Ecofeminism

Contents

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pp. v-vi

Preface

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pp. vii-

The text you hold in your hands represents the culmination of an effort that began in 1989 at the annual convention of the National Women's Studies Association. At that time there was no text that provided a theoretical bridge for women working in the related movements of environmentalism, animal liberation, and feminism. Ecofeminism: Women, Animals, Nature is...

1. Living Interconnections with Animals and Nature

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pp. 1-12

Ecofeminism is a theory that has evolved from various fields of feminist inquiry and activism: peace movements, labor movements, women's health care, and the anti-nuclear, environmental, and animal liberation movements. Drawing on the insights of ecology, feminism, and socialism, ecofeminism's basic premise is that the ideology which authorizes oppressions...

2. Ecofeminism: Linking Theory and Practice

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pp. 13-59

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,...

3. Dismantling Oppression: An Analysis of the Connection Between Women and Animals

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pp. 60-90

Despite a growing awareness of the destructiveness of the human species and the precarious position in which such destruction puts all inhabitants of the earth, there has been shockingly little discussion of the fundamental forces that have led us to the brink. While multinational corporations and grassroots activists alike have stressed the urgency of a change in be...

4. Roots: Rejoining Natural and Social History

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pp. 91-117

There is not a place in the world that does not reveal the touch and bear the consequences of human hands and minds-not Antarctica, not the deepest equatorial jungle, and certainly not Tokyo or New York City. At the same time, there are no people who have not been shaped by the effects of landscape and water, the climate and natural features of the area in which...

5. Ecofeminism and the Politics of Reality

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pp. 118-145

When I leave the road and enter the northern forest, the thick, humid, engulfing northern forest, I always pause, as though at a doorway, as though about to part a curtain, and center myself, and ask permission and safe passage. It is not unlike taking off my shoes when I enter my home, or the homes of my friends; I leave a material world behind to enter into another,...

6. Questioning Sour Grapes: Ecofeminism and the United Farm Workers Grape Boycott

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pp. 146-166

Sour grapes. What an expression (on your face). Sour grapes are unexpected and unwanted. You pick a grape, bite through the skin to the fleshy fruit expecting sweetness. Perhaps you anticipate seeds, but more likely not (seedless reigns). Expecting sweetness, you are disappointed by the sour grape. Say "yuck" and spit it out if you can; if not, grimace and swallow.

7. Animal Rights and Feminist Theory

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pp. 167-194

Peter Singer prefaces his groundbreaking treatise Animal Liberation (1975) with an anecdote about a visit he and his wife made to the home of a woman who claimed to love animals, had heard he was writing a book on the subject, and so invited him to tea. Singer's attitude toward the woman is contemptuous: she had invited a friend who also loved animals and was...

8. The Feminist Traffic in Animals

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pp. 195-218

Should feminists be vegetarians? This question has appeared more and more frequently in recent years. Claudia Card offers one opinion: "Must we all, then, be vegetarians, pacifist, drug-free, opposed to competition, antihierarchical, in favor of circles, committed to promiscuity with women, and free of the parochialism of erotic arousal? Is this too specific? These...

9. For the Love of Nature: Ecology and the Cult of the Romantic

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pp. 219-242

Awareness of the ecological crisis peaked in 1972 when the astronauts first photographed the planet, showing thick furrows of smog scattered over the beautiful blue and green ball. "The planet is dying" became the common cry. Suddenly the planet, personified as "Mother Earth," captured national, sentimental attention. In our modern iconography, nature became...

10. From Heroic to Holistic Ethics: The Ecofeminist Challenge

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pp. 243-271

As the destruction of the natural world proceeds at breakneck speed, nature ethicists have found themselves in search of a theory that can serve to bring this destruction to a halt.^l Just as the prototypical hero in patriarchal stories must rescue the proverbial "damsel in distress," so, too, the sought-after theory must demonstrate heroic qualities. It must, singlehandedly, rescue...

11. A Cross-Cultural Critique of Ecofeminism

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pp. 272-294

Regardless of their different theoretical positions, ecofeminists appear to agree that there are important conceptual connections between the oppression of women and the oppression of nature.¹ They believe that the traditional sex/gender system has had a significant impact on today's environmental problems. Moreover, many ecoferninists in English-speaking...

12. Ecofeminism and Native American Cultures: Pushing the Limits of Cultural Imperialism?

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pp. 295-314

Questions of racism and cultural imperialism have been brought to the foreground of the women's movement in the United States, most notably at the 1990 convention of the National Women's Studies Association (NWSA).^l White academic feminists have been charged with theorizing about "women" in a way that universalizes and therefore does not account...

Selected Bibliography

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pp. 315-322

About the Contributors

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pp. 323-325

Index

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pp. 327-331