Hunger, gender, nature: Exploring the nexus of body, sexuality and nature in ecofeminism

• Main Author: Peracullo, Jeane C.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2008
• Subjects: Ecofeminism; Feminism; Sexuality; Sex; Philosophy
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_doctoral/235; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1234&context=etd_doctoral
• Institution: De La Salle University

Ecofeminism posits that there is parallelism between the destruction of nature and oppression of women, and the split between humanity and nature reflects the split between men and women. Like other feminist thoughts, ecofeminism is no means a homogenous body of thought. However, the thread, which connects ecofeminist thoughts, is its critique of patriarchal nature of western society and that the existence of dualistic, hierarchical thinking props the continuing ecological destruction. Ecofeminism necessarily engages with women's embodiment as sexed beings. Ecofeminists emphasizes human embodiment and embeddedness and how both impact to women. Yet, this also brings a dilemma: how should ecofeminists regard the womennature connection? Is it liberating or oppressive? For affinity ecofeminists, affirmation of women's experience becomes an end in itself-the realization and celebration of the "feminine" in women's bodies or nature is a way to counteract the debilitating effect of dualism. For difference ecofeminists, affinity ecofeminists are "trapped, romantic Earth mothers" who failed to realize that when we speak of women's experience, it is never "pure, "unmediated', or "untrammeled." There is thus a need to re-evaluate this experience. This study argues that hunger as both feminist and ecological concern provides a context for ecofeminism to consolidate/intersect/reweave its seemingly differing theories and views on body as manifested in its two main positions: affinity ecofeminism and difference ecofeminism. Hunger as an embodied experience is nexus for ecofeminism because it highlights the "biological body," which gives it a sense of historicity (due to hunger's painful insistence by mobilizing all organs of the body to pay attention to it) and at the same time a sense of continuity with non-human bodies. Hunger as a "lived experience" is nexus as it reveals the vulnerability of embodiment-the body is a set of associations and stereotypes that are often assumed to be “natural” or obvious but instead are complex, highly nuanced networks of values and interests controlled implicitly (and at times explicitly) by those in power. This then resolves the tension between the two strands of ecofeminism by rendering essentialism as false dilemma. This study shows how an ethic of care for nature is a sensible offshoot of reflecting on hunger as an ecofeminist issue/concern.