Ecofeminism
[2][3][4] Ecofeminist theory introduces a feminist perspective to Green politics and calls for an egalitarian, collaborative society in which there is no one dominant group.
[6] Professors of sociology, Maria Mies, Ariel Salleh and Susan Mann all associate the beginning of ecofeminism not with feminists but with women of many historically different backgrounds who have perceived connections between gender, race, class, and environmental issues.
[8] These efforts coincided with new developments in environmental theory from writers such as Henry David Thoreau, Aldo Leopold, John Muir, and Rachel Carson.
[9][10] Parallel examples from women environmental ethicists were the books Silent Spring by Rachel Carson and Refuge by Terry Tempest Williams.
That inclusive understanding of the environment helped launch the modern preservation movement showing how environmental issues can be viewed through a framework of caring.
Many men during this time were moving to cities in search of work, and women that stayed in the rural parts of India were reliant on the forests for subsistence.
In 1978 in New York, mother and environmentalist Lois Gibbs led her community in protest after discovering that their entire neighborhood, Love Canal, was built on top of a toxic dump site.
"[19] During a 1995 interview with On the Issues, Carol Adams stated, "Manhood is constructed in our culture in part by access to meat-eating and control of other bodies, whether it's women or animals".
In terms of the international movement, Ariel Salleh's book Ecofeminism as Politics (last reprinted in 2017) contains a detailed account of women's ecofeminist actions from Japan and the Pacific to Scandinavia.
[24] In a 1993 essay entitled "Ecofeminism: Toward Global Justice and Planetary Health", authors Greta Gaard and Lori Gruen defined what they call the "ecofeminist framework".
[25] Some ecofeminist approaches developed out of anarcha-feminist concerns to abolish all forms of domination, including the oppressive character of humanity's relationship to the natural world.
Meanwhile feminist activism of the 1980s included grass-roots movements such as the National Toxics Campaign, Mothers of East Los Angeles (MELA), and Native Americans for a Clean Environment (NACE) led by women devoted to issues of human health and environmental justice.
[31] The Indian ecofeminist and activist Vandana Shiva wrote that women farmers have a special connection to the environment through daily experience and that this has been underestimated.
She makes the point that "these alternative modes of knowing, which are oriented to the social benefits and sustenance needs are not recognized by the reductionist capitalist paradigm, because it fails to perceive the interconnectedness of nature, or the connection of women's lives, work and knowledge with the creation of wealth (23)".
[23] In the book Ecofeminism (1993), Vandana Shiva and Maria Mies interrogate modern science and its acceptance as a universal and value-free system.
The key activist-scholars developing a materialist ecofeminism are Maria Mies and Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen in Germany; Vandana Shiva in India; Ariel Salleh in Australia; Mary Mellor in the UK; and Ana Isla in Peru.
According to Merchant, cultural ecofeminism, "celebrates the relationship between women and nature through the revival of ancient rituals centered on goddess worship, the moon, animals, and the female reproductive system.
For the problem is that traditionally, just as 'feminine' qualities are seen as less worthy, nature and the animal world is also judged of 'lesser value' than what masculinist patriarchal cultures define as 'humanity proper'.
Meanwhile, ecofeminists were opposing liberal or 'equality' feminisms on the basis that mainstream political institutions are unconsciously masculinist - both sex/gender exclusionary and destructive of the environment.
In an interview, ecofeminist Noel Sturgeon pointed out that what the anti-essentialists failed to recognise is a political strategy used to mobilize large and diverse groups of women, theorists and activists alike.
[24] Norie Ross Singer emphasized that ecofeminism should be understood as advancing multiple axes of identity such as gender, race, and class as inter-meshed in human-nonhuman relationships.
[40] Vegetarian ecofeminists have contributed to intersectional analysis as well, by joining a political focus on animal rights with activism for all oppressed life forms, including laboring men.
[42] In the 21st century, some ecofeminists aware of these criticisms began renaming their work under other labels - like 'queer ecologies', 'global feminist environmental justice', or 'gender and the environment'.
In Europe and the global South, the interplay of class, race, gender and species dominations and exploitations is grounded in a materialist analysis of socio-economic relations.
[44] Environmental justice and feminist care ethics have pushed for participation of all marginalized groups, working against racism, ageism, ableism.
