Whitefield-Madrano, Autumn. “Thoughts On A Word: Exotic.” The New Inquiry. N. p., 2012. Web. 22 Jan. 2020.<“https://thenewinquiry.com/blog/thoughts-on-a-word-exotic/”>
Looking at ecofeminism for the first time feels daunting. For me, it was a strange amalgamation of two subjects I cared about, mixed with a bit of theological flavor. Now that I’ve got a better grip on it, I think that an interesting way to begin understanding and looking at ecofeminism, is to look at the use of the word “exotic” when talking about women of color.
Backing up, it’s important to establish the framework to reach the problematic conclusion with the word exotic In Warren’s Introduction to Ecofeminism, she breaks down eight ways to use ecofeminism to think critically. One of these is “Symbolic Connects”, which is looking at symbols throughout culture and how they effect culture today. Warren describes this by stating that “Documenting such connections and making them integral to the project of ecofeminism is often heralded as ecofeminism’s most promising contribution to the creation of liberating, life-affirming, and postpatriarchal worldviews and earth-based spiritualities or theologies.” Looking at symbolism throughout history, when considering spiritualities and theologies, exotic is typically used to describe something foreign and gaudy. Considering this quote and the word exotic, we can move into analyzing the problem.
Looking at Autumn Whitefield-Madrano’s blog, Thoughts On A Word: Exotic, Autumn writes a fairly freeform piece about the word exotic, and how the way that the word is used is problematic when describing women. She states, “The shift of exotic from describing costume to describing skin color and features runs roughly parallel to women’s shifting roles in America. If the beauty myth rose to make sure that newly liberated women didn’t get too much actual power and were left pecking around for crumbs, the use of exotic morphed to make sure that women of color didn’t tap into their share of the crumbs.” The way that the word exotic has been morphed into a misogynistic and racist way to harass women is clearly an issue, but not one I can identify with some of the more traditional feminist schools of thought, which is where ecofemisinism comes in.
Finally, we can use ecofeminism to analyze the word exotic, and other types of racist labels, as seen in Hobgood-Oster’s Ecofeminism: Historic and International Evolution. “By confronting systems of patriarchy, ecofeminism broadens the scope of the cultural critique and incorporates seemingly disparate but, according to ecofeminism, radically connected elements. Combining feminist and deep ecological perspectives — in and of themselves extremely varied ways of thinking about reality — is a complex, transgressive process that is often in flux.” (pg 2) The important phrase here is “cultural critique”, as the blog explained, the word exotic is a product of culture and historical context, so using ecofeminism’s cultural critique, we can identify these root problems to understand why the word exotic is problematic.
Ecofeminism is a valuable part of feminism that allows for a different form of analysis than other branches of feminism, through understanding critiques rooted in unconventional ideologies.
Having had gone over this topic of symbolism in class, I love the connection of spirituality and the word exotic. The “cultural critique” is truly important in regards to the word exotic. Something one may look at as beautiful can also have a negative connotation.
I really enjoyed your post Peter! Especially how you broke it down into paragraphs I feel like I will definitely do this in the future with my own blogs ! I was instantly drawn to your post by your use of unique words like daunting and amalgamation. I really can relate to you when you said it felt daunting. To be completely honest, some parts of the readings were complex and hard to understand. I like how you immediately bring up the aspect of language- especially using the term exotic. I think you did a good job connecting your examination of the word exotic with Warrens symbolic connections. I believe different symbols can strongly affect our cultures in the world. When thinking of the word exotic it reminded me of Warrens reading when she talks about how one of eco feminism goals is to stop sexist/ racist language towards women. Using the term exotic to describe a women of color can clearly be seen as offensive. I enjoyed how you use quotes from the blog you read to explain more of how the word exotic has transformed from a word to describe costumes into a word that is used in a vulgar way towards women. I strongly agree with you that the transformation of this word to be used negatively to describe women is a huge issue. I believe the word exotic is just one of many words that have been transformed to use negatively to describe women. I am glad that ecofeminism has goal to try to stop the use of this derogatory language towards women. You also did a good job at tying in the reading by Hobgood-Oster. I thought it was very important to mention patriarchy and that it is essential that we confront this in order to liberate women and solve the many issues within feminism.
Hey Peter, I really liked your post. I though they way you used the word exotic to explain ecofeminism was really well developed. I agree with you about how the word exotic is used to as another form of discriminating women of color. I also think that it’s a way to over sexual women of color and undermine peoples perception of their mental capacity because they become fetishized.
I enjoyed how you simplified ecofeminism by using one word, exotic, as a way of explaining it. I feel many fronts and stances have used one word to get behind to stand for a whole movement. Though in this case, exotic is being stated as a negative. As in exotic as in a sense become a derogatory term, used in a process that further dehumanizes women of color and foreign ethnicities. How a word can change is quite interesting in itself, in that words such as gay use to mean giddy or happy and now is an insult. It is weird how many words can turn into a connotation, but not many negative words really become positive. I feel it can be reflected that the world will be hurtful, and out of fear and alienating people try to keep others down. As in ecofeminism words like exotic can be used to alienate different people. I find it should be important to maybe reclaim exotic as a word not to alienate but to envy. To say something is exotic should be claimed as something being exciting or intriguing. Words are a powerful tool, and maybe using words to fight words could become a tool is stopping words being used for hate.