Category Archives: feminism
Ecofeminism: Why We Need It
Ecofeminism: Why We Need It.
By Marian Avila-Breach
What is ecofeminism?
Throughout the history of feminism, feminist theory has always been shaped by women’s lives around the world. Feminism and all theories that purport equality, look at the world and its governments and institutions and attempt to look further and look at how the world should be. Recently, with the women’s march in March and the scourge of sexual harassers in media and politics, the fight for women’s rights has risen another notch. Women are demanding an equal world. However, as women’s rights achieve progress, new legislation in the US breaks down environmental protection laws and deregulates environmentally harmful practices. What use are equal rights if there is no longer a healthy Earth in which to practice them? French feminist Françoise d’Eaubonne coined the term Ecofeminism in the 1970’s as a way to bring attention to the ways women and feminist theory could bring about an ecological revolution. Like feminist theory itself, ecofeminism is comprised of a rich diversity of sub-theories, many linked to other philosophies of government or economy. A broad definition of ecofeminism, however, would be the overarching idea of there being diverse interconnections between women, the fight for women’s rights, and environmental protection. Read the rest of this entry
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Men Upset About Treatment? Turn It Around.
Many people are more offended at calling out sexism than being sexist.
A lot of guys are angry at so-called reverse racism and reverse sexism.
So I tried imagining the world turned around. Read the rest of this entry
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Women-Parts As Urinals
Sociological Images has quite a collection of women-parts as urinals, and sometimes sinks.
Looks like equal parts sex and denigration of women.
From Stephanie Medley-Rath: urinals shaped like women’s mouths (source)
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Be Wonder Woman — Your Way
Wonder Woman (2017)
Why would watching warriors prepare for battle evoke tears of deep emotion?
How could a cartoon character be transformative?
I puzzled over those questions when friends and movie reviewers, alike, shared their experience of Wonder Woman.
It made no sense.
I’ve seen plenty of battles and felt mostly bored: chaotic fighting, and you know who will win anyway.
Wonder Woman is transformative?! I read her comics as a kid… no transformation.
Curious, I went to see the film.
And… as Amazon warrior women practiced their skills tears well up.
What?! Read the rest of this entry
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What Does Wonder Woman’s World Without Men Mean?
Wonder Woman
“She’s so strong,” the little girl seated next to me at a Brooklyn screening of “Wonder Woman” kept repeating to her mother…
Legions of women I know took daughters, nieces, nephews, mentees or simply went in droves, some of them to women-only screenings — and walked out of theaters with a strange feeling of ferociousness.
So says Jessica Bennett of the New York Times.
I had thought Wonder Woman was just another action flick. But there is so much more. Read the rest of this entry
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Biggest Regret? My Silences.
“We realize the importance of our voice when we are silenced.” Malala Yousafazi
“What I most regretted were my silences,” said Audre Lorde.
The thought came as Ms. Lorde looked back on her life while awaiting word on whether a tumor taken from her breast was malignant.
Now she asks us:
• What tyrannies do you swallow?
• What do you need to say?
• What are the words you do not yet have? Read the rest of this entry
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A Feminist Corset?
The corset. A means to female empowerment?
Why would my wife like corsets? Especially since she’s feminist?
One of my male feminist friends wondered about that.
Meanwhile, the New York Times’ Alexander Fury brought this news alert: the corset has become:
A symbol of empowerment, of sexual freedom, of control. She’s the one holding the laces, the one constructing her own femininity.
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Women Aren’t People, They’re “Hosts”
Handmaids Tale. Women are just hosts, not people.
Fertile women of Gilead’s Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu, airing today) were not seen as people. They were mere vessels carrying the babies of men.
Too many theocratic Republican legislators see women the same way today.
Like Oklahoma Rep. Justin Henry who asserted:
I understand that they (women) feel like that is their body (but) what I call them is, is you’re a ‘host.
Women don’t have bodies. They are incubators for other people’s bodies.
Do baby girls have bodies until they become fertile and then lose them? Read the rest of this entry
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“GIRLS” Mirrors Feminist Dystopia?
HBO’s Girls
Does HBO’s Girls reflect a feminist dystopia?
Some think so. With the fall of patriarchy the world changed … but nobody knew what to do next. And Girls reflects the disjoint. So writes Ross Douthat in the New York Times.
Prophylactics and graduate degrees and gender equality are supposed to lead smoothly to health, wealth and high-functioning relationships. (Yet) the characters’ sex lives were not remotely “safe”; they were porn-haunted and self-destructive, a mess of S.T.D. fears and dubiously consensual incidents and sudden marriages and stupid infidelities.
The problem is feminism? Or a failure of complete equality? Read the rest of this entry
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Haunting Handmaid’s Tale Actually Happened
The Handmaid’s Tale on Hulu April 26.
The Handmaid’s Tale seems too hauntingly creepy to have ever occurred in real life, yet all of the main events (and more) actually happened at some point in history. Some are alive and well even now. Read the rest of this entry
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