Thought about agriculture and gender recently? Cornell is doing a whole seminar series on it. At a recent lecture, Ithaca professor Zillah Einstein gave a talk on “Thinking about Hetero-Racist Misogyny in ‘Agriculture.'” It was part of a project from Advancing Women in Agriculture through Research and Education (AWARE).
Casey Breznick wrote a piece for Campus Reform on the lecture, which then also appeared in the Cornell Review.
Einstein’s talk went about as well as you’d expect. She referred to agriculture as “capitalist, racialized patriarchy.” She said that there will be “room for revolutionary agriculture” once war and climate change are extinguished, and she made cracks about the Pope for his focus on economic inequality, and then at Ben Carson.
Breznick notes that as it turns out, Einstein hasn’t even had worked or studied in agriculture. Her experience is more so to do with gender and women’s studies.
According to Breznick, the lecture was mostly “devoted to the concept of intersectionality, or the idea that different forms of discrimination and oppression are interrelated and cannot be understood independently of each other.”
Where gender came into agriculture was about the “notion of gender” when it comes to different sectors. She also spoke of economic inequality, with women being poorer than men, and so there is gender inequality rather than a universal economic inequality.
On the importance of “intersectionality” of class, race, and sex, Einstein referenced the Pope and Catholic teaching:
So we still need what? Capitalism is not a sufficient analysis here of the problem of inequality all right? So he says we have to address the issue of poverty, right? How do you address the issue of poverty when all of the data, and there’s plenty to support it, that a woman who cannot control her reproductive body will always be poor.
So my point again, control the modes of production, well he’s not actually saying that, and he’s leaving the coffers filled…
Einstein referenced abortion and the “reproductive body” several times throughout out her lecture. She also knocked the Republican Party in addition to the views of the Pope and Church on abortion.
She mentioned Ben Carson with regards to having people of color in the program. Einstein wants “progressive people of color.” She also nearly digressed on an off the cuff rant, though did stop herself when she said she “wouldn’t really care to have Carson on my team or whatever, can you believe…? I mean, whatever.”
As was mentioned and became evident during her lecture, Einstein’s expertise is more so to do with women’s and gender studies, of which she is a faculty member of at Ithaca College. She has also written and lectured on gender and race, including as it has to do with the Obama campaign and presidency. From the Ithaca College website:
Her page on the Ithaca College’s website also links to some of her writings, which include “Male Egos and their Class In Black and White.”
Einstein has mixed reviews on Ratemyprofessors.com. Some students do warn about her “rigid beliefs.” One student even wrote that “she leaves no room for views other than her own. Even though I agreed with her personally, I couldn’t stand how she stifled intelligent debate.”
