I’m making great progress on my backyard garden! I won’t be able to finish it before this class ends, but I’ll try to post an update later this summer. We chose a mix of native plants, flowers, herbs, and vegetables (most non-native, unfortunately — did you know tomatoes are not native to North America?) and started seeds indoors. Here’s what we chose:
Raspberry
Sasparilla
Mint
Strawberry
Columbine
Blueberry
Tomato
Cucumber
Lettuce
Beebalm
Honeysuckle
Seeds started indoors
The garden itself has been slow but steady progress. We had to dig up the primitive garden we had already (which admittedly wasn’t much) and buy new fencing materials. We also purchased greenhouse gravel to put down between rows to prevent weeds from taking over the established plants. I know some weeds are pollinators and can be beneficial, but I don’t want them to take all the nutrients from the plants! We will have a planter box for flowers that the weeds are welcome to inhabit.
The ground should be ready for planting Mother’s Day weekend, so we’ll spend the next couple of weeks finishing the perimeter, filling the planter box, and putting down gravel between the rows. This past weekend, I repotted some of the bigger seedlings so they wouldn’t get root-rot. My kids helped me shovel soil into the pots and we talked about how each plant helped the environment. They’re excited to help us plant when the ground is ready. Eventually, when the plants fill in, they’ll be a source of food and clean air for all living species in and near our backyard. In this small way, we’ll give back to our ecosystem and support biodiversity, a key ecofeminist principle.
It has been a joy learning alongside you all. I am enlightened and excited to have a new perspective on environmental and feminist issues. Thank you to all my classmates for your thoughts and engagement over the past three months. Enjoy summer!
After many weeks of ecofeminist study, it’s time to put the material to practice. The gender-environmentalist issue that I’d like to tackle is biodiversity. Biodiversity is when many species live in the same area and provide different benefits to the ecosystem. For example, bees and butterflies pollinate flowers and fruits, worms and rodents aerate the soil, and plants filter the water. Each species works in tandem to support the surrounding environment. Ynestra King wrote in her essay The Ecology of the Feminist and the Feminism of Ecology that life is an “interconnected web, not a hierarchy,” and “a healthy ecosystem needs biodiversity to survive” (2019).
To do my part, I’d like to establish a permanent garden in my backyard. We have a hodgepodge garden of sorts right now, but it isn’t carefully planned to support biodiversity. I’d like to incorporate native plants, flowers, fruits, and vegtables, and my sons will help me plant and maintain. This will benefit the world twofold: the biodiversity in my backyard will increase, and I will be teaching the next generation of men to care and cultivate the earth respectfully.
To do this, I’ll need to:
Research native plants, flowers, fruits, vegetables
Start seeds indoors
Plot the garden
Install a fence to keep rabbits out
Teach my kids how to transplant seedlings
Plant, grow, cultivate
I also have plans to install a wildlife pond to support local amphibians, but that will happen when the ground is warmer and this class is over. My goal is to create a backyard that supports biodiversity and acts as a portal to wildnerness for my kids, who can and should grow up with access to and respect for the outdoors. I’m not a professional landscaper or botanist, but I’m optimistic about the knowledge I’ll acquire, and I know my family and local wildlife will benefit from the effort.
Works Cited
King, Ynestra. (2019). “The Ecology of Ecofeminism & the Feminism of Ecology”. Libcom.
Three generations of women in rural Africa. Photo courtesy of CIMMYT.
Across many marginalized communities, there is a recognition that the degradation of the environment and the oppression of women are not separate struggles, but entangled realities, rooted in the same systems of power. In rural Kenya, the forests of India, and the urban peripheries of Brazil, the consequences of environmental harm fall most heavily on women, not because of biology, but because of longstanding structural inequalities that position women as both the stewards of natural resources and the least empowered to protect them.
One recurring theme in this week’s material is the intimate knowledge women possess of environmental damage, because they are the first to see and feel its effects. As Wangari Maathai explains in her article “Speak Truth to Power”, “if the well goes dry, [women] are the ones concerned about finding new sources of water and those who must walk long distances to fetch it” (2000). When water is polluted, food becomes scarce, or forests are cleared, it is women who must absorb the burden of care and adaptation. Despite the often romanticized and abstract connections between women and nature, this is a real and political issue. It’s about who has responsibility without power and who labors without recognition.
Ecofeminism emerges here to challenge the logic that sees women and nature as passive, exploitable resources. Ivone Gebara writes in “Ecofeminism: A Latin American Perspective”, “feminism lies inside this common utopia with its own particular struggle and will also be a particular utopia for all women living in hierarchical structures in different cultures” (2002). This vision is not about elevating women’s suffering, it’s about recognizing their agency. In many communities, the simple act of planting a tree becomes a revolutionary act, one rooted (pun intended) in practical power. Wangari Maathai describes this type of grassroots activism during the Green Belt Movement: “Tree-planting empowered these women because it was not a complicated thing. It was something they could do and see the results of” (2000). This is a clear example of how beyond flowery existential debates, women have the ability to take control of their environment and their future.
However, these efforts are rarely welcomed by patriarchal power structures. When feminists challenge environmental exploitation, they also threaten the culture that enables it. Maathai was dismissed by officials as part of “a bunch of divorcees and irresponsible women” and her group faced threats of genital mutilation for “refusing to behave like women should” (2000). These are blatant attempts to discredit women’s claims to public space and quiet their voices.
Wangari Maathai gardening in Africa. Photo courtesy of the Green Belt Movement.
At the heart of the material this week is a shared critique of the structures that serve to disempower women. Material deprivation and cultural loss do not occur in a vacuum, they are the outcomes of systemic exclusion. “Daily life for most poor women is like a jail,” Gebara writes. “You have to live there as a prisoner without choosing alternatives for a better life” (2002). The destruction of ecosystems is mirrored in this lack of autonomy, especially for women in rural and poor communities. The connection here is clear: environmental degradation reinforces disempowerment, and vice versa.
We can free women from these jails, we can strengthen and empower them through activism, but it begins with awareness. In the Green Belt Movement’s educational programs, the metaphor of the “wrong bus” is used to help people understand systemic failure. “If you are afraid, you can get onto the wrong bus. If you are arrogant… if you are not mentally alert… There are many reasons,” writes Maathai. In other words, misinformation, fear, and illiteracy all conspire to put people on the wrong bus, the one that reinforces the cycles that perpetuate their circumstances. But once people realize they are on the bus, they can decide to get off, to act, to plant, to organize, to resist. This is the seed that plants the action.
Stories of grassroots ecofeminist movements show us that meaningful activism is deeply practical. They show that healing the earth is not separate from healing relationships with our community and ourselves. As Wangari Maathai puts it, “the clarity of what you ought to do gives you courage, removes the fear… and now you are out of the bus and moving in the right direction” (2000). These movements intentionally critique but also offer pathways forward that are paved with the urgency of lived realities. In this light, environmental degradation is not only a scientific or economic issue, it is a moral and political one. And women, often pushed to the margins, are speaking up in that conversation. Not through grand speeches or platforms, but through daily, deliberate acts of resistance.
Works Cited
Gebara, Ivone (2002). Ecofeminism: A Latin American Perspective. Theology, Ecology, and Feminism: A Conference Honoring Rosemary Radford Ruether. Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary.
Maathai, Wangari (2000). Speak Truth to Power. Green Belt Movement. https://www.greenbeltmovement.org/wangari-maathai/key-speeches-and-articles/speak-truth-to-power
