Month: February 2020

I can’t say with certainty why our professor choose this image. At first I must admit I thought there was little actual thought put into it and our professor just searched google images for something like “cartoon cutting meat” or “meat cutting” but after doing that myself I could not find the exact image our professor used. So clearly there was thought put into. I’ve looked at the image several times and still haven’t really been struck by it at all, to me it is very unremarkable. It clearly relates to this weeks topic of meat eating being a masculine trait, or at least being associated with masculinity, but other than that no strong feelings. After looking at some of my classmates posts, some of them did have a strong reaction to it. This is probably in part due to being a man that regularly eats meat

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When it comes to gendered foods, for better or worse one that immediately pops into my head is Soy. While soy is in so many of the foods we eat, over the last few years it has become somewhat politicized (it would be so wild telling me 5 years ago, that I would eventually write this sentence). When we think of soy lattes and soy milk, we often associate them with trendy white girls (this is of course a misogynistic thought but I can’t deny that the stereotype exists, just because I don’t like it.) Whereas real men drink black coffee or something more traditional. Soy has also become associated with the “beta male” which basically means a feminized/subordinate male. Often those in the alt-right, or just people who like to start arguments online will substitute beta male with the term soyboy, or something to that effect.

The other food that I see as particularly feminine is fruits and vegetables. I think masculine food are typically seen as less unhealthy, and feminine foods are more healthy. I think this is due to societies beauty standards for women involve them being skinny. Corporations than use this in advertising and plant based meals are targeted more towards women than men. This means that meat based products have to be advertised more to men as plant based products are being pushed on women.

Gaards writings on humans relationship with pets was interesting to me. When she wrote about the bird in the video rental store I had a lot of mixed feelings. I am an aquarium enthusiast. I have over 100 fish and snails in my home and I think I take great care of them. I am particularly fond of the Betta fish, which is often mistreated. Betta fish are often kept in small cups without filtration and enrichment, I keep my Bettas in a minimum 2.5 gallon tank with plant-life and often snails for both companionship, enrichment, and to help keep their habitat clean. Right now none of my bettas are in less than a 5 gallon tank. I often see Betta fish (and fish in general) being given as gifts to to people that do not understand their needs, and a lot of people that just flat out don’t care. I often argue with my mother about this issue as she has a betta in a cup at her job. I was able to encourage her to do more water changes, and gave her a higher quality food to give him, but he is still not being cared for properly.

Pets do live lives similar to slavery, however with the way cats and dogs have been domesticated, it is impossible for many of them to live in the wild, and in the case of freshwater aquatic life. Many of them are captive bred and do not have a wild to return to. In the case of one fish (off the top of my head) the Bala Shark, it only exists in large numbers in captivity. So now we are at a difficult point, due to domestication, and other human activity many animals are trapped as pets. I think it is our duty as the species that primarily put them in this position to care for them and provide them with good lives.

I have chosen an unconventional landscape to represent me. It’s from the movie Blade Runner, directed by Ridley Scott. It shows Los Angeles in an alternate 2019. It would be considered cyber-punk. In this universe, planet Earth is overcome by pollution and environmental destruction. The wealthy and privileged have all moved to either Earths moon or Mars, where it is cleaner and safer. I choose this landscape for two reasons, 1. Blade Runner represents a big part of teenage and early college years, it has been my favorite film for almost 10 years (discovered it my senior year of high school) and 2. I think that the Earth it represents is very relevant to ecofeminism.

the Los Angeles of Blade Runner carries my history in a lot of ways, the film exposed me to new artistic concepts that I had not encountered before, it was the first movie I really analyzed. The score for the film was done by a Greek electronic composer called Vangelis, since first seeing the movie, there have been only a few times when a track from it does not appear on a playlist of mine. My room was covered with posters of Blade Runner and other cyber-punk anime and films, I rarely kept the lights on. Whether I realized it or not, I had effectively created a cyber-punk world in my bedroom. I think I was attracted to cyberpunk because it made the whole world as lonely as I had felt, in cyberpunk settings there is typically more technology than people, for a while this was representative of my life, I spent a lot more time starting at a computer or television screen, rather than engaging with people in the real world.

In the film the politics of Blade Runner are not well explained beyond, corporate control and apathy. But the book that it is based on “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” by Phillip K Dick, does. In this Los Angeles, there are only two types of people left on Earth, which are represented by the books 2 protagonists Rick, and Sebastian. Rick is a working class police officer, and Dave is a chickenhead (a derogatory way of referring to the people who have suffered cognitive damage as a result of radiation). All of the people in LA are part of a fake religion called Mercerism, which many don’t believe is actually true but believe in it because it makes them feel better. This does not build up a good base for a bedrock of Democracy.

The basis for Willaims Bedrock of Democracy is that both sides of a political spectrum are informed and aware of the facts. While there is a political divide in this fictional LA (mostly over the issue of rights for androids) it doesn’t go too deep into politics. What I do know is that a society made up of only the poor and cognitively impaired is going to be easy to manipulate politically (not that wealth equal intelligence, just that when you are concerned about food and shelter, politics becomes more difficult to pay attention to). I personally can easily see the people from the Blade Runner universe electing a person like Donald Trump or Michael Bloomberg to be president. It is easy for an oligarch or a populist to appeal to people that feel disenfranchised.

Barbara Kingslover is an American novelist whose work often focuses on connections between humans and nature. Kingslover believes that humans need wilderness. The Oxford dictionary defines Wilderness as “an uncultivated, uninhabited, and inhospitable region”, taken this way I don’t think anybody would consider wilderness a requirement. But perhaps humans do need an unknown, we have always been an exploratory species. But it is easy for humans to take that exploration gene and turn it into a destructive element. The LA in Blade Runner is filled with wilderness but it is an unnatureal wilderness, a desolate mostly uninhabitable planet in which few humans are left and they live in cities with little nature and little to warm them besides the hum of neon lights advertising a corporate product. Maybe we don’t need wilderness, but we do need nature, we need other people, we need life. Blade Runner represent a warmth to me, I feel nostalgia for it and it has always been a comfort to me but it is not a world I wish to live in.

Women the global south (which includes central and south America, Africa, and Southeast Asia) face unique environmental issues. On the United Nations website there is a whole page dedicated to the connection between water and women in these countries. Put simply water is life, if water is unclean, or inaccessible, life becomes very difficult if not impossible. Patriarchy across the globe has put the women in charge of household duties which includes gathering water, according to the WHO and UNICEF “Women and girls are responsible for water collection in 8 out of 10 households with water off premises” (https://www.unwater.org/water-facts/gender/) . But of course every living thing (at least that I can think of) requires water, so if there is no water doesn’t the whole family suffer? Yes, but with women being the primary gatherers of water, it eats up a lot of their time. UNICEF found in a ” study of time and water poverty in 25 Sub-Saharan African countries estimated that women spend at least 16 million hours a day collecting drinking water, while men spend 6 million hours, and children 4 million hours on the task.” All that time spent on gathering water means less time spent in a classroom, and less time in the classroom means less education, less education means less opportunities. In Tanzania when the time it takes to obtain water was reduced by 50% UNICEF found that female attendance in school increased by over 10%.

Time is not the only factor though, sanitation or lack there-of is also a major hurdle women face. Over one million deaths a year are associated with unclean births, and about 44 million pregnant women have “sanitation-related hookworm infections”. This again takes not only life but opportunity away from countless women and girls. Having to deal with a death in the family or poor health means again less time in schools, less time for work, and more barriers to progress overall.

Looking at the relationship between water and women in the global south, we can determine that while the environment affects everybody, and we all have a connection to it, it affects everybody around the world differently, especially people in different geographical areas. It is/will be the women in the global south who are/will see the effects of climate change first. Women in Africa are already facing severe droughts, flooding, and high temperatures (this is laid out well in this article from New Internationalist (https://newint.org/features/2019/05/03/how-will-global-south-pay-climate-change-damage). As a result of all this when many western ecofeminists talk about the environment and climate change they are talking about it from a greater distance than women in the east and global south.

Ecofeminism developed in the west but has spread to the east. In particular it has made a lot of noise in India. Indian ecofeminists view capitalism and industrialization as a oppressor of women, especially in east Asia and the global south. As western countries consume goods that harm the Earth, the countries that produce these goods suffer the consequences. Western countries have also commercialized eastern and African cultures into a tourist industry with terms like ethnic food, and world music. Western ecofeminism focuses less on critiques of capitalism (though it is of course still critical) and more on the relationship between women and nature.

To me personally neither form of ecofeminism interests me as much, as I personally agree with and like what has been called capitalism. I think the main oppressor of women and people in general has been government. While I am sure most ecofeminists would argue that governments around the world have been largely patriarchal and have oppressed women. I do not feel as though they focus enough on it as a root cause of the marginalization of women. That being said I personally am more interested in Eastern ecofeminism, as I am more ignorant of it and could probably benefit more from it.

Greta Thunberg has quickly become one of the most famous people in the world. She is a teenage environmental activist, who has spoken around the world about the dangers of climate change. As a result of her popularity she has faced a very unique form of misogyny. Greta in many ways represents what the Kyriarchy hates most. Greta is young, a woman, and an environmentalist. I find that she faces this misogyny from both ends of the political spectrum. Those on the left, hold her up as a paragon who should lead a movement against climate change, whereas those on the right have a different kind of obsession with her, they view Greta as the embodiment of ignorance (for not attending school), socialism, and liberalism.

Today I’m going to look at and analyze an article about Ms. Thunberg, from the National Review (a right leaning publication that I have a love/hate relationship with) and is written by Rich Lowry.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/09/greta-thunberg-climate-activist-united-nations/

The National Review article is entitled “No, Don’t Listen to Greta Thunberg” and begins with the following “Greta Thunberg needs to get a grip”. This is remarkable (which I mean in the traditional sense of the word) to me for a number of reasons. 1. Rich Lowry is the editor of National Review, he is 51 years old, and has written 4 books. Yet he is so triggered by a teenager he has to not only write an article about her but begin it with “get a grip”. Throughout the article Thunberg is painted as an irrational, immature brat. Lowry uses some of Thunbergs own words in order to paint her this way, making numerous mentions of her “How Dare You” comment.

Lowry occasionally comes close to making a fair point though, I do agree with him That Greta is being used by those around her. The wealthy often invite her to speak, in my opinion usually for the purpose of virtue signalling and nothing more. They like having a young passionate speaker talk about an issue that they can pretend to care about. But that’s about as complementary of Lowry as I can be.

Not once does Lowry actually refute (or attempt to refute) any of the truths about climate change, global warming, deforestation. Instead he spends the article attacking Greta. This allows him to 1, prejudice the reader against climate issues without actually mentioning them directly, and 2. appeal to those that just wanna have a rebellious view.

I could not help but think about ecofeminism the entire time I was reading this, as it pretty much shows the way in which nature and misogyny are linked. The simplest definition of Ecofeminism that I can come up with is that, it is an ideology that believes that anti-nature, and anti-women views are linked, and the interests of both women and nature can easily advance each other. Ecofeminism purports that men (or at least men in power) view both women and nature as something that they are to control,destroy, protect,etc. Nature and women do not have their own autonomy.

At the center of Ecofeminism are Warrens 8 connection between women and nature which are as follows:
1. Historical: Ecofeminists believe that domination of women and men stem from the same events.
2. Conceptual: Women and nature are valued similarly.
3. Empirical and Experimental: There are cultural and spiritual links between nature and women.
4. Symbolic Connections: The Patriarchy justifies the oppression of both women and nature.
5. Epistemological Connections
6. Political Connections
7. Ethical Connections
8. Theoretical Connections.

I personally find the symbolic connections to be the most interesting. Particularly when it comes to language. The ways in which nature is described and women are described have a lot of layover. For example we describe both as fertile, in the case of nature it refers to land in which crops can be grown, and in the case of women, it is used to describe women that are ripe (another example) for pregnancy and child rearing. To me the language that we use is the best argument for how men view both nature and women as something to be used.