental impact is far reaching. Women experienced high rates of spontaneous abortions in Russia after the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Women in countries like Finland, Hungry, and Poland were also exposed to contamination, and loss. The effects lasted for 18 years. (Frantz) Weather and holiday, Frantz linked to abortion. “Among young people, summer and Christmas see a peak in sexual activity and increase in abortions in February and late summer.” (161-162)
(a) Objectification- the ‘thin’ looking cow with the tape measure around her waist. Her youthful appearance is tied to her fertility-which is the giving of milk. A ‘fat cow’ would be rendered old and useless and would not be in this advertisement.
(b) Sexualization/Virility-the ?pub or ?restaurant named Ludacris with African American man holding the foot of a women in a red shoe-(called hooker shoe) with all of her leg and lower part of her thigh exposed, while he is attempting to eat her leg, while adding seasoning to it. Meat eating is a sign of masculinity and by extension virility for men. Women are referred to as meat in songs and some cultures.
(c) Consumed-the African-American female in the Chick-fil-a advertisement “Dress as cattle, ‘graze’ for free.” This category ‘B’ person is likely to be linked with animals and nature. She is the consumable, consumed by the white and powerful patriarchy, of which Chick-fil-a-category ‘A’ is a part of.
Post a photo-analyze it as per Adams.
False Mass Terms. The photo.
This term Adams introduces, to bring awareness to our indifference to animals because we consume them as food.
“Domesticated animals finitude is determined by us, human beings. We know when they die, and because we demand it.” (Adams 6) they become “terminal animals” to us because their fate to be eaten lie in our power. “Animals” argue Adams, are killed because they are false mass terms, but die as individuals.” Adams goes on to explain, “they die as cows, not beef, as pigs, not pork. Each suffers his or her own death which matters to the one who is dying.” (7) Adams agrees with Gourevitch (P.202) who likens mass killing of animals to genocide. The crime states Gourevitch stems from the idea -seen as mass terms by the oppressors, that one is killing a people, not people. “When seen as a people” Gourevitch adds, “propaganda and stereotyping take over.” (6) Adams reminds us “behind every meal of meat there is an absent dead animal “absent referent” who separates the meat eater from the other animal and that animal from the end product.”(6) Because meat eating is called food, humans fail to see this as contact with animals. Meat therefore operates in our culture as a mass term which has no individuality, uniqueness, or particularity. Adams contends that if one “adds five pounds of meatballs to a plate of meatballs, it’s more of the same thing; but to kill a cow, butcher it, grind up the flesh, there is no mass term. An individual is destroyed.
We have no compassion for the animals’ situation because of the belief of false mass terms. The “massification” of beings permits the dilution and diminishment of our attention, and means, our release from empathy. (6) Transforming nonhuman subjects into nonhuman objects is the most efficient way to show that humans do not care about animals. (Adams. “War on compassion.” p. 6-7)
Slaughter house cows, hanging on hooks in the cold half, of cows.
Annotated Bibliography.
The Quaker reformer John Woolman left his home in New Jersey for England in 1772. Concerned about reports of misuse of horses pulling the “flying coaches.” (Plank) “Woolman” continued Plank, “resolved not to ride in a stage coach nor use the British postal system while in England.” Woolman’s feelings about harm to animals from commercial growth is “understood in the context of Quakerism’s millenarian tradition-animals have cosmological significance and everyone should guard the “brute creatures.” (Plank). Woolman’s anxiety intensified about mistreatment of animals during his passage to England. On board he described the ‘dunghill fowls” brought for eating, as pining, stopped crowing, and killed by breaking waves. He believed that humans should maintain “a tenderness toward all creatures …” (n 80) Woolman likened parental affection as a “branch of self-love-motivating animals to watchfully and orderly feed their helpless.” (n 68) But humans, said he, had a pernicious “natural desire of superiority.” (Plank) Woolman may have been a vegetarian like other religious thinkers then, like Benjamin Lay. The best-known vegetarian in Colonial North America. Woolman maintained “peculiar dietary restrictions, chiefly bread, milk and butter, only if obtained in a warrantable or Christian manner.” (n 54) Lay drank only milk and water and “substituted on a vegetable diet.” (n 40) He owned leather garments only made from animals who died naturally. Plank said of him, “his tender conscience would not permit him to eat any food, nor wear any garment, nor use any article procured at the expense of animal life.” (n 45)
Plank, Goeffrey. “The Flame of Life was Kindled in All Animal and Sensitive Creatures”: One Quaker Colonist’s View of Animal Life. Source. Church History; September.2007, Vol.76 Issue 3, P569-590, 22p
I would guess it is a boy, he has to stand on the table with the meat, playing grown up with the chef’s hat. He must eat a lot of meat (rare is better) to be masculine- a ‘manly man.’ There are two knives, perhaps for another ‘manly man’
2.Give two examples of gendered foods and explain.
The typical first date according to Zoe Eisenberg in “Meat Heads:” is meat for the man, and salad for the woman. She reiterates this belief when images on Google search showed “men forking meat, while women with salads looking strangely happy.” Eisenberg poses the question, “does meat make the man?” The university of Hawaii was studying just that. Research showed anxiety levels decreased in “consumers” (men) when a meat dish was available, conversely, a “flesh-free alternative did not produce the same anxiety -alleviating effect.” “A threat to their masculinity.” “Whereas women are associated with vegetables and passivity (ladies’ luncheons typically offering dainty sandwiches with no red meat.”) (Curtin, Deane. Contextual Moral Vegetarianism) Meat in spite of its controversial image in past years, is still the manly choice making it more difficult for men to “opt for a meat-free lifestyle, even if they support it in theory.” Eisenberg continues, in a study in 2012 men who ate meat were rated more masculine, and another in 2011, vegetarian men were still viewed as manly, and vegan men as effeminate.
I ask, how was their masculinity threatened? how were anxiety levels measured? Red meat has a high source of protein, and vitamins and minerals. In addition to the antibiotics and hormones found in some red meats, it stands to reason that body fluids would have been used to come to the above conclusion, not for future.
Drawing on Curtin and Gaard explain how ecofem… perceive…
“Feminist who politicize their care of animals see a linkage between sexism and specieism, and how animal pejoratives are used to dehumanize women, in linguistic and conceptual linkage in derogatory terms “sow”, “old bat” or “bird-brain.” (Gaard,Greta. Ecofeminism on the Wing.) Gaard reminds us that one form of oppression, parallels another form of oppression. The multiple different forms of oppression like racism or sexism, may have a different face, but is of the same system. Gaard stated that Marion Young classified oppression in five categories, some-powerlessness, exploitation, and violence. Although this analysis was developed for humans it adequately describes oppression of animals. One example of exploitation of bodies of animals, is the practice of intensively reared cows that metabolized their own muscle to produce milk.
Domesticated pets are also in the cross hairs of the vegetarian ecofeminists. Gruen argues that “animals like cats and dogs are forced to conform to rituals and practices of humans and denied full expression of their natural urges.” (20) Ecofeminists “explain that women’s relational self-identity is constructed in terms of our relationship with others, and produces an ethic of care which to many is a product and vehicle for women’s subordination. On the other hand, Western men’s self-identity is socially constructed as separate, “giving rise to an autonomous self-identity to a rights-based ethic.” (21) The separate male self-identity said Gaard is not confined to the dominant male but shared by those who believe their well being can be enjoyed at the expense of both humans and nonhuman, like the agribusiness that profits from sale of pesticides and growth hormones, or landlords (slum lords) who profit from their tenants. (Most of these are men) Gaard objects to animals as pets including exotic ones. Pets provide companionship and protection, while hiding our complicity in interspecies domination. Owners show kindness to their animals, while others are caged, experimented on or eaten. (21) “Feminist who act in solidarity with other animal species achieve a moral direction, not a moral destination.” (22)
Deane Curtin in “Contextual Moral Vegetarianism” seems less absolute than ecofeminists quest to rescue animals from human brutality. “As a contextual moral vegetarian, I cannot refer to an absolute moral rule that prohibits meat eating under all circumstance.” However committed she is, if necessity arose she would kill an animal to stem starvation, or protect the life of someone, or for people whose geographic locations “makes growing of food impossible.” The Ihalmiut thank the deer for giving its life “the gift” of a meal” “Morality and ontology offer a connection for “persons who have a choice of food, yet inflict unnecessary and avoidable pain
on animals, but less horrific for those who eat animals because of geography.”
Feminists ethics of care states that “non-human animals should no longer count as food, especially when some have been chemically induced to grow faster …” Steroids should be considered dangerous as in athletes. One should consider posits Curtain, from a woman’s perspective veganism or vegetarianism including dairy and eggs, because of exploitation of the female reproductive capacities.
The choice is for people to choose meat or vegetables. Vegetables are expensive in urban and rural areas.
Annotated Bib.
Ricard, Matthieu. “A Plea For The Animals”
“Every cow just wants to be happy. Every chicken just wants to be free. Animals experience pain as intensely as humans do.” The book chronicles in vivid detail the many species of animals who entertain us, and whose by products are worn by people, and the $16bilion profit to the abusers. This miscarriage of justice continues in the face of WWF (World Wild Life Fund) and many others, like Chinese Wildlife Conservation, yet China is the epicenter for much of the injustice. “Bear bile” is extracted from bears in cages there, while they moan and bang their heads. (188) The numbers of animals killed yearly is staggering. Belgium is Europe’s hub for selling immature cats and dogs overseas.” In concluding Ricard states “it’s time to extend the notion of “neighbor” to other life forms.” (271)
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ECOFEM-UNDERDTANDING PLACE
A landscape that informs my history-functions as bedrock of democracy?
Place+ people = politics. Very appropriate for Stone Mountain Park in Georgia.
This park is not considered a wilderness, but the question of feeling displaced as part of my history, in this environment has no clear answer.
This monument in the village is the largest flat rock relief sculpture in the world. It features three confederate generals. Robert E Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Jefferson Davis. Carving on the rock began in 1923 at the request of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Stone Mountain the city, became then the modern birth place of the Klu Klux Klan, (KKK) who helped to fund the project. For many Americans, this sculpture on the mountain is an icon of white supremacy.
Terry Tempest Williams stated “the region of the American West shares common ground with the South: each has found its voice in loss. The South was forever shaped by the civil war … and we in the West are in the midst of our own … it is a battle over public and private uses of land… what will remain sovereign.” (Home work 7) Over 4 million people visit this monument annually-Americans and foreigners. The monument boasts a laser show from May-October where people picnic beneath it to watch in amazement. The killings of some members of the African American church in South Carolina, in 2015, and Stacey Abrams (the first African -American minority leader in the Georgia House of Representative and gubernatorial candidate 2018) declared it “a blight on our state” galvanized supporters for and against the monuments’ removal.
One Race Movement led by Reverend Ferrell Brown, grandson of founder of the KKK, met on the mountain and sought to “depoliticize and bring restoration and healing “to the place. (Washington Post. September 2017.) Williams wrote that attempts to rescue the last viable population of bull trout in Elk County Nevada by closing off access to them triggered a firestorm among ranchers against the move; so too the calls by Georgians and other Americans to remove or destroy the monument, because of its racist birth, the Sons of Confederate Veterans, The League of the South and their supporters erupted in a firestorm of support in protests in Stone Mountain’s village “convinced their way of life and legacy were under attack” (Debra McKinney. Southern Poverty Law Center. February 2018) There are notable voices for removal, like the NAACP, and for its stay, like civil rights icon and confidante of Dr. King, Ambassador Andrew Young. The NAACP join those whose say removal would help to wipe away a deadly American chapter, the supporters insist its presence reminds us of it, thus eliminating repeat. No one tears up history books, the past horrors are still being taught. Perhaps democracy from this monument is the freedom to express opposing views without violence. Those who oppose its presence go there for picnics and protect its surroundings for the next generation. The monuments’ supporters ”have a participatory relationship with it” and supporters feel “the passion of love, concerned with or treating of love…” (Red 16)
Generals.
…you agree with Kingsolver we need wilderness? …you are a city dweller- express a connection with earth?
Kingsolver reminds us of environmental damage, in delicate places “a riparian woodland with an ill-placed dam …ranch or subdivision could permanently end the corridor where hordes of delicate creatures, flutter, swim, prowl, or hop from the mountains down through the desert and back again.” Kingsolver’s love of the wilderness seems rooted in her childhood ancestral home with its scent of decades of tobacco. With the dusty sweetness and all other odors that exist. Kingsolver goes on to expound on that love, her soul, she says, “hankers for the rain she loves, or butterflies that traverse a column of light, or walking half mile to the mail box, or have a discourse with a farmer about the weather.” Yet for all this love, she only stays from May to August. Needing the wilderness am told is romanticizing what was, and city dwellers who become environmentally conscious, romanticize the idea of the wilderness, but will not leave the city. I see the benefit of both dwellings. For all its beauty-the wilderness, whether in Southern Appalachia where the rain pummels the tin roof, while Kingsolver watches the tulip grow through a curtain of rain, or in the Arizona desert with its dominant mesquite and cotton wood trees, she needs a computer-no doubt bought in “the natural habitat of our species” where one would find the pavement with its “street lights, architecture and hominid agenda.” These lights and architecture are consequences of the human exodus from the land which Kingsolver argues cause us to lose a “rooted sense,” which is deep and intangible as religious faith…” On encountering people who exodus the wilderness, they speak of the harsh environment of survival- the unexpected encounters with wild animals, often limited or no electricity, no sanitation pickup- and burying trash-non-biodegradable items, no recycling, or driving great distances to do so, and difficult access to health care, or even 911.
Change in the human experience is inevitable, from hunter-gathers, agriculture, industrial revolutions etc. All these changes brought concomitant diseases. Whatever the change, Kingsolver reminds us that most of our food comes from “dank, muddy earth, and oxygen in our lungs was recently inside a leaf, and that newspapers or books are made from the hearts of trees that died…”
Protecting the wilderness can be divisive. My Guyanese friend complained bitterly that their government pressured by environmentalists, designated a large area of land with natural resources to the indigenous Amerindians-less than 10percent of the population, leaving the rest of the country without those benefits. “How is that justice for the whole?” he asks. “Access to those areas could improve our lives as a people, economically, intellectually and our health.” This governmental step seems to echo Kingsolver, “… people need wild places. We need to experience a landscape that is timeless, whose agenda moves at the pace of speciation and glaciers.” My friend says that describes the Amerindians.
There are city dwellers with an ethos of saving the planet who find a like-minded community. Many plant fruits and vegetables on patios and roof tops in dirt or hydroponics, and often show children from a school or community center as Kingsolver’s husband did how food is grown. City dwellers do composting-many on a small scale, they are adept at recycling-often non-existent in the wilderness, even if there is less material. City dwellers often walk to most places, ride bikes, take public transportation, unlike wilderness dwellers, whose cars like Kingsolver, an old dirt colored sedan, of many years, perhaps don’t get emissions’ testing, and drive to most places. City dwellers pressure city governments to plant trees in areas where many were destroyed to build their homes, and to improve and build more parks. City dwellers frequent farmers markets, or grocery stores with a large organic produce section, and restaurants that boasts menus from farm to table. A growing number of city dwellers are becoming vegans and vegetarians. Most wilderness dwellers are not. Even clothing shops in cities are offering clothing made from recyclable material, probably not found in the wilderness. One could argue that environmental awareness by city dwellers is the offspring of what Kingsolver calls “exodus from the land with the wondrous ways people invented to amuse themselves and one another on paved surfaces… it makes me unspeakable sad.” So, city dwellers have adopted Barry Lopez’s recommendation of protecting natures other than our own, by “reimagining our lives as a humanity … and a grace we were not aware we desired until we had tasted it.”
City dwellers believe what Kingsolver admonishes, “the species who surround us with their commotion of howling, singing, or mating love their lives as much as we do ours … and the land still provides our genesis …”
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GENDER and THE ENVIRONMENT DEBATE
What ways are women in the global South affected by environmental degradation?
In Sub-Saharan African countries women spend about 16million hours a day collecting drinking water. The UN Water pdf informs us that inadequate sanitation and hygiene facilities at home and places of work and education, coupled with unsafe drinking water often leads to women and girls leading less safe and productive lives. Because they are often the water collectors- which is often arduous and time consuming, make them targets for attacks while en route for the water and or to use the open toilet. This scarcity or inaccessibility to water, impedes women’s hygiene needs during menstruation and pregnancy.
Central different perspectives.
(a)Ecofeminism makes visible the “woman -nature connection…” (Warren. Introduction to Ecofeminism)
Hobgood-Oster in “Historic and International Evolution” states that Ecofeminists claim that patriarchal structures justify their dominance through categorical dualistic hierarchies -mind/body, male/female, culture/nature. “These oppressive structures “, she continues, “manifest their abusive powers by reinforcing assumptions of these binaries, which must be dismantled, otherwise, humanity remains divided against itself. Oppression of the natural world of women by patriarchal power structures need examination.” (3) “This sex gender nature difference reveals in a different consciousness in woman than man toward nature” is because the female’s body experience of reproduction situate woman differently than man with respect to nature.” This stems from the western dominant masculine forms of experiencing the world, through ‘objective’ or ‘scientific’ approach. (Warren) As realistic as this speciality and position seem, the critics question “the woman and nature link, the core of EcoFeminism, because it is essentialist in nature.” (Hobgood-Oster, 12)
(b)Agarwal’s description of woman’s relationship with nature is not one of domination by man. In “The Gender And Environment Debate: Lessons from India” Agarwal “suggests that woman’s and man’s relationship with nature is rooted in material reality, in their specific forms of interaction with the environment.” Agarwal reminds us “poor peasant and tribal women are responsible for fetching fuel and fodder the main cultivators, acquire special knowledge about species varieties and processes of natural regeneration in their everyday interactions with nature.” (126) “This knowledge,” she adds, “is passed on to them by their mothers. They could be viewed as both victims of the destruction of nature and repositories of knowledge about nature in ways distinct from men of their class.” (126) It therefore stands to reason, “on the basis of their experiential understanding and knowledge, they could provide a special perspective on the process of environmental regeneration.” (127)
Most appealing perspective.
In India a variety of essential items are gathered by rural households from the village commons and forests for everyday personal use and sale…” (Agarwal. 127) Agarwal gave a fuller description and better understanding of the lives of tribal women. The western writers especially Hobgood-Oster, and to a lesser extent Warren, fail to give a working description of women working in nature dominated by men, there was no group they focused on. Both focused on too many authors, and their many publications and offered snippets of what this domination means without offering an alternate explanation. The women’s knowledge of nature by Agarwal was informative, and surprising. The western writers were very focused on scholarship- even Warren’s list of 8, more informative than Hobgood-Oster, yet lacked concrete examples of this core of Ecofeminism. Agarwal’s 40 pages were illuminating.
A woman’s work is never done. (my interpretation)
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ECOFEMINISM. WHAT IS IT?
This blog gives a bird’s eye view of this political and or philosophical global feminist movement that highlights the control of nature, woman, and animal by the patriarchy. This knowledge is the foundation of its work. Recognition of this calls for a collaborative society where there is no gender dominance, in order to address environmental concerns, and find sustainable solutions. As unifying a movement as this appears, racism reared its ugly head, leaving Afro-Ecowomanists feeling undermined.
Find an image.
In ecofeminist principles, author Hobgood-Oster wrote “life on earth is an interconnected web, not a hierarchy,” and western industrial civilization subjugated women. In “Historic International Evolution,” Hobgood-Oster posits, that racism within ecofeminist, and feminist dialogues has been prominent. “White ecofeminist,” she contends, “have often essentialized racial difference.” (10) Essentialism assumes that cross-culturally and historically people of a particular race and gender share the same traits. (13) One would assume that mind set is archaic, so too the racism faced by African-American Ecowomanist in this feminist movement. Theirs is an intersection of race and gender, but racism is most dominant. Hobgood-Oster reminds us “the political power of white women in academic organizations undermines women of color.” (10) “They identify with racism as the most dominant oppression in their experience, while sexism is secondary.” (11) “Environmental racism,” Hobgood-Oster adds, is growing in the USA and globally, thus resulting in shifting political alliances of ecowomanists, from a feminist agenda to one engaging in issues of race and class. (11) Shamara Riley in “Ecofeminism and The Sacred” agrees. “…Afrocentric ecowomanism … articulates link between male supremacy and environmental degradation, there is far more stress on distinctive features such as race and class that leave an impression markedly different from ecofeminists’ theories” (197) (11)
Give an overview of Ecofeminism.
“The term” writes Hobgood-Oster “was introduced by Francoise d”Eaubonne in her book La Feminisme ou la Mort (Feminism or death 1974.) There is no acceptable or orthodox “ecofeminism,” (1) it is multifaceted and multi-located. This is echoed by Warren in “Introduction to Ecofeminism” who states there are different perspectives such as liberal, racial socialist, third world, and black which reflect different feminist perspectives and different understandings of the solution to pressing environmental problems. Hobgood-Oster reminds us that oppression in its varied forms are connected and emerged from the patriarchal systems, with the domination of woman, nature, and animals. Ecofeminism challenges this system through various political alliances from different angles. This system justifies its dominance-per ecofeminism, by dualistic hierarchies-like mind/body, male/female, heaven/earth, white/non-white. The patriarchy continues their abuse by “reinforcing assumptions based of these binaries,” (3) for example into religious constructs. In the Bible’s book of Genesis, Eve the woman was demonized, and the animal-the snake.
Ecofeminists have engaged in protests, and boycotts to bring attention to injustice related to women and the environment; they also engaged in antinuclear and antimilitarists protests during the height of the cold war. (9) They try to stay connected globally. They met at the U.N. conference in Nairobi in 1985 and connected with local artists to continue their work against oppression of women. Likewise, in Chile, organized by Con-Spirando Collective which operates a woman center in Santiago focusing on ecofeminist activism and tries “to weave a network of women in Latin America interested in feminist theology and ecofeminism and women holding rituals.” (12) There is the connection with animals and the focus on the meat industry with the exploitation of women. As unified as this movement appears, the scourge of racism is present. The white women in these organizations are powerful politically and often undermine women of color. (10) Perhaps not surprisingly, there are critics of the movement, ecofeminists themselves who question the woman and nature link, the core of ecofeminism. (12) There are many literary works on this topic-such as (a) Lerner, Gerda. “The Creation of Patriarchy.” (b) Plumwood, Val. “Feminism and the Mastery of Nature.” (c) Shamara Shantu, Riley. “Ecofeminism and the Sacred” One is reminded of the expectation of the movement. “Things will not just happen … women must do something.” (Gaard, ed., 3) Spoken by Wangari Maathai (renowned Kenyan social activist-and first African woman to win the Nobel Prize, and NAACP image Award, not mentioned in the readings) at the world women’s congress for a Healthy Planet in 1991.
Is feminism relevant today? According to Purnima Singh if only for environmental discourse. The movement’s spread started in Chipko India in the early 1970, the Green Belt (started By Maathai) in Kenya later in that decade, and antinuclear pro-environment movements in the west in the 1980s and 1990. Singh contends that environment damage is a feminist issue, along with climate change-both urgent social global issues today. For it to be intersectional she argues, focus must be on relationships women have in society with each other. She cites indigenous women who live close to nature and suffer a lot in the face of environmental degradation. Such communities need to be empowered and supported, to avoid further degradation. There is a paucity of recent answers to this questions on line.
Identify one of Warren’s connections.
The one I chose is #3. Empirical and Experiential connections.
Plastic in the cross hairs. The U.N. environmental forum states that environmental damage is behind !:4 global deaths. Caption next to the photo.
The photo echoes Warren’s linking children, people of color with environmental destruction. One could assume in that sea of plastic, there are pollutants. Warren argues that “First World Development polices result in practices regarding food and water which contributes to women’s inabilities to provide for their families.” The explosion of plastic especially in drink is global. I have encountered travellers who bemoan this as they visit villages in various countries with residents most of whom are poor. But the little marts in the areas are full of these drinks- most of which are unhealthy, and expensive, but sought for because they are foreign and convey a sense of importance with the ability to purchase. These eventually litter their environment because of a lack of refuse disposal. These mega drinks producing First World Companies, do not provide or assist local governments in those villages in refuse disposal.
One traveller expressed sorrow at seeing in an Asian country a young girl who should be in school, picking up plastic for a mart owner for a nominal fee. We both felt that it is likely she could be a victim of rape.
In the Ecofeminism Background reading, the author states that “ecofeminists argue that we must look at our relationship with the environment through a feminist perspective.” We are warned by them that “environmental degradation is brought about by male -centered thinking(androcentric), and we must look to our patriarchal culture for the roots of domination of nature, woman, ideals and values associated with “maleness” If this is the expectation for feminist who are mostly women, it begs the question, why is there essentialist thinking, perhaps the cover for the practice of racism in the movement? Or perhaps the underpinnings of the start of the feminist movement, which did not include non-white women. Where do we go from here? Can white women achieve these goals alone? They are accused of speaking for women. With a paucity of information on the movement’s relevance today, a more inclusive approach might salvage the work accomplished years ago and energize younger women.
the taste for meatless dishes by preparing new recipes found in “Vegan Man”and to reduce my grocery bill as suggested by the author; doing so, by adhering to the recipes, my journey into veganism should be effective and bring unexpected ‘beneficial’ results as touted by food experts.
Women sit at the edge of a teak plantation in India.
