Lecture Excerpt:

Ecofeminists, particularly in the work of Yvonne Gebara, have called Christians to think about the connections between poverty, violence (to Earth and humans), and gender. This lecture examines how this long history of violence and ecological ruin along the U.S./Mexico border theologically has expanded to a femicide that in the last decades has claimed more than two thousand female lives, the majority maquildaorda workers, in the city of Juárez.

The violent death of these women workers who “personify the meaning of human disposability” in this globalized border, provides us with a sobering and chilling lens with which to consider the ethical challenges made by ecofeminists as we seek to issue a call for justice for the women killed.

Speaker Biography:

Rev. Daisy L. Machado, Ph.D. serves as Professor of American History of Christianity at Union Theological Seminary, NYC having just completed her tenure as Dean for Academic Affairs, the second woman and first Latina to hold this position. Prior to coming to Union she served as Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean at Lexington Theological Seminary (KY), the first woman and first Latina to hold this position. Dr. Machado holds a Bachelor of Arts, Brooklyn College, a Master of Social Work, Hunter College School of Social Work, a Master of Divinity, Union Theological Seminary, New York, and a Ph.D., University of Chicago. Her publications include: Borders and Margins: Hispanic Disciples in the Southwest, 1888-1942 and she is co-editor of A Reader in Latina Feminist Theology: Religion and Justice in which she wrote the article “”The Unnamed Woman: Justice, Feminists, and the Undocumented Woman.” She also contributed the article “Women and Religion in the Borderlands,” for the Encyclopedia of Women in North American Religion edited by Rosemary Keller and Rosemary Reuther.