ecofeminism - a primer
lauren lancaster, usyd enviro convenor 2021, explains... Climate change is a human issue, so it necessarily intersects with human inequalities.
gender inequalities and, inevitably, the exploitation and oppression of women.
Ecofeminism is a movement and school of thought that conceives of environmental degradation and gender inequality as interconnected. Arising from of the synapse between ecological and feminist movements in the seventies and eighties, it emphasises the common root of domination in human society — a patriarchal-capitalist power structure.
Ecofeminist theory clarifies that a patriarchalcapitalist society ultimately results in a hierarchical structure that promotes the superiority of the white, male, “human” subject, forcing all things that constitute the “other” (including women, nature, and animals) to exist in binary opposition to such a subject and therefore be considered inferior. Women and nature are thus used by the white male in order to progress and prosper under capitalism.
Patriarchy manifests itself as a hierarchical social order whereby men claim superiority and power over women. This establishes binary power divisions that extend to the way man exerts power and domination over the environment and land. Capitalism establishes a system whereby the creation and accumulation of wealth at the lowest possible cost to the bourgeois class is the key marker of societal success and progress. There is a similar binary to be found here to that which is established by patriarchy — a community or individual’s success is measured by how well they can achieve capitalist domination through exploitation of workers and resources, just as a man’s success is reliant on the existence of
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Ecofeminism is an intersectional approach that should necessarily include queer, First Nations, disabled and spiritual approaches, visions and experiences.
It focuses on ways of thinking and being that consciously detach from Western binary structures that perpetuate “othering” and the dominance of a cis-male, oppressive hegemon. Ecofeminism also allows us to consider real world environmental challenges through a gendered lens.
