PHIL 2270 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Ecofeminism, Socialist Feminism, Radical Feminism
14 Jun 2018
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“Ecofeminism” - Carolyn Merchant’s
Ecofeminism: revolutionary movement whose goal is to ensure human survival by
means of bringing about new gender relations between men and women as well as
bringing about a new relationship between humans and nature.
1) Liberal Ecofeminism: human-nature relations can be improved through
legislation and new social policy
2) Radical Ecofeminism: our problem with the environment can be analyzed in
terms of the social patriarchy that can be overcome via women’s liberation
3) Socialist Feminism: strained human-nature relations result from a capitalist
patriarchy requiring a social revolution to overcome
Liberal Ecofeminism:
• Liberalism sees nature as a collection of atoms moved by external forces where
human action has been one of these external forces. Humans move nature in
order to realize certain economic agendas within capitalism in the name of
progress.
• Thus, environmental problems are seen as the result of the overuse of natural
resources and pollution to realize economic agendas.
• The solution to resource depletion and pollution is better science as opposed to
a social revolution.
Radical Ecofeminism:
• The patriarchy includes the scientific revolution of the 1600s (e.g., Copernicus
and Galileo) which entailed the degradation of nature and also of women.
• A patriarchal society sees women as the primary bearers of reproduction and
hence they are seen as passive, whereas radical feminism stresses that women
and nature should be seen as sources of power.
• Also, male-designed technology pollutes the atmosphere thereby putting
reproductive organs at risk – so there is a call for a better relationship with nature
that does not harm women and more generally, the ecosystem.
• The goal of radical ecofeminism is to overcome these false dualisms thereby
ending the alienation of women and nature from humanity.
Socialist Ecofeminism:
• We have been alienated from nature and farming– where men & women were
partners – by industrialization. This industrialization degraded nature and saw
women as unpaid labor.
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