Jessica D’Angelo (0765801)
Assignment #2
GEOG*3090 (F14)
Professor: Roberta Hawkins
Gender and the Environment
In this assignment, I will be examining the work Breast Cancer, the Environment & Protection by Sat Dharam Kaur (2003, 44-46). I will argue that the article presents a strong ecofeminist view, and I will support this argument through evidence from Women in Nature, by Vandana Shiva (1989). I will also scrutinize how feminist environmentalism, feminist political ecology and post-structural gender and environment may or may not be applicable to this case. The article by Sat Dharam Kaur (2003) illustrates the importance of being conscious of the daily decisions we make in regards to our personal health. Ensuring
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“I think of the breast…as the epitomy of the planetary tree of life” (Kaur, 2003, 44). Shiva’s (1989) concept of dualisms play a large role in this article. The author makes it clear that the male/culture dualism is more prominent in society than that of female/nature: “Many of these are choices of convenience…spraying our lawns with pesticides, packaging and storing food in plastic containers and flushing the toilet—which indirectly threaten the survival of our species” (Kaur, 2003). According to Kaur, the ‘right’ choices to make concerning the environment is through health of women’s breasts, and subsequently, through breast milk. The solution: to put women’s health and the environment above convenience. This would result in the rearrangement of the hierarchy of male/culture and the female/nature dualisms, putting women and nature above men and convenience. This is the solution to solving environmental problems, according to Shiva (1989, …show more content…
The author looks at men and women on an individual scale: “We can eat lower on the food chain, consuming a primarily vegetarian diet…whether you are a man or a woman, if you plan to have children one day, do an intense sauna detoxification at least 6 months before conceiving” (Kaur, 2003, 45). In this sense, it focuses on the daily choices both men and women make, although it still puts a heavier emphasis on women’s responsibilities to ‘save’ the environment. There is no mention of the socially constructed roles of women and men, but only the biological differences being the cause for the dependency on women to preserve the health of mother earth. It is not illustrated that gender influences roles, nor do roles influence what it means to be of a certain gender. Kaur (2003) believes it to be a biological responsibility to protect the planet. Although, Kaur (2003) focuses on the local scale, due to global institutions, such as laws surrounding the protection and purity of breastmilk: “what does it mean when this perfect food has no laws that protect it, no health practitioners who systematically test its purity” (Kaur, 2003, 44), therefore it has a minute element of feminist political
Internationally, issues revolving around the female body and reproduction are extremely controversial. For a woman, her body is a very private matter. At the same time, however, a woman's body and her reproduction rights are the center of attention in many public debates. Several questions regarding women's reproductive rights remain unanswered. How much control do women have over their bodies? What kind of rules can be morally imposed upon women? And who controls the bodies of women? Although the public continues to debate these topics, certain conclusions can been made concerning women and their reproductive rights. An undeniable fact is that government has a large degree of control over female reproductive organs. All around the world, time and time again, several national governments have implemented policies, enacted laws, and denied women control over their reproductive organs. Several governments have crossed the border between intimate and public matters concerning women's reproductive organs, by making laws about contraceptives, abortion, and family planning programs.
Throughout history, women have always aimed for a recognized place in society. Centuries ago, people looked at the role of women in society as being sociologically inferior. Seeing the revival of the Feminist movement, which boldly opposes the stereotypical characteristics of women in society, on one hand, and promotes the elevation of women's status in society, on the other, one would not find it hard to believe the drastic differences in opinion of people on this issue. What is amazing is how these differences reflect upon scholarly works in science.
This section discusses health psychology and behavioral medicine, making positive life changes, resources for effective life change, controlling stress, behaving, and your good life. Health psychology emphasizes psychology’s role in establishing and maintaining health and preventing and treating illness. It reflects the belief that lifestyle choices, behaviors, and psychological characteristics can play important roles in health. The mind is responsible for much of what happens in the body, it is not the only factor, the body may influence the mind as well. Making positive life changes include health behaviors- practices that have an impact on physical well being. The stages of change model describes the process by which individuals give up bad habits and adopt healthier lifestyles. The model has five stages: precontemplation, contemplation, preparation/ determination, action/ willpower, and
There are many, different oppressions throughout human society that are intricately woven together and interconnected. Many of these oppressions are formed within a patriarchal, Christian theology and involve the body: the body of Earth, the bodies of women, the body of animals. Sallie McFague sets up a model of bodies to help break these connected oppressions. McFague’s work emphasizes that the body and its oppressions are what connects Christian theology, feminism, and ecology. Her model focuses on the metaphorical idea that the body of the earth is the body of God (McFague, 1993).
The socio-biological theory suggests gender appropriate behaviour has evolved to allow humanity to survive. There is supporting evidence in the composition of the human body; men have a larger lung capacity and greater physical strength than women in order to better equip them for protecting their family. In contrast, women are born with child-bearing capacities and are therefore biologically predetermined to care for their children, thus ensuring the human race survives.
Adding onto the to the dexterous disposals undergone in order to disencumber themselves from female infants shortly after birth, disdain and bigotry leading to death and sex-selective abortion are other ways by which many female children die each year. These circumstances are most predominant in patriarchal social orders in which females are devalued and a predilection for boys is incorporated within the developmental social ideologies. India is undergoing a female genocide. The primary cause as to why this occurrence does not jostle or provoke global advertence is because it is accomplished through abortion in oppose to killing the females post birth. In India, abortion in itself is a completely legal procedure and the latitudinarian a...
In order to lead a healthy lifestyle, it is essential that individuals constantly monitor their health. This involves not only physical, but also mental and emotional aspects of the body’s functioning, as they relate to the home, school, work, and leisure environments. If necessary changes are made sooner rather than later, then a stable, balanced and healthy lifestyle will be more consistently maintained. In fact, the World Health Organization says being healthy is feeling that there are few physical or emotional impediments to doing things in your life that you would like. For example, there are many people who are suffering from chronic illnesses who are healthy because they are able to maintain their creativity and vivacity when others cannot. It is evident that self-awareness enc...
This article was written to bring attention to the way men and women act because of how they were thought to think of themselves. Shaw and Lee explain how biology determines what sex a person is but a persons cultures determines how that person should act according to their gender(Shaw, Lee 124). The article brings up the point that, “a persons gender is something that a person performs daily, it is what we do rather than what we have” (Shaw, Lee 126). They ...
The world today revolves around a patriarchal society where it is a man’s world. Men are stereotyped to take jobs such as manual labor, construction, and armed forces while women are stereotyped to become nurses, caregivers, and cooks; but what makes it say that a woman can’t do manual labor or be a construction worker? Marc Breedlove, a behavioral endocrinologist at the University of California at Berkley, explains that gender roles “are too massive to be explained simply by society” (679). These gender behavior differences go far beyond our culture and into our genetics through Darwin’s theories of natural selection, survival of the fittest, and evolution.
healthy is a major component in ones’ overall wellbeing, more so mentally, but being healthy
Ecofeminists hold the domination of women as their focus as they see the root cause of nature domination and the domination of others as due to a patriarchal conceptual framework. Warren states that a conceptual framework is defined as “a set of basic beliefs, values, attitudes, and assumptions which shape and reflect how one views oneself and one’s world. (64)” It is a “lens” through which one perceives reality and our “lens”, according to the Ecofeminist, is patriarchal. Patriarchy is a “male biased”, gendered institution that rejects convergence and embraces dichotomies and dualisms. Patriarchal views privilege masculine over feminine, reason over emotion, competition over cooperation and force over empathy.
Ecofeminism is an admixture of ecology and feminism. A French feminist, Francoise d'Eaubonne, first used it in 1974 (Mellor, 1997 p. 44). Ecological feminism focuses on gender as a category of analysis and the perspectives of women are integral to its analysis, it is committed to the importance of valuing and preserving ecosystems. The movement recognizes all social systems of domination: racism, classicism, ageism, and sexism as interconnecting.
With every new technology that is born, there must be many questions as to whether this technology is beneficial or harmful as well as analyze who is affects. This especially holds true in dealing with the technology of artificial insemination. With the cultural mainstreaming of artificial insemination, there have been many articles written discussing the ethics of such decisions. Most of these articles are written by feminist authors with the purpose of discussing the impact of this new technology on women and how it affects their roles as mothers in society.
The study of contemporary Postcolonial feminist Mahasweta Devi’s Short Stories “Drupadi, Breast-giver, Behind the Bodice” utters the viewpoint of class and gender clearly. It underlines the fact that the society in which Mahasweta works seems to be starkly divided into two classes- the rich and privileged, and the not are unprivileged. The woman emerges to be a class of low standard has been dominated and doesn’t seem to have attained her freedom even in independent countries. Her sufferings are often under-looked and eventually she merges into the latter class which never asserting her rights and dignity.
Since "the voices of ecofeminism are diverse," it requires definition (Zabinski 315). A postmodern movement that "abandons the hardheaded scientific approach . . . in favor of a more spiritual consciousness," ecofeminist theory links the oppression of women with the oppression of nature (Salleh 339). More specifically, "ecological feminism is the position that there are important connections -- historical, experiential, symbolic, theoretical -- between the domination of women and the domination of nature, an understanding which is crucial to both feminism and environmental ethics" (Warren, The Power and the P...