Colloquium for History Majors (American)

By the late 1960s the second wave of feminism had changed the outlooks many women had on the world around them. Women were beginning to question roles handed to them by previous generations; many wondered if their place was really limited to the home, taking care of children and performing their wifely duties. These women were not only questioning the roles they played as mothers and the relationships they had with their families, but the roles they played as humans and the relationship they had with Mother Earth. Women began to look outside the four walls of their homes and began to realize that the patriarchal system of unsustainable farming and capitalism had left the earth in decay. For centuries men had discussed nature in feminine terms and used terms like “Mother Earth”, tying women together with nature throughout history. Nature and the women of the time were perceived as unpredictable, full of wrath and vengeance, and often beautiful and mysterious. Women of the feminist movement knew that if the earth was to be repaired they would have to use this perception of closeness to nature for ecological change. Feminists of the second wave movement became inspired to change the ecological practices of the past, and came together to fight for the earth and the cause of environmentalism