Explain ecofeminists interconnected perspectives…
“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.
