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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 is one of domination - Rosemary Radford Reuther

It is no coincidence that social justice movements like animal rights and human rights should find many parallels to reaffirm their claims of validity. There is also a case for a unique relationship between feminist and ecological values: not only do the goals of the environmental movement have much in common with the feminist struggle to free womyn from the domination of a patriarchal system that also subjugates nature, but that the domination of nature is akin to the domination of persons. Linking these two struggles can be mutually reinforcing.

Ecofeminism is difficult to define because it is so diverse. However, ecofeminist thought does have a common thread: that there are important correlations between the domination of women and the domination of nature and the implications are “crucial to feminism, environmentalism and environmental philosophy”¹.

Karen Warren identifies eight important womyn-nature connections. The first is a historical link, whereby patterns of domination have stemmed from the end of the matriarchal period in Europe marked by invasion from the east. Ancient Greek culture is also held as historically responsible in establishing the dualist and rationalist traditions that continue today. These historical links have been continually reinforced throughout history, but most notably by the establishment of a mechanised view of nature as promoted by Descartes in the 16^th century.

The second womyn-nature connection identified by ecofeminists is conceptual. Val Plumwood points to the value dualisms and hierarchies within our language and thought which pair values such as ‘man/womyn’, ‘reason/emotion’, ‘mind/body’, ‘culture/nature’ where the first are identified as the norm or superior, the second as aberrations or otherness.² Accordingly women in giving birth and mothering are equated with nature and the body, men extract themselves from nature by engaging in “rational” projects. Feminists maintain that though birth might be a natural occurrence, the circumstances in which it occurs is social, as too is child-rearing. Ynestra King: “the process of nurturing an unsocialised, undifferentiated human infant into an adult person is the bridge between nature and culture”⁴. Some theorists have seen the gendered differences in our lives to have given women a unique way of seeing the world, a “different consciousness” that increases their respect for nature.

The third womyn-nature connection used by ecofeminists includes finding empirical evidence for their claims. Health risks to women, first world development policies, animal exploitation in factory farms and the practice of meat-eating, pornography and rape, are some of the diverse range of cultural phenomena identified as evidence of patriarchal domination. Some more radical theorists see womyns identification with nature as complying with that which oppresses, yet some womyn have chosen the spiritual dimension of identification with nature with its recognition of the value of indigenous beliefs that have often been decimated in the dominator culture.

Symbolic connections found in religion, art and language are the fourth sphere of womyn-nature connections. These social structures perpetrate many symbolic devaluation of the feminine, including the identification of the body as impossibly non-spiritual, or the only source of value for women (especially in art). Language reinforces the link between women and nature by using the same exploitative phrases to describe both: “nature is raped, her secrets are penetrated”.

Epistemology is charged with being male-biased and the source of the fifth womyn-nature connection analysed by ecofeminists. Philosophy has been implicated in maintaining the separation between humans and nature, and in perpetuating the view that nature is purely instrumental. Ecofeminist analysis will require us to re-examine many philosophical notions that we take for granted. Reason, rationality, knowledge, objectivity, ethics and what constitutes the moral self will need a radical rethink. Marti Kheel sees an affinity with deep ecology here, where “the emphasis of both philosophies is not on an abstract or ‘rational’ calculation of value but rather on the development of a new consciousness for all of life, they call for an inward transformation in order to attain outward change”³

The political connections between womyn and nature are far ranging: from health, to the treatment of animals, to the peace and anti-nuclear movements. Womyn are clearly an important voice in these movements and, in my experience, are often there in greater numbers than men.

The seventh womyn-nature connection dealt with by ecofeminst analysis is an ethical one. Theorists point out that environmental ethics as formulated in the mainstream are “problematically anthropocentric or hopelessly andocentric”. Ecofeminists suggest alternatives ethical theories, including an ‘ethic of care’ stemming from the notion of care we learn to give and receive as part of the parent-child relationship, reciprocity, kinship, animal rights, and social ecology perspectives.

The final womyn-nature connection is a theoretical one. Ecofeminist theory is seen as a valid alternative to the consequentialist / deontological dichotomy: an ethic not based either on weighing outcomes to achieve the “greatest happiness”, or setting inflexible rules. They make no claims to be the only alternative, but have some common threads with deep ecology, social ecology and Leopoldian land ethics.

The significance of ecofeminism lies within and without environmental ethics. Like much feminist critique before it, ecofeminism points to a new way of formulating mainstream thought. Importantly: “Can mainstream philosophy generate an environmental ethic that is not male-biased?” Many ecofeminist theorists suggest that it cannot because it is deeply entrenched in the dominator model of patriarchal culture. If it cannot, then it remains the task of alternatives like ecofeminism to dissect the fundamental premises of mainstream philosophical analysis and theory, and to show how it might be different.

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