Feminisms

Citation:

Warren, Karen J. 2000. Ecofeminist Philosophy: A Western Perspective on What It Is and Why It Matters. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Author: Karen J. Warren

Annotation:

Summary:
How are the unjustified dominations of women and other humans connected to the unjustified domination of animals and nonhuman nature? What are the characteristics of oppressive conceptual frameworks and systems of unjustified domination? How does an ecofeminist perspective help one understand issues of environmental and social justice? In this important new work, Karen J. Warren answers these and other questions from a Western perspective. Warren looks at the variety of positions in ecofeminism, the distinctive nature of ecofeminist philosophy, ecofeminism as an ecological position, and other aspects of the movement to reveal its significance to both understanding and creatively changing patriarchal (and other) systems of unjustified domination. (Summary from Amazon)

Topics: Environment, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy Regions: Americas, Europe

Year: 2000

Citation:

Warren, Karen J. and Barbara Wells-Howe, eds. 1994. Ecological Feminism. London: Routledge 

Authors: Karen J. Warren, Barbara Wells-Howe

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Summary:
This anthology is the first such collection to focus on the exclusively philosophical aspects of ecological feminism. It addresses basic questions about the conceptual underpinnings of `women-nature' connections, and emphasises the importance of seeing sexism and the exploitation of the environment as parallel forms of domination. Ecological Feminism is enriched by the inclusion of essays which take differing views of the importance and nature of ecofeminism. It will be an invaluable resource for courses on women's studies, environmental studies and philosophy. (Summary from Routledge)

Table of Contents:

Introduction
Karen J. Warren

1. Is Ecofeminism Feminist?
Victoria Davion

2. Wrongs of Passage: Three Challenges to the Maturing of Ecofeminism
Deborah Slicer

3. Rethinking Again: A Defense of Ecofeminist Philosophy
Douglas J. Buege

4. The Ecopolitics Debate and the Politics of Nature
Val Plumwood

5. Ecofeminism, Deep Ecology, and Human Population
Christine J. Cuomo

6. The Limits of Partiality: Ecofeminism, Animal Rights, and Environmental Concern
David Kenneth Johnson and Kathleen R. Johnson

7. Towards an Ecofeminist Moral Epistemology
Lori Gruen

8. Restructuring the Discursive Moral Subject in Ecological Feminism
Phillip Payne

9. Nature/Theory/Difference: Ecofeminism and the Reconstruction of Environmental Ethics
Jim Cheney

10. Toward an Ecofeminist Peace Politics
Karen J. Warren

Topics: Environment, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Gender, Gendered Power Relations

Year: 1994

Citation:

Warren, Karen J. 1988. “Toward an Ecofeminist Ethic.” Studies in the Humanities 15 (2): 140-56.

Author: Karen J. Warren

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Summary:
"An ecofeminist perspective is essentially a critique of domination. As such, ecofeminism challenges current conceptions of ethics in the mainstream, feminist, and environmental contexts to construct an ethic which reflects ecofeminist insights into the historical and conceptual connections between the oppressive treatment of women and of nature. According to ecofeminists, any ethic -- whether a mainstream, feminist, or environmental ethic -- which fails to take seriously the interconnected systems of domination of women and nature is simply inadequate" (Warren 1988, 140).

Topics: Environment, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations

Year: 1988

Citation:

Warren, Karen J. 1987. “Feminism and Ecology: Making Connections.” Environmental Ethics 9 (1): 3–20.

Author: Karen J. Warren

Abstract:

The current feminist debate over ecology raises important and timely issues about the theoretical adequacy of the four leading versions of feminism-liberal feminism, traditional Marxist feminism, radical feminism, and socialist feminism. In this paper I present a minimal condition account of ecological feminism, or ecofeminism. I argue that if eco-feminism is true or at least plausible, then each of the four leading versions of feminism is inadequate, incomplete, or problematic as a theoretical grounding for eco-feminism. I conclude that, if eco-feminism is to be taken seriously, then a transformative feminism is needed that will move us beyond the four familiar feminist frameworks and make an eco-feminist perspective central to feminist theory and practice. 

Topics: Environment, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Gender, Women

Year: 1987

Citation:

Turner, Terisa E., and Leigh Brownhill. 2006. “Ecofeminism as Gendered, Ethnicized Class Struggle: A Rejoinder to Stuart Rosewarne.” Capitalism Nature Socialism 17 (4): 87–95.

Authors: Terisa E. Turner, Leigh Brownhill

Abstract:

Stuart Rosewarne’s comment on our essay ‘‘We Want Our Land Back,’’ underlines the need for clarification of the relationship between the exploited, both waged and unwaged, on the one hand, and between all within the hierarchy of the exploited and capital, on the other. Hence, our response addresses the fundamental struggle between classes over enclosures of the commons and the defense (and extension) of life-centered, subsistence relations. To bridge the divide that Rosewarne identifies between ecosocialism and ecofeminism, we proceed by critiquing James O’Connor’s analysis of the ‘‘second contradiction of capitalism,’’ offering an alternative perspective*gendered, ethnicized class analysis. 

Topics: Class, Environment, Ethnicity, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Gender

Year: 2006

Citation:

Sydee, Jasmin, and Sharon Beder. 2001. “Ecofeminism and Globalisation: A Critical Appraisal.” Democracy & Nature: The International Journal of Inclusive Democracy 7 (2): 281–302.

Authors: Jasmin Sydee, Sharon Beder

Abstract:

Ecofeminism offers a useful yet limited framework through which to critique globalisation. Ecofeminism claims that the domination of women and of nature are intrinsically linked. Material ecofeminists, in particular, focus on the material conditions of women's lives locating the source of this twin domination in patriarchal capitalism. These ecofeminists provide insights into the impacts of globalisation on women but their analysis of the causes of globalisation are limited. They identify globalisation as an outgrowth of patriarchal capitalism, insisting on the primacy of gender as the determinant of social organisation and arguing that it is the dichotomy between production and reproduction that essentially defines capitalism. However, the rise of modern capitalism has been more convincingly described by those who focus on the domination of workers, the role of the market economy, and the enrolment of all sections of society through the propagation of the work ethic and the allure of consumerism. 

Topics: Ecological Economics, Environment, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Globalization

Year: 2001

Citation:

Slicer, Deborah. 1995. “Is There an Ecofeminism–Deep Ecology ‘Debate'?” Environmental Ethics 17 (2): 151–69.

Author: Deborah Slicer

Abstract:

I discuss six problems with Warwick Fox’s “The Deep Ecology–Ecofeminism Debate and Its Parallels” and conclude that until Fox and some other deep ecologists take the time to study feminism and ecofeminist analyses, only disputes—not genuine debate—will occur between these two parties. An understanding of the six issues that I discuss is a precondition for such a debate.

Topics: Environment, Feminisms, Ecofeminism

Year: 1995

Citation:

Seager, Joni. 2003. “Rachel Carson Died of Breast Cancer: The Coming of Age of Feminist Environmentalism.” Signs 28 (3): 945–72.

Author: Joni Seager

Abstract:

To discuss the state of feminist environmentalism, discussion opens with an examination of ecofeminism. Arguing that debates surrounding ecofeminism have exhausted their intellectual & political returns, recent feminist environmental scholarship on animal rights, public health, & global political economy is reviewed. Some remarks are then offered on the "population question," particularly with respect to how environmental policy is underpinned by the blaming of poor, minority, & non-Euro-American women for global environmental ills; the critical feminist environmentalist literature on populationism is briefly touched on. 

Topics: Economies, Environment, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Health, Rights Regions: Americas Countries: United States of America

Year: 2003

Citation:

Sandilands, Catriona. 1999. Good-Natured Feminist: Ecofeminism and the Quest for Democracy. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Author: Catriona Sandilands

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Summary:
Heroic mothers defending home and hearth against a nature deformed by multinationalist corporate practice: this may be a compelling story, but it is not necessarily the source of valid feminist or ecological critique. What’s missing is the democratic element, an insistence on bringing to public debate all the relations of gender and nature that such a view takes for granted. This book aims to situate a commitment to theory and politics—that is, to democratic practice—at the center of ecofeminism and, thus, to move toward an ecofeminism that is truly both feminist and ecological. The Good-Natured Feminist inaugurates a sustained conversation between ecofeminism and recent writings in feminist postmodernism and radical democracy. Starting with the assumption that ecofeminism is a body of democratic theory, the book tells how the movement originated in debates about “nature” in North American radical feminisms, how it then became entangled with identity politics, and how it now seeks to include nature in democratic conversation and, especially, to politicize relations between gender and nature in both theoretical and activist milieus. (Summary from ProQuest)

Topics: Democracy / Democratization, Environment, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Gender Regions: Americas, North America

Year: 1999

Citation:

Salleh, Ariel. 2017. “Embodied Materialism in Action.” Multitudes 67 (2): 37–45.

Author: Ariel Salleh

Abstract:

ENGLISH ABSTRACT:
In this 2010 interview, Ariel Salleh presents her version of ecofeminism: an “embodied materialism” which refuses postmodernism—a servant of neoliberalism in her view—and which attempts to reconstruct the suspected notions of woman and nature. She unfolds the political implications of this position on various topics (ecological and post-colonial debts, agro-industry, etc.), and justifies her hope to see the class of “meta-industrial workers” launch a just and sustainable alternative to globalization. 

FRENCH ABSTRACT:
Dans cet entretien réalisé en 2010 pour la revue canadienne Poligraph, Ariel Salleh expose sa version de l’écoféminisme : un « matérialisme incarné » qui refuse le postmodernisme, valet du néolibéralisme à ses yeux, et cherche à reconstruire les notions décriées de femme et de nature. Elle en développe les implications politiques sur divers sujets d’actualité (dette écologique et postcoloniale, agro-industrie…) et justifie l’espoir qu’elle place dans la classe des « travailleurs méta-industriels » pour impulser une alternative juste et soutenable à la mondialisation.

Topics: Agriculture, Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Environment, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Gender, Women

Year: 2017