Ecofeminism
Ecofeminism – from the Greek “oikos”, meaning “home” or “dwelling,” and the Latin femina, meaning “woman” – is a feminist and ecological theoretical perspective based on the idea that the exploitation of nature and the oppression of women are closely interconnected and sustained by patriarchal systems of value. These systems are expressed through a dualistic worldview that opposes mind to body, spirit to matter, culture to nature, and man to woman.
In one of the earliest ecofeminist works, New Woman/New Earth (1975), Rosemary Radford Ruether argued that women’s liberation and the overcoming of the ecological crisis are impossible within a society whose fundamental model of relations is domination. She insisted that the demands of the women’s movement and the ecological movement must be brought together in order to radically transform the socio-economic relations and values of modern society (Ruether, 1975, p. 204).
Ecofeminism emerged in the 1970s and 1980s as both an ideological movement and a theoretical field located at the intersection of multiple forms of feminism and ecological thought. The term ecofeminism was introduced into scholarly and literary circulation by the French writer and activist Françoise d’Eaubonne in her work Le féminisme ou la mort [Feminism or Death], published in 1974. D’Eaubonne argued that male control over production and women’s sexuality produces a double crisis: environmental destruction caused by profit-driven production, and demographic crisis caused by the manipulation of reproduction.
Ecofeminism cannot be placed within the strict boundaries of either feminism or environmentalism. Ecofeminist philosophy functions simultaneously as an ecological critique of feminism and as a feminist critique of environmentalism. One of its central tasks, as Val Plumwood argues, is to bring feminist and ecological perspectives together: feminism must become ecological, while ecology must become feminist. Environmental thinking should not merely be added to feminism; rather, it should transform feminist theory itself.
A central issue in ecofeminist discourse is the relationship between women and nature. Ecofeminist theory has identified several major forms of this relationship: empirical, epistemological, and conceptual-cultural or symbolic.
The empirical connection between women and nature is reflected in sociological research and social theory, which show that environmental degradation often has a disproportionate impact on women, especially poor women. This is connected not only with environmental decline itself, but also with gendered divisions of labour. In many societies, women are expected to take primary responsibility for food, health, care, and the survival of family members, tasks that become increasingly difficult under conditions of ecological degradation. Since access to land, property, and economic resources is often limited for women, ecofeminists argue that social, political, and economic structures may trap women in poverty, ecological deprivation, and economic powerlessness.
The epistemological connection between women and nature is based on the idea that women’s social location and life experience may give them specific knowledge of ecological systems. Since women are often more directly affected by environmental problems, some ecofeminists argue that they may occupy a position of epistemic privilege in relation to ecological knowledge. This position has been associated, among others, with Vandana Shiva. However, many ecofeminist theorists reject the idea that women are naturally or biologically closer to nature. They argue that women’s ecological knowledge is produced by lived experience, labour, and social position rather than by any innate feminine essence.
The conceptual and cultural-symbolic connection between women and nature is rooted in long-standing philosophical and cultural traditions. According to ecofeminism, Western patriarchal thought is structured by hierarchical dualisms: mind/body, spirit/matter, man/woman, culture/nature, reason/emotion, and human/nonhuman. These paired concepts are not treated as equal. One term is valued as superior, while the other is devalued, marginalized, and associated with inferiority. Oppressed groups are often symbolically linked with body, nature, emotion, and passivity, while dominant groups are associated with mind, culture, rationality, and control.
A classical patriarchal hierarchy of value may be represented as follows: God, man, woman, children, animals, and nature. Such a hierarchy reflects both sexism and speciesism. It also intersects with racism, classism, colonialism, and imperialism, since various subordinated groups have historically been represented as closer to nature and therefore as requiring control, discipline, or domination.
Ecofeminism itself has been criticized for possible essentialism, especially when it presents women as naturally more caring, peaceful, cooperative, or closer to nature than men. Contemporary ecofeminist philosophy therefore seeks to overcome the stereotype that all forms of ecofeminism are essentialist. Within feminist theory, two opposing positions can be identified. One position argues that the association between women and nature should be deconstructed because it has historically justified women’s subordination. Another position argues that the connection between women and nature should be affirmed, explored, and revalued. Val Plumwood proposed a position of critical solidarity, which rejects both women’s exclusion from culture and the masculinist construction of human identity as separate from and superior to nature.
Because ecofeminism is intellectually diverse, it is difficult to classify it as a single unified doctrine. Karen Warren famously described ecofeminist philosophy as a “quilt” of ecological feminism: a field composed of multiple, differently textured theoretical and political strands. There is no single orthodox ecofeminism. Ecofeminist thought has developed through liberal, Marxist, socialist, radical, Black feminist, Indigenous, postcolonial, and Third World feminist perspectives. What distinguishes ecofeminism from other feminist approaches is its insistence that nature, the nonhuman world, and the unjust domination of nature are feminist issues.
The main conceptual directions of ecofeminism are usually identified as liberal ecofeminism, socialist ecofeminism, and radical ecofeminism.
Liberal ecofeminism, like liberal feminism more broadly, is rooted in liberal ideology and focuses on women’s inclusion in those spheres of social life from which they have historically been excluded. From this perspective, women should be equally represented in political institutions, public life, science, environmental policy, and decision-making. Liberal ecofeminism tends to seek redistributive rather than radically restructuring political change. At the same time, it is often critical of biological essentialism and of attempts to positively identify women with nature, since such identification has historically been used to justify women’s exclusion from public life.
Socialist ecofeminism seeks a deeper restructuring of social relations. It connects the oppression of women and the domination of nature with patriarchy and capitalism. Carolyn Merchant argues that the strength of socialist ecofeminism lies in its critique of capitalist development, within which reproduction and ecology are subordinated to production. Socialist ecofeminists focus on the contradiction between production and reproduction and on the ways in which both biological and social reproduction are damaged by capitalist systems. They criticize Cartesian dualism and the devaluation of nature, the body, and reproductive labour. Their aim is to develop non-dominating relations with nature and to create egalitarian social structures free from sexism, racism, violence, and imperial domination.
Radical ecofeminism may be divided into spiritual ecofeminism and radical ecofeminism in the narrower sense. Spiritual ecofeminism, sometimes called “nature ecofeminism,” emphasizes women’s biological, spiritual, or symbolic connection with nature and often revalues motherhood, care, embodiment, and goddess traditions. Radical ecofeminism, by contrast, focuses on the oppression of women through reproductive roles, sexual objectification, and the sex-role system. It sees the liberation of women and nature as requiring the dismantling of patriarchal power over both women’s bodies and the earth.
Radical and spiritual ecofeminism have contributed significantly to the development of an ethics of care, compassion, and personal responsibility. However, many feminist and ecofeminist theorists criticize essentialist versions of this approach, arguing that replacing patriarchy with an inverted matriarchal hierarchy would not overcome dualistic thinking, but merely reverse it.
Despite the diversity and eclecticism of ecofeminist thought, several basic principles can be identified:
-
There is a significant connection between the oppression of women and the domination of nature.
-
Understanding this connection is necessary for an adequate analysis of both gender oppression and ecological crisis.
-
Feminist theory and practice must include an ecological perspective.
-
Responses to ecological problems must include feminist perspectives.
Ecofeminist philosophy therefore expands the field of feminist analysis by showing that the domination of women, the exploitation of nature, and other systems of oppression are structurally interconnected. It invites a rethinking of social relations not from the standpoint of domination, control, and hierarchy, but from the standpoint of interdependence, care, responsibility, and the shared flourishing of human and nonhuman life.
References:
Berman, T. (1993). Towards an integrative ecofeminist praxis. Canadian Woman Studies, 13(3), 15–17.
Boreiko, V. E. (2009). Proryv v ekologicheskuiu etiku [A breakthrough in ecological ethics]. In Ekologicheskaia etika: Uchebnoe posobie [Ecological ethics: A textbook] (pp. 99–117). Gorno-Altaisk: RIO GAGU. [in Russian].
Eaton, H., & Lorentzen, L. A. (Eds.). (2003). Ecofeminism and globalization: Exploring culture, context, and religion. Lanham, MD; Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Hobgood-Oster, L. (2005). Ecofeminism: Historic and international evolution. In Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature (pp. 533–538). London & New York: Continuum.
Karpenko, E. I. (2009). Sushchnost sovremennogo ekofeminizma [The essence of contemporary ecofeminism]. In I. A. Ilinykh, Ekologicheskaia etika: Uchebnoe posobie [Ecological ethics: A textbook] (pp. 319–324). Gorno-Altaisk: RIO GAGU. [in Russian].
Merchant, C. (1990). Ecofeminism and feminist theory. In I. Diamond & G. F. Orenstein (Eds.), Reweaving the World: The Emergence of Ecofeminism (pp. 100–108). San Francisco: Sierra Club Books.
Plumwood, V. (2006). Navkolyshnie seredovyshche [The environment]. In A. M. Jaggar & I. M. Young (Eds.), Antolohiia feministychnoi filosofii [A companion to feminist philosophy] (pp. 259–270) (B. Yehidis, Trans.). Kyiv: Osnovy. [in Ukrainian].
Ruether, R. R. (1975). New Woman/New Earth: Sexist Ideologies and Human Liberation. New York: Seabury.
Shevchenko, Z. V. (2015). Ekofeminizm: Sotsialno-filosofskyi ohliad [Ecofeminism: A socio-philosophical overview]. Aktualni problemy filosofii ta sotsiolohii, 4, 166–171. [in Ukrainian].
Shevchenko, Z. V. (Comp.). (2016). Ekofeminizm [Ecofeminism]. Slovnyk gendernykh terminiv [Dictionary of Gender Terms]. Cherkasy: Chabanenko Yu. Retrieved from https://a-z-gender.net/ua/ekofeminizm.html [in Ukrainian].
Warren, K. (1997). Ecofeminism: Women, Culture, Nature. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Leave a Reply