Blog # 6 Ecofeminism

I thought the readings for Ecofeminism were extremely thought provoking. I love how ecofeminism encompasses every aspect of environmentalism, activism, and social equality and weaves it all together, as it should be and is. I also found it interesting how Elizabeth Dodson Gray incorporated the covenant of God to man to our relationship with nature. She connected the two as they naturally are and did not segment God from nature from man, as mainstream culture does today. When we have a covenant with God, that also means having a covenant with nature and respecting it for what it is, which is essentially a part of us and also God, simultaneously. We like to think of ourselves as outside of nature, but we are animals and therefore are part of nature, with the natural world sustaining us. She also points out that because of the “original sin” idea, we allow ourselves to create and sustain a culture of domination and suppression. Because man is imperfect and harmony can only be found in heaven, we allow ourselves to dominate and oppress, because, well, we are naturally sinful and that’s what we do. What Gray argues is that we should take an account and responsibility for our actions and the ways in which we treat each other and not passively accept our “natural” behavior of aggression. I also found it interesting that societies in the past did function on a system of “partnership” and equality. In today’s time, people excuse violent behavior because it’s all we’ve ever known and early societies in the past functioned that way, so why wouldn’t we? It’s an excuse not to change our behavior, make an effort to live morally, and acknowledge our past violent ways. If societies in the past can live an egalitarian life, so can we. If societies in the past did not live an egalitarian life, we still can. What I feel is lost in today’s society is a realization, an understanding, and a feeling of empowerment that we create our reality by conscious decisions. Therefore, anything is truly possible, especially an egalitarian society where live thrives on partnership, not oppression. Therefore, even if peoples of the past did not live in harmony, that does not limit us today. We make our present and our future.

            As of right now, I would like to lead our class into a discussion of dominance, where it originated from, and how it can be changed. Ecofeminism is the embodiment of all types of oppression and I believe the most important action of today is to end that domination. More ideas of leading the class on this topic evade me at the moment, but it will come.