Ecofeminism appears to be a rising new tide in the history of
environmental consciousness -- a new way of looking at some old ideas.
The basic premise is that the historical domination of nature is
similar to the historical domination of women. To fix our ecological or
feminist problems one must deal first with the issue of 'domination of
weaker beings'. Once the culture has removed domination as a viable
societal response, all the other problems will as a consequence also be
solved.
This paper will attempt to show that this new arrangement of old
ideas does not, unfortunately, accomplish what its stated goals are. In
fact, I shall show how ecofeminism, while starting from very valid
points concerning quite real problems, somehow manages to neither solve
those problems, nor reveal any helpful new heuristics in how to deal
with those same problems. Ecofeminism, to put it bluntly, sabotages
itself.
Ecofeminism, like many other well-meaning efforts to deal with
today's problems, started with a fresh look at old ideas, and the best
of intentions. However, I believe that initial promise has been
side-lined. There are a variety of reasons I feel this is so. Firstly,
ecofeminism by its very nature is unfortunately and apparently ripe for
abuse -- if domination by the patriarchy is to be removed, what will
fill that niche? To use an old saw, Nature abhors a vacuum. Secondly,
ecofeminism seems to have lost its way -- there seems to be a huge
split between theorists and those who are actually active, and there is
a decade-long philosophical feud with deep ecologists that is
apparently still going on. Finally there is the classically
propagandist style of much of ecofeminism's theoretical writings.
Let us look at the abuses ecofeminism seems to produce. Most of
today's societies are of a patriarchal form. There are documentable
commonalties between this current cultural norm's behavior towards both
women and nature. Ecofeminism recognized this, possibly for the first
time. They came to the conclusion (not unreasonably) that a solution
that solves male domination of females might also solve human
domination of nature, and that the obverse might also be true. This was
an interesting idea, and as such seems both initially true and a useful
heuristic. However, at this point the usefulness of ecofeminism seems
to have ended. Instead of becoming a movement that impelled one towards
beneficial change of the current cultural norm, ecofeminism seems to
have suffered a cumulative attack of penis envy. Perish the thought
that any feminist (eco- or otherwise) would admit to such, of course...
instead we have comments such as the following by Brian Swimme:
This sort of assumption that women are somehow better than men is
still being furthered today. For example, in 1974, Ortner mentions
women as the "guardians of culture and morals," and in 1978 Griffin
wrote, "woman speaks with nature... But for him [man] this dialogue is
over ... But we [women] hear." In 1982 Gilligan wrote of "women's ways
of knowing," in 1984 Salleh states "women's monthly fertility cycle,
... ground[s] women's consciousness in the knowledge of being
coterminous with nature... Women already... 'flow with the system of
nature.'" Doubiago in 1989 wrote, "male ecologists will have to admit
on any reflection ... [that w]omen have always thought like
mountains...." Warren, in 1990, wrote "the vocabulary of care
represents the essential moral voice of women," and in 1995 Baidotti,
Charkiewicz, Hausler, and Wieringa wrote "women know better than men
how to save the earth and themselves." (Hendler & Berman 18) This
assumption of privilege goes on even today.
Furthermore, it does not appear that ecofeminism merely glorifies
"Woman" where she was once vilified. Now patriarchy, and by extension
men, are being portrayed as the villains. Consider some of the
assertions made by ecofeminists: "[androcentrism is] the oldest of
oppressions," (Shiva 3) and "...ecologists have failed to grasp the
fact that at the core of our suicidal mission is the psychological
issue of gender, the oldest war, the war of the sexes." (Doubiago 43)
Indeed, the titles of some of the prominent ecofeminist books are
telling: Judith Plant's Healing the Wounds: The Promise of
Ecofeminism (it sounds like she implies ecofeminism is the only
healer available), Greta Gaard's Ecofeminism: Women, Animals, and
Nature (can men not be a part of the ecofeminist movement?), Leonie
Caldecott and Stephanie Leland's Reclaim the Earth: Women Speak Out
For Life on Earth (I wasn't aware it was lost -- and cannot men
also speak out for the earth?), A. Collard and J. Contrucci's Rape
of the Wild: Man's Violence Against Animals and the Earth (as if
all of our current problems were due solely to men). These may all seem
nit-picky or mocking examples, but I do not mean them so. Instead I
find them sobering, even alarming hints of ecofeminism's deeper
beliefs.
In their own way, ecofeminists are just as exclusionary as the
patriarchal society they purport to despise. There is a sizable portion
of ecofeminism that feels women are somehow more inherently "good" than
men -- enough that they are referred to as a group, within ecofeminism,
as "nature feminists." Thus there are writings by people with these
beliefs that claim women should now be privileged because they are
closer to nature for a wide variety of reasons: because they're
'naturally' that way, because they think differently than men, because
they can give birth, because men oppress both them and nature. Their
logic escapes me -- why should demonization of men and/or patriarchy
glorify women? If one is careful to delineate the oppressor as
different from you, how can a commonalty between you and the oppressor
be accomplished? How will replacing an old hate with a new one solve
the problem? The unfortunate answer is that it won't -- rather the
problem will remain, but with a different oppressor group. Nothing will
be fixed, and the original problem (oppression) will remain
unsolved.
Most unpleasant of all, there is the propagandist nature of
ecofeminist writings. To explain this, I need to go back to the
beginning of my researches. Reading the ecofeminist theories left me
with a vague feeling of discomfort, although I could not put my finger
on exactly why. It was not until a chance comment by a friend that I
realized what my problem was -- all the ecofeminist tracts I could find
reminded me, in their layouts, of some studies I'd done on Nazi
propaganda! I am extremely uncomfortable with this perceived
similarity, since I no longer feel I can trust any of the stated
'facts' within the papers I read. Oddly enough, there seem to be at
least one ecofeminist who is aware of this trend. Lahar mentions the
In an effort to clarify this possibility I went back to recheck my
sources [A]. I discovered:
1. Propaganda is printed or visual material designed to
win public sentiment or to decrease public hostility towards a particular
political cause. Typically it distorts the issue, misquotes sources,
or engages in lies. (Vos 1)
After some thought, I realized I viewed the ecofeminist "nature
feminist" view of women as being somehow closer to nature than men as
a distortion of the issue. People are people. As one simple example,
studies have shown that when there is no social condemnation, both
genders are equally aggressive. Furthermore, asserting that one must think irrationally, or as 'nature feminists' put
it, "spiritually" in order to understand the ecofeminist viewpoint
[B] appears to be either a
distortion of the issue or a lie, whether unconscious or not.
Later in the same article on propaganda is the following:
3. At the heart of all political conflicts, is a
conflict of vision. On both sides there is an accumulation of evidence --
accumulated from the world as experienced through each worldview. The
worldview whose 'evidence' is most consistent with one's experience of
reality is the one which one will adopt.
4. The purpose of propaganda is to make one's vision accessible to
others by giving the accumulated evidence of the validity of that
vision. (Vos 1)
I felt uncomfortably that all ecofeminism had to offer was a vision
-- a hallucination, to be exact, of a world where women would run
everything, and everyone would love them for doing so. I don't believe
such a simplistic answer would work.
The Institute for Propaganda Analysis points out
Propagandists love short-cuts -- particularly those
which short-circuit rational thought. They encourage this by agitating
emotions, by exploiting insecurities, by capitalizing on the ambiguity
of language, and by bending the rules of logic.
Unfortunately I believe this description closely describes the
ecofeminist movement. Emotions are agitated by incessant argumentative
rhetoric, as is shown by the on-going, derisive campaign against
patriarchy, and the decade long argument with deep ecologists. The
ambiguity of language is manipulated to keep the fruitless battle with
the deep ecologists going -- the term 'holistic,' for example, is used
by both sides. Both of them deride their philosophical opponents for
using the word incorrectly, and describe their own goals as a
more 'holistic' mode of thinking. Furthermore, women (a traditionally
insecure group) are told they are somehow better than men, and always
have been -- all they have to do is band together, and domination will
be overthrown. Finally, the rules of logic aren't just bent -- they're
tossed out, along with other despised tools of the patriarchy, such as
reason, scientific method, and rational thought.
The IPA has listed the seven basic devices of propaganda. Some of
these are referred to as 'name-calling,' 'transfer,' 'testimonial,' and
'plain folks.' Ecofeminism very obviously uses name-calling. 'Good'
names associated with women can be seen in my previous examples. Some
of the 'bad' names associated with patriarchy and men are
"maldeveloped," "rapists," "socialist," "disinterested," "denying," and
"hostile." Needless to say, not all men fall in those categories, any
more than women are universally 'good.' Yet the connotations are still
there -- negative for males and patriarchy, positive for females. Are
ecofeminists using negative connotations to simply dismiss ideas and
people of which they disapprove? Do the ideas and concepts in question
really have a legitimate connection with the real meanings of these
names?
The IPA states:
Transfer is a device by which the propagandist carries
over the authority, sanction, and prestige of something we respect and
revere to something he would have us accept.
This device is quite obvious in the ecofeminist bumper-sticker
carrying a picture of the Earth from orbit, and the slogan "Love Your
Mother." Motherhood and religion are both beloved concepts to most
Americans, and this bumper-sticker uses transference to apply that
reverence to ecofeminism. And yet I found myself thinking, if I leave
the propaganda trick out of the picture, what are the merits of this
ecofeminist concept, viewed alone? The proposal had validity of its
own. Why was there this need to obfuscate the issue? Such techniques
will only serve to rabble-rouse (in the short term), and in the long
term alienate the thoughtful viewer.
Interestingly enough, there is a voice crying out in the wilderness,
so to speak, against this practice. Roach writes of the "misguided attempt to consciously create symbols without attending to
unconscious projection and content." (Roach 58) While I find her writing
rather politically correct [C],
I believe she is right in this instance.
Testimonials are an especially effective propaganda device, if you
like the person giving the testimonial. People tend to be less critical
when they admire the person doing the touting. Unfortunately, there's
frequently no one asking if the speaker really has any idea of what
would really be best in each case. Ecofeminism has its
testimonials, in the person of Starhawk. She is a persuasive speaker,
and a revered spiritual leader in the goddess-worshipping circles of
feminism. To my knowledge, what she is not is someone who has any
university training in ecology, anthropology, or philosophy. Any one of
these might have inclined me to attach more weight to her words.
Unfortunately she is having a strong effect on the ecofeminist
movement. One of her followers writes the following:
[I was] ...in a feminist studies class where students
were discussing religion, commenting that anyone who remained connected
to the mainstream religions obviously did not have a feminist
consciousness. ... These spiritualities are creating a new story
which will reshape human-earth relations, and challenge the andro- and
anthropocentrism resulting from human arrogance and ignorance. ... I
think the earth is calling forth a new religious sensitivity, because
of the level of suffering. (Eaton 30, 31)
I found this disturbing. Removal of domination does not have
to produce fuzzy thinking. Furthermore, why would a planet call
anything? It is physically incapable of doing so.
The use of the 'plain folks' propagandist device can be easily seen
in ecofeminism. Ecofeminism considers most of its appeal to be to
grassroots movements, to
...homemakers organizing to eliminate toxic chemicals
from their homes and neighborhoods, ... activists standing between
trees and the bulldozers coming to fell them, and protesters making
peace encampments at military bases (Lahar 29)
What could be more homey, more 'of the people' than that? It sounds
wonderful. Indeed, I counted 4 or 5 references to the Chipko Indians
of Nepal -- they seem quite popular amongst ecofeminists as an example
of just plain folks making a difference. And yet I couldn't help but
notice that in the three collections of ecofeminist discourse I found,
only the first one contained any articles discussing actual people
doing actual work! It was almost dominated by that type of article.
However, all the articles in the following two collections are
philosophical nit-picking, rhetoric, and theoretical polemic, with a
few sparse side references to actual activism. Are the ecofeminists
slowly losing ground with the people? Is this an attempt to cover up a
lack of concrete successes by the ecofeminist movement? Has
ecofeminism become merely another philosophical footnote?
In conclusion, ecofeminism was started on an interesting and
innovative new idea: women and nature were viewed similarly by the
patriarchal cultures, and similar modes of oppression were used upon
them; thus removal of the tactic of domination would potentially solve
both problems. Unfortunately this movement has apparently stagnated in
propaganda and foundered on irrelevant and ultimately divisive issues.
The goal of ending oppression will not be furthered by the loss of
truth, of feeling the need to propagandize rather than to speak and
lead with integrity. Saddest of all is the apparent need to glorify
women to the detriment of men, and to dismiss all of the patriarchal
culture from which we come, rather than taking the best the culture has
to offer, leaving the worst, and moving forward into a deliberately
planned, better future.
Footnotes
[A] And may I add, this is quite possibly the first
paper I've written where I felt like washing my hands after doing
research! Some of the ecofeminist tracts I can only characterize as
airy-headed, androphobic drivel, and checking the Aryan propaganda made
my toes curl! Fascinating -- in the same sense that something
ultimately disgusting fascinates.
(go back)
[B] See Lahar 1991 earlier in this paper, quoting
Swimme. Unfortunately such "spiritual" attitudes about how women think
are common enough that ecofeminism has been referred to as "remain[ing]
rooted in an abstract pro-nature stance that continues to call for
theory but rarely provides it" (Mills 172) or as being "somewhere
between theory and poetry" (King 124).
(go back)
[C] She uses the term 'biodegrade' to describe what
she'd like to do with patriarchal cultures and concepts. How...
charming.
(go back)
Last Updated: Thu Mar 2000
