WiSE Professionals resumes with Co-Creating Indigenous Futures, March 4, 4pm

Co-Creating Indigenous Futures: Finding My Place as a Haudenosaunee Woman in Academia, Land Sovereignty, and Healing Justice, March 4, 4pm, Gateway Event Center

Abstract: Stephanie Morningstar, Oneida (Turtle Clan), discusses the evolution of her work as a student, activist, earth-worker, herbalist, and Indigenous Knowledge Mobilizer within her community, the academy, and institutions to advance land, food, water, and non-human sovereignty as a step toward decolonization. We will explore the intersections and legacy of settler colonialism through stories of how intergenerational trauma, racialization, and systemic racism compound health disparities; and how land and access to land is directly implicated in the extractive economies and ideologies that have led to the current climate crisis. This brief glimpse into the life of one singular story in a greater constellation of climate activists, front-line land and water defenders, medicine makers, researchers, farmers, healers, and emergent strategists is intended to activate and share a multi-faceted, multi-disciplinary approach to building community-driven, meaningful, equitable solutions and adaptations to our current shared legacy of colonization and how we can collectively heal together toward a radically beautiful future.

Bio: Stephanie Morningstar (OnΛyota'a:ka – Oneida, Turtle clan, Haudenosaunee Confederacy) is an Herbalist, soil and seed steward, scholar, student, and Earth Worker dedicated to decolonizing and liberating minds, hearts, and land- one plant, person, ecosystem, and non-human being at a time. Stephanie grows medicines and food for front line activists and communities of color at Sky World Apothecary & Farm. She serves as a Leadership Council member for the New England Women’s Herbal Conference and the International Herb Symposium where she has collectively worked to decolonize learning spaces for her community. She is the Co-Coordinator of the Northeast Farmers of Color Land Trust where she works to liberate land and resituate Indigenous and Diasporic peoples’ roles, responsibilities, and covenants to the land as a direct response to land dispossession, health disparities, and the ongoing climate crisis. Stephanie is also an Indigenous Knowledge Mobilization Specialist for Global Water Futures, where she helps Indigenous-led projects to advance the understanding of traditional knowledge and western knowledge indicators by working together to research and aid in water governance, food security, sediment restoration, water security, climate change and human and ecosystem health in Indigenous communities. She is in love with a beautiful human named Noel, who she has shared her life with for over 10 years. They currently live on Dish With One Spoon Wampum Agreement territory, also known as Niagara, Ontario. 

This program is cross-listed with the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment.

For more information about the Women in Scientific and Environmental Professions Speaker Series, contact Heather Engelman, engelman@esf.edu or 315-470-4752

Cowgirls vs the G-men

I don't follow football.  At all.  Nope, not even a teensy, little bit.  But even I can easily tell that this Facebook poster (ca Oct 2012) 

counting down the hrs till the game 4 the Cowgirls and the G-Men

prefers that the NY Giants win over the Dallas Cowboys in their fourth match-up this season.  I figured it out even prior to reading:

GO GIANTS!

My response

Really? must you insult girls this way?

was not intended (as might be interpreted, with a hearty guffaw) to say that Dallas really is awful, a bunch of pansies or sissies  (Remember, I don't follow football, so cannot assess anything about their teamwork or prospects.)  I was questioning why being a girl (or a sissy, which many children may endearingly call older siblings, before they can fully articulate her name or the word 'sister') is an insult.  Research has shown that girls do well, even better than their male classmates, in math and science--until they realize that girls aren't 'supposed to be good at math and science.'  Girls have taken the opportunities granted by Title IX to show they can be smart, funny, strong, creative, athletic. Separately, boys can be sweet, nurturing, kind, articulate.  And every child can whine or cry -- regardless of gender (or sexual orientation).

In my college field experience (ca 1990) the biggest insults were:  take the skirt off.  got your panties in a bunch? Accusations of PMS.  These were all uttered by hulking behemoths at other men, by the way, not to the handful of women that generally slogged on with 'our big girl panties' beneath our jeans and flannel.   I ascertained, therefore, that then, just as now, that the emasculating slights implied that being a girl is demeaning, less than, inferior.   Some might say: you are taking this out of context. Its not offensive to call a girl a girl, just to do so to a manly man.  You are taking it too personally.  Pardon me--you said that its not ok to be a girl.  Man up, buddy--how can that possibly not be personal? 

--he

The princess in me

Disney's idea of a princess usually disappoints, as they so often require the prince to save or complete them.  Yes, yes, I know that their films are entertainment, but when the only characters that are female also happen to be simpering and weak and shallow and naive and so, well, very cartoonish.... and there are few better alternatives (thank you, Sesame Street!), I can't help but wish they'd use their market share to battle, rather than perpetuate, stereotypes.  But this is an affirmation of value and strength--of real girls, of every color and ability.  Their clips far outnumber and outshine those of storybook characters interspersed among them.  Now, if they can just bring this to their characters (and have more girl characters all around.)

--he

Ecofeminism

Sex and nature sell—perfume, vehicles, cigarettes.   Janine DeBaise opened the discussion of Ecofemisim with a file of collected magazine clippings.  Most of the skin shown was that of women (although we did see one advertisement featuring a scantily clad man).  We found two extremes:  a video console ad that claimed “there is a beautiful naked women” under game screenshots strategically placed over portions of her body, and a Maidenform ad with photos of a baby chicken, a doll, a tomato and a fox, and text that reads "While the images used to describe women are simple and obvious, women themselves rarely are."  4WD vehicles were shown in places vehicles really shouldn’t be (wilderness areas, far off-road, mostly with solitary men conquering nature). These wilderness areas were also the backdrop of many of the perfume ads—“perhaps to make them seem more natural?” we asked.  High heels seemed out of place in some of the ads, too, but perhaps not more so than the rest of the attire featured (particularly one set in the desert where the models donned only their skivvies and heels.)

It’s been a while since Janine sorted through the file, and she expected many ads to be dated—but the only ones that seemed to be were the Marlboro men, rugged, solitary characters whose product simply doesn’t get advertised in the same venue anymore.  How does this compare to the ads we see on television today?  Do any cleaning products commercials feature men?  Not really—its women doing the cleaning, using sprays and candles to make their houses smell homier.  Sex still sells:   a new line of lingerie offers to increase bust size by 2 cups!   At least we haven’t seen bikini-clad beer bimbos lately, and women are much more likely to be portrayed as Moms than as vacuous or a shrew—although those ads still do make an appearance.  We also contrasted the happy, carefree models wearing pajamas to the severe expressions on the lingerie models.  To us, this said:  pajamas are comfortable; that lingerie, perhaps not.  Be comfortable, be happy.  Probably not the message some of the advertisers hoped we’d take home.

Margaret Shannon Speaks on Making Feminist Theory a Part of Sustainable Forest Management

As part of the course requirements for FOR 797-2, students share the responsibility for reporting on the speakers in the Women in Scientific and Environmental Professions Speaker Series for distribution to co-sponsors and the Knothole.  The following was prepared by Kaity Cheng and Laura Sullivan. 

 

Dr. Margaret Shannon, Associate Dean of the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Vermont addressed “The Essential Role of Research for Sustainable Forest Management: Feminist Theory and Practice” on April 4, 2008.  Dr. Shannon’s stated goal for her lecture was to make people think differently about their research. To that end, she encouraged an examination of our ideologies and the use of feminist theory to challenge the validity of key normative ideas.  She then proceeded to examine ideologies central to the field of forestry.

Shannon offered several reasons why feminist theory contributes to research.  She emphasized that women are the appropriate starting point for examining inequality. The role of women reveals structures and systems of power and privilege. She gave examples of societies where women locate or gather forest resources that sustain their communities, but have been excluded from forest management discussions.

Feminist theory emphasizes the lived realities of research participants. Incorporating the lived experience of all stakeholder groups results in more comprehensive research findings, and enhances the social agency of participants. Feminist theory is oriented toward social change; feminist research is conducted for participants, as opposed to about them.

One focus of the discussion was the research ideal, or the practice of high quality research. Shannon shared her conviction that research should involve interrogating knowledge systems. This process of inquiry should reveal structures and systems of power and privilege. Scientists should integrate theories of social power with theories underpinning forestry research.  Furthermore, research as critique should draw the invisible from its shadows and make it known.

Through paintings and words, Shannon discussed sustainable forest management, which she noted is distinct from the concept of sustainable forests.  Sustainable Forest Management is more about developing a sustainable management ideology that, it is assumed, will in turn help sustain forests.  She believes it should be in opposition to ‘single objective’ forest management. Vivid in her descriptions, Dr. Shannon compared treating the forest as if it has a single value to pornography, which treats women as if they had a single value.

The lecture was sponsored by the Department of Forest and Natural Resources Management and the ESF Women’s Caucus as C. Eugene Farnsworth Memorial lecturer and part of the  Women in Scientific and Environmental Professions Seminar Series.  For information about upcoming lectures in the series, please visit http://www.esf.edu/womenscaucus. 

Shannon is a former SUNY ESF faculty member.  She participated in the development of the Montreal Process Criteria and Indicators for Sustainable Forest Management.  Shannon was a Senior Fulbright Fellow at the University of Freiburg, Germany, in the Forest and Environmental Science Department.  She has also directed the Environmental Law Program at SUNY Buffalo Law School.

Sustainable Development and Social Power

What changes would be needed in current structures of social power to support sustainable development?  What alternatives can we learn from women and nature? Dr. Valerie Luzadis shared her thesis that:  the current dominate structures of social power limit our ability to live sustainable with nature and among ourselves.  Dr. Luzadis briefly discussed the difference between "power over" and "power to do", and provided additional background information that has shaped her thinking on the subject prior to inviting responses (and there were many!) from the participants.  Participants added that although hierarchies are not necessarily bad, but they are often too rigid to be effective, and by relying on "majority rules" rather than consensus, non-majority members are often overlooked.  Other participants related social levels to trophic levels, and considered the impact of reciprocity and co-evolution of members, as well as the opportunities presented by gaps in biological systems.