It all started after spending several years working in events management, digital marketing and communications in the arts. In order to help me make a shift towards writing, I went to SOAS University of London to study a masters degree in Gender Studies where I wrote my dissertation on the largely-forgotten ecofeminist movement of the 1970s-1990s.
As I approached the end of my research in 2017, I couldn’t decide whether my next step was to go for a PhD or have a baby, so I decided to apply for both and see which one accepted me first. My daughter was born in May 2018 followed by my son in 2022 and, thanks to Baby Brain, I can’t even remember what my PhD was going to be about…!
Now that I’m a mother raising young children in a fragile climate, I want make use of both my MA and communications experience by bringing some ecofeminism to the online mum community.
So if you’re looking to go through pregnancy, childbirth and baby-raising in a socially-conscious and ethical way, I made this blog just for you.
Why ecofeminist mama?
When I first became pregnant in August 2017 I assumed there would be a one-stop-shop resource for me. I was looking for:
- Somewhere I could swot up on optimum and ethical health, nutrition, well-being and the physical aspects of low-intervention pregnancy and birth.
- A site that was underpinned by feminist principals and didn’t reduce me to a breeding vessel or assume I would genderise my child.
- A trustworthy, evidence-based site that had a natural and ethical approach but was grounded in solid research.
- And somewhere with an eco-friendly ethos that didn’t encourage me to fill up a landfill or shop unethically as part of my motherhood journey.
Although I found resources in the separate areas that were important to me, they were scattered all over the place and it became an overwhelming task to gather this information together and make sense of it.
Plus, many of these resources were written for a North American audience, speaking in the context of the US healthcare system and recommending US products and resources. I therefore had to “translate” most of the information I found into something relevant to me in the UK.
As someone who had just finished researching a masters, it was also incredibly important to me that the information I found was well-grounded in research and had a strong evidence base.
Many of the sites I came across either failed to cite their sources or provided links to outdated evidence and I found myself feeling less and less certain that I could trust the resources I found.
All that is why I created Ecofeminist Mama – it’s the blog I needed to help me in my journey to motherhood and I figured I can’t be the only one. I really hope you find this blog useful and easy to navigate.
Do get in touch with me if you have ideas for features or posts I could add, or if you are a like-minded blogger who’s up for a collaboration.
If you’re new to the site and wondering where to start, below are some highlights from each of my four blog categories (pregnancy, birth, baby-raising and mothering) to help push you down the rabbit hole…
