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Environment and feminism
Environment and feminism
Environment and feminism
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Vandana Shiva has nicely put a lot of strings together to form a web of ‘ecological destruction’ including oppression of women, exploitation of nature, colonization, patriarchal system, scientific methods and many more. Though a good book, I find there are some defaults, some generalizations and few romanticized situations, ignoring the repetitiveness observed at many points.
The writer has undermined and criticized science which is becoming a part and parcel of every human’s life. It is not science which has lead to the destruction of nature but the misuse and misunderstanding of science. I believe, the scientific steps taken to increase output, enhance productivity have been done in a good will but slowly turning out problematic. It is not
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Throughout her book, she has written about women as nurtures and sharing special bond with ‘prakriti’ and doubtlessly supportive. She describes a deeper meaning of feminity with the nature but her equating every woman with nurturing, life-sustaining feminine principles is a bit exaggerated. She assumes that nature and women share a lot in common, therefore women understands nature best and always work in a way which is supportive to nature. Also, she believes that it has always been men indulged in science, development and exploitation. If women are given opportunity, they are also achieve success in the ‘male dominated’ world of machines and …show more content…
The environmentalist thinking and politics go hand in hand. The relationship of women with nature is not different because woman is ‘woman’ but because of the historical relation shared by men, women and nature. The work of women and man should be complimentary to each other instead of being seen as hierarchical. A society cannot be developed by undermining ones work and criticizing others, but by developing a gendered relationship.
Also, talking about the patriarchal society talked repetitively in the text, it seems as it has been the framework of men. But don’t women participate (if not equally but considerable) in reproducing patriarchal society?
Shiva talks about the males being destructive but introduction of farming itself is a distortion in the functioning of nature. Agriculture is not the natural nature of nature, but harvested by humans, males-females equally. It is not that just the introduction of science is a
Everything known to man is held in some sort of balance. It is a delicate balance, one which swings rhythmically to the ebb and flow of this world. Many have studied it but it has proven too complex, too broad to understand everything that is at work. That is why it must be preserved. One such movement has recently begun which looks exclusively to preserve this balance, ecofeminism. Terry Tempest Williams is just that, an ecofeminist. In her memoir Refuge¸ Williams attempts to examine the ecological and social worlds that balance on this pendulum. Refuge brings together a range of topics and ideas with her own mix of environmental, social, and cultural problems to present the reader with a clearly laid out stance for ecofeminism. There is an ecofeminist stance in Refuge because she believes women have a bond with nature that men do not, land has its own life, and all things were created equally.
The Conservation movement was a driving force at the beginning of the twentieth century. It was a time during which Americans were coming to terms with their wasteful ways, and learning to conserve what they quickly realized to be limited resources. In the article from the Ladies’ Home Journal, the author points out that in times past, Americans took advantage of what they thought of as inexhaustible resources. For example, "if they wanted lumber for their houses, rails for their fences, fuel for their stoves, they would cut down half a forest at a time; and whatever they could not use or sell they would leave to rot on the ground. They never bothered their heads to inquire where more wood was coming from when this was gone" (33). The twentieth century opened with a vision towards the future, towards preserving the land that had previously been taken for granted. The Conservation movement came along around the same time as one of the first major waves of the feminist movement. With the two struggles going on: one for the freedom of nature and the other for the freedom of women, it stands to follow that they coincided. As homemakers, activists, and citizens of the United States of America, women have had an important role in Conservation.
In Belmont’s article “Ecofeminism and the Natural Disaster Heroine” she notes that the definition of ecofeminism stems from the “theory that the ideologies which authorize injustices based on gender, race, and class are related to the ideologies which sanction the exploitation and degradation of the environment” (351). In Jurassic Park, the film makes clear distinction of gender boundaries. For instance, when the group first meets th...
Literatures had always been the reflections of the world’s issues. These literatures showed the problems within society in the period of time. In the book, “The Natural”, by Bernard Malamud had developed how women were seen as an object to men that they did not have the equal rights and social status as men. Also, women in the novel were classified as the trophies to men, whom they were either gold diggers digging for massive fortunes for the future, or accomplishments for men to chase after them. The author had established several female characters to optimize these issues. In the novel, Harriet Bird, Memo Paris, and Iris Lemon were representing different figures of female in that period of time. Both Harriet and Memo were being the negative effects to the main protagonist, Roy Hobbes, while Iris was the positive hope for Roy. The author chose to use these few characters to criticize the stereotypes of women in that period, and how they affected the others around them.
It could be argued that many of the male characters in the novel are suffering from a type of virgin/whore syndrome. As long as the women remain docile receptacles they are "good"; when they resist or even question masculine authority, they are "bad." Rose complains, "When we are good girls and accept our circumstances, we're glad about it....When we are bad girls, it drives us crazy" (99). The women have been indoctrinated to the point that they initially buy into and accept these standards of judgem ent. The type of patriarchy described by Smiley simply serves to show the inscription of the marginalization of women by men in the novel and in our society.
explores not only the way in which patriarchal society, through its concepts of gender , its objectification of women in gender roles, and its institutionalization of marriage, constrains and oppresses women, but also the way in which it, ultimately, erases women and feminine desires. Because women are only secondary and other, they become the invisible counterparts to their husbands, with no desires, no voice, no identity. (Wohlpart 3).
Part A Gender is a concept that is strongly emphasized in a majority of the stories, which are presented in the text, Separate Journeys by Geeta Dharmarajan. A very explicit story about gender roles and performance is presented in “Izzat” by Ashapurna Devi. Basanti’s daughter, Joyi is brought to Basanti’s former employer, Sumitra, in hopes of finding a safe place for Joyi to grow into her adulthood. We see gender performance both in the environment where Joyi lives, as well as in the way in which her physical appearance is emphasized by those around her. The reason that Basanti had to bring Joyi somewhere to protect her Izzat, or honor, is because there are males where Joyi lives that are intensely harassing her, almost to the point of there being an attempted assault.
Right from the ancient epics and legends to modern fiction, the most characteristic and powerful form of literary expression in modern time, literary endeavour has been to portray this relationship along with its concomitants. Twentieth century novelists treat this subject in a different manner from those of earlier writers. They portray the relationship between man and woman as it is, whereas earlier writers concentrated on as it should be. Now-a-days this theme is developing more important due to rapid industrialization and growing awareness among women of their rights to individuality, empowerment, employment and marriage by choice etc. The contemporary Indian novelists in English like Anita Desai, Sashi Deshpande, Sashi Tharoor, Salman Rusdie, Shobha De, Manju Kapoor, Amitav Ghosh etc. deal with this theme minutely in Indian social milieu.
Although the power source of social development is the advancement of technology, technology discovery is just a part of the system and it is an integral part, but only "essential" conditions, rather than "full" conditions. Anyway, the article has made the readers to think that the scientific process is not inevitable, but if without technology, people cannot live in this highly developed world. “Scientific knowledge is not inevitable” (Andrew Irvine). There is no guarantee that scientific progress will keep increasing. As long as people have the belief to live better, the scientific progress is not essential or necessary to exist.
In his article entitled "Enemies of Promise," J. Michael Bishop attempts to defend the creditability of science. As a scientist, Bishop believes that science has "solved many of nature's puzzles and greatly enlarged human knowledge" (237) as well as "vastly improved human welfare" (237). Despite these benefits, Bishop points out that some critics are skeptical and have generally mistrusted the field. Bishop believes that "the source of these dissatisfactions appears to be an exaggerated view of what science can do" (239). In the defense of science, Bishop argues that this problem is not due to science rather, it results from a lack of resources. "When scientists fail to meet unrealistic expectations, they are condemned by critics who do not recognize the limits of science" (240).
Political ecology began in the 1960s as a response to the neglect of the environment and political externalities from which it is spawned. Political ecology is the analysis of social forms and humans organizations that interact with the environment, the phenomena in and affecting the developing world. Political ecology also works to provide critiques and alternatives for negative reactions in the environment. This line of work draws from all sorts of fields, such as geography, forestry, environmental sociology, and environmental history in a complex relationship between politics, nature, and economics. It is a multi-sided field where power strategies are conceived to remove the unsustainable modern rationality and instead mobilize social actions in the globalized world for a sustainable future. The field is focused in political ethics to refresh sustainability, and the core questions of the relationships between society and ecology, and the large impacts of globalization of humanized nature.
Ecofeminism is an environmental movement, born in the late 1970s and early 1980s, from the necessity to give the possibility to women to have an active participation in ecological issues. In the West, gender and environment are the main topics of a large literature, which relate these two elements in ideological terms. In India however, ecofeminism has become an important and fundamental movement able to protect, in an efficient way, even if towards a slow process, the environmental system and the education of women. Growing protests against environmental destruction and struggles for survival made clear that caste, class and gender issues are interlinked. In this chapter, I will look at the historical background of ecofeminism, and at its main theories. Then I will explore the ecofeminist movement, its importance and influence in India.
Though in theory, ecological feminism has been around for a number of years, it emerged as a political movement in the 1970s. Francoise d’Eaubonne, a French feminist philosopher, coined the term “Ecofeminism” in 1974. Ecofeminism is a feminist approach to environmental ethics. Karen Warren, in her book Ecofeminist Philosophy, claims that feminist theorists question the source of the oppression of women, and seek to eliminate this oppression. Ecofeminists consider the oppression of women, (sexism) the oppression of other humans (racism, classism, ageism, colonialism), and the domination of nature (naturism) to be interconnected. In her book New Woman/New Earth, Rosemary Radford Reuther wrote, “Women must see that there can be no liberation for them and no solution to the ecological crisis within a society whose fundamental model of relationships continues to be one of domination. They must unite the demands of the women’s movement with those of the ecological movement to envision a radical reshaping of the basic socioeconomic relations and the underlying values of this society (204).”
Patriarchy is a system lead by males. Therefore, patriarchal societies are run by and favour the male gender, thus based on this male dominated system, females have the potential to be marginalized. Literature often mirrors society's ills. Authors highlight oppression so that awareness can be drawn towards the betterment of society. One of the quintessential authors of feminist critique is Jane Austen, in her novels, the protagonists exist in patriarchal societies and their struggles are the universal female struggles.
Environmental philosophy tries to make sense of the unexamined values, assumptions and ideologies behind humanities treatment of the environment and, in doing so, aims at helping to elicit an effective human response to related issues (Curry, 2011). Environmental philosophy, has gone beyond being merely an academic pursuit, now requiring the world’s population take moral responsibility for the damages caused by their industrial advances on natural systems.