Blog #13

Prompt: "What do you think of ecofemisnism before you read, and after? Did you have any strong reactions? What do forms of dominance do you see in the world around you?"

I am part of the ecofeminism presentation team, but reading the articles a few weeks ago was not my first experience with ecofeminism. Freshman year I was in a philosophy class that looked at humans and technology.  We had to do a group project at the end of the semester and I do not remember exactly what my project was all about but I do remember researching Vandana Shiva. She was my first look at ecofeminism. So my general understanding of ecofeminism was that men think they are better than women so they dominate them, and women are associated with nature so men dominate nature too. And that all comes together in a real world example when men running big businesses in the United States tell men and women in Indian (and elsewhere) how to interact with nature through agricultural practices. The land and the people are being degraded and dominated by western masculine ideals. I reacted strongly to the domination of anyone who cannot stand up for themselves, just because you have the power doesn’t mean you have to wield it in a harmful manner.

And there are forms of dominance all over the world, men over women, adults over children, developed countries over developing countries, people over nature, etc.