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Introduction
The concept of ecofeminism was initially developed in the 1970s and since then a number of important policy shifts have occurred in terms of environmental sustainability and gender equality . Ecofeminism indicates that an end to the oppression against women is intricately tied to the ecological values, and that women need to be united in their efforts to end the exploitation of the ecosystem. Despite the flaws in this notion of ecofeminism, the concept continues to be one of the most promising movements within the division of radical environmental thought. It is easy to dismiss ecofeminism as an ethic of care but merely that will not fulfil the task of emancipating both nature and humans and even though such an ethic of care represents a vast improvement over the current circumstances, recent theoretical developments in the field suggest that ecofeminism exerts a great deal of influence on both society and environment and can be relied on as a whole as a source of ethical guidelines in order to foster global emancipation . Ecofeminism therefore posits itself more than a complement to either environmental thought or feminism and categorizes itself as theory and movement which bridges the gap between ecology and feminism, but which transforms both to form a unified praxis that seeks to end all forms of domination. New theories in ecofeminism have helped to further strengthen its motives and offer a new perspective on the intricacies of the concept.
Thesis Statement
The purpose of this thesis is to analyze and understand the recent theories in the field of ecofeminism and how they affect the environment and society. The key issues discussed in this paper include the development process of the new ecofeminism theories, their impact on environment and society and how relevant they are for the evolution of the concept in the future.
Recent Theories on Ecofeminism
Non-human others
Two environmentalist/feminist writers in 2003 published on the extension of the environmental/feminist concerns into animal rights. Some critics argued that a shared framework of oppression, gendered assumptions about the relationship between non-human and human species and a feminist analysis of allocation of rights underpinned both animal rights and ecofeminism. Both the concerns tend to face the trouble of being consigned to a dualistic ‘other’ when, in reality, it happens to be more of a continuum. These sort of extensions of environmentalist/feminist concerns have started to spill into debates concerning systems of food production and recreational tasks like hunting, both of which can be enhanced by a considerable degree with the aid of an ecofeminist perspective . The dualistic way of viewing men and women has been challenged repeatedly since many critics feel that the development of a new ‘interspecies’ ethic is the only way to avoid a full scale ecological crisis, developed from human hubris, rationality, sado-dispassion and a dualistic culture which separates culture and nature.
Environmental Justice
The movement for environmental justice has expanded in scope over the past two decades. Though they are often considered two distinct ideals, ecofeminism features heavily in environmental justice and vice versa. There are numerous overlapping characteristics including the fact that from the micro to the macro level, women have a greater chance than men of being classified ‘in poverty’ throughout the world . Environmental justice has recently started to address the issue of gender instead of only race and poverty problems, and has become an important theory for ecofeminism that has emerged in the past few decades.
Implications on Environment
The new theory of embodied materialism and economic justice in ecofeminism causes a shift in concerns to the production methods to the practical life-focused solutions for social and environmental problems. The unsustainable patriarchal capitalist growth market and its technologies cause problems for the environment which cannot be solved and compensated for by the same. However, a good society is one that focuses on ecology; it does not transcend the conditions of nature or ecological boundaries and the masses take only what they need . So, the environmental resources will regenerate and sustain only when this respect for nature is implemented in human societies and that is exactly what the ideal of environmental justice represents in the field of ecofeminism and hopes to achieve by virtue of its new theories. So, the implications of the new ecofeminism theories have far-reaching consequences apart from the immediate impact on the environment.
Implications on Society
The new theories in the field of ecofeminism have had a considerable amount of influence in society. Most of the education, including environmental, currently stands at a crossroads. The new theories are trying to ensure that ecofeminism is able to rise to the challenge of social justice as well as environmental degradation with radical practice and theory instead of continuing to educate the masses as if these problems were not mutually exclusive or urgent . Ecofeminism happens to be one of the possible frameworks for radical education change and other major developments in society and the new theories have a large role to play in this context.
Works Cited
Archambault, A. (1993). A Critique of Ecofeminism. Canadian Woman Studies , 13 (3), 19-22.
Buckingham, S. (2004). Ecofeminism in the twenty-first century. The Geographical Journal , 170 (2), 146-154.
Gaard, G. (2011). Ecofeminism Revisited: Rejecting Essentialism and Re-Placing Species in a Material Feminist Environmentalism. Feminist Formations , 23 (2), 26-53.
Harvester, L., & Blenkinsop, S. (2010). Environmental education and ecofeminist pedagogy: Bridging the environmental and the social. Canadian Journal of Environmental Education , 10, 120-134.
Kirk, G. (1997). Ecofeminism and Environmental Justice: Bridges across gender, race and class. Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies , 18 (2), 2-20.
Sanati, F., Nejati, H., & Sepora, T. (2011). An Analysis of the Ecofeminist Viewpoint on Industrialization and Environmental Degradation in Starhawk's The Fifth Sacred Thing. Journal of Sustainable Development , 4 (4), 86-90.
