Ecofeminism

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Ecofeminism
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What is the common conception of feminist in
our culture?In your opinion, how
accurate/inaccurate is the common conception of
feminists?Is the environment a feminist
issue?Is female domination an environmental
issue?
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What is ecofeminism?
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Ecofeminism is a feminist approach to
environmental ethics. Feminist theorists ask the
question, "What is the source of the oppression
of women, and how do we get rid of it?"
Ecofeminism explores interconnections among all
systems of unjustified human domination.
Ecofeminists believe there are interconnections
between the oppression of women (sexism), the
oppression of other human Others (racism,
classism, ageism, colonialism, etc.) and the
domination of nature (naturism). (Karen Warren)
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Ecofeminism chooses the domination of women as
its starting point and focus because

• it is often women who suffer disproportionately
  higher environmental risks and harms than men
• often female gender roles overlap with
  environmental issues in ways male gender roles do
  not
• the root cause of nature domination (and other
  dominations) is the gendered institution of
  patriarchy.

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Origins 1974, Northern India Twenty-seven
women who live on a daily basis with the
consequences of damage to the soil, water, and
air from commercial logging hug trees to stop
timber fallers. It was a protest against being
forced to walk further and further for clean
water and cooking fuel. This Chipko movement
(in Hindi chipko means to embrace or hug)
brings to full awareness the idea that women,
particularly, Third-World women, have to live
intimately with environmental devastation.
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Women affected by fuel wood scarcity

• 60 in 32 African countries
• 80 in 18 Asian countries
• 40 in 14 Latin American and Caribbean countries
• Source U.N. Publication The Worlds Women, 1995

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• Water pollution in Uzbekistan has led to an
  increase in birth defects and complications in
  pregnancy.
• Pesticide exposures in Central Sudan are linked
  to 22 percent of hospital stillbirths.
• Air pollution in the Ukraine has been linked to
  21 percent of all illnesses affecting women and
  children.
• One in three women in the U.S. will be diagnosed
  with cancer sometime during their lives.
• Nuclear contamination in Chelyabinsk, Russia has
  led to a 21 percent increase in cancer and a 25
  percent increase in birth defects. Half the
  population of child bearing age is sterile.
• From Global Development Research Center

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• In Guatemala, pesticide residues in breast milk
  are reported to be 250 times the amounts allowed
  in cow's milk.
• Most children in China take in DDT from breast
  milk at levels 10 times higher than
  internationally accepted maximums.
• From Global Development Research Center
• Women farmers grow at least 59 of the worlds
  food, perhaps as much as 80. Women in Africa
  produce more than 70 of Africas food.
  (Minneapolis Star Tribune, March 1991)

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Conceptual Domination

• Via Warren a conceptual framework is a set of
  basic beliefs, values, attitudes, and assumptions
  which shape and reflect how one views oneself and
  ones world.
• It is a lens through which one perceives
  realitythe dominant paradigm of deep ecology.

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Patriarchy The Conceptual Framework under
Ecofeminist Scrutiny

• Patriarchy is a conceptual framework that rejects
  continuum and embraces dichotomies and
  dualisms.
• Examples
• Us vs. Them Culture vs. Nature
• Reason vs. Emotion Male vs.Female
• A conceptual framework that assigns qualities and
  entities to the masculine and feminine,
  associates them with male/female.
• Reason Nurturing
• Competition Cooperation Aggressiveness/forc
  e Emotion
• Decisive Contemplative

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Patriarchy

• Conceptual framework that privileges masculine
  over feminine.
• Reason over Emotion
• Competition over Cooperation
• Force over empathy
• Therefore, a conceptual framework that privileges
  men over women.
• Men rational, competitive, forceful, decisive
• Women Irrational, cooperative (non-competitive),
  nurturing, contemplative (indecisive)

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Patriarchy is Reflected in

• Language
• All men are created equal
• Freshman, congressman, fireman,chairman
• to mother vs. to father
• a mans gotta do whata mans gotta do, boys
  will be boys.
• Institutions
• Wage gap
• Women in positions of power (e.g. religious,
  political, economic,etc.)

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Patriarchy as an Environmental Phenomenon

• Feminizes natureMother earthNature is a
  nurturing, temperamental, unpredictable, in need
  of control, etc.
• Masculinizes culture
• Father time
• Uncle Sam
• Culture is judicious, stable, predictable, in
  control, etc.

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Therefore, a privileging of

• Culture over nature
• Power and domination over harmony and cooperation
• Exploitation over sympathy/empathy

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The Last Piece The Logic of Domination

• Ala Warren
• A logical structure of argumentation that
  justifies domination and subordination.
• A logic of domination is offered as a moral stamp
  of approval for subordination, since, if
  accepted, it provides a justification for keeping
  the Downs down.
• Typically, this justification takes the form that
  the Up has some characteristicthat the Down
  lacks and by virtue of which the subordination of
  the Down by the Up is justified.

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Identify and Describe the Logic of Domination
here1. At least in Western societies, whenever
a group is historically identified with nonhuman
nature and the realm of the physical, it is
conceptualized as morally inferior to whatever
group is historically identified with culture and
the realm of the mental.2. At least in Western
societies, women as a group historically have
been identified with nonhuman nature and the
realm of the physical, while at least dominant
men have been historically identified with
culture and the realm of the mental.3. Thus, at
least in Western societies, women as a group are
conceptualized as morally inferior to at least
dominant men.4. For any X and Y, if X is
conceptualized as morally inferior to Y, then Y
is justified in dominating X.5. Thus, at least
in Western societies, dominant men are justified
in dominating both women and nonhuman nature.
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Some Questions

• What are ecofeminisms strengths as an
  environmental ethic?
• What are its weaknesses?
• In what ways do Julia Hills actions, attitudes,
  and ideas reflect traditionally feminine
  qualities?
• Is Hills ethic an ecofeminist ethic?