Month: March 2023

Understanding Intersectionality is one of the keys to conceptualizing ecofeminism and the ecofeminist interconnected “web” perspective. Intersectionality is how everyone connects with the world around them, understanding the different facets of an individual identity. By defining the individual aspect of your identity you can sort out and better understand where the intersections are in an individual identity. Intersectionality is best described like a web, A.E king describes how “each spoke of the web representing a continuum of different types of social categorization such as gender, sexuality, race, or class; while encircling spirals depict individual identities” (King 65). For example, I am a non-binary, Jewish, white, student. Non-binary is my gender, Jewish my religion, white my race, and student as my class indicator. All of these individual facts are true and help to understand what affects me and my life. I have been a victim of antisemitism and I have experienced discrimination based on my religion, gender, and status as a student. Yet from a racial standpoint I have privilege. Intersectionality helps us to further understand each other and some of these big concepts in the world today. Ecofeminism has a lot to do with intersectionality because location plays into identity. If you live somewhere that has an environmental crisis like a drought, then the population there is going to be affected. Lack of water can be detrimental for women in particular according to UNwater.org,“A clean, functional, lockable, gender-segregated space is needed, with access to sanitary products and disposal systems, for women and girls to manage menstrual hygiene and pregnancy” (“Water and Gender”). We all need water to live but women in particular need water for cleanliness and health concerns, access to clean water is a necessity so if that is unavailable it has a more focused impact on women specifically. Argwall addresses this issue saying that “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’” (Agarwal 124).

Ecofeminism and feminism in general have a history of under representing to the point of erasure the BIPOC and other marginalized communities. With that history many BIPOC feminists have gravitated towards intersectional environmentalism instead of ecofeminism so that their voices and thoughts are heard. We see in Leah Thomas’s article “The Difference Between Ecofeminism & Intersectional Environmentalism” how “Both Ecofeminism and Intersectional Environmentalism explore how the treatment and degradation of the earth exposes a deeply rooted societal problem. But while Ecofeminism narrows in on gender, sexuality, and the patriarchy, Intersectional Environmentalism creates space for all social injustices, including sexism.” While mainstream ecofeminism and feminism struggles with inclusivity, intersectional environmentalism by definition is focusing on inclusivity. Personally I conceptualized this idea by thinking that ecofeminism is how the environment affects women. Intersectional environmentalism is how the environment affects everyone, different people and identities will be affected in different ways depending on how they identify.

 

Agarwal. “The Gender and Environment Debate: Lessons from India.” Feminist Studies, vol. 18, no. 1, 1992, pp. 119-158. JSTOR.

Kings, A.E. “Intersectionality and the Changing Face of Ecofeminism.” Ethics & the Environment, vol. 22 no. 1, 2017, p. 63-87. Project MUSE muse.jhu.edu/article/660551.

 

The key to understanding Norgaard and York’s paper “Gender Equality and State Environmentalism” is looking at this paper and recognizing that gender equality is quite a ways away so the change that women are able to evoke is still limited to a less than equal playing field. Norgaard and York conseptualize this by detailing how “In 1990, the UN Commission on the Status of Women estimated that for women to influence key outcomes and be taken seriously, a threshold of 30 percent women in Parliament was required” (Norgaard and York 514). But even with this low threshold women are still able to evoke change, Norgaard and York come to the (unproven but highly supported) conclusion that “gender equality and state environmentalism are linked and that an understanding of one may contribute to an understanding of the other” (Norgaard and York 515). Norgaard and York use Norway and Singapore as references because they are both “affluent, developed nations but show strikingly different levels of support for environmental treaties and gender equality” (Norgaard and York 515). Norway serves as the positive, having “one of the highest percentages of women in Parliament in the world at 36.4 percent and ratified 13 of the 16 treaties considered” (Norgaard and York 515). Singapore, on the other hand, represents the negative with women holding “only 4.3 percent of legislatorial positions in Parliament, and Singapore ratified only 4 of the 16 treaties considered” (Norgaard and York 515).

This work by Norgaard and York is parallelled by an article from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, “Why Women’s Leadership is Key to Climate Action: Political and financial commitment is needed to support the contributions of women and girls at all levels”. Nina Jeffs details throughout the article how necessary female voices are in environmental decision making. Jeffs describes how “Gender-differentiated tasks, including women’s responsibility for most unpaid household labour, and unequal power relations within families and communities, can limit women’s opportunities to participate in local environmental governance” (Jeffs). Jeffs not only exposes a long standing problem globally but also proposes a solution. Jeffs believes that the solution lies in education, “Ensuring access to quality education for girls is also a key pathway for gender parity in climate leadership. Girls’ education can be a force for gender equality in families and communities and is closely associated with a country’s female political representation” (Jeffs). Jeffs builds on this idea describing how “Climate education for girls, including technical environmental training, can increase their resilience and build their capacity to critically engage with climate information and lead climate solutions”(Jeffs). Norgaard and York’s work was confirmed in a 2019 study by Astghik Mavisakalyan and Yashar Tarverdi that came to the conclusion that “ national parliaments with more women pass more stringent climate policies” (Jeffs).

A woman carries vegetables in Yangole, Democratic Republic of Congo. Despite women’s contribution to achieving climate targets, their access to climate finance remains limited. (Image: Axel Fassio/CIFOR CC BY NC-ND-2.0)

https://climatechampions.unfccc.int/why-womens-leadership-is-key-to-climate-action/

Another article that I think dovetails beautifully with Norgaard and York’s paper is from Congresswoman Sylvia Garcia (representing the 29th district of Texas). This article details Congresswoman Garcia’s long and eventful history of supporting the environment for her constituents. Garcia has built her environmental platform on legistlation surrounding climate change, EPA regulations, and marine species protections. Norgaard and York emphasize that more women indicates more environmental reform and Congresswoman Garcia is just one of the many women of color that have earned positions of power and have used those positions and platforms to further environmental reform and change on a legistlative level. Garcia summarizes her standpoint on environmentalism saying that “We must recognize the reality that maintaining long-term economic growth, protecting the jobs our children will hold, and remaining competitive on the global stage, requires making investments today in the clean energy technology of tomorrow” (“Energy & Environment | Representative Sylvia Garcia”).

https://sylviagarcia.house.gov/issues/energy 

“UNFCCC research found that men spoke 74% of the time in plenary meetings between May and June last year” (Jeffs). The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change presented this statistic that parallels the statistic presented by Norgaard and York describing how “In 1990, the UN Commission on the Status of Women estimated that for women to influence key outcomes and be taken seriously, a threshold of 30 percent women in Parliament was required” (Norgaard and York 514). With women making up “on average of one third” of the “employees of environmental ministries” we can further see how women in leadership roles do make an impact and that impact is growing with time and resources funneling into supporting female education.

This is a photo that I took from Carol Adams photo library that holds examples of the sexual politics of meat. This photo in particular plays with double entendres surrounding meat and the social construct of sexual consent. This ad for Nando’s resturant places themselves as the alternative to a woman who is offended when they are sexully touched. Nando’s is essentially indicating that that social boundary is not found at their restaurant. While obviously substituting an actual woman for food in an anthropornographic context. Anthropornography is defined by Adams in an interview as she explained that “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” (Pots 14). In this picture the animal in question is the depiction of Nando’s chicken. This ad challenges the social construct of consent playing with the boundaries set by women by using their chicken as a replacement to be violated. The ad says “We don’t mind if you touch our buns or breasts or even our thighs whatever you’re into enjoying Nando’s meal with your hands is highly recommended” encouraging physicality towards and insinuating that the chicken is a sexual being. 

This photo is a statement piece. Animalization and sexualization of animals are topics that Adams addresses in the interview with Annie Pots. Adams breaks down this construct describing how “They are working to maintain important aspects of consumer culture, to reinforce privilege by defining who is the consumer and who is the consumed” (Pots 15). The feminization of animals allows for domination and consumption. This piece draws attention to the dehumanization that women feel when looking at these sexualized ads that have no intention other than to cater to heterosexual men’s egos. The fact that this is the way in which we have almost standardized the way that we sell meat is uncouth and damaging. Sexualizing meat is acceptable because it’s “just chicken” or “just a joke” but it is still damaging for women, especially young women who are surrounded by this on a daily basis. Simply put we have built a system that casually pets the ego of men while devaluing women simultaneously all for the sake of advertising.

This ad also follows along with Adams description of the sexual politics of meat. This ad while not depicting meat is still intended to sell meat using sex. By playing on the “hot and spicy” double entendre they are able to make a “joke” and engage their male audience. It is clear that KFC is only interested in the male audience due to the male being the only one getting sexual gratification in the image. “Hot and spicy” could have been represented in both party’s engaging in sexual activity where the pleasure would be mutual. Yet, that is not the path KFC decided to follow. This ad plays on sexuality and the human need for sexual release to sell chicken equating the want for sex with the want for chicken on multiple different fronts. Yet, in the photo chosen again it is important to recognize that the sexual release is one sided. Adams dictates in the interview with Annie Pots how “the assumption of a white male perspective as universal and an appropriation of female bodies for male prerogatives” is pervasive and specifically represented in this ad (Pots 15).

This image while not directly an image of anthropornography still has the same intent. Here we see a woman who is depicted as innately sexual. The phrase “four inches has never been so satisfying” is an obvious joke indicating penis size and how all women want a big dick. These ads represent women as sexually insatiable animals,  Adams speaks on the subject saying that  “Such ads, suggest that not only do women promiscuously want sex, but the same desire is applicable to others in the ‘Not A’ category – nonhuman animals” (Kemmerer). It is dehumanizing to be reduced to a sexual object weather human or animal it takes away all value that is not sexual and intended to please others. We are constantly stripping animals and women of their agency and respect when we continually objectify and reduce them to sexual objects.