A big part of how we interact with our world is through our gender identities. The abstracts below address how gender identity and expression, as well as sexual identity and race, shape our interactions with the environment. From the idea of women being more closely tied to Nature while men are more often associated with Culture to the conflicting but simultaneous views of nature being something more wild but more pure and following a set binary for sexes and sexuality when a range of sexualities are present and acted upon.
Gender is a social construct, but we often address it as if it is biological, and ignore how gender identity and (sometimes incorrect) gender assignment influence how we look at and experience not only culture and society, but nature as well. The video below provides an interesting look at gender expectations and gendered experiences of the ecology of the body, from the changing behaviors to the hygiene products used by the two genders presented.
The video, though in French, gives a clear presentation of gendered behaviors and interactions within the same or at least similar environments. The authors below address the ideas of gender influencing perceptions of nature and interactions, and expand on the idea of different experiences between genders in the same environments. Sexuality is also addressed, though the idea of Queering Ecology presented below could also extend to include different expressions and the expectations assigned to gender, including our assumption of a gender binary.
Gender and the Environment
Rocheleau et al suggest in their article Gender and the Environment: A Feminist Political Ecology Perspective that there are real gender differences in experiences of, responsibilities for, and interests in the environment, but these differences are rooted in the social interpretation of biological and social constructs of gender, which vary by culture, class, race, and place and are subject to change both at the individual level and the social level. They introduce feminist political ecology, which connects some of the ideas of feminist cultural ecology and political ecology with those of feminist geography and feminist political economy. Gender in feminist political ecology is a critical variable in shaping resource access and control, interacting with a variety of other social factors. The authors use analysis of case studies to create what they call a “common perspective,” and state at the end of their article that feminist political ecology looks at the convergence of gender, science, and environment in both academic and political discussions and also in everyday life and in social movements. Much of their common perspective focuses on the multiple roles of women as producers, reproducers, and consumers, as well as their roles as caregivers at multiple levels in their communities and their clashes with specialized sciences that focus on a single domain. Based on the work done by Rocheleau et al, anthropologists should not hesitate to include feminist perspectives in analyzing relationships between cultures and the environments they live in. It would be helpful if the authors would elaborate on the case studies they analyzed.
The above photographs (taken by the author) are of gendered statues in Bangkok, Thailand.
So Is Female to Male as Nature Is to Culture?
Sherry B. Ortner’s So Is Female to Male as Nature Is to Culture? functions as a review and visitation of a previous paper. Ortner’s work explores the origins of male dominance and how gender relations affect how we interpret and interact with our environment. We still have cultures with gender-segregated rituals and some that can be seen as egalitarian cultures. The research looks at the gender disparities and if one gender is more closely associated with nature or culture. The author cites contemporary studies of gender in specific cultures and studies exploring the emergence of male dominance and how genders are associated with different aspects of human life. Readers would be interested in her argument regarding the gender dichotomy and its influence on how humans relate to the environment as well as to find the potential sources of the gendered power dynamics and advantages/disadvantages and that relates to the nature-culture debate. The implication is the gendered difference in human-environment relations, and as a result cultures should look at how gender is interpreted and related to the environment as that can determine power structures. Ortner declares that the body is the nature-culture border that gender is situated upon, a statement I believe lends itself to further examination. Ortner reviewed her work and the findings of others in an objective manner, reevaluating information and hypotheses, and finding methods she used that she no longer supports- such as “seizing upon any indicator of male superiority” to label an entire culture as male dominant.
Nature of Gender
Andrea Nightingale’s The Nature of Gender: Work, Gender and Environment discusses historical feminist perspectives on gender as it relates to the environment. Nightingale asserts that her goal is to explore the production of social inequalities and environments by examining how and when gender and other forms of differences became involved in environmental issues. She states that three key strands are discernable in existing work on gender and the environment. There is an essentialist conceptualization of gender and environment, which the author disagrees with. It states that women inherently better understand the importance of environmental protection, and one of its biggest flaws is that it assumes that all women have the same sympathies and understanding of environmental change. There is also a materialist conception, which argued that the relationship between women and their motivation to protect the environment was based on their material realities. Agarwal was a significant writer on this conception, arguing for a clear focus on gender, and defining ecological feminisms as the differences between men’s and women’s experiences and knowledge in relationship to their environment. The third key strand is feminist political ecology, which itself has three key themes, including gendered knowledge (ways in which access to scientific and ecological knowledge is structured by gender), gendered environmental rights and responsibilities, and gendered politics and grass roots activism. Gender of the body is an important identity to look at when discussing the relationship with the environment- and Nightingale emphasizes that gender is a process by which subjectivities are produced and shift spatiotemporally.
Beyond gender expression, there is also the way a person’s sexual identity changes how they interact with the environment. The abstract below presents the idea of Queering Ecology, or reinterpreting the world in a more flexible way and accepting the complexity of nature. As a primer for the text, I included below Mary Lambert singing She Keeps Me Warm, with the central couple being two women.
The World is So Queer
In Alex Carr Johnson addresses heteronormativity in nature writing in his article How to Queer Ecology: One Goose at a Time. Organized into steps, Johnson’s article provides a guide for re-conceptualizing nature, particularly addressing the nature-as-purity mythos, as well as the dichotomy of seeing nature as ideal, pure, and holy, but also evil, dangerous and dirty. The data that Johnson extrapolates his argument from comes from not just personal experience as a queer man, but also from the nature writing of others. He is looking for a discussion- bringing up and challenging the idea that monogamous heterosexuality is the norm. For Johnson, queering ecology is the study of dynamics across all phenomena, all behavior, and all possibility. He decided to change his conceptualization of nature after reading an essay insisting that the ideal human qualities can be found in heterosexual, monogamous wild geese. Johnson provides examples of non-heteronormative animals, stating that assuming geese (and by extension the rest of the non-human world) are straight is easy, but limiting. Queering ecology enables humans to imagine an infinite number of possible natures, and he insists we use the more-than-human world as an indication of the diversity and capacity of all life. The “body” in his work is perceived in terms of monogamous heteronormativity, a perception Johnson desperately wishes to change. He wants the body, human and beyond, to be seen as a multitude of possibilities, complexities, and paradoxical ironies- he wants people to see the world for the queer place it is.
Race and the EPA
But I Know It’s True, written by Melissa Checker, explores the racial biases in seemingly objective environmental science. Framed around the story of Hyde Park, an area in Augusta, Georgia surrounded by factories, a power plant, and located on a flood plain where Checker volunteered in a community organization full-time. It is a historically African-American area, with high levels of both poverty and chemical contamination. Though everyone in Hyde Park knew their land was contaminated, testing found high levels of certain toxins that were claimed to not be a significant threat. It is up to the individual running the tests to decide which health effect will be studied, as well as which chemical to test for. There is also an issue of scientists using a healthy white male as the standard no matter the situation. Many communities are also exposed to a number of chemicals, making it even harder to assess the result as the chemicals mix and the individual’s sensitivity and exposure to each varies. EPA protocols also do not include input from the community, which in the case of Hyde Park was a major oversight as researchers did not know that residents had been dumping imported soil over their old dirt to try and push down the toxins. Health officials were also reported to be hostile and disbelieving when community members sought help, and Checker suggests that stereotypes may be used by health officials when they do not know the community. Checker states that scientists are working on using a more holistic approach to environmental testing, working on getting community members involved.