The term mother Earth is accentuating the image above. She grows from the Earth, forming the landscape from her body and soul. The image shows her surface and the water that flows from her is home to many trees, plants, and animals forming a beautiful landscape. This image shows the true relation between women and nature, how women are traditional care givers, nurtures, and support the young and growing. Woman are built up strong and supportive, in a traditional roles when humans were still hunter-gathers, women were the care givers. They cared for the tribe while the men were on the hunt, raised the young and while performing everyday duties. Women were healers, supporters, and nurturers which is exemplified in the photo. Without the woman mountain to allow her water to flow, grass to grow, and provide a shelter the environment would surely die, it is her love, support, strength, and resilience that allows the whole environment to flourish. She gives birth to new life, supports the growing and grown, and houses the dead and dying. She is the start of life, she is the final resting place, the circle of life, the connection is beyond that of figurative language. Life does start with the women, who caries her child into the world, a connection that has been said to be difficult to explain to one who has not done it, so I won’t try. This connection is a bond difficult to break, and a connection a women feels for the child is ongoing throughout life. The life of an infant is based off entirely off of its mother to support it, the woman feeds her child, and continue to feed the child even if they themselves are malnourished. This is like nature, who even if it is hurting will continue to provide the best it can for its inhabitants. The symbolic connection between women and nature can be seen in many context throughout human history, and the connection between woman and her kin can be considered one of the most animistic connections we still experience today. Like a baby penguin in the wild, the connection is innate, the bond they share allows the mother and her child to reconnect and fin each other without the two meeting before the chick hatches.
“Ecofeminism asserts that all forms of oppression are connected and that structures of oppression must be addressed in their totality. Oppression of the natural world and of women by patriarchal power structures must be examined together or neither can be confronted fully” (Hobgood-Oster). Ecofeminism is the is encapsulation of a series of “isms”, for example, racism, that focuses on the oppression of various group in patriarchal society. According Hobgood-Oster, the goals of ecofeminism is to challenge current structures that not only put people in different tiers of society but actively hold select groups from advancing based on characteristics out of their control. This idea not only expresses the need to level the playing field between various groups, but the obvious exploitation of not only people but nature as well. Ecofeminism connects the idea that current society creates dualism ways of thinking, male/female, white/non-white, heaven/earth, human/animal, etc. as a way to create a structures that benefit a singular party and narrows peoples point of view. You are either for a side or against it, this methodology of thought creates not only tension between people and groups; “Ecofeminism posits that as long as any of the dualisms exist as an integral component of societal structuring and justification, they will all continue to serve as starting points to justify patriarchy. “. This oppressive nature extends beyond the scope of human to human and into human to nature, current societies take advantage of not only of other human beings but nature and Earth as well. Ecofeminism articulates the need to not only protect one another, but the Earth that supports us as well.