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From: 2flmlife@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Defining Eco-Feminism
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Date: 9 Oct 90 15:28:56 GMT
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Stephen R. Figgins              Copyright 1990 Stephen R. Figgins


                      Defining Ecofeminism


     The ecology movement, born in the 1970's, was slow to catch
on.  It seemed trivial to many of those active in civil rights
movements.  The plight of the earth was not in the public mind
until Three Mile Island, Love Canal, polluted beaches, the whole in
the ozone.  There was no overall sense of urgency as there is
today.  But some women early on recognized connections between
feminism and the ecology.  The connections grew deeper with the
emergence of Deep Ecology and its bio-centric belief system.
     The Deep Ecologists pointed out what they perceived as an
error in the dominant worldview, specifically the belief that
humanity is dominant, that humans are the center of the universe,
the source of all value, the crown of creation.  The belief that
the Earth is a collection of limitless natural resources to be
exploited for human profit.  Bill Deval and George Sessions write
in their book Deep Ecology:

        There is an overriding belief that human civilization
        will survive.  Humans will continue to dominate Nature
        because humans are above, superior to or outside the rest
        of nature.  All of Nature is seen from a human-centered
        perspective...

     Although feminist were trying to divorce themselves from an
Earthmother/nurturer identification they felt was used to control
and exploit them, they saw a parallel between the domination of
nature and the domination of women.  In New Woman/New Earth,
Rosemary Radford Ruether wrote:

        Women must see that there can be no liberation for them
        and no solution to the ecological crisis within a society
        whose fundamental model of relationships continues to be
        one of domination.  They must unite the demands of the
        women's movement with those of the ecological movement to
        envision a radical reshaping of the socioeconomic
        relations and the underlying values of this society.

     Deep ecology had found the same hierarchical exploitation the
feminist had been pointing at, but had ignored the social
implications of a system of domination focusing more on the problem
of anthropocentrism, human centeredness.  A marriage of the two
ideas was needed.
     In 1974 Francoise d'Eaubonne introduced the term "ecofeminism"
in her book Le feminisme ou la mort, but it was the Three Mile
Island disaster that brought the ecology into focus.  In 1980 Grace
Paley, Ynestra King and others organized Women and Life on Earth:
A Conference on Ecofeminism in the '80s at the University of
Massachusetts at Amherst.  The First West Coast Ecofeminist
Conference was held at Sonoma State University the following year.
Since then the ties between feminism and ecology have been
underscored by many feminist writers and scholars including
Elizabeth Dodson Gray, Rosemary Radford Ruether, Rachel Bagby,
Susan Griffin, Mary Daly, Caroly Merchant, Joan Griscom, Ynestra
King, Starhawk, Ariel Kay Salleh, and others.
     Ecofeminism has become a growing movement of activists,
philosophers, and spiritualists, a grass roots movement drawing
from deep ecology, and the strength of women's experiences to begin
the work of transforming the world.  It is a new ethic.
     Karen J. Warren writes:

        Underlying eco-feminism is the view that, whether we
        know it or not, each of us operates out of a socially
        constructed mind set or conceptual framework, i.e., a set
        of beliefs, values, attitudes, and assumptions which
        shape, reflect, and explain our view of ourselves and our
        world.  A conceptual framework is influenced by such
        factors as sex-gender, race, class, age, sexual
        preference, religion, and nationality.  A patriarchal
        conceptual framework is one which takes traditionally
        male-identified beliefs, values, attitudes, and
        assumptions as the only, or the standard, or the superior
        ones; it gives higher status or prestige to what has been
        traditional identified as "male" than to what has been
        traditionally identified as "female."

     This patriarchal conceptual framework is characterized by a
value hierarchical thinking that perceives only opposites.  The
dominant worldview is dualistic rather than holistic.  It separates
and ranks, mind and body, spirit and flesh, culture and nature, men
and women, all are seen as opposites rather than complements, and
all contain a superior and inferior half.  Body, flesh, nature and
women have been linked in our literature, our philosophy, our
mythology as the degraded half.  The ecofeminist's solution is not
to raise women to the status of men, but rather to heal the rift.
To remerge matter and spirit.  To expose the connection of all
things.
     Susan Griffin writes, "I know I am made from this earth, as my
mother's hands were made from this earth, as her dreams came from
this earth and all that I know in this earth...all that I know
speaks to me through this earth and I long to tell you, you who are
earth too, and listen as we speak to each other of what we know:
the light is in us."
     Although much has been written on the subject, ecofeminism
remains hard to define.  Neither the ecology movement nor feminism
are single well defined groups.  For some the ecology movement is
scientific, for others like the deep ecologists, it has become
spiritual. Attitudes in feminism range from Liberal to Radical, and
it too has spiritual aspects.  The combination of so many views
makes Ecofeminism even more difficult to define. But an examination
on the writing show four basic beliefs, holism, interdependence,
equality, and process.
     Ecofeminism is a holistic response in that it sees the planet
as a single interacting ecosystem, made up of smaller sub-systems.
The ecosystem and its sub-systems are perceived of as alive, and
responsive to internal and external forces.  Actions of one part
effect the whole, even apparently unconnected parts.  Humans have
so exploited the biosphere that it may be beyond repair.  Air soil
and water have been contaminated causing changes in our weather
patterns and in our topography.  It is an ecofeminist stance that
the negative effects must be reversed, and we must strive to
develop sustainable culture.  It was a Native American tradition to
ask how each decision would effect the seventh generation that
follows, corporations do not.  It is time to ask this question
again.  We must begin to appreciate what happens to the whole of
nature with each of our decisions.
     Similar to this theme is the interdependence of all forms of
life.  Humans are seen as integral, not separate or superior.  We
are biological components of the earth, using air water and
nutrients.  We depend on other biological components to restore and
recycle these elements.  The earth does this through its diversity.
Its diversity gives it resilience and an ability to cope with
natural stresses on its system.  But we have added unnatural
stresses, and have begun eliminating it's diversity.  Ecologist
Norman Myers said in the mid 1980s:

        If we consider all species on Earth, and the rate at
        which natural environments are being disrupted if not
        destroyed, it is not unrealistic to suppose that we are
        losing at least one species per day.  By the end of the
        1980s we could be losing one species per hour.  It is
        entirely in the cards that by the end of this century, we
        could lose as many as one million species, and a good
        many more within the following decades-until such time as
        growth in human numbers stabilizes, and until growth in
        overconsumerist lifestyles changes course.

     The latest statistic I have seen on the numbers of plant and
animal species lost each day, was 50.  50 species a day.  Not one
species an hour, but one species every 29 minutes is lost to us.
Destroyed.  Never to return.   If all life is interconnected as
ecofeminism suggests, not only are we damaging the biosphere, but
we are contributing to our own demise.  Ecofeminists claim we must
stop working against nature, stop polluting the natural world, and
we must work with nature so life on earth can continue, and grow
healthier.
     The third principle is the importance of non-hierarchical
systems.  "Life on earth is an interconnected web," writes women's
studies professor Ynestra King, "...Human hierarchy is projected
onto nature and then used to justify social domination.  Therefore,
eco-feminist theory seeks to show the connections between all forms
of domination, including the domination of non-human nature, and
eco-feminism is necessarily anti-hierarchical."  This above all
else could be considered the central theme of ecofeminism.  The
connections between oppression of women, and the oppression of
nature are embedded in hierachical belief systems which function to
maintain the subordination of both.
     But to the Ecofeminist, if all components of the ecosystem are
affecting and being affected by each other, then all are equally
important.  Ecofeminism places value on each part of the system, on
each unique role.  In contrast, dualistic, hierarchical and
anthropocentric philosophies stress the superiority of humans in
general (white males in particular) while denigrating women and the
natural world.  Ecofeminism stresses reclaiming personal power
through political action, through connections with nature, and
connections with others.
     The fourth principle, process, emphasizes that the ends do not
justify the means.  The way objectives are achieved is as important
as the goal, if not more so.  The emphasis in ecofeminism is on
interactions and relationships, rather than results and the bottom
line.
     While it is possible to describe what is meant be ecofeminism,
it may be impossible to define it.  Ecofeminism is more of an
attitude, a feeling.  It's subjective, not objective.  It's a
feeling of connectedness to the earth, to each other.  It's a
radical transformative world view.

                            The end.


Feedback greatly appreciated.
_______________________________________________________________________________

Stephen R. Figgins              'Little everyday actions are the body language
University of Kansas                   of our culture.'
2flmlife@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
_______________________________________________________________________________