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Reviews tagging 'Sexism'
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
8 reviews
bashsbooks's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
4.25
I buddy-read Braiding Sweetgrass with my dear and beloved friend @emakay... which means I've already commented on it extensively in a private setting. So I will do my best to summarize my thoughts, but apologies if this review reads a little more scattershot than some of my others.
All-in-all, Braiding Sweetgrass is a fantastic personal essay collection about nature, culture, and our interpersonal (person here including nonhumans!) connections. I can understand perfectly why it is so popular and widely recommended. My friend and I listened the audiobook, so we not only appreciated the descriptions as written, but also, Kimmerer's steady and soothing voice as she read through the text she so lovingly crafted. My favorite takeaways from Braiding Sweetgrass were: the obvious and unabashed love Kimmerer has for the natural world, her willingness to combine traditional wisdom and hard science, her gentle encouragement to consider the world from a different perspective (especially that of a plant or an animal), and her fierce love and appreciate for her Potawatomi culture and heritage. I was also deeply compelled by her rumination on how to become indigenous to place and what obligations we have to others (both human and not). What I liked less was relatively minor by comparison; I thought she was a little uncomfortably committed to gender roles as 'natural' from time to time, and I wished that she came out and actually expanded on her issues with 'technology' rather than taking vague pot-shots at it here and there. Adjacently, my friend pointed out that the anecdote about an ex's attempted suicide in his car to make a point about human disconnectedness with nature was... messy, at best. But those were small moments, and with a book as long and expansive as this one, there were bound to be hangups here and there. Overall, fantastic book, and I highly recommend listening to the audiobook.
All-in-all, Braiding Sweetgrass is a fantastic personal essay collection about nature, culture, and our interpersonal (person here including nonhumans!) connections. I can understand perfectly why it is so popular and widely recommended. My friend and I listened the audiobook, so we not only appreciated the descriptions as written, but also, Kimmerer's steady and soothing voice as she read through the text she so lovingly crafted. My favorite takeaways from Braiding Sweetgrass were: the obvious and unabashed love Kimmerer has for the natural world, her willingness to combine traditional wisdom and hard science, her gentle encouragement to consider the world from a different perspective (especially that of a plant or an animal), and her fierce love and appreciate for her Potawatomi culture and heritage. I was also deeply compelled by her rumination on how to become indigenous to place and what obligations we have to others (both human and not). What I liked less was relatively minor by comparison; I thought she was a little uncomfortably committed to gender roles as 'natural' from time to time, and I wished that she came out and actually expanded on her issues with 'technology' rather than taking vague pot-shots at it here and there. Adjacently, my friend pointed out that the anecdote about an ex's attempted suicide in his car to make a point about human disconnectedness with nature was... messy, at best. But those were small moments, and with a book as long and expansive as this one, there were bound to be hangups here and there. Overall, fantastic book, and I highly recommend listening to the audiobook.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief and Colonisation
Moderate: Animal death, Racism, Misogyny, Sexism, Violence, Genocide, and Religious bigotry
Minor: Cannibalism, Cultural appropriation, Fire/Fire injury, and Suicide attempt
Graphic descriptions of environmental disasters, pollution, and other eco-destructive activities.hailstorm3812's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
5.0
This book is so so good. I don't have the words to describe it. It is such a good blend of information and heart. She knows exactly when to pull from her degree, her heritage, and her lived experience. It is such a perspective shifter of a book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Genocide and Colonisation
Moderate: Cultural appropriation
Minor: Violence, Religious bigotry, War, and Sexism
purplepenning's review against another edition
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Colonisation, Forced institutionalization, Racism, Religious bigotry, and Sexism
Minor: Animal cruelty and Animal death
talonsontypewriters's review against another edition
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Colonisation and Racism
Moderate: Xenophobia, Death, War, Grief, Religious bigotry, Animal death, Genocide, Fire/Fire injury, Classism, and Forced institutionalization
Minor: Sexism, Suicide, Vomit, Alcohol, Car accident, Cannibalism, Excrement, Abandonment, Child death, Animal cruelty, Pregnancy, Cultural appropriation, Misogyny, Suicide attempt, and Murder
Climate change, habitat destruction, pollution.fiveredhens's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
3.75
favorite quotes:
In the Western tradition there is a recognized hierarchy of beings, with, of course, the human being on top—the pinnacle of evolution, the darling of Creation—and the plants at the bottom. But in Native ways of knowing, human people are often referred to as "the younger brothers of Creation." We say that humans have the least experience with how to live and thus the most to learn—we must look to our teachers among the other species for guidance. Their wisdom is apparent us by example. They've been on the earth far longer than we have been, and have had time to figure things out. They live both above and below ground, joining Skyworld to the earth. Plants know how to make food and medicine from light and water, and then they give it away.
It's funny how the nature of an object—let's say a strawberry or a pair of socks—is so changed by the way it has come into your hands, as a gift or as a commodity. The pair of wool socks that I buy at the store, red and gray striped, are warm and cozy. I might feel grateful for the sheep that made the wool and the worker who ran the knitting machine. I hope so. But I have no inherent obligation to those socks as a commodity, as private property. There is no bond beyond the politely exchanged "thank yous" with the clerk. I have paid for them and our reciprocity ended the minute handed her the money. The exchange ends once parity has been established, an equal exchange. They become my property. I don't write a thank-you note to JCPenney. But what if those very same socks, red and gray striped, were knitted by my grandmother and given to me as a gift? That changes everything. A gift creates ongoing relationship. I will take good care of them and if I am a very gracious grandchild I'll wear them when she visits even if don't like them.
Had all the things in the market merely been a very low price, I probably aould have scooped up as much as I could. But when everything became a gift, I felt self-restraint. I didn't want to take too much.
The market economy story has spread like wildfire, with uneven results for human well-being and devastation for the natural world. But it is just a story we have told ourselves and we are free to tell another, to reclaim the old one. One of these stories sustains the living systems on which we depend. One of these stories opens the way to living in gratitude and amazement at the richness and generosity of the
world. One of these stories asks us
to bestow our own gifts in kind, to
celebrate our kinship with the world. We can choose. If all the world is a commodity, how poor we grow. When all the world is a gift in
motion, how wealthy we become.
Ceremonies large and small have the power to focus attention to a way of living awake in the world.
I realize that those first homesteaders were not the beneficiaries of that shade, at least not as a young couple. They must have meant for their people to stay here. Surely those two were sleeping up on Cemetery Road long before the shade arched across the road. I am living today in the shady future trees planted with their wedding vows. They could not have imagined me , many generations later, and yet I live in the gift of their care. Could they have imagined that when my daughter Linden was married, she would choose leaves of maple sugar for the wedding giveaway?
The Thanksgiving Address reminds us that duties and gifts are two sides of the same coin. Eagles were given the gift of far sight, so it is their duty to watch over us. Rain fulfills its duty as it falls, because it was given the gift of sustaining life. What is the duty of humans? If gifts and responsibilities are one, then asking "What is our responsibility?" is the same as asking "What is our gift?"
I don't have much patience with food proselytizers who refuse all but organic, free-range, fair-trade gerbil milk. We each do what we can; the Honorable Harvest is as much about the relationships as about the materials. A friend of mine says she buys just one green item a week—that's all she can do, so she does it.
"I want to vote with my dollar," she says. I can make choices because
have the disposable income to choose "green" over less-expensive goods, and I hope that will drive the market in the right direction. In the
food deserts of the South Side there
is no such choice, and the dishonor in that inequity runs far deeper than the food supply.
My students are always different after root gathering. There is
something tender in them, and open, as if they are emerging from the embrace of arms they did not know were there. Through them I get to remember what it is to open to the world as gift, to be flooded with the knowledge that the earth will take care of you, everything you need right there.
There are often other walkers here. I suppose that's what it means when they put down the camera and stand on the headland, straining to hear above the wind with that wistful look, the gaze out to sea. They look like they're trying to remember what it would be like to love the world.
Every drip it seems is changed by its relationship with life, whether it encounters moss or maple or fir bark or my hair. And we think of it as simply rain, as if it were one thing, as if we understood it.
The very facts of the world are a poem. Light is turned to sugar. Salamanders find their way to ancestral ponds following magnetic lines radiating from the earth. The saliva of grazing buffalo causes the grass to grow taller. Tobacco seeds germinate when they smell smoke.
Microbes in industrial waste can destroy mercury. Aren't these stories we should all know? Who is it who holds them? In long-ago times, it was the elders who carried them. In the twenty-first century, it is often scientists who first hear them. The stories of buffalo and salamanders belong to the land, but scientists are one of their translators and carry a large responsibility for conveying
their stories to the world. And yet scientists mostly convey these stories in a language that excludes readers. Conventions for efficiency and precision make scientific papers very difficult for the rest of the world, and if the truth be known, for us as well. This has serious consequences for public dialogue about the environment and therefore for real democracy, especially the democracy of all species. For what good is knowing, unless it is coupled with caring?
I maintain that the destructive lens of the people made of wood is not science itself, but the lens of the scientific worldview, the illusion of dominance and control, the separation of knowledge from responsibility.
Let us hold a giveaway for Mother Earth, spread our blankets out for her and pile them high with gifts of our own making. Imagine the books, the paintings, the poems, the clever machines, the compassionate acts, the transcendent ideas, the perfect tools. The fierce defense of all that has been given. Gifts of mind, hands, heart, voice, and vision all offered up on behalf of the earth. Whatever our gift, we are called to give it and to dance for the renewal of the world.
In return for the privilege of breath.
i think most ppl should read this book but i had some ?? moments
the chapter on language emphasized linguistic relativity almost to the point of linguistic determinism which seemed really out of place, especially given how often that theory has been used to dehumanize indigenous people in the americas specifically
i felt like i didn't get a good handle on her ideas around colonizers becoming indigenous to place. it seemed a little too open-ended for me there
also the beginning of the book listed sponsors or something and one of them was Wells Fargo ? idk what was goin on there
The market economy story has spread like wildfire, with uneven results for human well-being and devastation for the natural world. But it is just a story we have told ourselves and we are free to tell another, to reclaim the old one. One of these stories sustains the living systems on which we depend. One of these stories opens the way to living in gratitude and amazement at the richness and generosity of the
world. One of these stories asks us
to bestow our own gifts in kind, to
celebrate our kinship with the world. We can choose. If all the world is a commodity, how poor we grow. When all the world is a gift in
motion, how wealthy we become.
"I want to vote with my dollar," she says. I can make choices because
have the disposable income to choose "green" over less-expensive goods, and I hope that will drive the market in the right direction. In the
food deserts of the South Side there
is no such choice, and the dishonor in that inequity runs far deeper than the food supply.
something tender in them, and open, as if they are emerging from the embrace of arms they did not know were there. Through them I get to remember what it is to open to the world as gift, to be flooded with the knowledge that the earth will take care of you, everything you need right there.
Microbes in industrial waste can destroy mercury. Aren't these stories we should all know? Who is it who holds them? In long-ago times, it was the elders who carried them. In the twenty-first century, it is often scientists who first hear them. The stories of buffalo and salamanders belong to the land, but scientists are one of their translators and carry a large responsibility for conveying
their stories to the world. And yet scientists mostly convey these stories in a language that excludes readers. Conventions for efficiency and precision make scientific papers very difficult for the rest of the world, and if the truth be known, for us as well. This has serious consequences for public dialogue about the environment and therefore for real democracy, especially the democracy of all species. For what good is knowing, unless it is coupled with caring?
In return for the privilege of breath.
i think most ppl should read this book but i had some ?? moments
the chapter on language emphasized linguistic relativity almost to the point of linguistic determinism which seemed really out of place, especially given how often that theory has been used to dehumanize indigenous people in the americas specifically
i felt like i didn't get a good handle on her ideas around colonizers becoming indigenous to place. it seemed a little too open-ended for me there
also the beginning of the book listed sponsors or something and one of them was Wells Fargo ? idk what was goin on there
Content Warnings
Moderate: Ableism, Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Colonisation, Excrement, Forced institutionalization, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Sexism, Suicide attempt, War, and Xenophobia
Minor: Car accident, Child death, Fatphobia, Genocide, Grief, Hate crime, Racism, Religious bigotry, and Vomit
reading_between_the_trees's review against another edition
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
This should be required reading, specifically for settlers, but also for anyone feeling extremely rooted in science and thinking that it is the solution to everything. I read this in my Environmental Ethics class, and it presents such a beautiful outline of an ethic based on gratitude and ecological consciousness.
Kimmerer writes beautifully about plants and the natural world, and puts indigenous knowledge into conversation with western science and capitalism while seriously critiquing both of the latter. After reading this I have a much better understanding of both the knowledge that was thriving before colonization and is still persevering today, as well as the ways that settler culture has systemically suppressed it and the people that create and propagate it. This book is both a call to action and a re-grounding in the ways that people used to connect with the world and see their place within it rather than in opposition to it.
Kimmerer writes beautifully about plants and the natural world, and puts indigenous knowledge into conversation with western science and capitalism while seriously critiquing both of the latter. After reading this I have a much better understanding of both the knowledge that was thriving before colonization and is still persevering today, as well as the ways that settler culture has systemically suppressed it and the people that create and propagate it. This book is both a call to action and a re-grounding in the ways that people used to connect with the world and see their place within it rather than in opposition to it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Genocide and Sexism
Moderate: Animal death, Genocide, Racial slurs, Death, and Racism
Minor: Grief
emilyplun's review
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Genocide and Racism
Moderate: Sexism
babayagaofficial's review against another edition
challenging
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Vomit
Moderate: Animal death, Cannibalism, Death, Genocide, Grief, Sexism, Religious bigotry, and Racism
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