Women · Eco-Chick

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How to Score an Eco Chick?

Mr. EcoGeek himself (aka Hank Green) put together this hilarious piece on how to impress (read: seduce) a green girl with your enviro cred. Title: “EcoGeek’s Guide to Getting Girls”! Love it. Being a guy, naturally he wrote a lot about how to get a woman in bed, or at least into a sexy space. (Hey, nothing wrong with seduction, especially if it’s environmentally responsible). What a romantic! Hank, I kid. Since EcoGeek is happily married he’s obviously doing something right.

BUT I couldn’t resist the challenge. As a recently single-again Eco Chick, I have to make my own list. Now, I could have made one about how to seduce a Green Guy, but really, getting most guys into bed, green, purple or ahem, blue, isn’t all that hard, right ladies?

So I’m going to go ahead and ADD to Hank’s list, in which I give away a few of the secrets to getting an Eco Chick to a) notice you, and b) get that first kiss (and maybe more). I’m doing this as a public service to all those treehugging guys who are so busy saving the world they forgot how to flirt, or are maybe just a little shy. Because there’s nothing I like less than seeing nice guys finish last when it comes to snagging dates. Mens, instead of muttering “Girls only like assholes, so I’ll be one” and then going out and behaving like a neanderthal, try these good-guy tactics instead. You’ll help save our gorgeous planet and find someone to keep you warm this winter to boot (so you can turn down the thermostat another couple of degrees!).

And remember, the key to getting any woman is turning on her mind. And what’s on an Eco Chick’s mind? (I mean besides that!!)

Know Your Shit, Or Don’t Be Afraid to Learn
Environmentally oriented women tend to be well-educated (whether through the halls of academia or through seasons of anarchic urban gardening activism, we know our stuff), and smart, conscious women like men who are the same. But don’t fake it; you won’t be able to pretend you’re interested in and love the natural world if you’re not into it, so don’t even try.

If you are just learning to be green, that’s OK, just be open about it. A “teach me” attitude is always appealing to a woman who’s passionate about any subject, from permaculture to carbon trading. If you are an expert in a subject, flaunt it, but not too much. If she’s into a what you’re discussing, a cup of coffee so you can “really get into the details” is a smart, cute way to go (see below for more ideas).

Be Original
Think creative, think low-impact, think about what she’s into.
-Instead of bringing her flowers, bring her a jar of local honey (um, unless she’s a vegan! If so, organic agave nectar. Nonorganic agave is often not sustainably harvested.)
-Send her postcards made from recycled boxes, even if you both live in the same town. It’s fun to get mail.
-Listen (it costs nothing!! and only produces a little bit of CO2…)
-During a hike, or even just a walk in the park, whip out your iPod and play a song for her that pertains to the spot you’ve chosen to stop, showing her how you appreciate the natural world.
-Make her delicious organic, local or all-natural treats of some kind, and feed them to her.

Expect the Unexpected (and Appreciate It!)
Women who are dedicated to changing the world are probably a bit different from the norm; exactly how different and in what ways varies from woman to woman. Note and compliment the things that set her apart from other women and notice what makes her special. Why does she care so much about the planet/animals/organic agriculture/raw food? What is her ideal vision of the future? How does she envision getting there?

Work Your Green Guyness
If you already have awesome eco-man cred, show it off! She will see you in your element, which is always sexy. Never downplay who you are, it’ll come out eventually anyway…

Activist? Ask her to help you make posters, masks, think up slogans, or help you distribute information for your next action.
Locavore? Take her on an excursion to a little-known farm or local-only eatery.
Vegan? Ask her to help you walk dogs at the animal shelter.
Ecologist/Geologist/Biologist? Show her whatever your specialty is in a fun way. Bring her to a super-unique local ecosystem and show her what’s amazing about it, take her on a visit to a rare or interesting outcropping, or take her to the local nature center and show her your favorite interesting insect exhibit.
Environmental Writer? Give her a copy of the book that inspires you the most, with your favorite sections marked off, or go to a reading by your favorite writer.
Green Designer? Show her what inspires you and your designs, whether it is a natural space, an industrial wasteland or the dancing movements of a microscopic creature.
Politician? Ask for her opinion about a speech, op/ed or campaign points that you are working on.
Outdoor educator? Take her on a personalized adventure rappelling, white-water rafting, mountaineering, backcountry snowboarding, or whatever your specialty is. Pack a meal for the trip and include something small but special that shows you were thinking of her (her own caribeaner, quick-dry towel or an extra pair of socks).

And How To Get Her Into Bed…

If you’ve done a few of the things above, she will most likely be pulling you towards the bedroom, into the sleeping bag, or off the side of the trail for a little all-natural frolic.

What’d I miss ladies?? Add your original ideas (and thoughts of course) in the comments section below!

activism, agriculture, Animals, book, car, carbon, coffee, design, designer, dogs, farm, Food, garden, Gardening, green designer, local, Op/Ed, opinion, Organic, Personalized, produce, raw food, recycle, recycled, sleep, spa, Tea, urban, vegan, waste, water, women

Diane Kennedy: (Green) Plus-Size Fashion

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by Starre Vartan · 09/24/07

In the fashion world, clothes for sizes 12 and up has been getting better and better in recent years, with more stylish, hip offerings in the category as designers realize that just because you’re not a skinny-minnie doesn’t mean you don’t care about looking cute. To the contrary! Many women who don’t fit into the arbitrary sizes 0-12 offered in most stores (who decided who was considered ‘plus-sized’ in the first place, anyway?) want to celebrate their womanly figures, not hide them behind tent-dresses and tacky prints.

Enter Diane Kennedy, who’s not only crafting gorgeous fashions in sizes 0X-3X (that’s 12-22), but is making them green too! I’m so excited for her collection which is filled with gorgeous colors, fabrics that are soft and flattering for everyone (like bamboo and organic fleece), and are really cute and hip too. Check her site out because I couldn’t cut and paste images from her most recent collection since it’s a flash page and they’re more fun than the couple of images I found above.

From Kennedy’s site:

We use wonderfully soft, new eco-friendly fabrics like soy and bamboo, and our premium french terry is woven from the finest organic cotton.
All of our garments are consciously created and ethically produced right here in Canada, in beautiful British Columbia.

bamboo, car, clothes, cotton, design, designer, designers, dress, ethical, fabric, fabrics, farm, Fashion, Organic, organic cotton, produce, skin, soy, women

“We want to protect our lands, but we also need to awaken the people in The North. You are living in a dream, what you are doing is destroying the Earth.”

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by Starre Vartan · 08/26/07

Talk about an Amazon woman! Anthropologist Zoe Tryon is working with the Achuar people of the Ecuadorian rainforest to help both protect their culture from undue outside influence while still giving them the skills they need to deal with those same outsiders who see their land as a place to drill for oil and not much else. According to local maps, the Achuar live in Oil Blocks #23 and #24 (something tells me the people who live there call it something else).

Tryon sat down with Treehugger Leonora Oppenheimer (who’s also a friend) to describe the kind of work she is doing with these indigenous people. Here’s a quick, insprirational excerpt from the interview, but it’s really worth reading the whole thing over at TH. I think that this it is not only interesting to hear about important things like this that are happening, but this is good fodder for anyone who thinks that they shouldn’t try to pull together all the different aspects of their passion and interests to make the change they want to see in the world.

Anthropology is my background and I wanted to find something that connected that to personal growth, transformation and turning people towards more ecologically sustainable lifestyles. I was thinking how on earth can I fit all that together? But I really believe that if you follow your heart and your passions in life you will find the way.
Thomas Berry the great cosmologist and environmentalist he said “What can we do? Well, what CAN you do?” Basically each one of us has the potential to do something and you just have to look and see what that is. It doesn’t have to be running off to live in the jungle, it can be, “What can I do in my day to day life?” “What’s a tiny shift that I can contribute?” Carpooling or whatever. Each one of us can do something.
Paul Hawken during the research for his book ‘Blessed Unrest’ found 2 million organisations that are working to make the world a better place. When you hear about that from all over the world then you realise wow it’s not just little old me, it’s everyone working together and that gives you the impetus to get out there and do it.
So I’ve been volunteering for seven months now: 2 months in the states and 5 months down here living in Achuar territory and working on the transference process of the Kapawi Eco-Lodge. It’s going back into their hands in December.

And this was probably my favorite part of the interview:

I have always been interested how other people think and different ways of doing things and ecology is part of that as well. That’s the message indigenous people give to us. I am fascinated by indigenous women’s wisdom. These women have worked so closely with the soil and the earth all their lives, it’s part of their being. Whereas we are so distanced from that. During the time of the Spanish Inquisition between 3 and 5 million women were killed in Europe that were good with plants, who loved animals, who loved walking alone in the countryside. They were labeled as witches and burnt at the stake. So we’ve had to distance ourselves from our connection with the earth, plants and nature, and become more masculine in our energy in order to survive. It’s very interesting to see women who haven’t had that break and to see their strength and power and how it impacts the whole community. When a woman is strong and she is happy she nurtures and that affects so many people.

Amazon, Animals, book, car, community, Energy, Europe, farm, giving, interview, local, oil, Plants, rainforest, spa, style, sustainable, treehugger, women

Green+Woman=Wussy; Green+Man=Technology?

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by Starre Vartan · 08/07/07

I’m not the only one who’s noticed that men are taking over the environmental discussion. An eco-event in Bryant Park in New York City tomorrow is just one example that recently crossed my desk. There will be five speakers and not one woman! If there was a panel of five women, and no men, would people see it as a ‘woman’s event’? I think so. So why does this get to be an eco-discussion and not a men’s roundtable on the environment?

A great piece over at Grist questions whether the ‘new’ environmentalism isn’t just all about making ‘green’ more appealing to men, since women are already on the bandwagon, and most importantly, what that means for how we make changes in the future.

“[Thomas Friedman] wrote that America should redefine green to make it more “muscular” and transform its characterization by opponents as “sissy,” “girlie-man,” and “vaguely French.” Elsewhere, he has summed it up this way: “Green isn’t some ‘wussy’ tree-hugging thing. Green is patriotic. Green is strategic. Green is the new red, white, and blue.” Wussy being derogatory slang for “especially unmanly,” consider Friedman’s view to be the opposite. Call it “manly green.”

Do we need ‘manly green’ to keep environmental discussions on the table as a serious issue? Why are women’s issues (typically thought of as healthcare, reproductive rights, education, the environment) always pigeon-holed as such? I mean, doesn’t everyone go to school, get sick, decide to have kids or not, and breathe air and drink water? Why are these issues feminized? And relegated to second-class status because of it?

Surveys — from sources including the Yale School of Forestry, Center for American Progress Action Fund, Institute for Women’s Policy Research, and American National Election Studies — consistently show that women feel a stronger connection to the environment than men do:
-Women are up to 15 percent more likely than men to rate the environment a high priority.
-Women comprise up to two-thirds of voters who cast their ballots around environmental issues.
-Women are more likely than men to volunteer for and give money to environmental causes, especially related to public health.
-Women report both more support for environmental activists and more concern that government isn’t doing enough.
-Women support increased government spending for the environment, while men favor spending cuts.
Polls also show that about 68 percent of American consumers have gone green, preferring health-conscious and environmentally responsible products. Since 90 percent of women identify themselves as the primary shoppers for their households, and women sign 80 percent of all personal checks, it’s safe to say that women are leading a quiet revolution in green consumerism.
These trends suggest more than simply stronger support for the environment — they reveal a completely different attitude about it. Prevailing masculine views see environmentalism in terms of energy independence, as a political or military tactic. In the speech quoted above, President Bush pointed to alternative fuels such as hydrogen as a way for America to wean itself off foreign oil. A few years earlier, the CIA called the environment “the national-security issue of the early 21st century” and “the core foreign-policy challenge from which most others will ultimately emanate.”

If making the environment more of a manly issue means relying on technology, how does that impact what decisions are made and what to focus on? Instead of relying on innovation to solve our problems, what about the more prosaic ideas of cutting down on consumption, recycling, and conservation? Are those too girly? Not exciting enough? I think this argument takes a lot of liberties about what is ‘male’ and what is ‘female’; the writers are making pretty huge generalizations here. I think in the end, whether and idea is ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’ is irrelevant, but I hate to see one sex dominating the discussion and having a bigger voice on any subject as important as the future of the environmental movement.

alternative fuel, Bush, car, conservation, consumerism, consumption, Energy, Events, farm, health, kids, military, New York City, oil, Recycling, soap, Tea, Technology, Vote, water, women, women's

Zhena's Gypsy Tea

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by Kimberly Jordan Allen · 08/02/07

I am a fan of Zhena’s Gypsy Tea. Being a compulsive tea drinker, I brew my own, rather than buy it bottled, or go to a cafe every day and use wasteful cups. The Raspberry Earl Grey is yummy iced. There are many other flavors to choose from in the vast array of Zhena’s Fair Trade teas.

Zhena Muzyka started the company on a shoestring, when she needed to earn money as a new mother of a child who was born with a severe birth defect. She began with a small tea cart outside of a friend’s store and popularity grew exponentially as people sampled the blends inspired by her Ukrainian Gypsy heritage and her experience with a Sri Lankan tea master. Zhena’s experience, having to care for her son while relying on social services as her company grew, informed her unique sensibility to worker’s and women’s rights (predominantly women and children work in the organic Fair Trade tea gardens where she gets her plants.) Her desire to provide a safe, sustainable, and holistic work environment continues to affect her company as it grows.

From soil, to recyclable tin, the teas are produced with a sense of environmental awareness. As a side note, I was dismayed that the tea came in tins when I first started drinking it, but the website has a very detailed explanation of why they use tin, from a recycling perspective. You can also buy the bags loose on the website. Read here to learn more about using tin.

Some of the workers I talked with were concerned that people in affluent countries might not believe Fair Trade is important and stop buying Fair Trade tea. I see that happening sometimes as I market my product. Another company might complain about the paperwork or the fees associated with Fair Trade and drop the commitment to the program. I have a sense that if they went to the gardens to see the Fair Trade dollars at work, they would never sway.
Can a tin of tea make a difference in the world? Today, my son is a healthy six-year old and our Fair Trade Tea Company is still small in comparison to conventional tea companies but is already a multi-million dollar enterprise. For every million dollars of tea we sell, tens of thousands of dollars return to our tea estates in order to ensure more mothers will have access to healthcare for themselves and their babies. Fair Trade is a critical program that will help deepen organics and evolve conscious capitalism. Perhaps the good Book was right in that “the meek shall inherit the earth” one Fair Trade purchase at a time.