Feminism On Nature Flashcards
(21 cards)
Cultural feminism 2 main points ?
1) Women are not equal to nature.
2) Cultural feminism shows the association of women with nature has provided a core rationale for the subordination of women ‘naturalising’ sexual inequality, male dominance and gender hierarchy.
How have they challenged the naturalness of these things ?
By adopting a strongly constructionist approach. Insisting firstly on sex/gender distinction.
Secondly on the performative construction of sex itself( butler 1990)
Category of women?
The category of women and the experience of what is like to be a women, they insist is not given by nature and but socially produced within relations of power.
To regard something as natural is to see it as unchangeable, they argue , so insofar as gender relations are socially constructed, they must be cultural.
This radical ‘anti-essentialism’ has led to what?
Been a central plank for of feminist theory. Leading to generalised ‘nature- scepticism’
What does cultural feminism fail to do ?
It fails to challenge at the root the domination human/ nature dualism, with humans elevated and nature downgraded to the status of an object or resource.
Instead it devotes itself to showing that women are part of the sphere of culture and that their relegation to culture was always an ideological patriarchal function.
What’s affinity feminism ?
Reversing the degradation of nature + women
Rather than challenging the women- nature association, here is it affirmed , celebrated and given positive valuation.
Quote by mellor ?
Affinity feminism
“The closeness of women and nature is seen as a source of female power that offers hope of a better world- caring, non violent and non hierarchal
How are male characteristics contrasted?
Men’s distance from nature -
Violent
Power seeking
Hierarchal
Rather than patriarchal ideological construct …..
The association of women to
nature , is regarded as a real phenomenon- flowing from women’s bodily beings- resulting in a more central role in production
What do affinity feminists believe is the key problem ?
Not the association of women and nature, but the degradation of nature, feminist and reproduction- by a patriarchal anthropocentric culture which values only culture , masculinity, production and the mind.
Critiques of affinity feminism ?
- due to the essentialism - the suggestion of an essential female connection with nature , and nature female qualities.
- because it reinscibes traditional gender ideology with male and female , undoing the work of cultural feminism.
What’s val plum woods opinion on affinity feminism ? (1)
Regards it as an example of “ the feminism of uncritical reversal”.
States it reserves the valuations of the 2 sides of a dominant dualism without reconstructing dualism itself.
Val plum wood carried on (2)
–She rejects the false choice between anthropocentric nature- scepticism on an essentialist view of women’s relation to women.
–argues the connection of women with nature is instead due to different social and historical position of women - a form of eco feminist ‘stand point epistemology’
Plum wood carried on (3)
Outlines a critical ecofeminism based on Critique of a structure of multiple overlapping and mutually reinforcing dualisms in western though, in which “otherness” is constructed as hierarchy
- -argues dualism denies dependency on an other that is backgrounded, there identity back grounded into that of the masters identity.
- –in this was dualism serves to reproduce and naturalise the structure of domination.
The scientific revolution lead to ?
How was science socially constructed ?
The dominance view over nature.
Nature became objectified, stripped of all liveliness.
–as part of the public realm, science was socially structured by gender hierarchy- scientists were all white men.
How did this scientific view and enlightenment philosophy laud reason?
Because it was objectified, detachment , the mind and rationality, all of which were culturally masculine.
In contrast, women were culturally associated with subjectivity , empathy and emotion- which were devalued by science
– this objectification of of nature , legitimised the subordination of women , who were positioned closer to men.
The instrumentalist of nature reinforced gender division, and defined women’s social role as ?
Biological reproduction.
Men were fully human ?
Women were ambiguously human ?
Men were rational beings who mastered nature with science and reason in order to provide culture.
– women were emotional beings subject to nature who’s role was to reproduce the species.
What does vandana shiva suggest ? 1988,1993
Western scientific rationalist paradigm, has served colonialism by undermining non-western women’s traditional knowledges and their role in food production, replacing this with unstainable capitalist agriculture which destroys communities.
Critiques this as a form of interconnected violence and domination against nature and women.
Eco feminists response to gendered science ?
Not just to asset the full humanity of women.
And contest the patriarchal masculinity of the scientific paragram.
Also to challenge the machine view on nature itself.
Materialist spirituality ?
Plumwood - re-chantment of the world which does not deny the facts on scientific materialism, but rejects the accompanying mechanism view oh nature.
