Ecofeminism Movement
One of the most basic tenants of feminist environmentalism is thatpeople's relationships to their environments are differentiated by gender.A review of the ecofeminist movement reveals a deep division betweenessentialist and anti-essentialist positions that actually obscures thefundamental flaw within the entire movement. Ultimately, the ecofeministassertion that men and women's relationships to their environments arefundamentally different seems to be fundamentally erroneous, and fails totake into consideration more important factors like race, economics, and Ecofeminism is seen as "a feminist rebellion within male-dominatedradical environmentalism" (Sturgeon, 25). Ruether notes "Ecofeminism ...explores how male domination of women and domination of nature areinterconnected, both in cultural ideology and in social structures" (2).Essentially, ecofeminism at its most basic definition focuses on the tiesthat exist between ideologies that result in the degradation anddestruction of the environment and ideologies that result in injustices To the feminist environmentalist movement, the idea that humans are
Here, humans do not hold dominion overthe earth and other forms of life, part are instead an integrated part ofGaia herself. Notes Ruether, "If dominating and destructive relations to the earthare interrelated with gender, class, and racial domination, then a healedrelation to the earth cannot come about simply through technological'fixes'. Give that both men and women experience sentience (and someanimals do as well), it appears that gender may of small value indetermining environmental issues, at least in Singer's analysis. One important component of analyzing ecofeminism is criticallyexamining its most basic tenant, that people's relationships to theirenvironments are differentiated by gender. Anecofeminism built on social ecology would be anti-hierarchical, and seek todetermine how domination of women is based on social concerns that affectboth men and women. As such, she argues that theseessentialist tendencies "must be explained as well as resisted" (59). Ruether notes "the way these cultures haveconstructed the idea of the male monotheistic God, and the relation of thisGod to the cosmos as its Creator, have reinforced symbolically therelations of domination of men over women, maters over slaves, and (maleruling-class) humans over animals and over the earth" (3). Criticism of the essentialist point of view argues that this point ofview wrongly minimizes the significance of oppression based on otherfactors such as race, sexuality, class, ethnicity, and religion. She notes that early Christian thought also "struggled with what theyperceived to be injustice and sin and sought to create just and lovingrelations between people in their relation to the earth and divine", andthat "these glimpses are a precious legacy that needs to be separated fromthe toxic waste of sacralized domination" (3). This point of view suggests that "male-centered (andocentric) and human-centered (anthropocentric) thinking have some common characteristics, suchas 'dualism' and the 'logic of domination', which are also manifested inthe oppressions of many other social groups, and that in being facilitatedby a common ideological structure, diverse forms of oppression oftenmutually-reinforce each other"(Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Essentialismeffectively argues that racism has its roots in gender discrimination, anargument that is hotly contested in many circles. Importantly, Sturgeon argues that the essentialist point of view, whichargues all oppression has its roots in the oppression of women, essentiallymakes it difficult to acknowledge racial differences. Ruether suggests that that while male domination of women andof nature are interconnected, both have their roots in Christian thoughtthat dominates Western society. This alienation from nature is notbased upon gender, and thus both men and women can be equally alienated. Whileecofeminists like Ruether have brought new insights into this debate, thefundamental tenant of ecofeminism, that men and women perceiveenvironmental issues differently, seems to be basically flawed.
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