Hi everyone and welcome back to my blog once again. I hope everyone is managing during this horrible time of the coronavirus. Anyways, on to the blog.
This week I wanted to talk about intersectionality within an ecofeminist web, and also revisit one of my older posts to tie in my overall ideas. Here is an example of what an intersectional ecofeminist web looks like.
One example of an intersectional ecofeminist web is from author A. E. Kings’, ‘Intersectionality and the Changing Face of Ecofeminism”, where he states, “I have always approached intersectionality as being more of a web of entanglement, than a traffic junction or road. 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.” This is a clear example of how an ecofeminist explains these kinds of webs and directly ties into the image I have included above. Another example of an ecofeminist view on intersectionality webs is from Kimberle Crenshaw’s where she states, “Intersectionality is a lens through which you can see where power comes and collides, where it interlocks and intersects.” which also directly ties into the image above.
Next, I would like to talk about the connection to 2 of my old blog posts where I talked about the connection between women and nature, and the association of men and meat. These 2 topics connect pretty well and here is why. In the post where I talked about women and nature association, we saw that women are used in advertisements for food/meat/etc and are shown as oversexualized animals or just oversexualized images in general, to attract the attention of men. This then ties into my post where we talked about how meat is seen as a masculine food and women are not to eat it if they want to be feminine. By using oversexualized women in advertisements for things such as burgers, pork, beef, or anything of the sort, it attracts men and therefore solidifies the idea that eating meat is directly related to masculinity and dominance/power. Pulled from my “Vegetarian Life” post, as stated in the article, “In a series of experiments, researchers found that after consumers experience a threat to their masculinity, the availability of a meat dish lowered their anxiety back to the level of an unthreatened control group. A flesh-free alternative presented to the threatened group did not produce the same anxiety-alleviating effect. The researchers hypothesize this effect is due to the masculinity-symbolizing power of meat. Or, in layman’s terms: eat a steak, feel more like a man”. Eating meat relates to “eating” women and they both make a man feel more masculine and like they have more power over other people. If a man has both of these things in their life, a women and a good burger, then they are as happy as can be. Just as an example, one of the most famous burger joints out there for men is Hooters, and what is their world-known theme? Women dressed in oversexualized clothes serving men burgers and other meat. It is the perfect example of women-meat association, and as I have noticed throughout my life, it is (almost) every man’s dream to go to this restaurant and exert their dominance over the barely dressed waitresses.
Hi Deanna!
Great job in including an image of an intersectionality web connecting different social categories to different forms of oppression. I like that you included the perspectives of different authors from our readings on what they believe to be intersectionality. I support both in a sense that for me intersectionality is a web connecting us all by our social categories and then those connecting social categories then taking those and connecting them to some form of oppression. For example, an ecofeminist would view the connections between women and nature and then look at the connecting oppressions faced by both women and nature. I believe an important thing to mention is that feminists and ecofeminists alike want equality towards women. They want to remove the idea that we are in a patriarchy or male-dominated society. In making intersectionality into a web, its not viewed as so much a hierarchy where we look at men and then the problems faced by men. We have these to look at the problems faced by women. It was mentioned Kings that intersectionality webs were first used as a tool to document the experiences faced by black women. Today, one can argue that these webs focus too heavily on the experiences of white, middle-class women. In order to consider ourselves even just feminists, we need to document the experiences of ALL women, no matter their race. Today all women face oppression and its important to make the connections using these webs in order to find the best way to insure it ends quickly and never happens again. I like that you included some examples of the oppressions faced by women when connected to animals. Animals are a huge factor in ecology. While ecology can include the nonliving aspects of life, it also includes the living and women and animals have been connected, compared, oppressed, and sexualized since the beginning of time I’d imagine. Great work this week! Stay safe and healthy and I look forward to your next blog.
Hey Deanna, I think you did a good job explaining intersectionality within this blog. Personally when I first learned about intersectionality I finally felt some form of relieve that there was a term to encompass the different ways not just myself but everyone regardless of race of ethnicity, sex, class, and human/nonhuman being is oppressed on a daily bases. As you mentioned within your blog women are constantly over sexualized in advertisements which refer to them as animals or a piece of meat that can be used in abused in any way a man pleases. While not all men share this ideology, it has been made very clear that we can no longer ignore the constant reminders on tv or poster boards that are oppressing not only women, but also nature. The ecofeminist interconnected perspective can also be seen in places like the Democratic Republic of Congo where war and the mining industry has distorted a large portion of fields and crops. Unfortunately, when mining damages the environment it also undermines a woman’s ability to provide food and clean water for her family while increasing her work load (OXFAM Australis). It also tends to increase poverty levels within the native dwellers in the community. Thus, it’s important to understand that this fight for equality that may have started with women stretches out to us all. I hope you’re staying safe and keep up the good work!
Link: https://www.oxfam.org.au/what-we-do/mining/the-gendered-impacts-of-mining/