I chose this image because it reflects Warren’s writings on Symbolic Connections. This image sexualizes a pig, calling her “Lady Edison” the “Hoofed Temptress”. I, for one found this incredible offensive. The imagery is essentially not only doing what Warren claims in this section by describing a woman, in how she said “animal terms”, but also still using the sexual language that feminism and ecofeminism are trying to eradicate. “The development of theory and praxis in feminism and environmental philosophy that does not perpetuate such sexist-naturist language and the power over systems of domination they reinforce is, therefore, a goal of ecofeminism (Warren).” This image was clearly created with the male gaze in mind.
“They proposed that patriarchal cultural structures revolved around layers of symbol systems that justified domination. For example, they interpretthe creation stories in the book of Genesis, foundational for Judaism, Christianity and Islam, as demonizing both woman (Eve) and animal (the snake) (Hobgood, 4).” Much like in the ad I posted, these animals are used to not only represent women, or an aspect of femininity, but in a degrading and dehumanizing manner. In the quote, Hobgood explains how the snake was used to represent evil, and if you have read the Bible, we know Eve gave in to such evil. However, this is problematic because like Hobgood states, it essentially demoralizes both women (Eve) and the snake. This issue has gone back generations before even our time, and has only begun to be called into question in the past few decades. Male-dominated culture and the patriarchy is so toxic, but so normalized, that any attempt to challenge it seems cantankerous to others not involved in the movement.
I am still struggling a bit to understand the concept of ecofeminism. So, to explain to another newbie to the topic I suppose I would say that ecofeminism is the link between women and nature. Beyond that, it is the tying of the two together that fights against dehumanizing both nature and women by patriarchal power and the male gaze.
I will go again with Warren’s Symbolic Connections and choose the example of the media. While this is broad, it is one that has really stuck out to me over the years in my WGS courses and even my Communications course where I learned more in depth about the male gaze in media. (While this is not connected to animals, I felt it was important to connect the ideas as it’s not too far off in my opinion.) Something that we did in that communications class was take a quiz while watching the music video to “Stacy’s Mom”, and we were to at the end, describe random objects in the video. Such as what color the car was, or what kind of plants were in the garden. To our shock, a lot of us did not know the answers, because of the male gaze imagery distracting us from anything other than the sexualized woman in the music video. The fact it slipped by us college kids, was a real eye opener to how society molds us as a whole, generation after generation.
My question: What can we do to bring more awareness, besides education and teaching younger generations, to stop perpetuating these ideals?
Hi Rachel,
Great writing and explanation. I too, looked at the way in which women are compared to nature’s creatures. I found it interesting reading Hobgood-Oster’s theory because the type of language is so normalized that until she pointed it out I hadn’t consider it much on my own. Once it was brought to my attention the names and comparisons were so obvious that I finally stopped listing them in my mind after about 3o examples. Women are constantly compared to animals: cattle call, hens, chicks, bitches, beast, etc. Though to be fair, we do also use animal terms to describe men as well: pigs, swine, stud, etc. But I don’t think it is even close to as many terms or language as easily thrown around like it is toward women.
I am also still a bit confused about what ecofeminism is and I look forward to learning more throughout the semester to be able to understand it fully.
As for your question, what can we do to bring more awareness? I guess to start we need to continue calling it out when we see/hear it. The more we pull the curtain down the more aware people will be. I’m interested to hear other people’s thoughts to your question as well.
-Tara
Great first post! The way media approaches women’s morals is always so interesting and conflicted. While images like that horrid hoofed temptress obviously are looking to demoralize women like you said, (white upper class) women were simultaneously idealized and considered the moral core of America for a good while. The whole “cult of domesticity” and “republican motherhood” used the idea that woman we’re morally superior to men as a reason to keep them out of the public sphere so they couldn’t be *corrupted* – 18th to 20th century literature is rampant with it. So historically we can see how portrayals of women that demoralize them or alternatively over moralize them are both serving a patriarchal agenda – interesting how it flip flops depending on the moment.
To try and answer your question: I think in many ways younger generations are already light years ahead and tend to have more educated and progressive views on things then adults do. Hearing my younger cousins speak about things like gender identity, race, sexuality – topics that when I was in school were so stigmatized – they approach these topics with way more acceptance then I remember my peers doing just a few years prior. It’s so amazing to see. I recently started working in a high school and even though I’m not that far out I already see such differences in how they interact and treat each other. You’re entirely right that media totally shapes our view on most things, mostly in a negative way up to this point. I think a good step is through increasing representation in programs and strides were definitely made in recent years. Normalizing LGBTQIA characters, characters with disabilities, non-white characters, etc. – and also making sure these characters are dimensional and these things are not central to all of their storylines, and this is of course best done by diversifying writers rooms, directors chairs, etc.
Hi Rachel,
I really enjoyed reading your post because of all the insight you shared on the issues surrounding eco-feminism. By isolating examples like the tale of Genesis and the harsh reality of the male gaze and how we’ve all been trained as audience members to participate in it, you were able to bring to light the central issues that eco-feminism attempts to breakdown and reconceptualize through the feminist perspective. The patriarchy as a whole has brought down and oppressed many beings like women, LGBTQ folks, people of color, and of course animals, as a way to assure the power position only stays in one place, with white cis-gendered, able-bodied, straight, white men. We must as a society come together and understand the issues of functioning under a patriarchy and adapt to equality driven feminist approach.
Mirko Lopes