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Sociology Pandey

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“It is not enough simply to talk of domination of women as if women were a homogenous group” (Ruether 35). I employ this point, made by Ruether, to argue that Pandey must expand her perspective to include views of women that do not align with traditional gender roles, which Southern ecofeminists often focus on. Women are often placed into the role of “caretakers of children, the gardeners, weavers, cookers, cleaners, and waste managers for men in the family” which ultimately diminishes the importance of and “inferiorize[s] this work” (Ruether 34). Concepts such as “‘nature’ and ‘the natural,’” which are a large focus of ecofeminism, are used as the justification for the oppression which “particularly affect[s] women, people of color, non-heteronormative persons, the differently …show more content…

Pandey does not do enough in her article to address the intersections of identities, especially in regards to gender and gender roles. The women that Pandey focuses on are women that fit into the traditional gender role of mother, caretaker, and wife. However, this understanding of ecofeminism can be transphobic, since there is no acknowledgement or understanding of the connection between the oppression of transgender folks and nature. In developing an intersectional ecofeminism, it is imperative to incorporate queer theory. Gaard’s article, Toward a Queer Ecofeminism, emphasizes how the feminization and eroticization of nature along with the masculinization of culture creates a relationship of “compulsory heterosexuality” (Gaard 131). She states, “love of nature is a process of becoming aware of and unlearning ideologies of racism, sexism, heterosexism, and ableism so that we may cease to reduce our idea of nature to a dark, heterosexual, ‘beautiful’ mother” (Gaard 115). This list is similar to that of other

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