Presentation:

Both feminist and environmentalist ideas are attracting lots of interest these days, and movements and organisations around the world are experimenting with different ways to achieve gender and ecological justice. These different frameworks and objectives, however, are often perceived as disconnected from one another. Yet there is a set of theories and practices, first elaborated in the 1970s, which helps us bring them together and create a new framework: ecofeminism. In this recipe you will learn more about what it is, and how you can use it to rethink matters of intersectional justice.

 Ingredients:

• environmental and social justice movements uniting women and nature to resist domination developed in the 1960-70s
• inspiration from the work on intersectionality by queer, Black, indigenous and working-class feminist women struggles
• an understanding of the intersections among various forms of social mistreatment, oppression and their connection to the land
• an ability to see the links between gender-based oppression and the domination of nature
• a new lexicon and creative methodology to reveal embedded forms of oppression
• a desire to celebrate diversity in all its forms
• a preference for queer ecologies over the ‘natural’ or ‘straight’ cis-hetero-patriarchy
• a desire for diverse and creative applications of theory and practice
• a critical view on the culture and politics of eating animals

Preparation

The term ecofeminism, which was coined by French feminist Françoise d’Eaubonne in 1974 and is rooted in indigenous practices and relationship with the land, is used today to refer to a multiplicity of political agendas and stances. Among these, we can identify two main areas of practice, a cultural-symbolic and a socio-economic one.

While the former is mostly interested in charting the way in which patriarchal cultures have defined women as being “closer” to nature, and have therefore exploited them the way nature is exploited and consumed (and here the movement intersects with environmental and animal rights movements). The latter further explores the cultural-symbolic level and focuses on the socio-economic underpinnings of ecological/gendered oppression and practice-based intervention.

These two strands of ecofeminist thinking and activism mutually nurture one another. In fact there is no action without imagination and both approaches work concomitantly towards the same liberatory goal.

For this recipe I offer you two different methodologies to engage with and consider your own understanding of how they entwine.

Method 1:  the cultural-symbolic practice

Ecofeminism explores the human interplay with other species and the earth while simultaneously challenging a colonial androcentric perspective that the female body is symbolically close to nature.

To reflect on this you might want to start by reading some dystopian novels, such as Sally Gearhart’s The Wonderground or Wendy Delorme’s Viendra le temps du feu. For a more theoretical read, Ann McClintock’s Imperial Leather cleverly connects a racial gendered taxonomy of life to the domination of land.

Another key theme is patriarchy’s obsession with meat, and its consumption is reminiscent of the consumption of the female body. To know more about this you could read Atwood’s The edible woman or the groundbreaking essay by Carol J. Adams The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory.

Octavia Butler’s work interrogates instead racial and gendered oppression within the context of earthly exploitation and societal breakdown. Her wide-reaching canon of speculative fiction imaginatively explores many of the interplays and complexities of ecofeminism. I would recommend The Parables series to introduce you to this topic.

Philosopher Donna Haraway often uses Butler’s work to merge theory, science and fantasy with her concept of tentacular thinking, a concept which is very akin to the ecofeminist framework.

Witchcraft is another fundamental theme in ecofeminist thought. It has been seen by some as an early manifestation of eco-feminist movements because it has represented an embodiment of anti-capitalist sentiments that revere providential nature in all of its complexity, beauty and mystery. But also because it has represented an expression of female power, autonomy and rebellion. To know more about this perspective I suggest you read Silvia Federici’s Caliban and the Witch or Mona Chollet’s Witches: The Undefeated Power of Women among others.

Method 2: the socio-economic practice

Ecofeminists don’t reflect only on the metaphoric and symbolic affinities among different forms of exploitation and domination, they look at socio-economic practices as well.

The scholar Vandana Shiva, for example, has looked at the approaches to agriculture adopted in India, and in doing so has shown how more sustainable and productive practices could be achieved by reinstating a system of farming more centred on engaging women.

Philosopher Silvia Federici has instead suggested that protecting the means of subsistence may be  a North-South transnational act of solidarity, which is key to building a new commons in an antipatriarchal and anticapitalist struggle.

Scholar Nandita Sharma also espouses the importance of utopian thinking towards planetary commons and in allegiance with the No Borders movements and migratory justice. These are activist movements which practically support and agitate for a more equitable lived experience globally.

Finally, the concepts of commons and sharing will inevitably bring to your attention the ‘care economy’ – a notion which is being used nowadays to illustrate racial and ethnic hierarchies emergent in the distribution of social reproduction labour.

In this regard the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change has reported that women are more likely to be poor than men, and poor women are more at risk in situations of climate disruptions because they are less likely to have access to decision-making power, resources and information during a crisis or job security.

Ecofeminist thought has therefore devoted a lot of thought to the ethics of care: is it moral to not include the nonhuman in an economy of care? What are the collective responsibilities and duties of reciprocation that come with being a citizen of a shared planet? What does feminist interspecies care look like? Please keep on asking…

Extra tip

• Ecofeminism must interconnect with the movements of environmental racism and ecojustice and situate itself in a global context.