Feminism and Environmentalism: An Intersection Phoebe Bain College

It is absolutely no coincidence whatsoever that Mother Earth is portrayed as a woman rather than a man. After all, a large part of the human existence has been spent taking advantage of Mother Earth’s resources. In the same way, many of history’s so-called greatest men have seen it fit to take advantage of women’s resources. This is not to say that all men take advantage of women, but rather to imply that over the course of human existence, the male gender has gained a reputation for disrespecting women. Women are told to travel in packs and not wear certain clothing in fear of men disrespecting their bodies. It follows, then, that those who have a habit of being disrespectful towards women, or other human beings in general, would be innately predispositioned to act in the same disrespectful manner towards Mother Earth. These two paradigms are fleshed out in two novels in particular, State of Fear by Michael Crichton and Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver. The different levels of courtesy that Crichton and Kingsolver display for women in their respective novels correlate with their differing opinions on climate change in that Kingsolver shows a great respect for women and the planet in her novel while Crichton does the...