The ecofeminist movement has for decades been highlighting how gender inequality intersects with the environmental crisis. The lessons we can learn from ecofeminism may hold the key to recognising how elevating women can help reduce emissions and create more equitable societies.
Tristan Bove / theearth.org
Ecofeminism first emerged in North American and European academic circles in the 1970s as an offshoot of the feminist movement, and specifically linked the subjugation of women to humanity’s oppressive relationship with nature. It was employed as a theoretical framework to better understand how hierarchical and dualist definitions of gender could explain humanity’s dominating role in its relationship with the environment.
Beginning in the 1980s, ecofeminism began to inform feminist and environmental activist and artistic movements. Heroes of the ecofeminist movement include several major intellectual and political figures. Françoise d’Eaubonne, a French author considered a leader in her country’s feminist movement, coined the name “ecofeminism” in 1974. Petra Kelly was a German politician who co-founded the German Green Party, the first political party with a predominately environmental platform to achieve national prominence.
By the end of the 1990s, ecofeminism began to come under fire from critics, who dismissed the framework as essentialist, in that it could not fully address either feminist or environmentalist concerns. Ecofeminism’s exclusive focus on the relationship between gender and nature left no room for considerations of other crucial factors, such as race or class. Janet Biehl, an American social ecologist, notably criticised the ecofeminist framework as an oversimplification of complex hierarchical structures and forms of domination.
What Exactly is Ecofeminism?
Today, the relevance and use value of ecofeminism has largely faded from activist and intellectual circles. However, the concepts behind the framework can still be applied to understand why elevating women can intersect with achieving equitable sustainability targets, and have such a measurable effect on mitigating environmental impacts.
Ecofeminism seeks to reexamine both the feminist and environmentalist movements and augment each of their arguments. The framework examines how gender and nature intersect, specifically how binary definitions falsely categorise opposing groups, assigning disproportionate value to one grouping and encouraging hierarchical thinking.
Binary definitions are used to easily distinguish between what is dissimilar. Within the context of gender, binaries are used to distinguish between male and female. When examining humanity’s relationship with nature, a similar binary exists wherein man-made creations are considered entirely separate from nature.
Binary definitions give rise to oppositional dualism, where one side is not only described as different from the other, but as its complete opposite, such as opposite genders. Ecofeminism claims that a similar oppositional dualism exists in conventional definitions of humanity’s relationship with nature. When humans look to develop further, natural environments are seen either as obstacles to be overcome or resources to be exploited. Within this framework, human development is seen as opposite to the preservation of nature. Urbanisation, for instance, necessitates environmental loss.
Oppositional dualism is complemented by the creation of hierarchical structures where cultures assign more value and power to one side of the binary. Ecofeminism sees hierarchies exhibited in gender relations through patriarchal social structures, and in relations with nature through an anthropocentric view that humanity is more valuable than nature and all other living beings.
An ecofeminist framework cites hierarchical thinking and oppositional definitions as reasonings behind the subjugation of both women and nature. These constructs can often justify masculinised acts of violence and domination towards women, animals and the natural world. These acts are often expressed through masculine cultural norms, such as hunting, domesticity and exploitation.
Ecofeminism was at a time quite popular in universities, but was never really able to break out of scholarly circles. The theory was also criticised for its shortcomings. By only considering the connection between women and nature, ecofeminism failed to account for the differences between individual women that can only be understood through more comprehensive frameworks analysing race or class.
In the 1990s, the environmental justice emerged as a framework employed by scholars and activists alike. Environmental justice refers to the fair treatment of all people, regardless of identity, in the development and implementation of environmental laws, and often addresses environmental concerns of direct relevance to society, such as pollution and food security. Environmental justice’s broad scope internalised what ecofeminism could not, and became the primary tool for a new generation of climate activists.
But in spite of environmental justice movement’s successes, its broad nature means that gender is rarely specifically addressed as a key to understanding the climate crisis and how to solve it. Highlighting gender inequalities and improving women’s access to healthcare, education and support resources has a measurable impact on reducing emissions and minimising environmental degradation. Studies also show that elevating women in legislative fields yields better outcomes in environmental policymaking, as well as more coherent efforts in international environmental cooperation. Despite its limitations, ecofeminism may provide a framework that addresses not only gender inequality, but also indicates what social stigmas need to be removed for nations to pursue more robust and impactful environmental action.
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