ABSTRACT
Anchors on Genevieve Asenjo’s ten (10) selected poems from her published book “Sa Gihapon, Palangga, Ang Uran,” the study identified the deep connections between women and nature through ecofeminism’s lens and their political, cultural, and social implications. A descriptive-qualitative design was used in the analysis of the literary text. The research involved three literary experts to identify and validate ecofeminist themes in the ten selected poems through content analysis. The study identified three dominant ecofeminist themes: dominations of women and nature by capitalist patriarchy, interconnections between women and nature, and the roles and representations of women and nature. The study further revealed the political, cultural, and social implications of the ten selected poems using ecofeminism: women are included in the ecological dialogue, women are not inferior, women are cultural bearers of knowledge, women are writers of their own experience, and both women and men have a shared responsibility towards nature.
Keywords: Ecofeminism, Genevieve Asenjo, Ecofeminist, Poems
INTRODUCTION
One of the major concerns of the world today is the destruction of the environment due to human activities that aim for economic development. In effect, the world has experienced a lot of changes not only in climate but also in the widespread pollution, scarcity of food and water supply which greatly affects the lives of the people.
Because of the changes in the environment, there is also a shift of interests among feminist writers on the discussion of ecological crisis. According to one report from the United Nations, women are more likely displaced by climate change because they have less monetary wealth and they depend more on natural environment (Regan, 2020). The connection between women and the ecology brought a new movement which is ecofeminism.
Ecofeminism claims how women are the immediate victims of the degradation of nature because of their close association and dependency on it (Mies & Shiva, 2014). It means that the sociopolitical and economic mechanisms that condemn a large number of women to poverty, environmental degradation and financial helplessness are examined by the ecofeminist empirical claim.
In the Philippines, there is a limited production of literary works that presents the interconnection between literature and the environment (Benitez, 2024). This is due to the fact that creative works are viewed and discussed separately in ecocriticism and feminist studies.
There is also scarcity in the study of Filipino women as a construct and subject of self- representation of contemporary Filipino poetry in the 21st century (Jocson, 2020). A study in women poetry is necessary to enable people to have an understanding of Filipino women’s experience represented in verse. In addition, a further study on women literature put emphasis on women sensitivities that would lead to the shaping of female tradition in the Philippines. By studying Filipino women’s poetry, it reveals women’s position in the society as they continue to voice out their experiences in the 21st century (Chin & Daud, 2018).
The researcher has observed themes of environmental concerns and roles of women in nature in the poems of Genevieve Asenjo. Hence the researcher would like to identify ecofeminism in the poems of Genevieve Asenjo and its political, cultural, and social implications.
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