I just finished an assignment for my Environmental Ethics class in which we read a series of essays on ecofeminism. Ecofeminism basically advocates and discusses the connections between the human domination and exploitation of earth and the male domination over women.
There was a section about Augustine and I thought it would be a good cross-curriculum thought...Augustine believed that woman was "created in her female nature to be subordinate to the male in the sexual-social roles of wife and child-bearer...femaleness itself represents the inferior bodily nature" (Ecofeminism: The Challenge to Theology, Rosemary Radford Ruether). Augustine is quoted as saying that "woman is "in the image of God" but only when taken together with the male, "who is her head"" (Ecofeminism, Ruether). Augustine believed that Eve's descendants are being punished with forced subjugation to their male counterparts because of Eve's initial disobedience to God.
I thought that these were interesting ideas. Augustine definitely loses a lot of points with me...
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i think that this is the best blog post of the week. Carolyn is the only person i have seen who related this text to another class and topic (a task that is very difficult to do).
I nominate Carolyn's post because I always admire when a student can make a connection between a concept explored in another class and a concept discussed in a our text. It's hard enough to pick out a central viewpoint of Augustine, since he is so complex and wordy, but connecting it to environmentalism is very clever. I find the spiritual view towards women taken in the Bible quite annoying, personally, and I'm glad that Carolyn can identify this exploitation as well. It is important to study this concept in our history, as women become progressively more equal in our culture.
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