Eric Parsons WGS 307-7101

An environmental issue important to me is reducing the waste that I and my household create. While the gender element of this issue is not immediately clear, it is obvious that natural spaces are destroyed for the creation of landfills for human use. Therefore, I plan to take an actionable step to reduce my waste for a week. While reducing the waste I create is not monumental in scale, it will make a difference. If everyone were motivated to make some small changes to their personal habits, a significant amount of environmental destruction could be prevented. These changes could be as simple as using re-usable grocery totes instead of plastic bags, walking or biking to work instead of driving, or watering their lawn one less day each week to conserve water.

I eat Greek yogurt with granola each morning for breakfast. A container of yogurt provides me with two breakfasts, and a box of granola lasts about four days. Yogurt containers are made from polypropylene, which is the plastic marked with a “5.” Polypropylene is not recyclable in Montana. I am throwing 2-3 plastic containers in the trash each week. I also throw away the plastic bags that granola is packaged in inside of a box. It bothers me to contribute so much plastic waste to the landfill.

My solution will be to make my own Greek yogurt and granola at home, enough to last for at least a week. The primary ingredient for the yogurt is milk, which comes in a recyclable plastic jug (HDPE). The ingredients for granola I can buy in bulk (less packaging) and they have a long shelf life (oats, nuts, seeds, and things already in the cabinet).  While making things I usually buy is not revolutionary, it will create less waste, and it will perhaps encourage me to spend more time in order to pollute less.

If every consumer were to invest time into being more environmentally minded, we could make an incredible amount of difference.

Brazilian theologist Ivone Gebara makes a clear connection between the oppression of women and nature in her article titled Ecofeminism: A Latin American Perspective. “Our Latin Christian tradition stressed deeply not only the dependence of women on men but also the anthropological superiority of human beings.” (p. 93) Gebara declares without equivocation that the Christian faith in Brazil teaches women to rely on men (reinforcing patriarchy and it’s accompanying harms) and teaches humans to dominate nature (leading to the destruction of the environment for the benefit of humans).

In Speak Truth to Power, Wangari Maathai helps readers further understand the connection between the oppression of women and nature. The book’s editor Kerry Kennedy informs us that 70 percent of farmers in Kenya are women, and Maathai provides anecdotes from her activism. Maathai recalls forums at which women spoke about their needs: “The women feel their families are now very weak and cannot resist diseases, that their bodies are impoverished because of an environment that is degraded.”

In this example we can see the distinct impact of environmental degradation, which ecofeminists may call the oppression of nature, on the women of Kenya. In the Global South, women are the primary caregivers in terms of food and drinking water. It is not a hypothesis to declare that the oppression of nature reinforces the oppression of women in much of the world.

When we look past the distractions of lost material resources and cultural traditions, we discover that marginalized communities, and especially women in those communities, live with a sense of disempowerment. Whether present in the minds of these people while they scrape to survive is beside the point. The fact that they have to work all their waking hours to simply not starve is proof enough that they do not have the option to pursue more comfortable means of living. We don’t need for them to explain that they are stuck in order to recognize it in their circumstances.

Maathai reminds us, however, that when practical solutions are offered, women and other marginalized groups can take positive steps toward the control of certain outcomes. When her organization, The Green Belt Movement, provided seedlings and incentives to rural Kenyan women, the outcome was remarkable. “Tree-planting empowered these women because it was not a complicated thing. It was something that they could do and see the results of. They could, by their own actions, improve the quality of their lives.”

Kennedy informs readers that by 2000, The Green Belt Movement had assisted in the planting of fifteen million trees and the production of income for eighty thousand Kenyans, with efforts expanding around the world. While the Movement may have offered an opportunity for improvement, it was the people in need whose hands planted the trees and nurtured them to maturity. As we reflect on Gebara’s writing, we can see this as an example of how theory is important for long term change but ultimately it is concrete action that makes a difference in the lives of women in the Global South. Gebara shares her perspective on the “best” way to practice ecofeminism: “While these discussions are going on, lots of women and children are starving and dying with diseases produced by a capitalist system able to destroy lives and keep profit for only a few.” (Gebara, p. 94)

When seeking for solutions to both female disempowerment and ecological destruction, we must remember Gebara’s writing: “Female poverty depends on female and male wealth. Female poverty depends on the destruction of ecosystems.” ( p. 95)

In Recife, Brazil we can see the destruction of the local waterway and it’s impacts on marginalized families, especially women and children. A local social worker tells journalist Talita Correa that many people in the area “live in a pitiful situation… Like they are animals.” Recife mother Fabiana Silva explains “We spend two months collecting all kinds of aluminum material and then we sell it to a company that pays us 130 reals [around $55] for recycling. I raise my three kids like this.”

How do women and children feel empowered to do any more than survive when they have to swim in garbage filled canals collecting cans to sell? What opportunities would be possible for them if their environment was clean and healthy? How could these local people contribute to keeping their environment clean and healthy if their economic circumstances allowed them leisure time to reinvest in their community?

Lifting women and children out of poverty and restoring nature and two sides of the same coin. These goals are not only connected but dependent on each other. The central premise of ecofeminism is the connection between the oppression of women and nature, and the more I learn the more convinced I am of this connection. Whether feminists integrate ecological concerns into their practice or ecologists begin to practice feminist activism, Gebara reminds us, doesn’t matter. What matters is action taken to both uplift women and conserve and restore nature, if we want to improve the lives of all animals, including humans, on Earth.

Works Cited:

As students of feminism and social justice, we may ask ourselves why the theory of intersectionality is an important aspect of the ecofeminist perspective. Environmental philosopher A.E. Kings provides an answer: “Intersectionality has become a powerful tool when applied to ecofeminist analysis of the relationship between women and the environment, particularly in its ability to assist in furthering our understanding of how a person’s relationship with the environment (in the Global South or North) is not completely dependent on any one aspect of their lives, whether gender, race, class, sexuality or age but rather a combination of all of the above and more besides.” (p. 71)

A.E. Kings writes of intersectionality as “a web of entanglement, [rather] than a traffic junction or road. Each spoke of the web representing a continuum of different types of social categorisation such as gender, sexuality, race, or class; while encircling spirals depict individual identities. The spirals collide with each spoke at a different level of the continuum, illustrating the context-specific privilege or discrimination experienced by the individual. A spider’s web preserves the necessary complexity of intersectionality and the potential ‘stickiness’ of cultural categories, which can often leave people stuck between two or more intersecting or conflicting social categories.” (p. 65-66)

This is due to Kings’ background in environmental philosophy, but we’ve heard of this “web” before. Ynestra King speaks of an interconnected web in The Ecology of Feminism and the Feminism of Ecology (1989). King writes “Life on earth is an interconnected web, not a hierarchy. There is no natural hierarchy; human hierarchy is projected onto nature and then used to justify social domination. Therefore, ecofeminist theory seeks to show the connections between all forms of domination, including the domination of nonhuman nature…”

Leah Thomas writes that Intersectional Environmentalism “advocates for the protection of people and the planet and addresses how the injustices happening to marginalized communities and the earth are interconnected.” Thomas’s view originates from racial justice movements such as Black Lives Matter and youth concern around climate change. Thomas’s re-framing of Ecofeminism as Intersectional Environmentalism is extremely important for the advancement of ecological protection because it offers a more inclusive perspective. Thomas tells us she felt alienated when learning about ecofeminism as taught from a Western, white perspective. Conservation, environmental protection, and sustainability benefit from the involvement of all people. If the term Intersectional Environmentalism brings BIPOC folks to the work by making them feel seen and welcome, then it is an important for the movement.

It seems that A.E. Kings, agrees with this point, writing “By being neither too complicated nor too simple, intersectionality has the capacity to draw a wide audience from the full feminist spectrum.” (p 68). The full feminist spectrum can accomplish more for the natural world than one group alone or many divided feminist collectives.

Thomas writes “the mainstream feminist spaces didn’t always feel inclusive, representative, or safe; they didn’t acknowledge all the intersections of my identity and how it applied to my experience as a woman. I realized that my Blackness shouldn’t be an extra “add on” to my feminism or environmentalism. When intersectional theory is applied to both, I feel seen and heard in those spaces.” The description of how feminist and environmentalist spaces opened up to her when an intersectional approach was taken validates the origins of intersectional theory: Black feminists in the ’70s pointing out how their experiences were different than their white peers. Kimberle Crenshaw brought us the term intersectionality for this exact reason; to help us recognize how the totality of our identity shapes how we share space. Thomas writes that both Ecofeminism and Intersectional Theory are crucial for Intersectional Environmentalism. “They work together to accomplish a similar goal and advocate for the protection of both people and the planet.”

Ultimately, the ecofeminist perspective of interconnectedness, a result of an intersectional approach to feminism and environmentalism, benefits the natural world by inviting all people regardless of gender, race, class, sexual orientation, or any other identifier into the work of conservation and environmental protection.

Works Cited:

Kings, A.E. “Intersectionality and the Changing Face of Ecofeminism.” Ethics & the Environment, vol. 22 no. 1, 2017, p. 63-87. Project MUSE, https://dx.doi.org/10.2979/ethicsenviro.22.1.04.

In their paper Gender Equality and State Environmentalism, Kari Norgaard and Richard York attempt to answer a simple question: “Does the degree of gender equality in the political realm within a nation have an impact on state environmental policy?” (p. 507). The metric used by Norgaard and York is the ratification of environmental treaties. Simply stated, does a higher percentage of female members in a nation’s governing body make that nation more likely to sign on to international environmental treaties than nations with fewer female members?

Norgaard and York expect the answer to their question to be “yes,” because “Existing work in the area of gender and the environment and ecological feminism suggests several reasons that nations with greater gender equality may be more prone to protecting the environment. These reasons roughly fall into two overlapping categories. First, numerous studies from environmental sociology, social psychology, and political science find a gender gap for environmental concern, values, and perceptions of environmental risks (Bord and O’Connor 1997; Davidson and Freudenburg 1996). This research indicates that women are more likely than men to express support for environmental protection and that women consider a variety of environmental risks, from nuclear power to toxic substances,
to be more serious than do men. From another angle, a now considerable body of
ecofeminst theory asserts that sexism and environmental degradation are interconnected processes. This perspective holds that the values, ideologies, institutions,
and economic systems that shape human-environmental relationships are themselves gendered and describes how these factors enable sexism and environmental
degradation in mutually reinforcing ways (Merchant 1980; Seager 1993). This second category of explanation ties both gender discrimination and environmental
degradation to a common hierarchical social structure that simultaneously devalues
both women and nature.” (p 508).

Using a scale developed by Roberts and Vasquez (2002) based on the ratification of 16 multilateral environmental treaties which indicates state support for environmental policies in the late twentieth century, the percentage of legislator positions in national Parliament occupied by women in 1999, the Freedom House freedom index (1997) to indicate a nation’s realistic democracy, and some basic indicators of development, the authors looked at 130 nations. These nations made up 92% of the world’s population and 95% of the world’s economic activity in 1997. As Norgaard and York expected, “societies with greater representation of women in Parliament are more prone to ratify environmental treaties.” (p. 512)

We continue to see a connection between female political leadership and state environmentalism. This paper provides additional analysis on the impact of female political empowerment on the environment, specifically air quality in Europe. Using air quality data from 230 European regions and 27 EU countries in the 2020-2021 time period, the authors conclude “Taken together, our findings suggest that women’s political empowerment is a robust determinant of air quality in European regions.” (Rios, Barba, Gianmoena, Pascual, 2024)

In this TED Talk, Dr. Katharine Wilkinson discusses equity in agriculture, education, and family planning as top solutions for addressing climate change. Wilkinson reminds us that “women are vital voices and agents for change on this planet” (10:53). From our studies in ecofeminism and the larger field of feminist theory, we can be quite confident that without more female political leaders, equity in these spaces is very likely to be unrealized.

In their paper on descriptive representation in congress, Lowande, Ritche, and Lauterbach, make the case that female politicians do more for women. They state “Women in Congress are about 8 percentage points more likely to intervene on behalf of women.” (p 655). While this research is on the U.S. Congress and we’re largely discussing the effects of climate change on women/girls in the Global South, the point stands. Lowande, Ritche, and Lauterbach state “We find that legislators are active advocates on behalf of protected classes with whom they have shared backgrounds. These results are consistent across women, racial and ethnic minorities, and military veterans in Congress.” (p 656).

We also read of some interesting statistics in the Lowande, et al. paper: “We find significant differences in the intervention patterns of female, minority, and veteran legislators that suggest descriptive representation leads to substantive representation in Congress. In each case, we find that in a given Congress, legislators are around 6–9 percentage points more likely to contact federal agencies on behalf
of constituents with whom they share background characteristics, when compared to their nonveteran, male, or white colleagues. The differences are most striking for
women and men in Congress, where being represented by a female legislator is associated with a 40% increase in the probability of relevant service.” (p. 645) Plainly stated, if you’re representative doesn’t share your experience, you’re unlikely to be well served by them.

Works Cited:

These images taken from Examples of The Sexual Politics of Meat — Carol J. Adams show a clear connection between the consumption of meat and the objectification of women. Two of these photos show women (or parts of women) as perhaps interchangeable with meat, and two show women on display alongside meat, like an accompaniment, or a side dish.

This is validated by Carol Adams’s interview in Antennae, where she states ” Meat-eating is associated with virility, masculinity. Meat eating societies gain male identification by
their choice of food.” (p 13). Other than eating meat, nothing displays virility or masculinity more than access to sex, which the above photos clearly imply.

Adams also states: “A process of objectification/fragmentation/consumption connects women and animals in a patriarchal culture (they become overlapping absent referents).” (p.13). We can clearly see the objectification and fragmentations of women in these images, and if we allow ourselves to assume the “male gaze,” we also consume these women visually. According to Adams, “Consumption is the fulfilment of oppression, the
annihilation of will, of separate identity.” (p. 14).

When searching for images that feminize and sexualize animals, they’re incredibly easy to find.

Here is a screen grab from a commercial for Frank’s Red Hot. In the commercial, the cooked chicken dances seductively while hot sauce is poured on it. This is what Adams calls anthropornography. In the Antennae interview, Adams defines this term: “Anthropornography means animals (usually species of animals presumed to be literally consumable) are presented as sexually consumable, in a way that upholds the sexual exploitation of women.” (p. 14). When further explaining anthropornography and its power, Adams states “It makes animals’ degradation and suffering fun by making animals’
degradation sexy. Simultaneously, it makes women’s degradation fun because to be effective the advertisement requires the implicit reference to women’s sexualized status as subordinate.” (p. 15).

The advertisement for Frank’s above is seen by consumers as silly and funny. This is because we’ve been taught to disassociate our meat from the death of once living animals. Adam’s explains: “Behind every meat meal is the death of the animal whose place the “meat” takes. The function of the absent referent is to allow for the moral abandonment of a being.” (p. 13) That “being” is our dancing chicken. The sexualization of meat and the degradation of women is overlapping, as pointed out by Adams. “The visual “joke” that substitutes one fragmented object for another can be found throughout our culture.” (p. 13). When we laugh at this commercial for hot sauce, we’re buying in to the continued oppression of non-human animals and women.

Works Cited:

In Contextual Moral Vegetarianism by Deane Curtain, there is a reference The Sexual Politics of Meat (Adams, 1989). Curtain references Adams’ writing of “the connection of women and animals through pornographic representations of women as ‘meat’ ready to be carved up…”

When reading this passage and looking at the chosen image, it evokes a clearer understanding of the vegetarian ecofeminist perspective.

Additionally, the genderlessness of the figure carving meat reminds viewers that systems of patriarchal oppression are perpetrated by men and women both. In many contexts, people suffering from oppression chose to live under the rules of their oppressors so as not to suffer further. Patriarchal women enforce rigid gender roles and police the behaviors of other women in order to stand taller in the patriarchy than non-patriarchal women and gender nonbinary and transgender people. Patriarchal women are often perpetrators of “slut shaming,” victim blaming and the perpetuation of myths around sexual violence.

When I think of gendered foods, I think of a messy cheeseburger. This is likely because I grew up seeing Carl’s Jr. ads like this one:

We can all recognize how significantly advertising can influence how we perceive items and actions. If we’re honest, we can also admit that our purchasing behavior is influenced too. As a kid in the ’90s & 2000s, advertising directed toward men almost always included a scantily clad woman. This is tied directly to society’s heteronormative bias, assuming that men are more likely to buy a product if an image of a woman is associated with it. To be “manly” during this time period, and to some extent now, was to be straight. We can see the same advertising principals used to sell cologne, cars, beer, and many other products.

Also closely associated with masculinity is an interest in sports. Men who aren’t interested in at least one sport tend to be seen as effeminate. Even better is to be interested in many sports, especially physical sports like football. In the consumption of sports media, we find another gendered eating practice. Chicken wings, burgers & hotdogs, nachos and beer are all commonly associated with a Sunday afternoon spent watching football. While non of these foods are especially gendered in themselves, the combination of these foods and sports is seen as the domain of men.

Deane Curtain emphasizes the “ethic of care” as a core concept of ecofeminism. As such, it is the obligation of ecofeminists to offer care to non-human animals when possible (hence her label of “contextual moral vegetarianism”). Curtain writes “An ecofeminist perspective emphasizes that one’s body is oneself, and that by inflicting violence needlessly, one’s bodily self becomes a context for violence. One becomes violent by taking part in violent food practices. The ontological implication of a feminist ethic of care is that nonhuman animals should no longer count as food.” As of the time of Curtain’s writing, and still now, many of us have the choice of vegetarianism; the choice to offer care to non-human animals. Yet so many humans don’t.

Meanwhile, Greta Gaard writes “From an ecofeminist perspective, speciesism is a form of oppression that parallels and reinforces other form(s) of oppression.” Gaard makes the case that there is a “linkage between sexism and speciesism, between the oppression of women and the oppression of animals.”

While the perspectives of Curtain and Gaard may differ, they both clearly make the case that human domination over non-human animals is at the heart of the vegetarian ecofeminist movement. Obviously, the domination of one group over others is problematic for feminists.

Sleeping Giant formation in the background, with Helena Cathedral in the middle of the picture.

Looking to the North from almost anywhere in Helena, Montana, you’ll see the Big Belt Mountains. In the middle of the panorama of hills and valleys, is a series of peaks that are known locally as “the Sleeping Giant.” Once it’s pointed out to you, his nose is the first recognizable feature, and then his chest, and then your mind completes the image for you.

I can see the Giant from my living room on a clear day, even as I sit on my couch now. In fact, I’ve had a view of it from five different houses I’ve lived in. It’s plainly visible from the local mountains we hike. It can be seen from the State Capitol Building where I’ve offered testimony to our legislature; we walk our dog around the Capitol often. When I drive east to report to the Search and Rescue building for trainings or missions, I see it from the road. When I work ambulance shifts, we might leave the hospital and head downhill into the Helena valley on a call. The Sleeping Giant looks the same as I navigate through the traffic with my lights and sirens on, going faster than maybe I need to.

The Sleeping Giant is an area landmark, one that everyone in town sees every day. Businesses are named after it; places use its image in their logos; it’s inescapable. And I’m still not tired of looking at it.

I’ve lived in Helena for more than ten years now, running away from Massachusetts at 22. Montana was the farthest place from home where I could find a job, so this is where I came. Since living here, in the shadows of mountains, I’ve had more life-changing experiences than I can count. I’ve done work that I believe in; I’ve met and learned from incredible people; I became a father; I’ve done hard things that needed doing; and I’ve gained a lot of knowledge and perspective. When I left “home,” I didn’t know who I was or what I wanted in life. Since being here, 2500 miles West of where I was born, I’ve made a lot of progress toward becoming the person I want to be.

The Sleeping Giant is the best symbol I can think of to describe how I view my life. It’s here. There’s pre-leap-of-faith-move-to-Montana me, and there’s working-towards-something me. Every time I see the Sleeping Giant I’m reminded of that distinction and I’m able to remember that I can chose which parts of my past define me, and I mostly chose the parts that have happened here.

Along with writing “People need wild places,” Kingsolver writes “Wilderness puts us in our place. It reminds us that our plans are small and somewhat absurd. It reminds us why, in those cases in which our plans might influence many future generations, we ought to choose carefully.” I couldn’t agree more. Not everything we do needs to be impactful, and in reality, we’re all just bits of dust that will eventually be re-absorbed by the cosmos. Our lives are incomprehensibly short compared to the timeline of the universe. But sometimes we can do something that matters, and we should.

There’s a quote I love attributed to a man named Nelson Henderson: “The true meaning of life is to plant trees under whose shade you do not expect to sit.” (Henderson may have been paraphrasing the words of Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore). Not only are these words applicable for those seeing the world through an ecofeminist perspective, but I think they are a wonderful addition to Kingsolver’s point. We should make progress for those who will take up the fight next. If connecting to the place you’re in helps you remember that, then what more reason is there to need the nature that exists in that place?

And yes, nature is present everywhere. As Terry Tempest Williams reminds us in Red, not all nature is green and comforting. “Green recalls pastoral comfort, provides a resting place for the eyes.” (p. 5) Yet we can tell from her writing that the harsh desert she calls home are worth protecting too. In Touching the Earth bell hooks writes “Even in my small New York City apartment I can pause to listen to birds sing, find a tree and watch it.” (p. 367) We can find connection with nature and build history anywhere we chose. Shanna B. Tiayon offered further proof by telling us stories of urban Black farmers in her Pocket article “The New Sisterhood of Black Female Homesteaders.”

Does nature/open space/wilderness create the “bedrock democracy” mentioned by Williams? I don’t know, but there is A LOT of conversation around access to wilderness here in Montana, and our democratically elected legislators are an engaged piece of that conversation. Seems pretty important to me.

Works cited:

The work of Dr. Bina Agarwal helps us understand how women in the Global South are impacted by environmental degradation. While Dr. Agarwal writes primarily from her experiences working and studying in India, she does incorporate information from other non-western parts of the world. Agarwal’s perspective provides students of ecofeminism a perspective separate from that of much ecofeminist thinking in America and Europe.

In her paper The Gender and Environment Debate: Lessons from India, Agarwal uses the work of Vandana Shiva to make the reality of Third World women known. Agarwal wites: “Third World women are dependent on nature ‘for drawing sustenance for themselves, their families, their societies.’ The destruction of nature thus becomes the destruction of women’s sources for ‘staying alive.'” (p.124)

Agarwal goes on to explain that “…poor peasant and tribal women have typically been responsible for fetching fuel and fodder and in hill and tribal communities have also often been the main cultivators. They are thus likely to be affected adversely in quite specific ways by environmental degradation.” (p 126).

In this explanation we can begin to see a distinct difference in ecofeminist thought in the West versus in other parts of the world. Western and non-western ecofeminists share several beliefs. Agarwal offers an explanation when she lists the “…ecofeminist argument(s): (1) There are important connections between the domination and oppression of women and the domination and exploitation of nature. (2) In patriarchal thought, women are identified as being closer to nature and men as being closer to culture. Nature is seen as inferior to culture; hence, women are seen as inferior to men. (3) Because the domination of women and the domination of nature have occurred together, women have a particular stake in ending the domination of nature, “in healing the alienated human and non-human nature.” (4) The feminist movement and the environmental movement both stand for egalitarian, nonhierarchical systems.” (p 120).

Ecofeminist Dr. Laura Hobgood-Oster agrees when she writes “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. These
socially constructed oppressions formed out of the power dynamics of patriarchical systems.” (p. 1).

Further shared concerns between geographically different ecofeminism also include the loss of traditional knowledge held by women. Hobgood-Oster tells us “In The Death of Nature Merchant links this hierarchical, mechanistic approach to nature to the oppression of women. She argues that, whereas organic thinking and interdependence shaped European life through the Middle Ages, the “fathers” of the scientific revolution determined to dominate nature.” (p. 7-8)

Agarwal reframes Merchants statement about “organic thinking and interdependence” to explain that “More generally, over the years, there has been a systematic devaluation and marginalization of indigenous knowledge about species varieties, nature’s processes (how forests, soils, and water are formed and sustained interrelatedly), and sustainable
forms of interaction between people and nature.” (p. 135)

However, Agarwal also clearly explains the difference between the perspectives of ecofeminists from different parts of the world. Agarwal begins The Gender and Environment Debate by declaring “The growing literature on ecofeminism in the West, and especially in the United States, conceptualizes the link between gender and the environment primarily in ideological terms. An intensifying struggle for survival in the developing world, however, highlights the material basis for this link and set the background for an alternative formulation to ecofeminism, which I term “feminist environmentalism.”” (p.119).

Plainly stated, Agarwal tells us the primary difference between Western ecofeminism and non-western feminism/feminist environmentalism: Western ecofeminists are focused on the ideology of oppression of women and nature while non-western, feminist environmentalists are focused on the material and economic cost, primarily experienced by women, of the destruction of nature.

As a newcomer to feminist theory and ecofeminism in particular, I’m struck by the clear arguments made by Dr. Agarwal as to how the degradation of  the environment has tangible impacts on the women of rural communities in the developing world. While the theorizing done by Western ecofeminists such as Dr. Hobgood-Oster catches my attention as a human who wants others to succeed, the demonstration of material and economic loss experienced by women in India and other Global South locations is far easier to grasp as to the scope of the issue. When Agarwal provides data about the loss over time of agricultural land, access to drinking water, firewood for heating, and income that women face in India the problem and conversation about potential solutions become less conceptual. For this reason, the feminist environmentalism offered by Agarwal is a more appealing perspective on the intersection between the oppression of women and the domination of nature.

Works Cited:

Agarwal, Bina. “The Gender and Environment Debate: Lessons from India.” Feminist Studies, vol. 18, no. 1, 1992, p. 119, https://doi.org/10.2307/3178217.

Hobgood-Oster, Laura . Ecofeminism: Historic and International Evolution. 18 Aug. 2002, umassd.umassonline.net/webapps/blackboard/execute/content/file?cmd=view&content_id=_2574918_1&course_id=_36339_1. Accessed 12 Feb. 2025.

In Ecofeminism: Historic and International Evolution, Laura Hopgood-Oster explains 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.” (p 1). This helps readers new to the ecofeminist movement understand the goal of activists in this space: protect nature by deconstructing forms of oppression among humans.

Hopgood-Oster states “Ecofeminism is multi-faceted and multi-located, challenging structures rather than individuals. By confronting systems of patriarchy, ecofeminism broadens the scope of the cultural critique and incorporates seemingly disparate but, according to ecofeminism, radically connected elements.” (p 2).

When we educate ourselves about social justice issues such as sexism, racism, classism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, and other “-isms” and phobias, we come to understand that all of these problematic beliefs are based on the domination of certain people by others. Various kinds of privilege surround us in our daily lives. White privilege, male privilege, economic privilege, straight privilege, Christian privilege, etc. are plainly visible when we think critically about why some people and some groups of people are more “successful” than others. And when we understand how privilege provides advantages to those people or groups, we can understand why those people and groups would hold on to their privilege(s) at all costs, including by putting down others to retain advantage.

The belief of ecofeminists is that nature has historically been seen as a tool for the dominant group to use in service of maintaining their domination and therefore their privilege and their advantage over others. This perspective of nature and natural resources being available for exploitation is described as “instrumentalism,” a view believed to originate from the book of Genesis (1:26-29) and made popular by “philosopher-scientists such as Francis Bacon” (McHenry, K).

Genesis, Chapter 1, verses 26-29, states:

Works Cited:

Hopgood-Oster, L. “Ecofeminism: Historic and International Evolution.” University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, myCourses, WGS 307-7101: Ecofeminism: Philosophy & Practice – On-Line (2025 Spring CE1). n.d.; umassd.umassonline.net/webapps/blackboard/execute/content/file?cmd=view&content_id=_2574918_1&course_id=_36339_1. Accessed 6 Feb. 2025.

McHenry, Kristen Abatsis, Dr. “Introduction: Learning Module: Environmentalism Background.” University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, myCourses, WGS 307-7101: Ecofeminism: Philosophy & Practice – On-Line (2025 Spring CE1). n.d. umassd.umassonline.net/ultra/courses/_36339_1/cl/outline. Accessed 5 February 2025.

“Bible Gateway Passage: Genesis 1:26-29 – New International Version.” Bible Gateway, 2019, www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%201:26-29&version=NIV. Accessed 6 Feb. 2025.

Gramling, Carolyn. “2024 Was Earth’s Hottest Year on Record, Passing a Dangerous Warming Threshold.” Science News, 10 Jan. 2025, www.sciencenews.org/article/2024-earth-hottest-year-climate.

TIME Staff. “Meet 15 Women Leading the Fight against Climate Change.” Time, Time, 12 Sept. 2019, time.com/5669038/women-climate-change-leaders/.

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Hello, and welcome to my blog!

I’m Eric, a 33-year-old father of one daughter living in Montana’s capital city. I work as an educator for a nonprofit advocacy organization that serves people impacted by domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking. I also work as an EMT for the local ambulance company, and I volunteer with my county’s search and rescue team.

I’m enrolled in the UMass Dartmouth Women & Gender Studies program with the goal of being a better educator, father, and partner. I look forward to interacting with you all.

While seeking inspiration for this blog, I found Journal of the History of Ideas, a collaborative blog with many contributors that explores philosophical issues from a variety of times in history. You can find their excellent blog HERE.

The JHI blog is a great model for me to use in my work because it is interesting to look at, has many interesting articles, and the writing is fantastic. Contributing writers do an excellent job of introducing a topic, explaining with the intent to educate, and supporting their arguments while citing sources.

I will not be collaborating with others in my work here on my page however, so I will not use JHI as a model in that aspect of this adventure.

In Montana, as in all Western states, wildfires are a significant cause for concern and wildfire management is a constant topic of debate. On average, Montana spends $30 million each year on fire suppression, with some years being far more extreme than others. Montana’s legislature created an excellent document that introduces the topic to anyone who may be interested.

Of course, we’re all keeping an eye on the news currently for updates about the wildland fires that have killed 28 people and made many thousands homeless in the Los Angeles area. Thankfully, Montana hasn’t seen a deadly fire to that scale, yet. As population increases in western Montana’s cities, we will certainly have instances of wildland fires destroying homes.

Hopefully, with respectful debate and continued conversation, Montana can be prepared for such incidents to the best possible extent.

Food for thought.

Until next time,

Eric.