Ecofeminist Philosophy

© Rita D. Sherma

© CARe | GTU

Citation: Rita D. Sherma. 2018. “Ecofeminist Philosophy.” In Gestures to the Divine: Works by Hagit Cohen,

edited by Elizabeth Pena. (Berkeley: GTU Center for Arts & Religion Publication)

Ecofeminist thought—the philosophy at the intersection of environmentalism and feminism—

maintains, as a foundational premise, that the exploitation of women and that of nature are

connected. This is no mere theoretical position, but a clear and tangible reality; there exist

important links between the modernist project of development, the subjugation of women, and

the ravaging of nature. In 1974, French feminist author Françoise d’Eaubonne introduced the

term “ecofeminism” ("écoféminisme") in her book Le Féminisme ou la mort (“Femininsm or

death”),1 , which asserted that there is a connection between the oppressions of both women and

nature and such subjugation is linked to male power. Feminist theologies in this wave of

ecofeminism identified the religious concepts that supported or encouraged oppression of others

deemed “inferior.” In New Woman, New Earth, Rosemary Radford Ruether2 critiqued patriarchal

attitudes toward nature and charted the theological developments in the history of Christianity

which gave rise to a conflation and devaluation of nature, embodiment, and the feminine. From

this initial critique, ecofeminist theologians Sallie McFague, Katherine Keller, and others3 went

to develop constructive theologies informed by ecofeminist philosophy.

There is no single ecofeminist philosophy, just as there is no single feminist or environmental

philosophy. Rather, there are a various ecofeminisms which are committed to a central premise

of the joint women-nature domination. But ecofeminist philosophy is not limited to the exposure

and eradication of this joint oppression because, as Karen Warren notes, the “logic of domination

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used to justify the dominations of women and nature also has been used to justify the domination

of [all] humans” according to race, ethnicity, class, religion and all other factors.4

According to Greta Gaard, ecofeminism asserts that “the ideology which authorizes

oppression based on race, class, gender, sexuality, physical abilities, and species is the same

ideology that sanctions the oppression of nature.”5 Ruether identifies three ways in which

feminism itself can be defined: (1) a movement in liberal democratic societies for the inclusion

of women in political rights and economic access to employment, (2) as an outgrowth of socialist

and liberation traditions which seeks to transform the patriarchal socioeconomic systems in

which the male domination of women is the foundation of other socioeconomic hierarchies, or

(3) as a movement which studies, in terms of culture and consciousness, the symbolic,

psychological and ethical connections between the domination of women and male

monopolization of resources and power.6 It is this third level of feminism that connects closely

with deep ecology.

Women, the Environment, and the Nonprivileged

The nexus of ecology and feminism has been an important point of reference for women

activists in Asia and “has been closely connected with the reclaiming of an Asian cosmovision

that does not split the individual from the community or the community from the cosmos but

roots the human community in a holistic cosmology.”7 Hindu ecofeminist Vandana Shiva has

long been at the forefront of an emerging Asian ecofeminism. In her work, she has emphasized

the importance of the connection between rural women’s experiential epistemologies, the

relevance of the divine feminine to her community, and the community’s relationship to the

environment. The need to focus on the relationship between women’s status and that of the

environment stems from both reasons of intuitive resonance, justice and pragmatism.

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Women in the Global South were intimately involved with rural land use and the protection of

natural systems on which they depended for their families’ survival. The loss of agricultural

diversity, initiated by the spread of agribusiness cash crops, wreaks havoc on soil, water systems,

and native vegetation. Cultural homogenization induces the unraveling of kinship systems and

the web of familial relationships on which women depend. It also encourages societal dislocation

due to the loss of cultural identity and often results in ethnic and religious clashes which are, in

part, attempts to reassert distinct cultural identities.

Nor is this disparity limited to the South. In Northern countries, slow degrading toxic

chemicals found in air, water, soil, as well as in processed foods, tend to cross the placenta,

accumulate in breast tissue, and pose disproportionate risks to infants and mothers. Many women

who are engaged in these struggles are attempting to reclaim from their spiritual traditions whose

elements that are healing and empowering, that liberate and inspire. This recovery is not a

project of reimaging the past as a lost utopia, but of the search for reconnection with those

aspects of ancestral worldviews that reflect a holistic perspective of necessary integration and

continuity between person, place, and piety.

Ecofeminism and Spirituality

Not all ecofeminists sanction the use of theological or spiritual methodologies to counter

ideologies of oppression or bolster activist enthusiasm. There are those who warn that such

approaches may actually undermine the efficacy of ecofeminist philosophy by reinforcing

negative gender-based stereotypes. Yet, for a wide variety of ecofeminist activists across national

and religious boundaries, spiritual perspectives provide the underpinnings for much of

ecofeminist political activism. Examples include the Buddhist Peace Fellowship (PBF), Women

of All Red Nations (WARN), and the Chipko movement in India. Warren has laid out the value

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of ecofeminist spirituality in terms of the factors it brings into play which include: (1) the values

of care, kinship, and community, (2) the importance of indigenous women’s empowering

knowledge of linkage to nature provided by native spiritualities, and (3) the challenge it poses to

the entrenched epistemological patterns (in which theoretical ecofeminist philosophy is

embedded) that continue to depend on the dichotomization of the personal and the political,

emotional and rational, and materiality and spirituality.

Western ecofeminist theologians (i.e, Ruther, Elizabeth Dodson Gray, Carolyn Merchant,

and others) were the first to develop and present critiques of religio-cultural constructs which

support the devastation of the earth and the oppression of women, so their views came to

represent the classic ecofeminist approaches. Because ecofeminist methodology is inherently

inclusive, and speaks to the concerns of women and nature beyond political, racial, geographic,

and religious boundaries, it could provide a frame of reference that could be applied to the

Global North and South, allowing diverse religious traditions to develop viable alternate religio-

cultural ideologies inspired by resources within native traditions but informed by the insights

aligned with ecofeminist philosophy.

It seems self-evident that the ecofeminist assertion of the fundamental interdependence of

all phenomena precludes the sanctioning of any action arising from a dichotomous worldview

based on a self/other disjunction.8 Classic publications in this field—such as Ecofeminism and

the Sacred,9 Ecofeminism: Women, Animals, Nature, and Women Healing Earth—include the

voices of minority, non-Christina, and non-Western women in an endeavor to encourage a

multiplicity of ecotheological perspectives, and a complicity of action towards shared goals. The

ecofeminist ethic, which rests on the premise that the ultimate goal of feminism should be the

eradication of all systems of exploitation, whether against women, marginalized peoples,

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animals, or the earth, is founded on the realization of the symbiotic nature of our biosphere and

the desire to manifest this understanding in global and local action.

The Way Forward for Ecological Feminism

An influential 2018 editorial essay in the journal Women’s Studies10 notes that over the course of

the four decades since the term ecofeminism was coined and defined:

[E]cofeminist values, principles, practices, and orientations have been explained, described,
reformulated, refined, questioned, and indeed criticized...it seems almost naïve to talk of
ecofeminism in the singular, since a diverse range of trends and orientations have been
identified….In-depth studies have shown, for example, how environmental problems such as the
effects of overpopulation, water degradation, air pollution, deforestation, the extinction of animal
and vegetal species, and militarization all tend to affect women and children earlier and more
directly, but also in different ways, according to their particular circumstances and contexts….
However, it is also opportune to consider that early objections to some of the original precepts of
ecofeminism prompted a swift and sound revision and reformulation of basic notions, and that
these initially adverse circumstances have meant that, as Timothy Clark has acknowledged,
ecofeminism has become “perhaps the most sophisticated and intellectually developed branch of
environmental criticism.”
[Emphasis added.]

Yet, despite the road as yet untraveled, ecofeminist theory’s contributions to the ethics of care, and

the critical examination of the social, cultural, material, and ideological bases of the network of

the current global biogeophysical crises, remains unparalled.

1
Françoise d'Eaubonne, Le Féminisme ou la mort: Femmes en movement (Paris: Pierre Horay, 1974).
2
Rosemary R. Ruether, New Woman, New Earth: Sexist Ideologies and Human Liberation (Boston: Beacon Press,
1995).
3
See, for example: Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, (1980); Greta Gaard (Ed.), Ecofeminism: Women,
Animals, Nature (1993); Rosemary R. Ruether, (Ed.) Women Healing Earth: Third World Women on Ecology,
Feminism, and Religion (1996); and Vandana Shiva, Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Development (1989).
4
Karen J. Warren, “A feminist Philosophical Perspective on Ecofeminist Spiritualities,” in Carol J. Adams, (Ed).,
Ecofeminism and the Sacred. New York, NY: Continuum, 1993, p 123.
5
Greta Gaard, Ecofeminism: Ethics and Action, (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993), p 47.
6
Rosemary R. Reuther, Sexism and God Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1993), p 13-14.
7
Ruether, Women and Redemption: A Theological History (Minneapolis, MN.: Augsberg Fortress Press,
1998), p. 267.
8
Gaard, 1993, p 2-3.
9
Carol J. Adams, (Ed), Ecofeminism and the Sacred, (New York: Continuum, 1993).

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10
Margarita Estévez-Saá and María Jesús Lorenzo-Modia, Editorial Introduction for Special Issue on “The Ethics
and Aesthetics of Eco-caring: Contemporary Debates on Ecofeminism(s)” Women's Studies: An Inter-disciplinary
Journal, Volume 47, 2018 - Issue 2, published online: 08 Feb 2018: 123-146.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00497878.2018.1425509 (Last accessed on 9/2/2018).