Ecofeminism in the 21st Century Essay

Ecofeminism in the Twenty-First Century. by Susan Buckingham Introduction Since ecofeminism was developed as a concept in the 1970s (1), there have been, arguably, major policy shifts in the fields of gender (in)equality and surroundal sustainability. Thus a consideration of the achievements of, and work outstanding for, ecological feminism is warranted.In this paper, I will assess the changing policy landscape to explore the conclusion to which this has structurally altered gender inequalities and societies treatment of the environs, and the imbrication of these wo processes. In society to do so, I will look at the rising profile of gender mainstreaming at the international, European Union (2) and European national take aim the application of the feminism debate to environmental concerns and the shifting of the radical saltation of ecofeminism, to explore future executable trajectories (see, for example, Plumwood 2003 Seager 2003).To some(a) extent, I will advert that the t ransformation of policy and information rhetoric to include gender, as perspicuous from womens issues (itself, arguably, a post- womens rightist dilution of womens equality), masks fundamental attachment to business-as-usual, where tender roles, allowance differentials, political representation and environmental degradation remain little changed. However, there is, I argue, sufficient evidence to identify the influence of ecofeminist thinking on major policy initiatives concerning the relationship betwixt women, men and environment at a variety of scales.The central question of this paper, then, is whether ecofeminism (as a distinct discourse, or as an amalgam of feminism and environmentalism constructed in different times and places in different ways) has hanged the way in which Western society articulates the relationship between men, women and the environment. This, of course, is a problematic and speculative exercise and will follow from an digest of how discourse and pra ctice themselves have changed.This paper will consider identify changes to gender equality as it is linked to environmental sustainability, and explore how womens/feminists interests have helped to shape the environmental debate in the bypast decade. I will try to unpick dominant discourses which, on the one hand, atomic number 18 beginning to naturalize (some ould say neutralize) environmental concerns (where the terms sustainable development and environmental sustainability argon common currency but poorly dumb to the point of being anodyne), but on the different hand are marginalizing feminism, to examine the impact of this on ecofeminism.Finally, I will explore the dirt of ecofeminisms leading/radical edge to speculate on where this whitethorn take both conceptual understanding and policy in the future. First, however, to format this discussion into context, I will briefly review ecofeminist arguments to illustrate their ange, onwards focusing on the constructivist appro ach, which has had the most traction in gender/environment debates in the last two decades.Ecofeminist approaches It is tempting to use a retro to try to impose some sort of order on past intellectual activity, and what I am attempting to do first in this article is to explore whether there is an intellectual trajectory, through a not inevitably coherent body of thinking and writing on gender and environment in the late twentieth century. In teasing out the possible relationship between womens position, gender anage the environment, ecofeminist writers in the 1970s and mid-eighties explored the relative importance of essentialism and social construction in these relationships.The social constructivist analyses (which tended to everywherecome French and British writing see, for example, Mellor 1992) drew from the Marxist and social feminist literature to show how womens position in society (as, for example, carers of children and other vulnerable family members, domestic worker s, and low paid/status workers) derived from prevailing social and economic structures, which exposed them to a particular set of environmental incivilities.The specifically ecofeminist argument here proposed that, since the same social and economic structures also produced wide-scale environmental damage, then women could, in some sense, share this experience and were therefore get out placed to argue on personalitys behalf. The essentialist argument that underpinned some of the North American and Australian analyses proposed that women had a particular relationship with nature by virtue of their biology (predominantly as actual or voltage child bearers) and that this proximity to nature qualified them to speak more articulately on natures behalf see, for example, Spretnak 1989 Daly 1978).Different authors drew on each position to different degrees, and much of the critique of ecofeminism (well articulated in Biehl 1991) over the past 20 years has foc utilise on the problems per ceived with essentialism, and on the validity of a shared experience between the human and non-human.Dennis metalworker (2001), in discussing the role of gender in peace and conflict, has argued that essentialism is often used as a tool to mobilize a group or so a perceived characteristic which sets it apart, and, certainly, cultural ecofeminism (prioritizing essentialist arguments) did so. Its strength was to demonstrate the curtain raising of a way of thinking and being which reversed the normal pecking order in which men stood at the peak however, little academic feminist environmental thinking is currently framed in this way.