Something I found particularly interesting was most of the responses I had, in fact all of them, were female. I unfortunately did not get as many responses as I would have liked, but of the women who gave their feedback– I found a common denominator. Every one of the responsive women was pro-recycling. Their reasons varied, but all had a similar connection. Most of them felt that we should respect our planet, and the life of humans and animals as well as nature that inhabit it. By not recycling, they feel we are closer to global warming and destroying our planet. Someone even said that by not recycling, we are disrespecting our planet and just bringing about the eventual decline of our race as a whole.

To these few women, I must agree. Recycling is so incredibly important because it saves our planet, improves out quality of life, and respects the other life that surrounds us. We are not alone on this planet, and we take it, and the beautiful nature and resources it gives us for granted. By recycling, we can clean up the messes we create, and keep our earth alive and striving for longer, instead of helping it along to deteriorate with our negligence.

I had this idea to use a dating app that also functions as a “find a new bff” app to take a sort of poll. Because recycling is incredibly important to me, I want to ensure anyone I date, and also any new friends or chatting buddies, feel the same way. So, my idea is to use Bumble BFF to ask each individual person whether or not they recycle, and why? If they don’t recycle, would they consider it, and if not to ask why they refuse to. Without preaching, I will try to help them understand from an ecofeminist prospective about the harmful effects of waste on our planet and in our oceans, and explain how recycling alone can help us start to improve our planet and quality of living.

My plan is to take the next 3-4 days and message as many people as possible. Those who respond to my question will be notified that it’s for an assignment, and I will keep names anonymous. I would like to ask 10-20 people if possible to get a good varied handful of responses. With each response I will mark down their age, location, and opinions on the matter of recycling. Once I get all of my data collected, I will post the results and my analysis for you guys.

The connections I see between the oppression of women and the oppression of nature in our readings for this week, is that these women are fighting FOR nature, and in doing so dealing with the consequences of the patriarchy. Those in society that view women’s movements as an outlandish act, that these women are not acting how they ought to in society creates chaos. This chaos that stems from noble acts such as the Chipko movement, and the Green Belt Movement to end the defamation of nature results in brutal hate crimes, and violence against these resilient women. One of the readings I found exceptionally upsetting was The Brazilian Slum Children. “Many of them wade through garbage to eke out a living just as Paulo does, but it was only after his image appeared in the press that the local government and international authorities took notice of their plight. In response to the photo and the accompanying article, the government promised to place Paulo, his mother, and his five siblings on welfare (Corrêa)”. So, this quote tells me that the government has to see a child physically wading around in WASTE to grant them and their mothers and families basic needs? Seriously, how messed up is the world we live in that a child swimming through garbage is the big “wake up call”?

Women fight for nature, whereas the patriarchy simply overlooks it, much like they overlook women’s fights for equality. The Chipko movement was one of the first of many to connect women with nature, and their fight to protect it.  “From their origins as a spontaneous protest against logging abuses in Uttar Pradesh in the Himalayas, supporters of the Chipko movement, mainly village women, have successfully banned the felling of trees in a number of regions and influenced natural resource policy in India (edugreen).” Even after the odds were stacked up high against them, the courage of these women had a domino effect, allowing more and more people to step forward in the fight to prevent the destruction of nature.

The Green Belt Movement was another strong advocacy project where women, even after receiving horrible threats and acts of violence, refused to be silenced and fought for their beliefs that nature had just as much a right to respect as anyone else. “Following the incident, Moi’s ruling party parliamentarians threatened to mutilate her genitals in order to force Maathai to behave “like women should.” But Wangari Maathai was more determined than ever, and today continues her work for environmental protection, women’s rights, and democratic reform. From one seedling, an organization for empowerment and political participation has grown many strong branches. — Kerry Kennedy”. Despite these horrible acts and threats, the bravery and drive of these powerful women is what carves a path for us as ecofeminists in the future.

     The first time I learned about intersectionality, it stuck with me and I absorbed this concept like a sponge. I adored that the belief I always had that the layers of each of us made us special, had a name and a practice to it. I began bringing intersectionality into my every day life and dissecting more about what the scholarly definition entailed. While I grasped the concept of celebrating our differences, I fell short in understanding that intersectionality also has a negative side. The side of intersectionality that shows us how we can be privileged and oppressed simultaneously, and yet be completely overlooked in the eyes of society. For example, I am a cisgender woman, so I have sexual identity privilege. I am of mixed nationalities, but my parents always told me to mark down “white” on my academic tests, even though fifty percent of me is Lebanese. “The dominant group assigns roles to the subordinate that reflect the latter’s devalued status, reserving the most highly valued roles in the society for themselves (Tatum, 12).” I never quite understood why, but now I totally get it. It’s easier to mark down “white” as that is racism at its core, those who are white, or appear to be, get this white privilege handed to them and my parents wanted that for me, instead of embracing my Lebanese heritage more proudly. My parents aren’t incredibly progressive, so this mindset is not surprising, though I am working on chipping away at my family’s ignorance when I have the opportunity. I am also gay, which then turns that privilege around to now oppress me to homophobic degradation. Knowing each of us is made up of individual, unique layers has it’s pros, but the cons can definitely outweigh them if society deems them “wrong” enough.

Intersectionality in itself can also be problematic, due to it being filled with predominantly white and westernized feminists thinking they are helping marginalized minorities, but in fact they are part of the issues at hand. Black feminists are not getting nearly enough recognition in intersectionality, and at times are completely overlooked. However, with the help and advocacy of a handful of amazing black feminists, this is becoming subject to change. “Black women are involved with the environmental justice movement because environmental racism often directly affects their homes, families, and communities (Cain)”. Black feminists not only get involved because of the need to be included, but to fight to be included to show that their oppression is affecting the livelihood of their communities.

Because of intersectionality being defined as so many different things, Kings defines it as a “web of entanglement”. “A spider’s web preserves the necessary complexity of [End Page 65] intersectionality and the potential ‘stickiness’ of cultural categories, which can often leave people stuck between two or more intersecting or conflicting social categories (Kings)”. I like this definition better than the junction or traffic jam definition because it defines intersectionality in less of a chaotic neutral and puts it in the image of something that is beautifully constructed, but can be dangerous when entrapped. The webbing is sticky, representing, at least to me, the feeling of being stuck inside oppression while it appears that freedom is only a few inches away. That we struggle against the confines of the oppressing web, but to no avail. The beauty of the web and how it is constructed also goes back to my argument about layers, and each layer of our own person being unique. However, one of those layers or more can also lead us to an oppression or marginalization, no matter how beautiful our differences are.