Ecofe­mi­nism: What’s the rela­ti­onship between femi­nism and ecology?

“In Europe, young people, and in parti­cular young women, stand up for the climate. We are atten­ding the end of the capi­ta­list patri­ar­chy­model“

says Vandana Shiva, Indian envi­ron­mental acti­vist, food sove­reignty advo­cate, and anti-globa­liza­tion author. Over the last few month, I have seen more and more ecofe­mi­nist slogans like: ​„Lick clitoris, not Mons­an­to’s ass“, ​„Fuck us, not the climate“, or ​„My platet, my cat, save the wetlands“. But what exactly is ecofe­mi­nism? Simply put, ecofe­mi­nism combines ecology and femi­nism. Ecofe­mi­nism is both a philo­sophy and a move­ment and arose from the connec­tion and unifi­ca­tion of femi­nist and ecolo­gical streams of thought.

Where does ecofe­mi­nism come from?

The term was coined by the French writer Fran­çoise d’Eau­bonne in Le fémi­nisme ou la mort (1974), where she argues that oppres­sion, domi­na­tion, explo­ita­tion and colo­niza­tion by Western patri­ar­chal society has directly caused irrever­sible envi­ron­mental damage.

In the 1970s the ecofe­mi­nist move­ment took root in anti-nuclear poli­tical strug­gles and mobi­liza­tions. In the United States and the United Kingdom a number of woman came toge­ther thought and campai­gned coll­ec­tively in a peaceful manner.

November 17, 1980 2000 women encir­cled the Pentagon, for them this is the work­place of impe­rial power which threa­tens them all. They were demons­t­ra­ting in a peaceful and artistic way crea­ting rituals, singing songs and weaving yarn across the entrances. 140 of them were arrested. Their mani­festo was: ​„We fear for the life of this planet, our Earth, and the life of our children who are our human future.“

Today the move­ment has evolved

As femi­nist and ecolo­gical strug­gles have changed since the 1980s, ecofe­mi­nism has also evolved. Woman reclaim the basic connec­tion between femi­nist and ecolo­gical strug­gles and their own connec­tion to nature: they become vigi­lantes of the Earth, rising up against oppres­sion and reclai­ming terri­to­ries. By fighting the forces that make nature and women suffer, ecofe­mi­nists imagine an eman­ci­pa­tory ecology for women and their commu­nity. In the Bugoma forest in Uganda, for example, women have joined toge­ther to protest and fight against defo­re­sta­tion and to sue the state to have their rights to the land they culti­vate reco­gnized. These two strug­gles are deeply connected: both defo­re­sta­tion and the lack of legal rights threa­tens the women’s ability to live off the land. In western Kenya, widows, who have become the bread­win­ners of their fami­lies, have come toge­ther to invest in sustainable inno­va­tions, such as rain­water harve­s­ting systems or agro­fo­restry – and they have banded toge­ther in poli­tical struc­tures to work coll­ec­tively to ensure their community’s food secu­rity and water supply.

Women are on the front lines of the climate crisis

As these examples suggest, around the world women are more vulnerable to the conse­quences of global warming than men. Droughts, deser­ti­fi­ca­tion and floods threaten the agri­cul­tural acti­vi­ties for which women are mainly respon­sible, even while in some count­ries those acti­vi­ties produce up to 80% of the food. Accor­ding to the UN, the risk of death is 14 times higher for women when a natural disaster strikes.

Women have always made up a larger portion of those actively fighting for our planet in both the Global North and Global South. This over­re­pre­sen­ta­tion is not only because women are more vulnerable to ecolo­gical disaster: a study by Scien­tific American suggests that envi­ron­mental acti­vism conti­nues to be perceived as an attack on ​„viri­lity.“ Femi­nist libe­ra­tion and ecolo­gical conser­va­tion are deeply linked – however the terms women and ecology are not synony­mous.

Women are more than zero waste vege­ta­rians

In the ecofe­mi­nist view, women are not natu­rally more connected to nature and the protec­tion of the envi­ron­ment than men; their asso­cia­tion with nature, matter, emotion, coope­ra­tion and care is itself a gendered stereo­type. The conse­quences of gender stereo­ty­ping in the climate emer­gency is severe. As it’s seen as the work of the women to manage recy­cling, ecolo­gi­cally conscious shop­ping, and zero waste, women have the larger mental burden in house­holds adap­ting to a post-carbon life­style.. The neces­sary changes to global north life­styles spell an increase in stress for women. To this mental load is added a ​“moral load“ through incre­asing ecolo­gical aware­ness.

The climate crisis also a gender crisis

It’s not up to women to save the planet. Instead, we must ques­tion our rela­tions of domi­na­tion and power. Ecology is ever­yo­ne’s busi­ness, not just another injunc­tion for women! The climate crisis is also a crisis of genders: Ecofe­mi­nism is ther­e­fore a move­ment that responds to this double crisis by decon­s­truc­ting our current model.

Ecofe­mi­nism works towards libe­ra­tion and envi­ron­mental protec­tion by reflec­ting on the place of women and the envi­ron­ment in our society. Gender oppres­sion and envi­ron­mental destruc­tion are not uncon­nected problems, and the only solu­tion is a system where gender roles are not opposed, where compe­ti­tion gives way to coope­ra­tion.

How can we do it ?

Accor­ding to the IPCC, to feed 10 billion people, limit global warming, and limit the degra­da­tion of ecosys­tems, we must give more power to women. They have always been exposed to discri­mi­na­tion, offi­cial or implicit, they have had to learn to circum­vent obsta­cles and impose their point of view. Nothing has better prepared them to face the gigantic diffi­cul­ties of the ecolo­gical tran­si­tion which is taking place today.

The more parity there is in poli­tical power, the more the envi­ron­ment will be protected – it’s time for the green and femi­nist revo­lu­tion!