Hey have you ever took a second to just be thankful you have access to water? It’s crazy that not having water could kill you. In what ways are women in the Global south affected by environmental degradation? This quote from :

https://www.unwater.org/water-facts/gender/

states:

“Without safe drinking water, adequate sanitation and hygiene facilities at home and in places of work and education, it is disproportionately harder for women and girls to lead safe, productive, healthy lives”

Women have periods for christ sake, how can you not understand that feeling? Water needs to be safe. Whenever you go to the doctors office what is one common thing the doctor would be telling everyone? “Drink more water, Drink “x” amount of water from now on”. Water is essential to everyday life. Especiailly when it comes to hygiene. Without water, or in better terms without clean water the quick epidemic of disease will soon rise. Their are many people who hate to even drink water but how would they feel if water wasn’t available to them? Would it change their perspective? Of course it would, especially women. Not being able to bathe, clean wounds, hydrate their bodies places them in a difficult place that noone should even have to experience better yet a woman. 

In the picture below their are african girls who have to go and collect water from miles away from their actual homes. All this is done through walking, just to reach some type of water to begin with. It’s been said that many african girls who have to do this lead them to easier access to be abused, drop out of school, and disease. The journey to get water and come back isn’t always safe, but to keep them balanced and semi-healthy if you will this is what has to be done. The image is powerful and hurts me to the core, its unfair all I have to do is jump in my car and head to the nearest convenience store. While researching and reading I found a blog/article that I believe will help you to better understand:

https://www.santabanta.com/newsmaker/5440/over-17-million-women-and-girls-collect-water-in-africa-at-risk-of-rape-and-disease/

The picture I posted below is from this website.

BINA AGARWAL

In her chapter of Feminist Studies; The Gender and Environment Debate: Lessons from India, she states that “(2)In patriarchal thought women are identified as being closer to nature in men as being culture, nature is seen as inferior to culture as women are seen as inferior to men”(Agarwal, 120). Tell us something we didn’t know? Backtrack a bit she argues that women who live in poverty are more prone to “environmental degradation in quite gender-specific ways.” (Agarwal, 119) If we look at what I said before reasons are; hygiene, abuse, and/or disease. In another section she goes on to talk more about how women are everywhere when nature is mentioned but men are more cultural then nature. Agarwall states the debate between women,  and men has a divide one that the root is based off of gender. “Such as through the work women and men do in the gender division of property and power”(Agarwal,123) Society brings men up as policemen, as military, as stallions. Women are housewives, nurses, and ‘chicks’. The women is always pushed into a job/or social construct that she has to be a ‘caregiver’ or ‘caretaker’ just because someone can breathe life into this earth doesn’t mean that they are capable of giving that nature/nurture.  Agarwals perspective does a 180 on the western perspective, through the western perspective it states that women are inferior to men due to the relations with nature and etc.. Agarwal presents that anything women/nonhuman are inferior to men. Not just nature and women. it stems from different ideological ties.

From my perspective I believe I appreciate Agarwal more then the other past readings we’ve read. She connects herself as a women to her essay and I appreciate it more from that position. When reading Warren or Hobgood I felt as if I was just reading and understanding a perspective, while reading Agarwal I could understand more about women and nature being connected. She brought a different perspective from the basic western one I have seen and have continued to see.

 xoxo Gossip Girl.

PS: WOMEN AND NATURE BOTH NEED WATER. NEVER FORGET THAT WHEN YOU WASTE YOUR WATER!

The term “Ecofeminism” meant nothing to me before I read Warrens introduction to Eco feminism & Laura Hobgood-oster’s outlook on the historic and international evolution of ecofeminism. Throughout both readings I noticed that both Warren and Hobgood have explained their take on ecofeminism. As I kept reading Warren states 8 different woman-nature connections “that ecofeminists claim link the twin dominations of women and nature.” One of them particularly being Symbolic connections, i.e some ecofeminists look at the theory of language in some cases such as the term “Mother nature”, Ynestra King a feminist teacher, writer and oral historian brings attention to the term. She puts into perspective is Mother nature “potentially liberating or simply a rationale for the continued subordination of women.” Which she’s basically asking you if the term Mother nature is a compliment or is it a social construct of patriarchy used to place women into a subordinate category under men. Does it allow man to give woman the responsibility of a mother because she is female? OR is it another way of proving to us women and nature are both under patriarchy since the beginning of time.

Since the beginning of time women were portrayed as gullible and easily influenced. In the book of Genesis the tale of Adam and eve as stated above Eve was demonized as well as the snake. From that instance we recognize the dominance being put into play. Women are depicted as vulnerable and Eve she is defined by man as not having the means to fight off the the snack from getting into her head.

Let’s PAUSE the story automatically pushes women as evil and demonic, therefor who else if left to be in charge? Ah yes, men. If I were to take Hobgood’s perspective and merge it with Warren’s I believe what I would be left with is this image:

The picture above is a character from the film Moana, In the film this woman Tefiti gives birth to life through a stone used as her heart later on Maui(demigod/male character) is shown in a flashback taking the heart of Tefiti to give man the power of creation AKA dominance. With doing that he causes Tefiti to turn into Teka(on the left of the picture), this symbolizes man ripping the key of life(nature) from woman. By the end of the movie we see that ONLY Moana can return the stone heart without being harmed in anyway leading us to the belief that Moana herself is the heroin and that only woman can restore natures true balance back to its origin. This reminds me of the symbolic connection that Warren was talking about. The agenda of society is to make woman and nature inferior to man although through Moana we can see from an ecofeminist perspective the relationship between woman and nature. Moana and Tefiti share a touch of the nose and foreheads implementing that Moana understands the pain and torture Tefiti had to go through without her heart(which held the power of birthing life into the world), only women can understand Nature’s true feelings because they share the same oppression when it comes to living in a patriarchal society. Ecofeminism was created to reclaim the, in the words of Warren, “women-nature connections”. Ecofeminists fight against the patriarch and are implementing taking back the power that allowed man to look at woman as their inferior, with their lack of education. When men refer to women they refer to them as different names such as ‘chicks and foxes’ while nature is referred to as ‘raped and conquered’. When they speak about nature they always say ‘she’. That within itself should allow you to see the link between Women and Nature.

Articles used to generate my post:

https://thereitis.org/warrens-introduction-to-ecofeminism/

http://users.clas.ufl.edu/bron/pdf–christianity/Hobgood-Oster–Ecofeminism-International%20Evolution.pdf

Thank you, and please come back again xoxo Gossip girl!

So I was scrolling down the little page thing and I found a really cool blog, it was just full of horoscopes but I really enjoyed it. I have a sick obsession with zodiac/horoscope stuff, it’s so soothing to read a quote to start your day. 8 times out of 10 my horoscope is always on point, it may not follow it directly but it subliminally speaks to me like how some people interpret books, I interpret horoscopes differently than others. Wow I forgot to tell you the blog so you’re probably sitting there like girl hurry up post the link so I can see my horoscope for the day. The blog is called “Warm Honey Blog” and if you can remember from my previous post I posted about my name’s meaning as the title 🙂 I am literally warm honey.

Link below:

https://www.feedspot.com/infiniterss.php?followfeedid=4925260&q=site:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.warmhoneyblog.com%2Ffeed.xml

I’m a leo and mine read:

Here I am sitting.. thinking.. contemplating.. how am I going to start this blog? With little to no experience. I could just stop here and shrug but I actually promised myself to be responsible this semester! boring.. Anyway’s I am 22 years old and a Leo. SORRY! I’m supposed to introduce myself first but I probably won’t remember to restate that fact so just act like I put it in there. My name is Melany pronounced [Meh]-[Law]-[Knee] if you know Kehlani the singer just pronounce it with an M instead of a K get it? Got it? Good. I just stopped typing this for about a half hour because I was talking to my fiancé about our new sustainable straws I got from the campus center yesterday. It came with it’s own cleaning utensil! Super exciting.. I suggest you get one so you can do your part and save the earth 🙂 Anyways I am one of 9.. YES I KNOW WOW SO MANY KIDS.. I get it my father did his thing. I’m in the younger half my dad has 10 kids my mom has 4, I’m closer to the siblings I grew up with and sometimes that makes me sad.

Moving on! My mother is foreign she came here when she was 16, she is my idol. She had nothing when she came here and now she has everything. (Everything meaning LOVE from her beautiful four children, yes love is everything not money shocking!) Now I plan to do for my mom what she did for me. I’m a Liberal Arts major and I have my concentrations in English Lit & Womens Gender Studies. I hope to make friends in this class??? Lol, maybe? Hopefully? It’s okay if I don’t.

Enjoy this song if you’re ever stressed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6jxPFtIAnw

I have nothing else to say so stay tuned for some more of that xoxo gossip girl(whoever gets this reference just gained 100 pts)