Suchergebnisse

A review essay on books by: Rosi Braidotti, Ewa Charkiewicz, Sabine Hausler, & Saskia Wieringa, Women, the Environment and Sustainable Development (London: Zed Press, 1994); Maria Mies & Vandana Shiva, Ecofeminism (London: Zed Books, 1993); Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature (London: Routledge, 1993); Joni Seager, Earth Follies: Feminism, Politics and the Environment (London: Earthscan, 1993); & Vandana Shiva (Ed), Close to Home: Women Reconnect Ecology, Health and Development Worldwide (Philadelphia: New Society Publishers, 1994 [see listings in IRPS No. 79]). Reflections on ecofeminism are offered in the course of reviewing these books, which share as a starting point the critique of Western culture. Seager examines the institutions of Western domination -- business, government, the military -- while critically exploring the role of the ecological establishment in the West's environmental problems. Seager's book offers excellent analyses of green consumerism & the intrusion of Western capitalist patriarchy into the green movements & green issues. Plumwood offers a critique of Western traditions of thought, arguing that platonic & Cartesian forms of dualism have been the key mechanism of Western patriarchal domination. Mies & Shiva offer a critique of maldevelopment & colonization, examine the politics of consumption, & address criticisms of Western science & technology; other issues covered include the importance of women's grass-roots struggles & women as guardians of biodiversity. Shiva examines the interconnections among women, health, & the environment over a range of topics, including the ecological & political consequences of ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka & ecological economics. Braidotti et al offer a useful & well-theorized overview of the gender & development debate. W. Howard

"Drawing on the insights of ecology, feminism, and socialism, ecofeminism's basic premise is that the ideology that authorizes oppression based on race, class, gender, sexuality, physical abilities, and species is the same ideology that sanctions the oppression of nature. In this collection of essays, feminist scholars and activists discuss the relationships among human begins, the natural environment, and nonhuman animals. They reject the nature/culture dualism of patriarchal thought and locate animals and humans within nature. The goal of these twelve articles is to contribute to the evolving dialogue among feminists, ecofeminists, animal liberationists, deep ecologists, and social ecologists in an effort to create a sustainable lifestyle for all inhabitants of the earth. Among the issues addressed are the conflicts between Green politics and ecofeminism, various applications of ecofeminist theory, the relationship of animal liberation to ecofeminism, harmful implications of the romanticized woman-nature association in Western culture, and cultural limitations of ecofeminism. In the series Ethics and Action, edited by Tom Regan."

In this essay, I will argue that contemporary ecofeminist discourse, while potentially adequate to deal with the issue of animals, is now inadequate because it fails to give consistent conceptual place to the domination of animals as a significant aspect of the domination of nature. I will examine six answers ecofeminists could give for not including animals explicitly in ecofeminist analyses and show how a persistent patriarchal ideology regarding animals as instruments has kept the experience of animals from being fully incorporated within ecofeminism.2

Deep ecology and ecofeminism are contemporary environmental philosophies that share the desire to supplant the predominant Western anthropocentric environmental frameworks. Recently thinkers from these movements have focused their critiques on each other, and substantial differences have emerged. This essay explores central aspects of this debate to ascertain whether either philosophy has been undermined in the process and whether there are any indications that they are compatible despite their differences.

Review.