Am I an Eco-feminist? Or am I just rejecting Modernity?
What is it that I care about? What is it that I’m trying to say? What makes me so angry about about big pharma and ultra processed foods? Am I interested in the body positivity movement?
I have so many thoughts about it all that I am finding it hard to capture coherent under pinning theories - find a methodology for my research. In my tutorial I think I have found an angle - eco feminism - my position of not messing round too much with nature’s way seems to resonate with Francois d’Eaubourne’s work Feminism or Death? (1974). However as I look deeper afterwards I see there is a problem with the core thread of essentialism. Essentialism has potential to re-inforce gender stereotypes. My position is different to this - individualism, acceptance, body empowerment. I read …. Fat is a feminist issue - the problem behind the mantra (Feminism & Psychology Volume 18 Issue 3, August 2008). There is complexity and limitation involved on just focussing on image. Somehow throughout all of this process there has been a softening in me. A witnessing of the drama triangle I am in with food, my body, everyone who has an opinion about those things or tries to influence those things. International Women’s Day - over a gut friendly lunch, I ask my friends whether they think the rise of the witch is a 5th wave of feminism. I recorded our chat. I took a picture of the black bean tofu cacao dessert I made - cooking is an art form I return to constantly and consistently.
The next day I come in to the studio to try and envisage my research approach. I map it out on the largest piece of paper I previously found in the art shop. There is an energy present here and behind all the writing I see the sea - the word ‘under currents’ comes to me. I finish the mapping adding final words that come to me like ‘end of life’ - how hunger disappears then it seems. I feel something stirring like the under currents. I sit back and stare taking it all in, resting, breathing, waiting. And then the phone rings….. ‘Can you come? Your mum is being sick, we’re going to call an ambulance because she’s going in and out of consciousness. I leave immediately.
