Before I embark on my attempt at explaining what ecofeminism is, I’d like you to forget everything Forge has taught you so far! If I remember correctly, Forge talks about ethical theories in terms of individual rights – who is morally considerable, and who is not, ‘guys like us’ etc. And from this he postulates a series of sets of rules: Kantian deontology, utilitarian greatest happiness principle etc. – all based on the ‘reasoning adult’ model. Nothing wrong with that, as a theory, but it doesn’t work in practice. Not all people are rational – say infants and the mentally incompetent, even you and I are not always rational. And no one can be that consistent as to always adhere to rules. To do so requires one to “do right tho’ the heavens may fall” to paraphrase Kant.

So if there is one defining characteristic that unites Ecofeminist thought, it is the idea that rules must always be broken, that every decision is a unique one and contingent on the situation in question, and that we do not solely use reason to make our decisions.

Psychologist Carol Gilligan sees 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. (Gilligan was a student of Lawrence Kohlberg, a psychologist who wrote ‘Kohlberg’s hierarchy of moral development’) Gilligan noted that women consistently failed to reach that more abstract levels of reasoned morality in Kohlberg’s schema (mainly because Kohlberg used an all male sample!) In her own studies she found that women were more likely to break rules where personal relationships were involved, and more likely to take the compassionate decision over the ‘right decision’ (in the Kantian sense) Gilligan suggests that it is often a psychological disposition of men (perhaps as a result of traditional gender roles) to subordinate relationships to universal principles or rules and thus relationships are devalued or objectified (Gilligan 1987:19) The effect of objectification is intellectual separation of subjectivity and objectivity, personal and public, feeling and ‘fact’: dualism! As such it is may be easier for many men to suppress their feelings of wrong doing towards women or the environment to a higher so called moral principle that advocates the primacy of individual actions (including those done for profit) over relational and community spirited ones. Yet both caring, and objective rational calculation are socialised into us and may be undone.

The fact is very few people have to choose between saving a child from drowning, or a dog. Our lives, and in particular our ecological lives, are rather more complex, rather more mundane. They are based on day to day decisions, cumulative in their effect and intimately connected with our relationships with each other and the non-human world. Forge is right, however, when he points out that we don’t just use reason to make our choices, we also use our values. For ecofeminists these values are ecologically sane ones, but they are also relational, and personal. There is simply no way any ecological theory will gain wide acceptance if it ignores the importance of human relationships (hence the failure of holistic deep ecology to catch on with anyone but the most fanatical). Our relationships between each other and between ourselves and the environment we live in MUST be integral parts of an overall ecological consciousness.

What is ecofeminism? Not an easy Q to answer. Ecofeminism is diverse, and it’s diversity is one of its virtues. Rather than try to pin it down to a definite set of rules, which in any case is contrary to what most ecofeminists are seeking to do, I would like to pose a series of Qs that we might ponder. I know they are going to sound a bit left-field, but they are, i think, intuitive ones when one thinks about a gendered approach to conceiving of the environment.

Slide 2 Are women closer to nature than men? Is the Earth our Mother? Is the degradation of the environment linked to the oppression of women? Must environmentalists be feminists? I’d like you to think about these questions during my talk and maybe we can try to answer then at the end if we have time.

Slide 3 Francoise d’Eubonne: an anarcho-feminist What can an Ecofeminist Society be? 1974 coined the term ‘ecofeminisme’ to encapsulate women’s potential to environmental revolution analysis of ecological problems based on: 1. patriarchy 2. capitalism 3. Domination i will deal with each of these three claims and see if you think they have any theoretical credence.

Slide 4

1. patriarchy feminists identify ‘androcentrism’ as the root of women’s oppression, ecofeminists see ‘androcentric anthropocentricism’ as the root of ecological and social inequity androcentrism: male-centredness, not biological but socially constructed anthropocentrism: human-centredness 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 16th century. Symbolic connections found in religion, art and language are another 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”.

slide5 capitalism: the name given to a structural understanding of the world an how it works based on capital; ownership of it affording privilege over other values. (note that now and in the past women have been prohibited from owning property/capital, or making decisions about how it is distributed through voting) ecofeminists identify capitalism as a dual oppressor: capitalism needs cheap labour to succeed and women are more often the lowest paid or do most of the unpaid work (child-rearing, food production) in all societies 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 and are largely products of capitalist exploitation that makes anything fair game for profit. 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/capitalist culture.

slide 6 Domination: exerting rule leads to dualism: dominator/dominated; powerful/oppressed; force/submission; good/bad; male/female; - things are not this simplistic Domination leads to attitudes not amenable to environmental or social justice: aggression, deceit, lack of cooperation, resentment of those in power, a class structure Domination leads to psychological states not amenable to human fulfilment: fear, resentment & resignation in the oppressed group; omnipotence and self-righteousness in the dominating group 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. Accordingly women in giving birth and mothering are equated with nature and the body, men extract themselves from nature by engaging in “rational” projects. Ynestra King points out that this is erroneous: “the process of nurturing an unsocialised, undifferentiated human infant into an adult person is the bridge between nature and culture”4

Slide 7 How does this effect the environment * an attitude of domination, of instrumentalism, that backgrounds capitalism has led to profligate abuse of the non-human world. Until profit ceases to be the measure of good, waste will continue to occur * only through ceasing human inequity (ending domination, patriarchy & capitalism) can we achieve environmental equity - equity for humans and non-humans alike. People will always misuse nature when they can make a profit or when they are wanting for their vital needs * effects not only the environment, but the practice and success of environmentalism: women outnumber men 3:1 in environment & social justice groups

slide 8 diversity in ecofemism liberal feminism - critique only of unequal opportunity for women, ‘bourgeois’ feminism marxist feminism - critique of capitalism, as source of women’s oppression radical feminism - critique of socialisation/patriarchy as source of women’s oppression socialist feminism - critique of capitalism, patriarchy anarcho-feminism - variant on s/f & r/f, that sees androcentric domination as source of problem

slide 9 & 10 comparisons of feminist attitudes to the environment

slide 11 common threads in feminist critique of environmentalism shiva slide 12 deep ecology: similarities and differences I would suggest that because ecocentrism attempts to so radicalise the realm of the morally considerable, seemingly to the detriment of especially human individuals, it will never be widely embraced. An environmental ethic that can embrace commonly felt and vital human impulses to care, to share and respect the environment based on feelings of kinship with other humans and a recognition of our kinship with nonhuman life is better placed to win popular acceptance than a value theory that defines in abstract terms our moral duties and expects us to do ‘justice though the heavens may fall’ . The tools for such a moral revolution are already within every one of us.

Slide 13 and differences Marti Kheel sees an affinity with deep ecology, 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 This is the stream of ecocentrism which has gotten the most criticism is that relying on what Robyn Eckersley calls ‘autopoietic value theory’. Autopoietism posits that because organisms or entities are self-renewing, they have intrinsic value and hence are morally considerable and should be allowed to fulfil their life-potential. This substantially widens the scope of who or what is morally considerable to the point many consider ridiculous – that, and that sometimes “killing of a wildflower…is just as much a wrong…as the killing of a human…in some situations it is a greater wrong” (Taylor in Nash 1989:155) However, Taylor does differentiate between wanton destruction and self-defence. Indeed, the radical exclamations of ecocentric holists do nothing to promote the widespread acceptability of their ethic when they make statements about “siding with the bears” (John Muir in Nash), that injuries resulting from trees spikes “served them (the loggers) right for killing trees” (Gilliam in Manes 19:458). Biospheric holism takes no account of the rights of individuals except insofar as they are endangered. J Baird Callicott makes it absolutely clear in his earlier writings that he himself considers abstract entities like ‘species’ to have a “prima facie claim to preferential consideration” because diversity contributes to ‘stability’ (Callicott 1980: 325). He goes as far as to suggest that individuals in a biotic community are like the cells in a body – they have no importance except as parts of a functioning whole. The practical use of this analogy is questionable. The interests of a human or other organismic body can be defined in terms of interests. Individuals have goals, to reproduce themselves and to survive until this is accomplished, that ecosystems clearly do not. 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.

Slide 15 The final womyn-nature connection is a theoretical one. This is where I started so makes a fitting conclusion to my explication of ecofeminism. 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, i think, 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.