Embodying Ecofeminism
I felt a little strange the first day I walked into our class, mostly because I was somewhat of an outsider in a group who seemed to know each other. I sat down and listened as class began. I found it hard to focus on what was being said. Words seemed to rise and fill the room without creating any form that I could recognize. I listened hard and tried to engage myself in the dialogue. Some of the other students seemed involved, some resistant, trying to argue their own space into the dialogue. Sometimes ideas would surface that would resonate with me and pull me in; I could see that both students and professor cared deeply about the things I valued most. Yet, somehow we did not tap my core of questions with the theories and frameworks we used. Logical arguments assigning ethical values to objects, abstract theories that universally prescribe for every situation, disagreement and defense, philosophical examples of extreme situations of morality that described violence, incest, rape . . . with all these things I felt more and more alienated from the group. I, an opinionated and outspoken woman, felt silenced. Surely the group would welcome my contributions, but why did I feel so stifled? How could a discussion of ethics so completely embody what to me is unethical? I should have known that even something so intense and personal as values could be pinned down and violated by patriarchal Anglo thought. If I were a survivor of sexual abuse, I certainly would have fled the classroom, never to return, feeling violated once again, due to the needless description of violence and rape in the philosophical examples. This, a perfect metaphor for the use of conceptual frameworks which value patriarchal-style rational...
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... use. It is not sufficient to discuss oppression and injustice in one section as separate from the other topics we explore. In every issue we will encounter marginalized groups who are victims of environmental injustice, and I fear we may be tempted to blame them for environmental devastation. In reality, they may know part of the solution we seek. I would also ask that we expand the frameworks we use to include non-dominant frameworks, so that members of our class are not systematically alienated parallel to the groups we may discuss. Let's keep in mind our context, as students living in the upper-middle class, Anglo, patriarchal society of an elite college, as people who are born into conferred dominance. I think we will be able to discuss environmental ethics in a way that is inclusive, pluralistic, contextual and holistic, as recommended by ecofeminist thinkers.
Class, and the Cultural Politics of Neoliberal Urban Restructuring . The Great Cities Institute, GCP-09-02, 3. Retrieved April 5, 2014.
“Terms such as environmental racism and environmental justice are used to express the interconnectedness of environmental health, socio-economic conditions and racialized discrimination (OSCE, 2011). This concept originates from the early 1980’s when community concerns about toxic
They allowed for the formation of interpersonal relationships that led to the developing community of scholars. However, the liberation is no longer front and center, and the even playing ground for professors and students is gone. Gallops repeatedly butts head with different factions of feminists for her continued affairs with students. The newer feminists fight against oppression rather than for liberation, and are troubled with Gallop’s display of sexuality. Here, Gallop’s argument begins to become problematic. She accuses such feminists as being against the open discussion of sexuality. There is some truth in this; as an academic, Gallop is of the right mind to defend the intellectual development of feminism. Unfortunately, such open discussions tend to lead her on a dangerous path. Gallop says early on that feminism makes her feel “smart and sexy” (6). She fetishizes the women’s liberation movement, and after seeing the lesbian couple, she begins to fetishize the teacher-student dynamic as well. This becomes especially troubling when she is a professor herself, and continues to do this. When she describes her encounter with a student that will eventually lead to sexual harassment claims, it is clear that the conversation is sexually stimulating to her. Fittingly, the conversation is about the “erotics of pedagogy” (89). Gallop’s description of her “highly charged” relationship with her student is noteworthy. This is the moment where it becomes clear that Gallop simply cannot separate sexuality and feminist academia. She is constantly seeking these sorts of relationships throughout her academic career, and her behavior becomes highly inappropriate. The fact that she choses to use her student to make a spectacle of their kiss, escalating the situation beyond any of the harmless, non-sexual good byes
The Walt Disney Company is a highly diversified media and entertainment company that has been growing by leaps and bounds since its inception in the late 1920’s. In the past few decades, The Walt Disney Company has expanded into numerous markets and diversified its business greatly. The company states that their corporate strategy is targeted at creating high-quality family content, exploiting technological innovations to make entertainment experiences more memorable, and expanding internationally. Upon studying the happenings of the company throughout the years, it is easy to see that the company is executing this strategy well through numerous strategic moves in the industry.
The Walt Disney Company is a multi-billion dollar enterprise that controls and maintains vast interests in various multimedia companies in the United States and around the world. What started as a simple love for children’s entertainment of a sample cartoonist soon became a revolutionary icon in the world of entertainment and business.
Sander, Libby. "The Chronicle of Higher Education: Students Try to Break Taboo Around Social Class on Campus." BATTEN CONNECTION. ( ): n. page. Web. 12 Dec. 2013. .
Walt Disney is a worldwide entertainment company. Walt Disney Co is currently number one in the entertainment industry beating out competitors like News Corp, Time Warner, and CBS with revenues of $42,278 billion a year and a net income of $5.682 billion. The company is ranked number 66 on the Fortune 500 list and is ranked #17 on the World’s Most Valuable Brands List. Walt Disney’s headquarters are in Burbank, California and has been publicly traded as NYSE:DIS since 1991.
As a male student taking a women’s gender and sexuality studies class with an open mind, I was caught off guard with the article “White Guy Habitus in the Classroom” by Michael Messner. He argues in it that female professors and professors of color are in a double bind with respect to their status as professionals, and also gives reasoning as to why an unpacking of straight white male privilege is important towards the move for social justice. Prior to the reading, I had no idea what to expect because the language in the title was unfamiliar to me, i.e. I did not know what habitus meant. Suddenly, I realized my perception of what a teacher is “supposed to look like” was being addressed and challenged. It was a shock to my psyche because there
Natsios, Andrew S. Sudan, south Sudan, & Darfur: what everyone needs to know. New York:
Hawken writes that the movement, a collective gathering of nonconformists, is focused on three basic ambitions: environmental activism, social justice initiatives, and indigenous culture’s resistance to globalization. The principles of environmental activism being closely intertwined with social justice rallies. Hawken states how the fate of each individual on this planet depends on how we understand and treat what is left of the planet’s lands, oceans, species diversity, and people; and that the reason that there is a split between people and nature is because the social justice and environmental arms of the movement hav...
Women’s Studies classes must be open for considerable discussion and debate regarding the Third Wave agenda, as this new movement can draw on anything from previous waves, as well as anything else feminists feel is important enough to discuss. As several of the issues of Third Wave are touchy subjects, such as transexuality, pornography, and women’s feelings towards their bodies, the class must be open for the consideration of others opposing points of view.
Since the beginning of my academic endeavors, I have long cherished a dream to be a member of the social science research community, which gives our society progressive insights into human ecology. I began my undergraduate studies at Ramapo College of New Jersey with a passion for ecological justice and with the intention of majoring in environmental studies. Ramapo College’s progressive liberal arts foundation provided me with ample room to explore the multifarious array of social science courses. As I took more social science courses, however, my understanding of human social groups underwent a metamorphosis. As a result, I decided to pursue a degree in Social Science, with minors in the two fields I felt most passionately interested in, Women’s Studies and African American Studies.
Is dog's worth to humans simply as man's best friend? Throughout history, dogs have been protectors, companions, and pets. However, science is saying that there is much more to these creatures. "Dogs Read Human Expressions", by The Huff Post, and "The Doctor's Dog Will See You Now", by Melinda Beck explain the scientific connection between dogs and humans. Science shows that dog's interaction with humans makes them more than just pets because dogs interact like human children and canines assist in various forms of human therapy.
* Shirk, Evelyn. “New Dimensions in Ethics: Ethics and the Environment.” Ethics and the Environment. Proc. of Conf. on Ethics and the Environment, April 1985, Long Island University. Ed. Richard E. Hart. Lanham: University Press of America, 1992. 1-10.
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).”