Wow! What a wonderful in-flux of new voices (new to the list or lurkers
signing in) have we seen in the last few weeks. WELCOME ALL! I hope all of
these folks won't hesitate to throw out discussion topics of all sorts.
Though I'm an academic by trade, my greatest interest is in hearing about
the real problems and needs of ecofeminists working on the ground, as it
were, or "in the real world", etc. And this interest is far from academic,
since I'm currently hard pressed to develop outside consulting activities to
earn some bread to help put three kids through college. As a "Professor"
who has made his career out of championing "feminine" and feminist topics,
approaches, and practices in the university, I'm sure it's no surprise to
anyone here that my institution doesn't pay me enough to send my kids to
college.
But more to the point here, I strongly believe that one of the greatest
virtues or potentials of ecofeminism lies in perspectives that can develop
effective social change practices from the ground up. What later-day
Marxist's call "praxis" (effective and responsible action), in other words,
is primary and theory is a best a secondard helper (otherwise forget it).
So to encourage a proliferation of vital discussions on this list, I
will repeat a basic discussion prompt that I posted quite a few weeks ago
and that had only a few responses before we got off on essentialisms, def.
of ecofeminism and what not. By the way, several other people also offerred
juicy prompts that got lost in the shuffle. You know who you are, so please
try again. The more the merrier; we've only just begun to scratch the
surface of our responsibilities to the present and future.
> Here are two questions that
> may help to elicit discussion: 1) Why is it desirable that feminists
> become more ecologically conscious? (What might this do for feminist
> projects?) and 2) Why is it desirable that environmentalists become more
> gender conscious? (What might this do for environmental projects?)
>
> I tend to agree with the presupposition of the questions that such changes
> are desirable, but have trouble giving specific answers. I hope some of
> the participants on this list can provide some specifics.
>
> Cheerfully interested,
>
> ps
>
Still cheerful, still interested...
ps
Philip T. Shepard, Professor
Lyman Briggs School
Michigan State University
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
