The Ceramic Body: Concepts of Violence, Nature, and Gender

This thesis is an exploration of the connection between women and nature, specifically the violence that has been inflicted upon them both and how it is interrelated. I positioned my research within the field of Ecofeminism, which critiques the language we (as a Western culture) use to associate women with nature and vice-versa. Traditionally, women are more often associated with nature than men are, and the environment is personified as “Mother Nature”. I argue that uncritically gendering nature as “female” is problematic because of the associations we typically make between the two, and the expectations and values we assign to them based on this association. Nature is historically viewed as inferior to civilization, and women as inferior to men: they are supposedly giving, nurturing, and passive, as opposed to taking, empowered, and active. While the assumption that women are inherently more connected to nature is harmful and perpetuates these stereotypes, there is truth in that women, and in fact all oppressed groups (based on race, sexuality, class, ability, etc), share with nature the common history of subordination and inflicted violence by the hegemony