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A masculine world-view causes poverty, environmental
degradation, wars, and extinction ontological shift is key
Jytte Nhanenge- Development Consultant studies development policies in Africa;
February 2007; Ecofeminism: Towards Integrating The Concerns of Women, Poor
People and Nature Into Development
Chapter 2 argued that the modern, mechanistic, scientific world-view to a large
extend is responsible for the four crises. Its over-reward of quantitative activities
means that the quality of life for society and nature is deteriorating. Chapter 5 and
6 discussed that science - especially the discipline of economics and its technology,
together with the scientific program of Third World development - consistently are
dominating and exploiting women, Others and nature. The root cause relates to the
fact that only masculine or yang forces are included in the scientific view of reality.
Feminine or yin forces are oppositely excluded. This dualised patriarchal ideology
must logically manifest in domination of women, Others and nature. Science,
economics, technology, politics and social organization consequently only include
half of reality. The other half is considered of little value and as a resource for
exploitation. Hence not only women, Others and nature, but also all other feminine
or yin issues are considered as being subordinate. This imbalance has meant that
there is an exaggerated focus on masculine human characteristics, like rationality,
individualism, competition, egoism, greed and profit-maximization. At the same
time the feminine human characteristics of emotion, community, cooperation and
conservation have been overlooked. This has lead to unethical human behaviour
and dominant relationship among many people, specifically between men and
women, adults and children, white and coloured people, modern and traditional
people, rich and poor people. The priority on masculine traits has also resulted in an
almost complete lack of relationship between human beings and nature. Deficiency
of balance between yang and yin has moreover meant that feminine experiences
including indigenous knowledge cannot officially be included in the current
masculine knowledge system. The product is a distorted knowledge system. Since
this knowledge system is the foundation of modern political, economic and social
organisation, it has resulted in absence of care and concern for creation and
maintenance of sustainable social and natural inter-relations. The exclusion of
feminine attributes has consequently created disharmony, which has culminated in
the crises of war and violence, poverty and inequality, environmental destruction
and human repression. The main sufferers from these crises are women, Others and
nature. 515 Since these crises continuously are intensifying, and extinction of the
human race has become an issue of public concern, it is increasingly important to
change the masculine perception of reality. This dissertation suggests that the
solution must be a replacement of the exclusive, masculine world-view by an
inclusive ontology, which has a dynamic tension between masculine and feminine
elements. In chapter 3 Smuts' holism, the general systems theory and the Chinese I
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Algae Biofuels
The aff exploits algae to reproduce energy the same way
patriarchy views the feminine as a source of reproduction
Julia Rometsch- masters degree in gender studies writing about the
commercialization of algae biofuels in India 2012 Indias agrofuel policies from a
feminist-environmentalist perspective In: T. Potthast and S. Meisch eds. Climate
change and sustainable development
Women, being responsible for reproductive work, often are more severely affected
by environmental pollution than men. Also, they feel more responsible for their
natural environment and are more active in ecological movements. Responsibility
for an ecologically viable behavior is handed over to them, resulting in an even
higher burden (Schultz, 1993). Important for my research on agrofuel policies in
India are feminist works that center around questions of the gendered division of
work. Feminist critiques of economy focus on the construction of female workpower
and natural resources as infinite. Both female reproductive work and natural
resources are devalued or obscured, as only the seemingly productive is valorized
as economically relevant. The segregation of productive and reproductive sphere in
mainstream economic thought is an artificial one. Reproductive work is not only also
productive, but indispensable for the creation and preservation of life. This strand of
ecofeminist thought aims at overcoming the separation of productive and
reproductive sphere. It envisions a transformation of the economy towards what is
called Preemptive Economy (Vorsorgendes Wirtschaften). In this vision, the
economy shall be organized along the principles of forethought, cooperation and
orientation towards what is necessary for a Good Life (Biesecker and Hofmeister,
2006, 2010; Biesecker et al., 2000; Hofmeister et al., 2003; Mlders, 2010).
more dependent on companies (FIAN, 2008: 7). Cultivating non-edible and one-useonly plants also is risky for farmers, as they are dependent on market prices they
cannot influence. The state of Uttarakhand acts as a broker between BPL-families
and a private company, thus fostering their dependence. The economic structure of
the common lands of Uttarakhand is inevitably altered, towards a large-scale
cultivation of a single plant only profitable in a market context. Formerly common
land is withdrawn from the former users and turned into private land. Food security
is thought about only in terms of productive land use, questions of biodiversity and
traditional knowledge remain unanswered. Resources such as land and (female)
(re)productive labor of the rural poor feature as free of cost and so far unproductive.
Poor families and especially women are constructed as unproductive and cheap
laborers. To sum up, these policies on agrofuel in India are part of the debates on
climate change and coping strategies as well as part of the debates on how a
sustainable future in the face of severe ecological crisis can be fostered. State
institutions such as the GoI, the National Planning Commission and civil society
institutions on the other hand generate knowledge on sustainability in the field of
agrofuels in India. At the center of these debates is the question, how a good life for
everybody is possible now and in the future (FIAN, 2008; Government of India,
2008; Ramani and Joshi, 2009; Rossi and Lambrou, 2009; World Bank, 2008).
Looking at these debates from an ecofeminist perspective shows that ecological and
social questions only feature as add-ons to the goal of economic profit for private
companies. The needs and wishes of the ones concerned by these policies are not
acknowledged. Starting from the theoretical framework of a preemptive economy,
one has to ask what economic structures are already in place in Uttarakhand in the
field of forest management. The van panchayat, so far managing the forest land,
have a good chance of working with the principles promoted by preemptive
economy. They are based on forethought and cooperation although a Good Life
yet has to be established for a majority of the Uttarakhand population. However,
destroying these structures will not lead to a sustainable economy or a Good Life for
everybody, but rather jeopardize the chances to build a sustainable economy.
However, so far empirical data is missing to prove the hypothesis of this paper.
Questions to be answered during my field trip in spring are: What is the state of
Jatropha plantations in Uttarakhand? What economic and social structures are in
place concerning the forest management of the van panchayat? What assumptions
on sustainability and gender have the members of the UBB and the van panchayat?
What gendered divisions of work are in place concerning the Jatropha plantations?
Development
Development policies are reduced to economic profits which
harms women, the poor, and nature
Jytte Nhanenge- Development Consultant studies development policies in Africa;
February 2007; Ecofeminism: Towards Integrating The Concerns of Women, Poor
People and Nature Into Development
Many authors (Ekins 1992, Shiva 1989, Turner 1997) find that rather than alleviating
poverty, development brought about this impoverishment due to its economic
focus. The idea was that development should increase national economic growth,
which was assumed necessary to alleviate poverty. The procedure is to direct lands,
soils and waters towards production of commercial crops and industrial food for the
market. However, it is overlooked that the same natural resources are providing a
large number of traditional people with a decent subsistence livelihood. Without
natural resources, these people become poor. Poor people also do not benefit from
the economic growth their natural resources are producing. The reason is that
economic benefits are distributed unevenly in society. The already rich get almost
all of it, while poor people experience virtually no improvement in their living
conditions. Moreover, rich people do not invest their wealth into activities that
benefit poor people. Instead, they spend their money on producing luxury goods for
the elite, or they import Western consumer goods to improve their own lifestyle. In
this way, development is benefiting Southern elites and Northern industries, rather
than poor people in the South. Another serious negative side effect from economic
development is destruction of the natural environment. In the economic process
natural resources are overused, waters and soils are exhausted and toxified, forests
are cut-down and the air is polluted. Thus, development is treating nature as an
income-generating resource to be exploited for its commercial value. Such activity
has serious, negative side effects for traditional and poor people. It is especially
hard for women who produce 60-80% of all food in the South. When nature is
degraded, women are forced to grow their crops on increasingly marginalized land.
The outcome is less food for Southern people and unintended increase of natural
destruction. Destruction of the natural environment also has serious global effects,
which manifests as climate change. Increased temperatures, higher sea levels,
more droughts and floods will have disastrous results for people and nature in the
South. However, in spite of the obvious vicious circle economic development
promotes, the Southern governments continue to focus on economic profit. This
means that peoples' right to decide is overlooked. They are instead expected to
contain their losses. Thus, the programme of development has cheated Southern
people out of the democracy they were promised after liberating themselves from
colonial domination. Instead, a new dominative relationship is created between
people in the South and their governments. This has the tendency to produce social
unrest, crime, violence, human rights abuses, even war. Such social disruption will
only escalate the crises of poverty and misery for women, children and poor people,
while further destroy the natural environment. From the above it follows that
development devastates wholesome and sustainable lifestyles of women and
traditional people in the South. It creates scarcity of natural resources and excludes
an increasing number of adult and children from their entitlement to food. This
leads to malnutrition, sickness, poverty, misery and death. Conclusively
development has become a threat to the survival of the great majority in the South.
Rather that being a strategy for poverty alleviation, bringing about a good life,
development is creating complex crises of inequality and poverty, violence and war,
environmental destruction and abuse of human rights. Those worst hit by
development's destruction are women, children, traditional people, poor people and
nature.
Development activities in the South are theoretically meant to improve the wellbeing of human beings. To be consistent, this must necessarily include to
preserving the health of the natural environment from which many traditional
people live. However, far too often develop projects are focused on "modernizing"
people's lives and as a consequence development are causing both human misery
and environmental destruction. Big dams have long been the prestige symbol of
industrialisation and development. The dams are meant to increase economic
growth by supplying energy to industrial production and water to commercial cash
crop farming. However, big dams give numerous problems. It has already been
mentioned that big construction works cause displacement of indigenous people
and increase unequal distribution of wealth, which leads to poverty and human
misery. However, they also have huge negative impacts on nature. The Ecologist
Magazine has called these big water projects for "massive ecological destructions".
The magazine recommends that decision makers stop all large-scale water
development schemes. In spite of this sound advice, China is presently building the
world's tallest and biggest dam. It will negatively affect the lives of 2 million people
and a huge natural area. (Ekins 1992: 88-89; BBC News October 2006). The abovementioned Narmada Valley Project in India is a classic example. Ever since the initial
idea in the 1960, the project has been controversial. It is the largest hydroelectric
and irrigation water development complex ever proposed in the world. It comprises
two very large dams, 28 major dams, 135 medium and 3,000 minor dams to be
built over 50 years, costing 5 billion USD. The project will be generating an
estimated 500 million megawatts of electricity and it is designed to irrigate over 2
million hectares of land. Moreover, it should bring drinking water to thousands of
villages. The World Bank gave a loan of 450 million for one dam in 1988 and was
considering the second as well. The 82 Narmada is India's fifth largest river. It is the
home and livelihood for 20-21 million people and it is the destination for hundreds
of thousands of Hindu pilgrims who visit shrines along its banks each year. Hence,
the river has important cultural, religious, economic and ecological functions.
However, the Bank sees this differently. According to its calculations only 4% of the
water is utilized, they therefore conclude that water is wasted and the river is
unproductive. However, this can be changed by building of dams. However, the
Narmada Valley scheme has been referred to as an environmental catastrophe, a
technological dinosaur and an example of flagrant social injustice. 200,000 people
will be displaced without adequate resettlement and rehabilitation; the dams will
submerge 2,000 square km. of fertile land and 1,500 square km. of teak and sal
forest, prime in terms of timber, rare wildlife and genetic resources. In addition,
historic sites will be eliminated. Due to the assumed decrease in rainfall, plans were
made to replace natural forests with plantations. These are, however, ineffective
ecologically and they were not implemented in reality. Environmental losses due to
submergence equal a sum that is three times the total estimated cost of
constructing one dam. Besides the dams will siltate (the water in the dam will be
filled with mud and clay due to erosion from the degraded catchments areas). This
will limit the dams' performance and lives. Serious health impacts from water-borne
diseases are also expected. With the irrigation, it is predicted that there will be
waterlogging and salinisation in 40% of the farmland. According to a research, crop
yields declined in one district after these were irrigated with water from one minor
dam. Moreover damming has various negative impacts on both backwaters and
downstream ecosystems, like interruption of fisheries for local people. Furthermore,
the Narmada lies in a seismic zone where thirty earthquakes have shaken the
region during the last 200 years. The sheer weight of the new giant reservoirs could
trigger an earthquake with serious consequences for the basin and people. (Ekins
1992: 89-90, 93-95; Elliott
Enviro Collapse
Natural disaster rhetoric fuels a drive to conquer nature
through masculine forces
Cynthia Belmont-PhD professor at Northland College, 2007 Ecofeminism and
the Natural Disaster Heroine, Women's Studies, Volume 36, Issue 5
Big-budget natural disaster films have swamped American theaters in recent years:
the Jurassic Park series of the mid-1990s began a wave of disaster movies which
has continued with blockbusters such as The Day After Tomorrow (2004) and
Poseidon (2006). Although American filmmakers have consistently explored the
theme of wayward/vengeful nature, lately Hollywood has outdone itself in bringing
natural cataclysm to the big screen. While developments in film technologies are
the driving force behind the subjects and style of disaster films as well as their
number, their box-office success and wide audience may be explained not only by
the visual feasts of massive destruction they purvey, but also by the ways in which
they support dominant conceptions of gender, science and military technology, the
United States as a world power, and especially the environment and the role of
humans in it. 1 These films appeal to our worst fears about the unpredictability of
natural phenomena, the consequences of capitalist greed, and the ramifications of
our striving for control over every aspect of nature, from space to the gene.
Specifically, they reflect the growing unease plaguing the culture: that we are
heading toward the doom of civilization, and the Earth, if we continue on our current
exploitative path. Of particular interest from an ecofeminist (ecological feminist)
perspective is the representation of gender and nature in these films, where, as
male protagonists battle toward victory over 1 Jurassic Park (at #11), Twister (at
#42), Armageddon (at #70), and The Day After Tomorrow (at #80) remain among
the 100 top-grossing American films (All Time). These are but a handful of the
disaster films in the top 100. Address correspondence to Cynthia Belmont,
Northland College, 1411 Ellis Ave, Ashland, WI 54806. E-mail:
cbelmont@northland.edu 350 Cynthia Belmont an antagonistic, vindictive nature
that threatens to annihilate the American way of life, heroines who are initially
characterized as modern womencapable, intelligent, and employed are
quickly returned to the domestic sphere and to helpless dependence on masculine
physical prowess and technological know-how. Ultimately, the disaster films, which
in some cases overtly connect the destructive power of nature with a disapproving
view of women in positions of authority, portray the trouble with nature as being
tied to the dissolution of traditional gender roles: as they foster a fear of and drive
to conquer nature, they also feed cultural anxiety about womens empowerment
and suggest that meekness and passivity are required of women if order is to be
restored to a chaotic, unstable world.
Hartman
Narratives of the middle passage are told from masculine
perspectives and exclude the violence done to the female body
Saidiya Hartman specialist in African American literature and history and a
professor at Columbia University; 2008; Venus in Two Acts;
http://www.imagineic.nl/sites/default/files/files/Hartman%20Venus%20in%20Two
%20Acts.pdf
Scandal and excess inundate the archive: the raw numbers of the mortality account,
the strategic evasion and indirection of the captains log, the florid and sentimental
letters dispatched from slave ports by homesick merchants, the incantatory stories
of shocking violence penned by abolitionists, the fascinated eyewitness reports of
mercenary soldiers eager to divulge what decency forbids [them] to disclose, and
the rituals of torture, the beatings, hangings, and amputations enshrined as law.
The libidinal investment in violence is everywhere apparent in the documents,
statements and institutions that decide our knowledge of the past. What has been
said and what can be said about Venus take for grantedthe traffic between fact,
fantasy, desire, and violence. Confirmations of this abound. Let us begin with James
Barbot, the captain of the Albion Frigate, who attested to the coincidence of the
pleasures afforded in the space of death. It was difficult to exercise sexual restraint
on the slave ship, Barbot confessed, because the young sprightly maidens, full of
jollity and good humor, afforded an abundance of recreation.19 Falconbridge
seconds this, amplifying the slippage between victims and sweethearts, acts of
love and brutal excesses: On board some ships, the common sailors are allowed to
have intercourse with such of the black women whose consent they can procure.
And some of them have been known to take the inconstancy of their paramours so
much to heart, as to leap overboard and drown themselves. Only Olaudah Equiano
depicts the habitual violence of the slave ship without recourse to the language of
romance: It was almost a common practice with our clerks and other whites, to
commit violent depredations on the chastity of the female slaves. . . . I have known
our mates to commit these acts most shamefully, to the disgrace, not of Christians
only, but of men. I have even known them [to] gratify their brutal passion with
females not ten years old; and these abominations some of them practiced to such
scandalous excess, that one of our captains discharged the mate and others on that
account (emphasis added).20
Makah Whaling
Makah Whaling is rooted in oppression of women and the nonhuman, only the alt can access cultural identity
Greta Gaard Ph.D in Literature of Environmental Justice, an ecofeminist writer,
scholar, activist, and documentary filmmaker; Tools for a Cross-Cultural Feminist
Ethics: Exploring Ethical Contexts and Contents in the Makah Whale Hunt; 20 01
Historically, whale hunting was not a universal practice in Makah tribal society;
rather, it was limited to individuals of a specific class, gender, and ethnicity.
According to reports of ethnologists and early European explorers, as well as later
anthropological studies, traditional Makah society was divided into three classes:
slaves, commoners, and chiefs (Colson 1953, 15, 2023; Swan 1857). The slaves
were captured in war or purchased from other tribes and were therefore seen as
aliens to the village; their children were also slaves, and no slaves were permitted
to "intermarry" with free-born Makah (Colson 1953, 202). Early explorers reported
that the Makah "prostituted their slave women to ships crews from the beginning of
contact with Europeans in 1790" (Colson 1953 , 57), but it is unclear whether freeborn Makah made sexual use of slave women as well, since such would run the risk
of creating offspring, and "any degree of slave blood was a permanent stigma
against a family line.... [T]he word 'slave' was a stinging insult" (Colson 1953, 202).
The second class of Makah, the commoners of the village, were descendants of the
junior lines of the extended family, but they were not wealthy and had to work for
their living. At the top of the social hierarchy were the chiefs, wealthy leaders who
owned smokehouses, held potlatches, bore important names, and were famous
among the tribes to which the Makah were known. Some re- ports say that the
status of chief was solely hereditary, while others claim that even hereditary
members had to justify their status through great deeds, such as whale hunting, or
otherwise fall into the class of commoners. Only men from wealthy families could
afford to organize and direct a whale hunt, since only the chiefs had the time and
wealth needed for the ritual preparations and for making the equipment, and the
inherited privilege necessary for leading whaling crews of male relatives or slaves
(Kirk 1986; Kirk and Daugherty 1978). During the hunt, whalers' wives were
expected to help from shore by lying motionless in a darkened room (Waterman
1920; Erikson 1999): as one whaler's wife recalls, "her utter stillness was intended
to keep the whale from acting in an unruly manner" (Kirk 1986, 138). A single whale
successfully towed into the village provided "vast amounts of oil, bone, and meat
and prestige. No families received more deference than that accorded whalers'
families" (Kirk and Daugherty 1978, 90). The desire for high social status and
respect may explain why Elizabeth Colson, an anthropologist who interviewed the
Makah in the 1940s, was told by virtually every one of her informants that while
their own family was of upper-class status, descended from chiefs, other families
were from low-class ancestors (Colson 1953, 20518). It may also explain why,
eighty years after the last successful whale hunt, the Makah have come to equate
their cultural identity with the most famous practice of their elite, upper-class male
ancestors. Tribes and nations struggling to reject colonialism and colonized
identities often see the reassertion of nationalism and national or tribal identities as
a vital strategy in the struggle for self-determination. In her study of interna-tional
politics and the legacies of colonialism, Cynthia Enloe finds that "na-tionalism
typically has sprung from masculinized memory. masculinized hu-miliation and
masculinized hope" ( 1989,44). Women's experiences are rarely taken as the
starting point for understanding colonization or for reasserting national and cultural
autonomy. Instead, women in nationalist movements are pressured to "be patient,"
"hold their tongues," and "to wait until the nationalist goal is achieved" (Enloe 1989,
60, 62). Enloe's analysis sharply illuminates the Makah tribe's efforts to reassert
cultural identity after more than a century of colonization, in both its emphasis on
the whale hunting practices of elite upper-class men, and the tribe's current
practices of silenc-ing the dissenting voices of women elders who oppose the
renewed hunt. A descendant from a whale-hunting family of chiefs and treatysigners. Makah elder Dotti Chamblin had initially protested that "shooting a whale
with a machine gun is not a spiritual way" and that "no one in this village has a
direct relationship with the whale any longer" (Hogan 1996). Long before Allberta
Thompson began working with the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, both women
elders were ostracized and denied services from the tribe. Thompson was even
called a "slave" by Makah tribal council vice chair Marcy Parker and fisheries
director Dave Sones (Hogan 1996). women elders who have spoken out in defense
of a more traditional ecological ethic and cultural iden-tity have been silenced in the
name of Makah cultural whaling and a new tribal identity that is both masculinist
and elite.
Mapping
We view the oceans through a lens of masculinity, the affs
attempt at mapping the unknowable furthers the sense of
human domination
Deborah Kennedy doctorate in sustainability and technology policy; 20 07;
Ocean Views, An investigation into human-ocean relations
Meanings ascribed to oceans in Western traditions are diverse and multi-layered.
Ancient images coexist with more recent ones to form a complex picture drawn
from, among other things, ambivalences and contradictions. Oceans are thought of
as both formless matter and alive, complex, living entities. They are represented as
a demonic, chaotic, female force that must be quelled and conversely as an
archetype for the sublime, the ultimate 'other' that cannot be quelled. Herman
Melville in the passages quoted from Moby Dick, above, envisions oceans as
enigmatic, benign, treacherous, unyielding and merciless. From other perspectives,
oceans are or have been regarded as common property, private property, highly
regulated, a locale of unlimited resources for exploitation, a barren waste, an
uncivilised domain and an inherently valuable, independent sphere in their own
right. Oceans are used as a metaphor for death or the great void to come, but also
for rebirth and regeneration. They are the primal mother, the last frontier and
ultimate wilderness. Oceans are the provinces of male work, adventure, sentiment,
stoicism and chauvinism, physical and spiritual liberation. Oceans are also a symbol
for the unconscious, which our conscious selves ignore at our own peril. All of our
understandings about oceansall our scientific facts, religious beliefs, myths, laws,
and feelingsare the composition of a highly complex interaction between human
minds, bodies and oceans. Yet the ideas we form about the oceans are different
from the ocean itself and in this language play a pivotal role. Rorty. for example,
writes: We need to make a distinction between the claim that the world is out there
and the claim that truth is out there. To say that the world is out there that is not
our creation, is to say, with common sense, that most things in space and time are
the effects of causes which do not include human mental states. To say that truth is
not out there is simply to say that where there are no sentences there is no truth,
that sentences are elements of human languages, and that human languages are
human creations. (1989, 4-5) That is to say, there is certainly a nature that exists
independently of humans, yet any accounts we make of nature cannot be separated
from their human origins (Proctor 2001). When we speak of nature we rely on
"human modes of perception, invoking human cultural apparatus, involving human
needs and desiresin short, when we speak of nature we speak of culture as well"
(Proctor 2001, 229). We never speak of the ocean itself. The understanding that
necessarily flows from our inability to distinguish between the reality of nature and
its representation is that human capacity to know things about oceans is limited.
Haraway lends support to Rorty's view when she says about the human condition:
there is no God's eye view, only partial perspectives (1991a). Or again, in Castree's
words. "[w]hat counts as the truth about nature varies depending on the
perspective of the analyst" (2001, 9). My point is that all perspectives of oceans are
only ever partial truths about oceans: the ocean in itself is always more than we can
say.
Nuclear Power
Nuclear power endanger nature and society faith in this
destructive technology causes serial policy failure
Jytte Nhanenge a Danish expatriate, has completed three degrees and has
contributed heavily to international development theory, focusing specifically on
poverty alleviation; February 2007; Ecofeminism: Towards Integrating the
Concerns of Women, Poor People, and Nature into Development
Chernobyl made clear that there is no peaceful use of nuclear energy. Atomic
energy is a war technology. Its methodology is based on destruction of life. Thus
modern science and its technology is warfare against nature and society. Such kind
of dangerous energy is not progress. It kills all natural - air, water, and food. The
ruin of Chernobyl will contaminate the surrounding area for many years to come. It
caused death, diseases and despair for many people. People must therefore not
leave the question of technology choice to the "experts" in politics, science and
business. People must instead demand an immediate end to nuclear power plants
and all other technologies that destroy nature and society. It is those people who
choose such technologies who eventually will return humanity to the stone age, not
those who protest against them. Henderson finds (1978: 314) that such actions and
decision-makings only show that politicians are the products of a system, which
creates leaders who are helpless, incompetent or corrupt. (Henderson 1978: 314;
Mies and Shiva 1993: 95-96).
wind, most European countries were contaminated, giving agricultural costs of 250
million USD in Western Germany alone. The former Soviet officially put the costs of
the disaster at 14 billion USD. Estimates of eventual cancer death range from a few
thousands, according to nuclear industry sources, while Professor Gofman at the
University of California assumes it will be more than a million. (Ekins et al. 1992:
27). Dumping of hazardous waste materials poses a threat to ground water, soils,
crops, human and animal health in many industrial countries. Germany is thought to
have 35,000 problem areas and Denmark 2,000. An estimated 275 million metric
tons of hazardous waste are disposed of every year in the USA. That means 2,500
pounds for every woman, man and child in that country. In 1989 manufacturing
facilities in US released over 18 billion pounds of toxic chemicals directly into air,
water, land or underground wells. The list of contaminated sites acknowledged by
the US environmental protection agency continues to grow. Cleaning up the priority
sites in the US could cost up to 100 billion USD. (Ekins et al. 1992: 17; Newman
1994: 47). In the years leading up to 1953, the Hooker Chemicals and Plastic
Corporation had used the area of Love Canal, USA as a dump for over 40,000 tonnes
of waste, much of it carcinogenic (cancer causing). The area was later developed for
housing. In 1978, a leakage from the old dump became evident. Love Canal was
declared a Federal Disaster Area with estimated clean-up costs of 250 million USD.
Three dumps nearby are also leaking into the Niagara River, the source of drinking
water for 6 million people. (Ekins et al. 1992: 27). Penny Newman tells her story
about the Stringfellow Acid Pits. It is a permitted hazardous waste disposal site
licensed by the state of California in 1955. It is situated in a canyon above the small
rural community of Glen Avon. It receives more than 34 million gallons of liquid
wastes including heavy metals, organic solvents and large amounts of sulphuric
nitric and hydrochloric acids from local corporations. In 1978, the dry arid area
experienced heavy rains, which caused the dam to fall apart. To relieve pressure the
government decided to release 1 million gallons of toxic chemicals into the
community, without informing people to take precaution. Over a 5 days period
chemicals were released. They flow through the community, over public roads,
flooding homes, and inundating the elementary school. Only when shoes started to
fall apart and jeans disintegrated from the water did the people suspect something.
Although the exposure was immediately ended and the site cleaned up, the health
of the community was disturbed. Out of the 21 staff at the school, 17 either died or
got severe, unusual diseases. In the year of 1993 alone, five teachers died of
cancer. Three out of four young men were shown to be sterile. Women experienced
miscarriages or premature babies. Children got asthma and allergic reactions. Many
had blurred visions, dizziness, headaches and skin diseases. (Newman 1994: 44-46).
All too often, these environmental burdens are placed on people in the least
advantaged position. The pattern is that companies locate their plants in rural
communities, using up the water, polluting the land and the health of people while
transferring their energy or their produce to the wealthier urban residents. Greta
Gaard (2001: 166) calls this for environmental classism.
Postmodernism
Postmodernist feminism promotes masculine technoscience
while ignoring the current struggles for femininity and nature
Ariel Salleh PhD Law, Ethics and Public Affairs, sociologist writes on social
ecology and ecofeminism; 2009; The dystopia of technoscience: An ecofeminist
critique of postmodern reason
Yet in the final analysis, even these postmodern feminists confess to being seduced
by the masculinist fascination with space adventure, and so the reader is left
wondering about the authenticity of Cosmodolphins. The authors are highly
successful in showing up the god-trick of technoscience as it eyeballs the blue
planet far below. Yet, along with their mentor Haraway, they unwittingly perpetuate
the dissociated view from nowhere through their poststructuralist rejection of
feminist standpoint epistemology [64]. Perhaps the problem stems from the fact
that their discipline of cultural studies is designed to destabilise the world of ideas
rather than to release long suffering material bodies from oppressive political
structures. However, brilliant Brylds and Lykkes deconstruction of the signifying
realm may be and it is an enchanting study it offers no existential ground for
practical resistance by women. Moreover, their dismissal of the utopian moment per
se, ends up containing both political thought and action inside the closed circle of
discourse analysis. As 21st century technoscience arms the colonising reach of
Western modernisation, some may wonder at the complacent, even careless
sophistication of Haraways ostensibly post modern cyborg philosophy. As she
admits: Im trying to say both, and neither, nor ... [65]. But her complex open
fields, criss-crossing plays, partial truths and Foucauldian dispersals of power,
invoke a joyful paradigm rather than a critical one. Its disengagement from the
exploitive hierarchy of humanity over nature and seeming contempt for the
capitalist patriarchal resourcing of those who labour with/in nature, is elitist if only
by default. The gimmicky forays into technoscience as materialised semiosis
almost reduce sociological analysis to a heterogeneous collection of bumper
stickers.16 The writing legitimates more than it displaces the informatics of
domination. But in the real world: Haraways carbon hungry high tech juggernaut
collides with grassroots efforts to build alternative social futures that will be globally
fair. Likewise, the thrill of random replication and engineered hybridity shatters
ecosystem integrity. The occasional nod to ecofeminist politics in Haraways
postmodern feminism is not a convincing one, because her technophilic dreams are
highly masculinist and dystopian in the extreme.
Resource Wars
The aff views resources as items ready for exploitation this
reflects dominant relation within patriarchy
Nicole Detraz Ph.D, Proffesor of Political Science specializing in international
relations and environmental politics; 2009; Environmental Security and Gender:
Necessary Shifts in an Evolving Debate, Security Studies; 18:2, 352-351
The ecological security approach is the farthest removed from traditional security
studies, as can be seen in Table 1. The scholars who use this framework are
interested in the security of the environment, including human beings, that is
threatened largely by human activities. In this respect, many ecofeminists will be
pleased with the acknowledgement of a close relationship between human and
nonhuman nature and the rejection of the idea that humans are justifiably dominant
over nature. From an ecological security viewpoint, items like water, fertile soils,
and fossil fuels are seen as parts of the total environment rather than resources
available for human consumption. This rejection of the idea of exploitation of
resources mirrors ecofeminists rejection of the dominating relationship that
patriarchal structures in society set up between humans and nature. However, the
fact that ecological security does not address the differential impacts of
environmental degradation for men and women will be a concern that needs to be
addressed.
questions about the normalcy of these relationships and hopefully invite alternative
understandings of the relationships.
Science
Narratives of science and progress reshape the world as
objects for exploitation
Carolyn Merchant PhD in History of Science, professor of Environmental
History, Philosophy and Ethics at UC Berkley; 20 06; The Scientific Revolution and
The Death of Nature
Yet the notion of a Scientific Revolution in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries is part of a larger mainstream narrative of Western culture that has
propelled science, tech- nology, and capitalisms efforts to master nature a
narrative into which most Western- ers have unconsciously been socialized and
within which we ourselves have become actors in a storyline of upward progress.
Demoting the Scientific Revolution to the mere nomer of early modern science
obscures the power of the dominant narratives of colonialism and imperialism that
have helped to shape Western culture since the seventeenth century at the expense
of nature, women, minorities, and indigenous peoples. This move hides the political
power of scientific narratives in remaking the earth and its natural resources as
objects for human use.14
State
The state perpetuates a world of androcentrism patriarchal
capitalism
Jasmin Sydee & Sharon Beder, Sydee - is a research assistant with the Science,
Technology and Society program at the University of Wollongong and a doctoral
candidate in the School of Social Sciences, Media and Communication at the
University of Wollongong and Beder - is a professor in the Faculty of Arts at the
University of Wollongong, Ecofeminism and Globalisation: A Critical Appraisal,
DEMOCRACY & NATURE: The International Journal of INCLUSIVE DEMOCRACY vol.7,
no.2, (July 2001) access here:
http://www.democracynature.org/vol7/beder_sydee_globalisation.htm
Central to globalisation is the changing role of the nation state. According to
globalisation theorists, the nation state as we know it will shrink in size and power
until the state apparatus only exists to control the rump functions such as the
police and taxes etc. The state, as the primary mode of social organisation will be
superseded by the market. The freedom of trade, information and cultural flows will
create a global village in which individuals are global citizens rather than
nationals. Or so there story goes... As many theorists have noted, it is important to
untangle the rhetoric concerning globalisation from the real changes that are
occurring internationally. Although, multinationals are becoming increasingly
powerful and the role of the nation state is changing we must remember that
globalisation is a contested concept. For ecofeminism the changing role of the
nation state has a variety of significances. Firstly, and perhaps most importantly is
that the state is argued to intrinsically be an institution of patriarchal capitalism.
That is that historically the state was created as an institution in aid of the market
and capital as an institution of control. [T]he economy cannot directly control
womens sexuality, fertility and work capacity; to do this, the state, with its family
policy, is necessary.[16] The housewifization of women, or the split between
production and reproduction, was a requirement of capitalism and the state helped
create this condition. As a diverse array of feminists have discussed, women were
relegated to the private sphere and therefore denied equal access to participate in
civil society.[17] The continuing importance of public/private dichotomy is
highlighted in the battles of the suffragette movement and the limitations of liberal
feminism.[18] In the South the State as a mode of social organisation has an even
shorter history than in the North. Vandana Shiva explores the changing concepts of
State in India as an example of the impacts of Statism, capitalism and globalisation
on subsistence communities in the South. Shiva states that the concept of
'motherland' - rooted in the soil as an image of sacred life and creation, the
feminine - was the traditional organising metaphor in India. It was replaced by
'Mother India' as a focus of resistance in the fight against colonisation by Britain in
the 1940's. The subsequent drive for 'development' replaced the image of mother
or feminine strength with the state itself as a patriarchal leader.[19] Yet the role of
the state itself is changing. Shiva claims that at the economic level, in India, 'the
state has been totally subjugated to the superstate run by the transnational
corporations (TNC's) and the Bretton Woods institutions - World Bank, International
Monetary Fund (IMF) and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)'.[20]
These institutions, she argues, are integrating India into a globalising world
economy at a great cost as people are forcible removed from sacred soil, and
female images of diversity are subsumed by the homogeneity and hegemony of a
patriarchal capitalist market.[21] Again the state is explicated as an institution of
patriarchal capitalism through its complicity in globalisation in the guise of national
interest. 'When public interest is divorced from national interest, and national
interest is predicated on international interests, then sovereignty is in crisis, along
with democracy.'[22] Shiva has great concern over the anger and violence that
remains in the wake of national disintegration, loss of identity and selfdetermination through globalisation. She identifies the rise of nationalism and
internal ethnic conflict as a symptom of the dislocation of globalisation, but
challenges any idea that the creation of new nation states will cure the illness.[23]
Mary Mies also explores the link between the nation-state and the creation of
globalisation giving a Northern perspective. Mies utilises Wallenstein's dependency
theory to illustrate that the global orientation of capital and national self-interest are
not in fact in contradiction to each other but 'a precondition for both the nationstate and the market economy or capitalism.'[24] Capitalism requires both internal
and external colonies to function, therefore in the guise of 'free' trade and
reciprocity globalisation becomes the systematic use of the existing unequal global
distribution of wealth and power to further entrench relationships of dependency
and exploitation. Northern states are fostering the processes of globalisation in their
own self interest, rather than their own dismantlement for a 'global village'.[25]
Ecofeminists are critical of both the institution of the state and its role in
globalisation due to its function in a patriarchal economy. As the state is so
significantly tied to identity and political participation the changing nation state,
never a holistic institution to begin with, has been important in the rise of
nationalist disintegration and violence. Ultimately, however, ecofeminists are
ambivalent about the future of nation-state, advocating new (or old) concepts of
sovereignty, in which people are economically, socially and spiritually embedded in
the land that they live on, and therefore in nature.[26]
War
The affs war threats create a self-fulfilling prophecy and
marginalize nature and minorities the alt is key to overcome
Jytte Nhanenge- Development Consultant studies development policies in Africa;
February 2007; Ecofeminism: Towards Integrating The Concerns of Women, Poor
People and Nature Into Development
In spite of the huge amounts spent and the enormous implications the military
machine has on human lives and environmental health, weapons do nothing to
generate security and peace. The number of wars in the world has not decreased
although the arms have increased. From 1945 to 1989, 127 wars took place killing
22 million people. Hence, reality shows that arms proliferation and wars do not
produce peace and security they only generate more wars. In spite of this fact
Pentagon, still argue that more and better weapons will make USA safer. To justify
the military build-up most national leaders claim that they acquire weapons for
defence purpose only. However, in reality they purchase arms that can attack. For
example, USA's military do not build defence weapons. Instead, they have a
"defence" policy of first strike strategies. With increasingly dangerous and lethal
weapons also the destruction expands hence intensifying the likelihood of a global
holocaust. Conclusively, military expenditures do not prevent wars they are
therefore not justified. (Capra 1982: 2; Ekins 1992: 5-7, 156). The causes of wars
relate to perception of threat, insecurity and aggression. When one country has
increased security, the other feels threatened and hence needs to increase its
security. Thus, when each seeks its own security by weapons a vicious circle of
increased arms is created. The result is diminished overall security together with
missed social opportunities. One must believe that the weapons of mass destruction
will be used sooner or later. Different races, ideologies and religious beliefs have
always been subjects of conflicts. Wars are therefore likely to increase as long as
security is perceived as coming from the barrel of a gun. (Ekins 1992: 7). According
to UK's Saferworld Foundation to increase security, we do not need more arms,
instead we need to remove elements that are perceived as threats. What really
threatens the well-being and security of countries, societies and individuals are
issues like economic under-development; over-population; environmental
degradation; political oppression; ethnic and religious rivalries; terrorism and crime.
These are either causing or contributing to multiple levels of conflict and violence.
An implicit means to achieve peace is for the North to end their over-consumption of
natural resources. This will free them from the endless competition for the world's
scarce resources and hence also from accelerating conflicts over access to these.
The military proliferation in the North is needed to secure access to resources. It is
not possible for 20% of the world's people, including the ruling Southern elite, to go
on taking 80% of the world's wealth without having threatening arms on a vast
scale. Peace in the world consequently requires a fair distribution of the global
wealth. It means that the over-developed Northern countries must shift to a much
lower per capita resource use rates. A just, peaceful and environmentally
sustainable world order depends on how soon we can shift from the present
Impact
Laundry List
Androcentrism creates an ethic of domination which leads to
wars, poverty, and environmental destruction
Jytte Nhanenge a Danish expatriate, has completed three degrees and has
contributed heavily to international development theory, focusing specifically on
poverty alleviation; February 2007; Ecofeminism: Towards Integrating the
Concerns of Women, Poor People, and Nature into Development
The androcentric premises also have political consequences. They protect the
ideological basis of exploitative relationships. Militarism, colonialism, racism,
sexism, capitalism and other pathological 'isms' of modernity get legitimacy from
the assumption that power relations and hierarchy are inevitably a part of human
society, due to man's inherent nature. Because when mankind by nature is
autonomous, competitive and violent (i.e. masculine) then coercion and hierarchical
structures are necessary to manage conflicts and maintain social order. In this way.
the cooperative relationships such as those found among some women and tribal
cultures, are by a dualised definition unrealistic and Utopian. (Birkeland 1995: 59).
This means that power relations are generated by universal scientific truths about
human nature, rather than by political and social debate. The consequence is that
people cannot challenge the basis of the power structure because they believe it is
the scientific truth, so it cannot be otherwise. In this way, militarism is justified as
being unavoidable, regardless of its patent irrationality. Likewise, if the scientific
"truth" were that humans would always compete for a greater share of resources,
then the rational response to the environmental crisis would seem to be "dog-eatdog" survivalism. This creates a self-fulfilling prophecy in which nature and
community simply cannot survive. (Birkeland 1995: 59). This type of social and
political power structure is kept in place by social policies. It is based on the
assumption that if the scientific method is applied to public policy then social
planning can be done free from normative values. However, according to Habermas
(Reitzes 1993:40) the scientific method only conceal pre-existing, unreflected social
interests and pre-scientific decisions. Consequently, also social scientists apply the
scientific characteristics of objectivity, value-freedoni. rationality and quantifiability
to social life, hi this way, they assume they can unveil universal laws about social
relations, which will lead to true knowledge. Based on this, correct social policies
can be formulated. Thus, social processes are excluded, while scientific objective
facts are included. Society is assumed a static entity, where no changes are
possible. By promoting a permanent character, social science legitimizes the
existing social order, while obscuring the relations of domination and subordination,
which is keeping the existing power relations inaccessible to analysis. The frozen
order also makes it impossible to develop alternative explanations about social
reality. It prevents a historical and political understanding of reality and denies the
possibility for social transformation by human agency. The prevailing condition is
seen as an unavoidable fact. This implies that human beings are passive and that
domination is a natural force, for which no one is responsible. This permits the state
freely to implement laws and policies, which are controlling and coercive. These are
seen as being correct, because they are based on scientific facts made by scientific
experts. One result is that the state, without consulting the public, engages in a
pathological pursuit of economic growth. Governments support the capitalist
ideology, which benefits the elite only, while it is destroying nature and increasing
poverty for women and lower classes. The priority on capitalism also determines
other social policies. There are consequently no considerations for a possible
conflict between the amis of the government for social control and economic
efficiency and the welfare needs of various social groups. Without having an
alternative to the existing order, people become dis-empowered. Ultimately, the
reaction is public apathy, which legitimates authorative governments. Thus, social
science is an ideology, which is affirming the prevailing social, political and
economic order. (Reitzes 1993: 36-39,41-42).
sees environmental problems as "rooted in the rise of capitalist patriarchy and the
ideology that the Earth and nature can be exploited for human progress" (103).
However, neither King nor Merchant seeks to radically dissociate themselves from
cultural ecofeminism and the importance of valuing women and women's work.
Merchant sees all the many strands of ecofeminism as being concerned with
"reproduction construed in its broadest sense to include the continued biological
and social reproduction of human life and the continuance of life on earth" (209).
Although ecofeminists often make generalized statements that seem to refer to all
men and all women, their specific focus is the pattern of dominance that arose in
European society associated with the historical development of science, technology,
industrialism, and capitalism. This is not to ignore the fact that earlier societies have
been ecologically destructive (Ponting 1991) or that ecologically benign societies
can be patriarchal. It could be argued that male domination and women's
oppression have been more ubiquitous in history than ecological destruction. The
interesting question for ecofeminists is the way in which the two have come
together in the present era. Ecofeminists see the origins of the present ecological
crisis as lying in the specific material and cultural developments of the North/West
as reflected in its socioeconomic structures, science and technology, philosophy and
religion. For many ecofeminists, particularly those with a theological or a
philosophical background, this destructiveness results from the forms of knowledge
and belief that justify and sustain western patriarchy. In particular, the Christian and
rationalist rejection of the body and the prioritization of mind or soul (Ruether 1975,
Plumwood 1993). Women are essentialized, naturalized, and condemned by their
association with the body. This association I would argue is the basis of the
materialist analysis that can be derived from ecofeminism .
in this country, as if that is something separate from the issues of feminism or the
men's movement. There is a cartoon I saw that brought it all together nicely. It was
a big picture of Ronald Reagan as a cowboy with a big hat and a gun. And it said: "A
gun in every holster; a pregnant woman in every home. Make America a man
again." Those are the politics of the Right. if you are afraid of the ascendancy of
fascism in this country - and you would be very foolish not to be right now - then
you had better understand that the root issue here has to do with male
supremacy and the control of women; sexual access to women; women as
reproductive slaves; private ownership of women. That is the program of the
Right. That is the morality they talk about. That is what they mean. That is what
they want. And the only opposition to them that matters is an opposition to men
owning women. What's involved in doing something about all of this? The men's
movement seems to stay stuck on two points. The first is that men don't really feel
very good about themselves. How could you? The second is that men come to me
or to other feminists and say: "What you're saying about men isn't true. It isn't true
of me. I don't feel that way. I'm opposed to all of this." And I say: don't tell me. Tell
the pornographers. Tell the pimps. Tell the warmakers. Tell the rape apologists and
the rape celebrationists and the pro-rape ideologues. Tell the novelists who think
that rape is wonderful. Tell Larry Flynt. Tell Hugh Hefner. There's no point in telling
me. I'm only a woman. There's nothing I can do about it. These men presume to
speak for you. They are in the public arena saying that they represent you. If they
don't, then you had better let them know. Say it to your friends who are doing it.
And there are streets out there on which you can say these things loud and clear, so
as to affect the actual institutions that maintain these abuses. You don't like
pornography? I wish I could believe it's true. I will believe it when I see you on the
streets. I will believe it when I see an organized political opposition. I will believe it
when pimps go out of business because there are no more male consumers.
whiteness and white femininity are historically constructed, and must be understood
as such, to develop a theological ethic which advocates feminism, anti-racism, and
ecological concerns without reifying essentialist ontologies. Race and gender are
categories by which to analyze social, political, theological, and ethical dynamics.
Discussions of race, in this instance, is a discussion not of genetic characteristics
but of historical, constructed categories. In a culture where the Other is often
burdened with a racial category (always in relation to the dominant category),
"race" is attached, at least partially, to skin pigmentation.28 "Race" itself and "racial
consciousness,"according to Michael Omi and Howard Winant, is a modern
phenomenon, but the meaning of race has shifted historically.29 My interest here is
to denaturalize the category of whiteness and white femininity by focusing upon the
historical contestations of femininity and nature as seen in the daily realities of
black women slaves. Marginalized and exploited women carve out spaces for
themselves in society. Ignoring the human agency and resistance of marginalized
women would reduce them to passive victims. The study of marginalized people,
whether based on race, class, gender, or an interlocking combination of each (as
was the case with African-American slave women of the Old South), offers insight
into the creation and maintenance of power structures and the resistance to those
structures. Blackness and whiteness as gendered categories are not simply binary.
These categories call for a more complex disassembling to help ensure that
contemporary feminism and environmental movements can unite women across
existing divisions of class, race, and culture, into what June Jordan calls a
partnership for change.3 Though the concepts of matter, nature, and body have
been associated with women, as Rosemary Radford Ruether articulates in her essay
entitled "Ecofeminism," human slavery took the connection of women to nature one
step further. In the enslavement of other humans, both nature and particular
humans were "seen as a realm, not on which (dominant) men depend, but which
men dominate and rule over with coercive power."3i The enslaved Other is often
depicted as bodily or as untamed, uncivilized animals, whose resources or labor are
to be used, "developed," or exploited. Racism shaped the white American colonial
relationship to African Americans, as well as to Native Americans and the land. Elly
Haney suggests in her essay, "Towards a White Feminist Ecological Ethic," that for
white American ecofeminists to "understand the role of racism in ecological ethics,
we must go back to the colonial invasion and also the institution of slavery."32 In
other words, though the impact of the scientific and industrial revolutions in Europe
and England is significant, it is also important to reflect upon the ways in which the
white ancestry of America and their racist treatment of Native and AfricanAmericans has shaped the vision of the contemporary environmental movement in
this country. The European conquest of the Native peoples of America was founded
upon and served to legitimate the conviction that white, Christian, European
civilization was culturally and theologically superior to any other human community.
The Judeo-Christian biblical image of wilderness supported and framed the image of
wilderness exemplified by the early colonists. They saw themselves as a chosen
people on a faith-testing journey to conquer and settle the Promised Land. In this
paradigm, land and its indigenous people "existed to be used, to have something
done to them, they must be cultivated and controlled by Europeans."33 Native
Americans were considered "heathens" and "savages" of the wilderness; that is,
in the social order, particularly their children. Yet white women also were seen as
embodied, closer to nature, and more susceptible to evil than men. White women
were hierarchically placed below white men of their class, but above natives and
above black men and women, with whom they most likely dealt with on a daily basis
in the domestic sphere. As Katie Cannon suggests, white women within slaveholding households most likely vented their own frustration at being considered the
property of white men of their class in violent, vindictive behavior towards black
women.40 In the South, most whites interacted with blacks only within the confines
of the institution of slavery. And, like Natives, blacks were associated with nature
and animals. But instead of being associated with wild animals, as Natives were,
slaves were more likely associated with work animals and beasts of burden.41 Like
animals, or even worse than animals, slaves were worked constantly, regardless of
weather and personal safety, coerced into laboring to turn earth into property they
were not allowed to own. African American women in particular, as suggested by
Delores Williams, were exploited not only for their labor of production, but for their
reproduction as well. These women were not seen as human mothers but as
"breeders. "42 Breeding slaves was less expensive for white owners than buying
new slaves, and breeding was regularly practiced after the early 1800s when the
external slave trade to the South was halted by law. Black slave women were
expected to give birth, the labor of reproduction, without interrupting their other
labor, the labor of production. Delores Williams compares this practice of breeding
female slaves to the ways in which strip-mining exhausts the earths body. Ignoring
black mothers' humanity denied them the protection and satisfaction of black
families and kinship networks. As possessions, slaves were not permitted to enter
into officially recognized marriages or family bonds, even though the stability of the
black family unit was vital to the planter class. Slavery and the plantation system,
according to Eugene Genovese, led to agricultural methods which exhausted the
soil. 44 Without crop rotation or diversification or the capital to invest in fertilizer,
the land had to be worked harder and harder for fewer returns, a financial problem
offset only by a dependence on more intensive labor supplied by the slave trade.
Black women and the very earth they worked, alongside black men, were worked at
an intensive, destructive, and unsustainable rate unsustainable for both workers
and the land they were forced to work. Delores Williams writes: Just as technology' s
rapid and often unchecked contribution to the destruction of nature is rationalized
on the basis of technology providing greater profits, comfort, and leisure for more
Americans, the exploitation of the black woman s body was rationalized to the
advantage of white slave owners. 45
Alt
Alt Solves
Eco-feminist pedagogy shifts focus from a masculine lens to
one that gives voice to subaltern groups
Huey-li Li - professor of educational philosophy at the University of Akron; August
17, 2007; ECOFEMINISM AS A PEDAGOGICAL PROJECT: WOMEN, NATURE, AND
EDUCATION; pp. 365-366 (Article), accessed via Wiley Online Library
I would argue that in light of the praxis of ecofeminism in building coalitions among
international environmental activists, it is vital to situate an all-inclusive
environmental education movement in the context of capitalist globalization. First
and foremost, the pursuit of global economic justice should play a key role in
reshaping curriculum development and in fostering international environmen-tal
activism. More specifically, parallel to feminist educators efforts to recruit more
women into science and to make women scientists more visible, the theo-rizing of
ecofeminism embraces key women scientists inclination to construct ecologically
congenial scientific knowledge. In the eyes of ecofeminists, Rachel Carson and Ellen
Swallow are exemplars for women scientists in their construc-tion of alternative
scientific knowledge that is not based on a perceived mascu-line desire to control
feminized nature.57 Beyond challenging the binary gender representation in
science, it is also critical to unveil hidden assumptions in the various fields of
science.58 For instance, science education is known for excluding personal lived
experiences. In line with the second wave of the womens move-ment, feminist
science educators endeavor to center lived experience and revise science
accordingly.59 Advocates of feminist science make special efforts to attend to other
marginalized peoples experiences of modern science because the experience and
lives of marginalized peoples, as they understand them, pro-vide particularly
significant problems to be explained, or research agendas.60 For that reason, the
voices of Third World women have gained a special recognition when ecofeminists
such as Vandana Shiva envision new intellectual ecological paradigms: In
contemporary times, Third World women, whose minds have not yet been disposed
or colonized, are in a privileged position to make visible the invisible oppositional
categories that they are the custodians of. It is not only as victims, but also as
leaders in creating new intel-lectual ecological paradigms, that women are central
to arresting and overcoming ecological crises. Marginalization has thus become a
source for healing the diseased mainstream patri-archal development. Those facing
the biggest threat offer the best promise for survival because they have two kinds
of knowledge that are not accessible to dominant and privileged groups. First, they
have the knowledge of what it means to be the victims of progress, to be the ones
who bear the cost and burdens. Second, they have the holistic and ecological
knowledge of what the production and protection of life is about.61 Shivas
viewpoint represents a post-victimology study of ongoing capitalist globalization.62 In view of the dynamic and interactive nature of cultural formation in the
age of capitalist globalization, one cannot help but point to the disappearance or
assimilation of Third World women endowed with holistic and ecological
knowledge. Still, Shivas argument pinpoints that educational reform cannot sim-
ply focus on recruiting women and ethnic minorities into the fields of scientific
studies and making women scientists visible. Rather, it is essential to attend to the
invisible burden on subaltern groups and to explore ecologically congenial epistemological traditions.
In light of the logic of domination, the oppression of humans, and the destruction of
ecosystems, what do ecofeminists suggest we, as educators, do? How might we
dismantle the social and conceptual structures that support the logic of domination
and its unjust outcomes? Pedagogy, argues Gore (2002), is the enactment of power
relations. A central claim of ecofeminism is that if we are to behave in an intelligent,
logical, and caring way towards each other and morethan-human nature, we need
to overcome our ethos of domination. In order to overcome this need to dominate,
Gardner and Riley (2007) believe that ecofeminist pedagogy must eschew
traditional formats, pedagogies, and hierarchical classroom structures, many of
which duplicate the logic of domination. There are many possible ways to move
away from traditional formats, pedagogies, and structures in education. Everything
from relationship (e.g., between students, student/teacher, school/community,
human/more-than-human) to structure (e.g., external/physical structures of
buildings, classroom set-up, sites of learning and internal/cultural structures such as
governance, school policies and norms, funding issues, processes of decisionmaking) and on to practice (e.g., pedagogy, curriculum materials, assessment
strategies) are suspect and in need of revisioning. As Fawcett (2000) writes, How
our bodies are taught and learn how to sense nature certainly makes a difference to
how we know nature (p. 139). Ultimately, eventually, the whole notion of school
needs to be questioned.
completely absent in non-hierarchical communities. So-called "primitive" societies that are based on a simple
sexual division of labor, that lack states and hierarchical institutions, do not experience reality as we do through a
In the absence
of inequality, these truly organic communities do not even have a word for equality .
As Dorothy Lee observes in her superb discussion of the "primitive" mind, " equality exists in the very
nature of things, as a byproduct of the democratic structure of the culture itself, not
as a principle to be applied. In such societies, there is no attempt to achieve the
goal of equality, and in fact there is no concept of equality. Often, there is no linguistic mechanism whatever
for comparison. What we find is an absolute respect for man, for all individuals
irrespective of age and sex".
filter that categorizes phenomena in terms of "superior" and "inferior" or "above" and "below".
has been degraded by technology into the inorganic stuff that flows from the end of the assembly line; literally,
for the health of our soil, for the integrity of our oceans and atmosphere, and for the physiological viability of our
will become ever more simple. Literally, the system in its endless devouring of
nature will reduce the entire biosphere to the fragile simplicity of our desert and
arctic biomes. We will be reversing the process of organic evolu tion which has differentiated flora and fauna
beings
into increasingly complex forms and relationships, thereby creating a simpler and lessstable world of life. The
a society based on production for the sake of production is, in my view, merely a
matter of time, although when it will occur is impossible to predict.
Western theoretical perception of economic issues, together with the priority the
economy has, means that concerns for social and natural environments are
overlooked and in the economic process both are destroyed. Instead, the social and
the natural systems need to interact and co-evolve. Based on the outcome of this a
suitable economic system can be developed. Hence, successful solutions to the
global crises require a radical shift in perceptions, thinking, values and actions. The
reductionist method must be restricted and a more prominent space must be given
to a systemic crises approach. That requires a major cultural transformation. (Capra
1982: 6; Ekins et al 1992: 40; Capra 1997: 3- 4).
AT:
Caring DA/Essentialism
Status quo norms relate women to the natural world the alt is
key to challenge social situations
Mary Mellor -Social Science Professor at Northumbria University and author;
2000; Feminism and Environmental Ethics: A Materialist Perspective; Ethics and
the Environment, 5(1)107-123, ISSN: 1085-6633, accessed via Project Muse
Ecofeminism, in bringing together the domination of women with the domination of
nature, brought into sharp focus the central dilemma of feminism: how could
women's association with nature be asserted without falling into an essentialist and
naturalist trap? The answer lies in not seeing women's oppression as representing
their 'natural' affiliation with the natural world, but the connectedness of all
hu(man)ity with nature. Women do have particular bodies which do particular
things, but what matters is how society takes account of sexual differences and the
whole question of the materiality of human existence. That is why I have linked the
concepts sex/gender, to represent the interconnections of the biological and the
social. Women are not closer to nature because of some elemental physiological or
spiritual affinity, but because of the social circumstances in which they find
themselves, that is, their material conditions in relation to the materiality of human
existence. In order to explore materialist ecofeminism as a perspective, it is
necessary to bring together the green perspective on human-nature relations and a
materialist feminist perspective on sex/gender relations. In this sense materialist
ecofeminism is more sympathetic to deep ecology than other radical ecological
perspectives such as social ecology or ecosocialism (Pepper 1993). Getting the
relations between humans right will not resolve the ecological imbalance because
the source of much of the conflict between humans is the unacknowledged problem
of immanence. Although both Bookchin and Marx explored the dialectical nature of
the relationship between hu(man)ity and the natural world, other aspects of their
work have prioritized hu(man)ity at the expense of nonhuman nature. Bookchin
(1995) has called for the 're-enchanting' of hu(man)ity as the focus of social and
natural agency, and the later Marx and Marxism have focused upon the social
construction of nature. More recently, however, Marx's green credentials have been
reclaimed or asserted (Benton 1996). From the following it is clear that Marx saw
hu(man)ity as both embodied and embedded within its natural 'body' : Species-life,
both for man and for animals, consists physically in the fact that man, like animals
lives from inorganic nature. . . . Man lives from nature, i.e. nature is his body, and he
must maintain a continuing dialogue with it if he is not to die ... for man is part of
nature.... Communism as fully developed naturalism, equals humanism, and as fully
developed humanism equals naturalism: it is the genuine resolution of the conflict
between man and nature. (Marx 1844/1975, 327, 348, italics in the original) As I
have argued more fully elsewhere (Mellor 1992b, 1997b), Marx's theory does
contain the basis for a deep materialist analysis, but for ecofeminism the more
immediate and contemporary statement of hu(man)ity's relationship with the
natural world has been developed by deep ecology.
Essentialism
Essentialist claims splinter activist movements and results in
more dualism within the academy
Jytte Nhanenge- Development Consultant studies development policies in Africa;
February 2007; Ecofeminism: Towards Integrating The Concerns of Women, Poor
People and Nature Into Development
Critiques often confuse these three kinds of essentialism. Thus what is really
"unified categories" are claimed to produce "universalism" and hence to be
"essentialism per se". Sturgeon consequently (1997: 180) finds that unified
categories and possibly universalism are necessary parts of mobilizing for political
action. Theorist may consider that essentialist, but from within the movement this is
understood as a political strategy rather than a statement of facts. What is going on
within and through actions Sturgeon (1997: 183) calls "direct theory". It constructs
the unified category of "women" to be able to analyse the combination of
patriarchal men with environmental destruction. Such categories often become
universal in order to be able to apply the conditions over a wide range of cultural
differences and historical periods. Without direct theory one cannot, in Sturgeon's
opinion (1997: 183), be part of the activist component of ecofeminism, or any other
oppositional consciousness for that matter. Another part of the problems relates to
the process of typologizing feminism and ecofeminism. It has developed into an
anti-essentialist competition between theories. The winner is often the brand of
feminism closely associated with academic theories. Ecofeminism is too easily
relegated to the category of cultural feminism, which has the essentialist label, and
which then is the loser. The loser is therefore also associated with certain kind of
activist or popular feminism. This creates an artificial divide between feminist
theory and feminist practice. It also silences the voices of less educated women,
poor women and women of colour. In addition, it prevents us from understanding
feminism as a social movement. (Sturgeon 1997: 16, 170, 173). These typologies
have been constructed by white academic feminists, based on exclusive categories
from their own race and class. It separates inferior and superior groups, which result
in rejection of most feminist activism as being essentialist. Thus, a hegemonic
feminism is created which excludes other branches like ecofeminism. The
hegemonic feminism is the power elite of academic feminist theorists. Hence not
only are movements marginalised, which makes activist coalitions difficult, but also
hegemonic feminism is based on dualism, the exact means of domination that
feminism wanted to dismantle! (Sturgeon 1997: 174, 176-178).
Essentialism Disproven
Greta Gaard, ecofeminist writer, scholar, activist, and documentary filmmaker,
10/03/2011, Ecofeminism Revisited: Rejecting Essentialism and Re-Placing Species
in a Material Feminist Environmentalism,
http://www.academia.edu/2606383/Ecofeminism_Revisited
In fact, they have not. The charges against Eco feminists as essentialist,
ethnocentric, anti-intellectual goddess-worshippers who mistakenly portray the
Earth as female or issue totalizing and ahistorical mandates for worldwide veganism
these sweeping generalizations, often made without specific and supporting
documentation, have been disproven again and again in the pages of academic and
popular journals, at conferences and in conversations, yet the contamination
lingers. Ecofeminism in the 1980s was indeed a broad umbrella for a variety of
diversely infected approaches, some of which were rooted in essentialist (cultural)
feminisms, just as others grew out of liberal, social, Marx-ist, anarchist, and socialist
feminisms (Gaard 1993b, 1998; Merchant 1995; Sturgeon 1997), and in the 1990s,
eco feminist theories continued to renew and ground their analyses, developing
economic, material, international, and intersectional perspectives. Misrepresenting
the part for the whole is a logical fallacy, a straw-woman argument that holds up an
outlier position and uses it to discredit an entire body of thought. Why would
mainstream feminism resist the endings of eco feminism so strongly? What could be
at stake? Eighteen months after publishing Josephine Donovans Animal Rights and
Feminist Theory (1990), in June 1992, the leading journal of academic feminism, S,
rejected a review essay of eco feminism its managing editors had commissioned
just a year earlier. The editors reasons for their decision included the following:
eco feminism seems to be concerned with everything in the world . . . [as a result]
feminism itself seems almost to get erased in the process and when [eco
feminism] contains all peoples and all injustices, the one tuning and differentiation
lose out. The review essay summarized the ways eco feminists had noted
connections among the oppressions of nature, women, and all those constructed as
feminine by examining global economics, third world debt, mal development,
industrialized animal food production and food scarcity, reproductive rights,
militarism, and environmental racism. To these researched and documented
observations, Signs editors replied that this is really an opinion piece [and] the ties
to women are not very clear. Reluctant to believe that socialist feminists would so
blithely reject a feminist approach to environmental problems, the essays authors
attributed these reactions to a possible personality conflict and resubmitted the
article to another feminist journalwith the same results.
then, we can examine the ways queers are feminized, animalized, eroticized, and
naturalized in a culture that devalues women, animals, nature, and sexuality. We
can also examine how persons of color are feminized, animalized, eroticized, and
naturalized. Finally, we can explore how nature is feminized, eroticized, even
queered. The critical point to remember is that each of the oppressed identity
groups, each characteristic of the other, is seen as "closer to nature" in the dualisms
and ideology of Western culture. Yet queer sexualities are frequently devalued for
being "against nature." Contradictions such as this are of no interest to the master,
though such contradictions have been of great interest to feminists and queer
theorists alike, who have argued that it is precisely such contradictions that
characterize oppressive structures ( Frye 1983; Mohr 1988; Sedgwick 1990). Before
launching into a discussion of queer sexualities as both "closer to nature" and
"crimes against nature," it is crucial to acknowledge that sexuality itself is a socially
constructed phenomenon that varies in definition from one historical and social
context to another. As scholars of queer history have shown, there was no concept
of a homosexual identity in Western culture before the late nineteenth century
( Faderman 1981; Greenberg 1988; Katz 1990; Vicinus 1993). Until then, people
spoke (or did not speak) of individual homosexual acts, deviance, and sodomy; the
persons performing those acts were always presumed to be "normal" (the word
"heterosexual" had no currency). Those homosexual acts were castigated as sinful
excesses, moral transgressions of biblical injunctions. The shift from seeing
homosexual behavior as a sin to seeing it as a "crime against nature" began during
the seventeenth century. As early as 1642, ministers in the American colonies
began referring to the "unnatural lusts of men with men, or women with women,"
"unnatural acts," and acts "against nature" ( Katz 1983 , 43). "After the American
Revolution," however, "the phrase 'crimes against nature' increasingly appeared in
the statutes, implying that acts of sodomy offended a natural order rather than the
will of God" (D'Emitio and Freedman 1988 ,122). The natural/unnatural distinction
had to do with procreation, but even "natural" acts leading to procreation could be
tainted by lust and thus not free from sin. Procreative lust was preferable to
"unnatural" lust, however ( Katz 1983 , 43). Finally, a third shift in the definition of
homosexuality occurred toward the end of the nineteenth century. Through the work
of sexologists such as Havelock Ellis, Magnus Hirschfeld, and Richard von KrafftEbing, the sexual invert became a recognizable identity, and the origins of sexual
inversion were believed to lie in an individual's psychology. The word heterosexual
first appeared in American medical texts in the early 1890s, but not in the popular
press until 1926 ( Katz 1983 , 16).5 Today, nearly thirty years after the Stonewall
rebellion, which launched the movement for gay liberation, the definition of queer
identities is still evolving. "Homosexual" has changed to "gay," and "gay" to "gay
and lesbian"; bisexuals have become more vocal; and most recently, transgender
liberation has also reshaped queer community, changes that have prompted many
organizations to replace "gay and lesbian" with
"gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered" or simply "queer" in their self-definitions. The
recognition of varying sexual identities and practices has inspired a rereading of not
only straight history or queer history but the history of sexuality itself. Based on
these historical developments, queer theorists have determined that queer
sexualities (both practices and identities) have been seen as transgressive in at
least three categories: as acts against biblical morality, against nature, or against
psychology. Thus, queer sexualities have been seen as a moral problem, a
physiological problem, or a psychological problem ( Pronk 1993). Though all three
arguments are used against all varieties of queer sexuality today, the "crime
against nature" argument stands out as having the greatest immediate interest for
ecofeminists. Queer theorists who explore the natural/unnatural dichotomy find that
"natural" is invariably associated with "procreative." The equation of "natural" with
"procreative" should be familiar to all feminists, for it is just this claim that has been
used in a variety of attempts to manipulate women back into compulsory
motherhood and so-called women's sphere. From a historical perspective, the
equation of woman's "true nature" with motherhood has been used to oppress
women, just as the equation of sexuality with procreation has been used to oppress
both women and queers. The charge that queer sexualities are "against nature" and
thus morally, physiologically, or psychologically depraved and devalued would seem
to imply that nature is valued -- but as ecofeminists have shown, this is not the
case. In Western culture, just the contrary is true: nature is devalued just as queers
are devalued. Here again is one of the many contradictions characterizing the
dominant ideology. On the one hand, from a queer perspective, we learn that the
dominant culture charges queers with transgressing the natural order, which in turn
implies that nature is valued and must be obeyed. On the other hand, from an
ecofeminist perspective, we learn that Western culture has constructed nature as a
force that must be dominated if culture is to prevail. Bringing these perspectives
together indicates that, in effect, the "nature" queers are urged to comply with is
none other than the dominant paradigm of heterosexuality -- an identity and
practice that is itself a cultural construction, as both feminists and queer theorists
have shown (Chodorow 1978; Foucault 1980; Rich 1986).
Framework
Reps focus is key to understand ocean constructions and how
we make policies
Deborah Kennedy doctorate in sustainability and technology policy; 20 07;
Ocean Views, An investigation into human-ocean relations
Humans form oceans in at least two ways: first, they are shaped and transformed
materially by certain practices, such as over-fishing and climate change leading to
rising sea levels. Second, they are experienced through discourses and
representations. I suggest that interactions between these two modes are usually
both present in any instance where humans are involved in forming oceans.
Moreover, to the extent that humans form oceans, they are the result of historically
specific economic, political, social, and sexual relations of production. The way in
which these relations play out will inevitably give rise to a diversity of outcomes and
therefore oceans are subject to a multitude of contested meanings. In this
dissertation, my main vehicle for discussing the social construction of oceans is
through a focus on discourses and representations of oceans, more so than the
material construction of oceans. I argue that in theorising about oceans it is
important not to assume that "what is perceived as natural is self-evident, and
exists external to the domain of power and politics" (Braun & Wainwright 2001, 42,
emphasis in original). Rather, meanings attributed to oceans should be understood
within the historical, material, socio-economic and culturally specific contexts in
which they are created. Social construction perspectives can be thought of as "a
reaction against, and critique of, those naturalistic explanations that sought to
explain societal evolution and reproduction as a continuation of natural processes"
(Smith 2001, 1 17). Feminist and ecological feminists have been instrumental in
providing constructionist critiques of the categories 'woman' and 'nature',
demonstrating that there is considerable diversity within these categories and that
the categories themselves are perpetually unstable (Sandilands 1999). Social
construction perspectives of the non- human natural world offer "a way of seeing
that functions as a guide to understanding the natural world that does not make
exact predictions" (Scarce 2000, 10) but rather demonstrate how the meaning of
nature changes in different periods and cultures.
hard refusal of all forms of domination and celebration of a whole, human learner at
the center of education who exists within a context of a larger environment,
ecosystem, and natural world.
Perms
Trying to reform politics from within fails and leads to
corporate cooption
Janis Birkeland Proffessor of Sustainable Design at the University of Auckland;
Ecofeminism: Linking Theory and Practice; Ecofeminism Women, Animals, Nature
(1993) p. 13-14
Radical green philosophy is premised on the conviction that the sources of the
environmental crisis are deeply rooted, in modern culture, and therefore
fundamental social transformation is necessary if we are to preserve life on earth in
any meaningful sense. This follows from the realization that we cannot rely on
patchwork reforms through more appropriate economics, technology, and
regulation, or better policies gained through green electoral politics. Our public
choice mechanisms and technocratic methods are inherently biased against
environmental preservation and conflict prevention. 1 Therefore, the gradual
attrition, degradation, and biological impoverishment of the natural environment
are inevitable under the existing system. To save a wilderness area is to hold a
finger in a bursting dam: it only buys time. While the recent electoral success of the
environmental movement in some parts of the world appears to be grounds for
optimism, the system of representational democracy is itself biased toward shortterm benefits at long-term cost. Further, better environmental policy means little
where powerful resource extraction and development interests are above governments and above the market. Special interests have the ability to create real or
apparent threats of resource shortages to disempower the environmental
movement, just as they have historically exploited business downturns to weaken
the labor movement. But unlike labor, wilderness is not an inter- est group: it cannot
lose political battles and still win the war. Ecosystems cannot be put back. There is
another problem with political "success." Pressure politics is a matter of power, and
while power attracts new talent, it also can divide and corrupt, We are beginning to
see this in the green movement in Aus- tralia. Many "nouveau greens" seeking
positions in the public arena lack a deep analysis or an ethical commitment
sufficient to prevent the com- promise of principles or a latent agenda of personal
power. The process of cooptation has begun: a pluralist environmental
movement is gradually being transformed into a structure of corporatist
representation and me- diation.2 The legitimation of environmcntal interests by
incorporation into existing decision-making structures, as has happened with the
labor move- ment, cannot resolve the underlying psychological and behavioral
causes of environmental or social conflict.
Ecofeminism goes to the core. With its origins in radical feminism - the word
"radical" meaning "going to the root" (Morgan 1996), ecofeminists are looking for
the underlying causes of humanity's current course towards severe ecological
collapse. Ecofeminists may differ in their approach and focus but all agree that
reformist strategy cannot work (D'Eaubonne 1974a p188). This is not to say
that reforming efforts are not invaluable steps on the road to recovery, but that they
can at best only postpone full-scale catastrophe. Ecofeminists proclaim that
patchwork reforms of better policy and better technology cannot cure the
magnitude of poverty, gross injustices and immediate planetary environmental
crisis currently faced. This is argued, for instance, by Maria Mies and Vandana Shiva
in their book Ecofeminism (1993), and within the ecofeminist collections of Leonie
Caldecott and Stephanie Leland (eds) Reclaim the Earth: Women Speak Out for Life
on Earth (1983), Irene Diamond and Gloria Orenstein (eds) Reweaving the World:
the Emergence of Ecofeminism (1990), Judith Plant (ed.) Healing the Wounds: the
Promise of Ecofeminism (1989), and Greta Gaard (ed.) Ecofeminism: Women,
Animals, Nature (1993). As Francoise D'Eaubonne who coined the word
"ecofeminism" emphasised, bandaid strategies such as pollution control are useless
as long-term solutions and are "derisory effort given the catastrophic dimensions of
the damage" (D'Eaubonne 1974a p179). The small measures achieved for social
justice and environmental protection within current systems will always be
particularly vulnerable when hardships or political power-swings prioritise other
agendas. As Janis Birkeland (1993, p47) points out: Even if we had an ecologically
sound environmental planning system, the pressures of our ... economy would
nullify any structures, plans or programs designed to conserve natural resources
over the long-term. Furthermore, Birkeland says, the problems of war and the
military - probably the biggest threat to the environment4 - is put in the "too hard"
basket by most mainstream greens and treated as a separate issue (Birkeland 1993
p47). The inadequacies of strategies of reform to solve current social and
environmental problems can be explained by exploring the origins and multiple
intersections of environmental and social problems. Ecofeminists argue that all
problems are interrelated, stemming from a basis of faulty assumptions in the
foundations of dominant western paradigms.
true, but there is another master embodied in the private power relations that
govern the everyday life for women at home, at work and in scholarship. This is why
we use the double construct capitalist patriarchal societies where capitalism
denotes the very latest historical form of economic and social domination by men
over women. This double term integrates the two dimensions of power by
recognising patriarchal energetics as a priori to capitalism. As reflexive ecosocialists
know: the psychology of masculinity is actively rewarded by the capitalist system,
thereby keeping that economy intact.5
Pragmatism
Eco-feminist serves as a starting point of resistance toward
systems of domination
Jytte Nhanenge- Development Consultant studies development policies in Africa;
February 2007; Ecofeminism: Towards Integrating The Concerns of Women, Poor
People and Nature Into Development
Ecofeminist philosophy is in many ways one that is trying to look for "another side"
of what mainstream philosophy takes for granted. To do this ecofeminist philosophy
draws on feminism, environmentalism, ecology and of course on philosophy. It
analyses the human systems of domination. It assumes that such domination is
neither justified, nor inevitable. As a feminism, ecofeminism uses gender analysis as
the starting point to criticize domination. As an ecological and environmental
position, it uses insights about the non-human world and human interaction. As a
philosophy it uses conceptual analysis (describe the meaning of key concepts), and
argumentative justification (make analysis of arguments) for the domination of
women-Others-nature, and their soundness. Ecofeminism is not limited to describe
reality and report facts; it also involves advocating strategies and recommending
solutions. It is therefore also prescriptive. (Warren 2000: 43).
AFF
2AC
1. Policy Framework first best teaches pragmatic change. And
avoids regress infinite amount of unpredictable kritiks
discourages clash
2. Perm Do Both solves our methodology is the only way to
combine theory with practicethe affs method must be
combined with the alt.
Warren and Cheney 91 (Karen J., Professor of Philosophy at Macalester
College, and Jim, Professor Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Waukesha,
"Ecological Feminism and Ecosystem Ecology", Hypatia, Vol. 6, No. 1 , Ecological
Feminism, Spring, pp. 179-197)
Ecofeminism welcomes appropriate ecological science and technology.
Environmental problems demand scientific and technological responses as part of
the solution. These "data" represent a piece of the ecological pie. What ecofeminists
insist on is that the perspectives of women and indigenous peoples with regard to
the natural environment also be recognized as relevant " data." As a feminism, ecofeminism
insists that relevant "data" about the historical and interconnected twin exploitations of women (and other
oppressed peoples) and nature be included in solutions to environmental problems; as an ecological feminism,
conferences are held, articles are written, and books are published and bought. But,
ecofeminism has not resulted in collective action in the way Black Power as a
philosophy did. This issue is one that is shared by many environmental groups, and,
through an examination of ecofeminism, new ways of thinking about other such
groups can also be pursued.
One of the themes in contemporary ecofeminist literature is that women's carerelated perspectives on human-nature relations should be adopted as a
generalized normative stance, a form of ecological civic virtue or "a universal
public caring" (Salleh 1997). This argument is supported by those ecofeminist
theorists who portray caring relationships as models for sustainable living and as
important sources of political empowerment for women in the larger social
sphere. The women who appear in the narratives that inform ecofeminist
alternative visions are variously referred to as grassroots women, housewife
activists and "re/sisters" (Salleh 1997)) who work voluntarily to sustain life and to
fight against the powers that put that life in jeopardy. The vision that their
experiences inspire consists of an integration of diverse political struggles into
one overarching movement for survival that is grounded in everyday material
practices at the local level. So grounded, it is a vision that is fundamentally
different from right-wing ideologies that embrace global capitalism as well as
from the philosophies of postmodernism that are said to privilege discourse and
discourage activism. While there are important aspects to ecofeminist valuations
of women's caringparticularly in light of the way non-feminist ecopolitical
discourse ignores the work of careI argue that there are also political risks in
celebrating women's association with caring ( both as an ethic and a practice) and
in reducing women's ethico-political life to care. In view of these risks, to be
discussed herein, I think a degree of skepticism is in order. I question whether
care is a wise choice of metaphor around which to create a feminist political
project for social and ecological change. How can societal expectations that
women be caring or the exploitation of women's unpaid caring labor under
capitalism be challenged at the same time that the specificity of women's caring
stance towards the environment is held up as an answer to the ecological crisis?
What does it mean, moreover, for women to enter the realm of the political
through a window of care and maternal virtue? How is this feminist? And how, if
at all, is it political? It is my position that ecofeminists should see caring through
less-than-rosy-glasses, as a paradoxical set of practices, feelings, and moral
orientations that are embedded in particular relations and contexts and socially
constructed as both feminine and private. Revaluing care in the way many
ecofeminists seem to do results in an affirmation of gender roles that are [End
Page 57] rooted in the patriarchal dualisms that all feminisms, on my definition at
least, must aim persistently to resist and disrupt. I support my position by
drawing on the work of some of the feminist philosophers, political economists,
and political theorists who have argued that the positive identification of women
with caring ought to be treated cautiously for it obscures some of the negative
implications of feminized care and narrows our understanding of women as
political actors. In the first part of the discussion, I cast doubt on ecofeminist
ideas about the "feminine principle" by highlighting some of the critiques of care
ethics made by feminist moral philosophers. I then subject ecofeminist
celebrations of caring labor to questions raised by feminist political economists
about its exploitation in globalizing capitalist societies. I also question whether
claims that women are empowered through their care-inspired eco-activism have
been accompanied by a sufficient consideration of feminist political
transformation. That discussion leads into the final part of the paper where I look
to feminist theorists of citizenship to develop the argument that ecofeminists
would be better served by using the language of citizenship instead of the
language of care to understand and theorize women's engagement in ecopolitics.
The above discussion is not meant to dismiss all citizen responsibility when it
comes to environmental issues. If individuals believed nothing was their fault, it
could lead to a nihilistic view of ameliorating the environment. My intent is to
draw attention to the overwhelming tendency to cast responsibility for the
environment through individualized consumer acts. What is problematic from an
ecofeminist account is when women are unfairly made out to be the saviors of
the environment through consumption. Placing the principle and value of
environmentalism onto the backs of women simultaneously alleviates the
influences that government, corporations, and patriarchy has in our
environmental struggle. More generally, any attempt to couch earthcare in
consumption terms is usually done so at the expense of structural and systemic
political change. Nurturing citizen responsibility is acceptable as long as it does
not neglect the importance of addressing the dominant patriarchal culture that
benefits from keeping political transformation out. 45 John Barry argues that the
sphere of consumption could be a place where one can practice ecological virtue;
the goal is to cultivate mindful, not mindless, consumption. 46 After all, he
maintains, one of the most powerful and radical political acts an individual or
group can do in modern, consumption-oriented societies is to refuse to
consume. 47 I think this is an important point to consider from an ecofeminist
viewpoint. Women, as the principal domestic consumers, cannot simply refuse to
consume since they are responsible for much of their familys needs. They must
consider the needs, even wants, of other individuals and consume accordingly. A
flat-out refusal to consume is a radical act, absolutely, but lacks viability.
Furthermore, if we consider Kassers contention that some consuming activity is
akin to addiction, quitting consumption is much more complicated than Barry
acknowledges.
Alt Fails
Ecofeminism isnt grounded in reality no certainty of success
Jytte Nhanenge, is an International Development Consultant, Feb. 20 07,
Ecofeminism: Towards Integrating The Concerns of Women, Poor People and Nature
Into Development
http://uir.unisa.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10500/570/dissertation.pdf?sequence=1
I believe there is no research without weaknesses. Hence, the study's limitations
should also be stated. (Creswell 1994: 110): In my opinion, the study has mainly two
weaknesses. The first is major, the second minor: A bit simplified one may say that I
try to explore two worlds. One world is real, but not universal since each of us
creates our unique meaning of it. It is the world we live in. According to
ecofeminists, that world dominates women, poor people and nature. The other
world is a possible world, which each of us only can imagine. It is the world we
would like to live in, our utopia. According to ecofeminism, that world must be nondominant if it should provide all with a good life. It is from the perspective of a
possible, non-dominant world that ecofeminism critique the dominant world. That
has one weakness. Since the dominant world is real and we each have our
experience of it, we can judge and criticize it in various ways. The possible nondominant world is not real. Hence, we have no experience of it, and we therefore do
not know if we can create it. So we cannot know how a non-dominant world would
be or if it is possible. We also do not know, if we would be able to develop systems
of knowledge, economics, technology, and governance so diverse and contextbound that they would be non-dominant to any groups in society. We do not know if
we could change our meaning-structure into a way of thinking, which is nondualised and hence non-dominant. That may very well only be possible after a new
generation grow up without having learned the dualised perception of reality - but
who should teach them? Conclusively, the critique ecofeminism direct to the
dominant world is based on a real world of which we have experience. It is therefore
well founded. However, it remains to be seen if humanity, in reality, can create nondominant alternatives. I assume that this is the kind of hurdle we come across,
when we critique a world-view. A weakness I would consider as being minor is that
the study does not include any positive aspects of science, economics and
technology neither any praise to development, nation-states and the global
institutions. It is a weakness because without it the study presents a one-sided,
negative view only. There may be positive things to say about science, like its
research and development of human vaccines and technologies that ease human
workloads etc. There are two reasons for excluding any 12 possible positive aspects
of science: First, ecofeminism argues that science is a dominant ideology. Hence,
science has destroyed much more than it has created. In order to get attention to
this fact, I find it inconsistent to mention any assumed positive outcome of scientific
development. Secondly, the benefits from science are to a far extent directed to the
elite. Hence, if I mention any positive aspects it could be perceived as if I suggest
that domination of women, poor people and nature is necessary for scientific
progress. Such value would contradict the content of the study and my own beliefs.
enlightenment picture in which the moral equality of women with men has been
advanced. On this picture, that the domination of women by men is unjust provides
no grounds to object to domination of other beings. It is unjust domination, not
domination itself, which is the target of moral objection. And much of contemporary
feminism emerges from this enlightenment tradition. Hence, a contemporary
feminist may easily separate objection to sexism from objection to 'naturism'. But
more, and worse for ecofeminism, follows from the reflection on the enlightenment
rejection of the unjust domination of women by men. The rationale for finding
domination unjust involves moral objection to "thingifying" an agent: bending or
ignoring the will of the one being dominated for the satisfaction of the dominator.
This requires, at the very least, that the one being dominated has a will, and raises
the question of the intelligibility of applying the characterizations of justice/injustice
to the domination of non-conscious, non- volitional objects for the reason of that
domination. (3) Consider the options: a. If domination of X by Y can be taken to be
unjust and morally objectionable for the reason of that domination, then X must
have some kind of will. b. If X has no will, then domination of X by Y is not unjust
because of that domination. (It might be unjust for other reasons, but not from the
simple fact of the domination relationship; additionally,it might be taken to be
connected to a vice, in the same way that gluttony is taken to be a vice, but such
vices are defects in character and are not unjust conduct). Re:a. As the line of
reasoning concerning the enlightenment view of the domination of women
suggests, the reason that it is wrong to dominate women lies in the control of the
rational or moral will by another. Ignoring someone's choices, overriding them, or
forbidding the conditions for the consciousness and articulation of those choices are
paradigmatically immoral acts. The value and dignity of each rational individual lies
in her rational will:the source of the moral law. Subordinating her capacity of choice
to that of another, controlling, overriding or ignoring the choices stemming from this
will treats the person disrespectfully, as a thing, ignoring in that individual the
source of her unique and priceless worth:the capacity to be a moral agent. Thus, a
necessary condition for the domination of X by Y to be morally objectionable is that
X is conscious and volitional. Re b:A species can be said to dominate an ecosystem
or an eagle can be said to dominate a mountaintop. However, in these cases, it
would be unintelligible to characterize this domination as unjust or morally
objectionable, without further explanation. A fact about the proliferation of one
species, and its dominant role in an ecosystem, by itself implies nothing about its
value. There may be reasons to deplore the domination in particular cases: e.g. the
proliferation of a given species might disrupt the balance of an ecosystem, and this
could be judged wrong, say, by a land ethicist. This judgement, however, although
negative, is not one of injustice, and is based on valuing balance and integrity of
ecosystems, so it is in content and grounds different than the judgment of
wrongness of the domination of women by men. In different cases, there is no
reason for a moral judgement about the fact of domination: that an eagle dominates
the mountaintop, or that dogs are subordinate to the dominant member in a dog
pack, invites no moral concern. In the case of humans and nature, e.g. logging an
old growth forest, it is not domination as such which raises concerns for
environmental ethics, but rather that the logging destroys an increasingly rare
functioning ecosystem. Ethical concerns about the treatment of natural objects can,
and for a true environmental ethic, should stem from commitments to the value of
these natural objects, and their functioning and biological integrity, and not from
concerns about justice. We can now return to A4. If Y has no will, then either moral
justification of this relationship is irrelevant, or if this is an issue of moral concern, it
is because of other features of the treatment of Y by X, and the context in which it
occurs. The ecofeminist claim that the plundering of nature and the oppression of
women represent the same logic of domination and are both wrong for the same
reason is thus problematic. On the historically influential enlightenment view of
unjust domination, the claim is unintelligible. Yet the enlightenment framework
provided a decent explanation of the wrongness of domination of women. Of course
an ecofeminist such as Warren will object to the importation of enlightenment views
to analyse domination:after all, the enlightenment celebrated human control over
nature, and most of its adherents fudged the case for the moral equality of women.
However, to link every feminist position with the rejection of naturism, Warren has
to debunk, and not simply ignore, enlightenment feminism. She must argue either
that the enlightenment tradition is incompatible with feminism, which is historically
false, or that enlightenment feminism is conceptually unstable, so that while such
feminists try to separate the domination of nature from the domination of women,
the grounds for doing so are incoherent. However, that case has yet to be made.
judgmental behavior toward the woman. Cameron demonstrated little understanding of or respect for the process
of attaining consciousness. As Amilcar Cabral, the African freedom fighter, once said "Nobody is born a
revolutionary." Influenced by Charlene Spretnak's essay, one woman felt that it is not so important where one is on
the continuum, but rather that one is on it. Cameron admitted that the woman was "offended" and "hurt." Why
would she alienate a potential ally? In failing to walk her talk, Cameron treated the woman with a disdain generally
exhibited by those in power. When is "righteous rage" appropriate and when is it counterproductive?
Severalwomen
empathized with Cameron's attitude toward indecisive dogooders who can't seem to get activated when to someone like Cameron the
tasks are "absolutely obvious." One woman suggested that Cameron's frustration may be due to
the burden of psychic pain many of us carry as a result of our deep cognizance of the endangered state of our
species and the planet. Often overfunctioning, we sometimes project animosity onto all those who are
underfunctioning, psychically or otherwise. Perhaps we can take our cue from Mary Daly who writes of a New
We
concluded that Cameron's anger seemed largely directed at middle class (white)
privilege. While many working class people and/or people of color are
struggling simply to survive "primary emergencies," the middle class, she
Cognitive Minority of women who can "bear the memories, learn from them, and open the way for change."
Caring DA
Equating women with care is morally unacceptablethis notion
ensures exploitation women and is fundamentally oppressive
MacGregor 4 (Sherilyn MacGregor is a postdoctoral fellow in the Institute for
Environment, Philosophy and Public Policy at Lancaster University, UK. From Care
to Citizenship Calling Ecofeminism Back To Politics, Ethics & the Environment 9.1
(2004) 56-84)
However, there are important questions to be raised about the implications of care
metaphors and, specifically, care ethics for ecofeminist politics. The first is whether
invoking an inevitably and/or intentionally feminized ethic of care is an advisable
strategy for problematizing eco-political and social relationships. Can it lead to a
destabilization of gender codes? What are the risks in an approach that celebrates
women's caring as a public virtue? In response to these questions, it is instructive to
take note of a current in feminist philosophy that has combined arguments for
valuing the capacity to care with arguments that problematize and politicize
women's caring, to show that caring is not an unqualified good. Some feminist
philosophers maintain that care ethics is a double-edged sword for feminism. While
some believe that an ethics of care can offer a way to assert a positive face of
feminism (perhaps one more inspirational than a feminism which dwells upon
women's exploitation under patriarchy), an uncritical emphasis on women's carerelated morality can also affirm harmful assumptions about gender and reify
exclusionary notions about the nature of care and, indeed, of carers. Peta Bowden
explains the tension nicely: "Condemnation of caring runs the danger of silencing all
those who recognize its ethical possibilities, and risks capitulating to dominant
modes of ethics that characteristically exclude consideration of women's ethical
lives. On the other hand, romantic idealization is also a danger" (1997, 18-19) [End
Page 61] Since the 1980s, when care ethics was in its heyday, questions have been
asked about the validity and implications of care perspectives for feminism. There is
resistance in feminist philosophy to the "strategy of reversal" that has been
deployed by cultural feminists who choose to see "women's ways of knowing,"
"maternal thinking" or "feminine ethics" as superior to men's ways of knowing and
masculine ethics and as an ethic that can transform the world. Lorraine Code points
out, for example, that "it is by no means clear that a new monolith, drawn from
hitherto devalued practices, can or should be erected in the place of one that is
crumbling" (1995, 111). An important lesson for ecofeminists here is that listening
to and validating women's voices and those of other marginalized subjects is
important but does not inevitably lead to epistemic privilege (Davion 1994). Not
only is the idea that women may have greater access to "the truth" questionable on
empirical grounds, it is also too risky a position to put forth in the context of a
masculinist and misogynist culture that both creates and exploits women's capacity
to care. Thinking about this point in the context of ecofeminist rhetoric Code writes:
Women may indeed have the capacity to save the world, in consequence, perhaps,
Error Replications DA
Alt fails reverses the error and cant build transformational
theory
Caprioli 4 (Mary, Professor of Political Science University of Tennessee,
Feminist IR Theory and Quantitative Methodology: A Critical Analysis, International
Studies Review, 42(1), March, http://www.blackwellsynergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/0020-8833.00076)
If researchers cannot add gender to an analysis, then they must necessarily use a
purely female-centered analysis, even though the utility of using a purely female
centered analysis seems equally biased . Such research would merely be
gendercentric based on women rather than men, and it would thereby provide an
equally biased account of i nternational r elations as those that are male-centric.
Although one might speculate that having research done from the two opposing
worldviews might more fully explain international relations, surely an integrated
approach would offer a more comprehensive analysis of world affairs. Beyond a
female-centric analysis, some scholars (for example, Carver 2002) argue that
feminist research must offer a critique of gender as a set of power relations.
Gender categories, however, do exist and have very real implications for individuals,
social relations, and international affairs. Critiquing the social construction of
gender is important, but it fails to provide new theories of i nternational r elations
or to address the implications of gender for what happens in the world.
Essentialism
Ecofeminism reifies dualisms-it allows women to remain
complicit in environmental degradation and perpetuates a
vision of identity that displaces but doesnt remove difference
Karla Armbruster, Webster State Professor of English, 1999, Buffalo Gals,
Wont You Come Out Tonight: A Call for Boundary-Crossing in Ecofeminist Literary
Criticism, Google Books | RX
The erasure of differences between women and nonhuman nature is per- haps most
obvious when ecofeminists speak for women and nature as a group in such a way
that they appropriate for all women nature's status within con- temporary Western
society as exploited victim of human culture. They em- phasize the bond between
women and nature to the extent that it completely determines the relationship
between the two: they are represented as virtual- ly one and the same. For
example, in Woman and Nature, Griffin stresses the constructed association
between the two to the extent that she creates an im- age of women/nature as a
monolithic group consistently opposed to men. In one illustrative scenario, Griffin
portrays a caged lion being examined by Western male scientists. The situation of
this lion, for whose roaring the book is named, illustrates the basic opposition Griffin
maintains throughout this work: They wonder why she roars, and conclude that the
roaring must be inside her. They decide to see it. She swings at them when they try
to put her asleep. She has no soul, they conclude, she does not know right from
wrong. Be still. they shout at her. Be humble, trust us, they demand. We have
souls, they proclaim, we know what is right, they approach her with their
medicine, for you. She does not understand this language. She devours them
(187). Despite aspects and sections of her work in which she rejects hierarchy and
dualism altogether, Griffiins consistent practice of opposing women/nature to maledominated culture undermines the antidualistic aspects of her work. When
ecofeminists neglect to respect nature's differences from women, they can
misrepresent the needs of natural entities and allow women to avoid acknowledging whatever complicity they might have in environmental degra- dation.
As Vera Norwood explains in Made fiom This Earth, some [ecofemi- nist writers]
have cast women, along with nature, as an oppressed class that did not participate
in the masculine agenda of domination (276-77). While the degree of participation
certainly varies from woman to woman, only an overly simplistic view of subjectivity
can claim that any human is completely innocent of complicity in dominant
ideologies; as the poststructuralist femi- nist Donna l-laraway insists, We cannot
claim innocence from practising such dominations. . . . Innocence, and the corollary
insistence on victimhood as the only ground for insight, has done enough damage
(157). Thus, even "the positionings of the subjugated are not exempt from critical
re-examination, decoding, deconstruction, and interpretation" (191). Even Griffin
and King, who emphasize that womens connection with nature is culturally
construct- ed, rarely engage in such reexaminations and thus fail to explore the
extent to which many women benefit from and participate in the ideological,
political, and economic forces that sanction the domination and abuse of nonhuman
nature. In a discussion of the feminist health movement and body conscious- ness,
King does acknowledge that women have traditionally been complicit in such
ideologies: To the extent that we make our own flesh an enemy, or doc- ilely
submit ourselves to medical experts, we are participating in the domina- tion of
nature (Healing the Wounds" 1990, 119). However, she does not discuss the
extent to which women have participated in the medicalization of childbirth (118)
to a much greater extent than simply by acquiescing to the tyranny of medical
experts. In fact, more and more women are becoming such experts, participating in
the dominant forces of Western science and medicine, as doctors and researchers,
marketers who promote the technologies, nurses who administer them, and so on.
Although such participation need not always reinforce dominant ideologies, it is
important to note that many women ac- tively contribute not only to their own
oppression but also to the domination of nonhuman nature in some aspects of their
lives. By representing womens bond with nature as something all women share
equally and that significantly shapes every womans identity, writers such as King
and Griffin perpetuate a vision of identity that lacks an attention to dif- ference: not
only the differences between women and nonhuman nature but among women as
well. Specifically, as Norwood points out, dominant West- ern society has
traditionally linked wild nature with marginalized groups like African Americans and
Native Americans to place those groups outside the bounds of culture.
Consequently, she explains, a sense of connection with nonhuman nature may be
more problematic for African American or Native American women than for other
American women (177). This lack of atten- tion to difference is significant, for the
differences between women and the rest of nature mean that women can
participate in cultural attitudes and practices that are environmentally destructive,
and the differences between women mean that some participate more fully and
consciously in these attitudes and practices than others. The limited view of identity
reinforced when women and nature are even subtly conflated by antidualistic
ecofeminists can undermine ecofeminism's potential for subverting dominant
ideologies because the erasure of difference within the category women and
nature simply displaces difference elsewhere, where it often serves to reinforce
dualism and hierarchy. In particular, the Desert of Difference is revealed in the
way such views oppose women and nature to male-dominated culture instead of
seriously destabilizing such op- positions and rankings. However, it also arises when
ecofeminists fail to ac- count fully for the complex nature of identity and for the
multiple ways op- pression occurs in our culture. In their quest to emphasize the
significance of the culturally inferior position of women and nature, both King and
Griffin claim that one form of oppression is prior to or the source of all others. For
King, it is oppression of women by men; for Griflin, it is human domination of
nature." While these two views may seem to set women and nature at odds, in
competition for the position of most oppressed, the ecofeminist empha- sis on the
woman-nature connection allows the qualities and position assigned to one group to
be transferred to the other.
reproductive capacity is geared towards their natal clans, despite the fact that they
are married to outsiders. Careful investigation could uncover the scope that women
in these societies have for negotiating individual economic and political freedoms in
relation to different families or lineages. Nevertheless, theorists such as Afonja
(1990) claim that matrilineal systems provide little more than organising principles
for connecting men across generations and space; any apparent power or authority
women may have within matrilineal systems is merely symbolic and tangential to
the formal power of men. If we assume that women are automatically victims
and men victimisers, we fall into the trap of confirming the very systems we
set out to critique. We fail to acknowledge how social agents can
challenge their ascribed positions and identities in complex ways, and
indirectly, we help to reify or totalise oppressive institutions and relationships.
Rather than viewing patriarchy as a fixed and monolithic system, it would
be more helpful to show how patriarchy is constantly contested and
reconstituted. As Christine Battersby (1998) suggests, patriarchy should be
viewed as a dissipative system, with no central organising principle or dominant
logic. Viewing patriarchy in this way allows us to appreciate how institutional power
structures restrict and limit women's capacity for action and agency without wholly
constraining or determining this capacity. By conceptualising patriarchy as a
changing and unstable system of power, we can move towards an account of
African gendered experience that does not assume fixed positions in inevitable
hierarchies, but stresses transformation and productive forms of contesta
These questions are neither flippant nor academic For feminism, the reliance on
the category "women" signals a problematic support for a gendered solidity that
is the product of power-laden discursive "Othering" and often smacks of a
blindness to the process of social construction." The solidity of the identity
"women"even, or perhaps especially, if pluralized functions politically by
concealing the mode of its construction. Given that in patriarchal discourse the
construction is the site of the problem, then that solidity must be rejected.
Women DA
Ecofeminism marginalizes women by embracing patriarchal
essentialisms.
Biehl 91 (Janet: Social ecology activist and the author of Rethinking Eco-feminist
Politics. Rethinking Ecofeminist Politics, p. 3-4)
Although most political movements might feel the need to sort out these differences and their theorists might argue
for and against them, producing a healthy debate, ecofeminists rarely confront each other en the differences in
these writings. Ecofeminists who even acknowledge the existence of serious contradictions tend, in fact, to pride
themselves on the contradictions in their works as a healthy sign of "diversity"-presumably in contrast to
"dogmatic," fairly consistent, and presumably "male" or "masculine" theories. But dogmatism is clearly not the
same thing as coherence, clarity, and at least a minimum level of consistency. Ecofeminism, far from being healthily
diverse, is so blatantly self-contradictory as to be incoherent. As one might expect, at least one ecofeminist even
rejects the very-notion of coherence itself, arguing that coherence is "totalizing" and by inference oppressive.
Moreover, because ecofeminists rarely debate each other, it is nearly impossible to glean from their writings the
extent to which they agree or disagree with each other. The reader of this book should be wary of attributing the
ecofeminists'
apparent aversion to sorting out the differences among themselves leaves the
critical observer no choice but to generalize.The self-contradictory nature of
ecofeminism raises further problems as well. Some ecofeminists literally celebrate
the identification of women with nature as an ontological reality. They
therebyspeciously biologizethe personality traits that patricentric society assigns to
women.The implication of this position is to confine women to the same regressive
social definitions from which feminists have fought long and hard to emancipate
women. Other ecofeminists reject such biologizations and rightly consider what are virtually sociobiological
views of anyone ecofeminist, as they are presented here, to all other ecofeminists. But
definitions of women as regressive for women. But some of the same ecofeminists who reject these definitions
nonetheless favor using them to build a movement.
The implications of ecofeminist ideas for human identity are numerous. For women, particularly those (primarily
Western) women who have become alienated from the natural world, there is a need to rediscover their
"natural" ecocentric/ecofeminine identification.
essentialist ecocentric identity. This would involve not a loss or negation of the self but an
opportunity to experience the fulfilment of recovering one's true maternal nature and to embrace the
responsibilities associated with identification as a saviour of the planet. To some extent women have appeared
to take up these responsibilities. In many parts of the world they have undoubtedly contributed significantly to
environmental activism. Moreover, a number of women's environmental organisations have espoused overtly
ecofeminist principles (Bretherton 1996). Indeed, Mies and Shiva (1993, p.3) claim, from their conversations
with women's groups in many parts of the world, "women, worldwide, felt the same anger and anxiety, and the
this raises
the danger that women, who are everywhere the least powerful members of
same sense of responsibility to preserve the bases of life, and to end its destruction." However,
there are
implicitly elements of an identity defined negatively against the alien other of
unreconstructed "masculine" man. Because of its implied exclusivity, which reflects a tendency
towards maternalist essentialism, ecofeminism is unlikely to provide the basis for a
universal ecocentric identity. Ecofeminism is important, nevertheless. It provides a trenchant critique
While the major focus of an ecofeminine identity is positive identification with the natural world,
of those cultural norms and values which support the power structures of contemporary societies and which
have facilitated the development of a dangerously dysfunctional relationship between human collectivities and
the ecosystems of which they are a part. In focusing very specifically upon this latter issue, bioregionalists
would be well advised to incorporate feminist insights concerning the origin, and persistence, of gendered
structures of power (Plumwood 1994; Bretherton 1998).
So Tronto and Curtin wish to extend care beyond the private sphere [End Page
75] as long as it can be a politicized and de-gendered notion of care. To be sure,
one can think of examples where caring practices are public and political, and
some that are not strictly feminized even though they are still gendered.16
Nevertheless, I tend to agree with those who see the care-politics connection as
too closely and unavoidably associated with maternalism to be a good strategy
for feminist politics. They see maternalist justifications of women's citizenship
through arguments about care as fundamentally constraining of women's political
agency and contrary to politics. Dietz (1985) argues, for example, that the ethics
of care are inappropriate as bases for political practice because they are
inextricably linked to personal relationships rather than more abstract relations of
citizenship.17 Other critics warn that politics rooted in caring can very easily
become exclusionary and parochial, where care-giving is extended only to
particular, well-known others who are deemed worthy of care. Kathleen B. Jones
(1993) finds maternalism a "dangerous rhetoric" and so asks, "how far can we
extend these moral categories, derived from intimate relations, into the arena of
political discourse and public action?" (quoted in Squires 1999, 156). It may also
be that the need to protect and care for a particular other (say a child) can lead
to actions that are harmful to generalized others. This possibility is extremely
relevant to questions of ecological politics. For example, women "earth-carers" in
one community could oppose a toxic waste incinerator out of fear for the health
of their children, and at the same time fail to "care" that their opposition might
lead to its displacement onto another community (as tends to happen in NIMBYtype struggles).
A2: Plumwood
Plumwood mistheorizes the nature of power and human
relationsher focus on rationalism functions to entrench
dominant modes of thought, precluding its liberatory potential
Birkeland 95 (Janis Birkeland U. of Canberra DISENGENDERING ECOFEMINISM
Trumpeter, 1995,
http://trumpeter.athabascau.ca/index.php/trumpet/article/viewFile/302/451)
Most ecofeminists identify the concept of gender (the social construction of sex)as the conceptual glue
between the above interlocking sets of dualisms, and the term patriarchy to refer to their systemic expression
in social and institutional structures. Such terms have been received by many as highly provocative or even
confrontational, because these subjects are still taboo (taboos being things that generally support power
deconstruction of Western thought. Rather than use gender as a metaphorical icon of value, therefore, she
reduces it to the male/female dichotomy, relegating the concept to just another means by which people are
categorised, much in the way that race and class have been used to marginalize people. Ecofeminist theory,
when framed this way, loses its shock effect - which is ar-guably a good thing. The disengendered terminology
makes the paradigm more palatable and academically kosher. While this de-politicised version may
broad-en its appeal, however, it may simultaneously narrow its true transformative potential. Further, this
pervasiveness of mastery or dominance and the use by the master of dualistic thinking in manipulating the
populace is not a new idea to those involved in social justice movements; and certainly institutionalised forms of
slavery are at least publicly disapproved of, even when practiced enthusiastically. The virtues of equality and
freedom from tyranny have long been taught in such ubiquitous sites as the pulpit - yet these exhortations have
done little to reduce hierarchical social relations. Why would they work now? It is the - until recently invisibleomnipresence of gender within these hierarchical dualisms that creates the potential for new insights and the
basis for a new human identity and social transformation. In the desire to displace gender as a pivotal element
Plumwood appears to overlook the central role of both sex and gender
in the motivations behind the seeking and abusing power. For example, in
Plumwoods extensive deconstruction of the master-slave relationship, the power
drive on the part of the master is presumed but not theorised. Power and
dominance are not really defined; they just present themselves as something
that pervades human relationships. Perhaps this is because power cannot be
adequately deconstructed in a gender-blind and a-sexual analysis ? Surely humans have
in her theory,
many biological and instinctual behaviour patterns related to sex and reproduction that they share with a mix of
In Plumwoods theory,
the human appears connected to nature on the cerebral plane only, either by
experiencing nature existentially or by understanding nature intellec-tually. In her disengendered theory, the
human is a creature without sex drivesor personal insecurities, moved only by cerebral constructs
and sensory experi-ence. But is this not a denial of the nature within ? I for one find it
other animals, though we are not as yet able to disentangle these phenomena.
however,
hard to believe that the power drive we witness daily does not predate the introduction of rational logic in
the question as to the strategic impact of a disengendered ecofem-inism. Can people be motivated to abandon
relations of personal power, and the value systems that legitimise them, because new cerebral constructs are p-
necessary condition, but it is not sufficient. Rational arguments and intellectual frameworks are important, but if
society, or patriarchy, many people feel they can only ensure the provision of personal needs (such as sex,
love and belonging) through material accumulation and the display of wealth. Until we face the problem of
hyper-masculine identification in the self and the culture, I suspect that
social change.
institutional practices
are not always completely or unambiguously informed bysuchdichotomies, which
may then operate to obscure more complex relationships. It is a mistake to
see the language of gendered dichotomies as a unified and totalizing discourse that
dictates every aspect of social practiceto the extent that we are coherently
produced as subjects in its dualistic image. As well as the disruptions and
discontinuities engendered by the intersections and interjections of other discourses
(race, class, sexuality, and soon) there is always room for evasion, reversal,
resistance, and dissonance between rhetoric, practice, and embodiment, as well
as reproduction of thesymbolic order, as identities are negotiated in relation to all
three dimensions, in a variety of complex and changing circumstances. On the
of which gender identities and the gender order are produced. But at the same time,
otherhand, the symbolic gender order does inform practice, and our subjectivities are produced in relation to it, so
to dismiss it as performing only an ideological or propagandistic role is also too simplistic.
No impact
Goldstein 1 (Joshua S., Professor of International Relations at American
University, 2001 War and Gender: How Gender Shapes the War System and Vice
Versa, pp.411-412)
I began this book hoping to contribute in some way to a deeper understanding of war an understanding that
In
following the thread of genderrunning through war, I found the deeper understanding I had
hoped for a multidisciplinary and multilevel engagement with the subject. Yet I became somewhat more
pessimistic about how quickly or easily war may end. The war system emerges, from the evidence
would improve the chances of someday achieving real peace, by deleting war from our human repertoire.
in this book, as relatively ubiquitous and robust. Efforts to change this system must overcome several dilemmas
mentioned in this book. First, peace activists face a dilemma in thinking about causes of war and working for peace.
Many peace
justice.
scholars and activists support the approach, if you want peace, work for
Then, if one believes that sexism contributes to war, one can work for gender justice specifically
important way to reverse womens oppression. The dilemma is that peace work focused on justice brings to the
Writing in Foreign Aff airs in 1998, Francis Fukuyama, tireless promulgator of the
end of history and now a member of the Presidents Council on Bioethics,
employed EP reasoning to argue for the central role in world politics of masculine
values, which are rooted in biology. His argument starts with the claim that male
and female chimps display asymmetric behaviour, with the males far more prone to
violence and domination. Female chimps have relationships; male chimps practice
realpolitik. Moreover, the line from chimp to modern man is continuous and this
has signifi cant consequences for international politics.46 He argues that the world
can be divided into two spheres, an increasingly peaceful and cooperative
feminized zone, centred on the advanced democracies, andthe brutal world
outside this insulated space, where the stark realities of power politics remain
largely masculine. This bifurcation heralds dangers, as masculine policies are
essential in dealing with a masculine world: In anything but a totally feminized
world, feminized policies could be a liability. Fukuyama concludes the essay with
the assertion that the form of politics best suited to human nature issurprise,
surprisefree-market capitalist democracy, and that other political forms, especially
those promoted by feminists and socialists, do not correspond with our biological
inheritance.47 Once again the authority of science is invoked in order to naturalize
a particular political objective.This is a pattern that has been repeated across the
history of modern biology and remains potent to this day.48 It is worth noting in brief
that Fukuyamas argument is badly flawed even in its own terms. As anthropologist
R. Brian Ferguson states, Fukuyamas claims about the animal world display a
breathtaking leap over a mountain of contrary evidence.49 Furthermore, Joshua
Goldstein concludes in the most detailed analysis of the data on war and