Ecofeminism

Feminist environmentalists argue that the domination of women by men reflects and reinforces the domination of the environment by society, and that the two are understood to be linked; patriarchal gender relations in society correspond to an [Page 507]drocentric environmental ethics. Ecofeminism posits that the same masculinist habits of thinking and behavior that devalue, oppress, and exploit women also do so to nature; and are mutually reinforcing hegemonic processes pivoting around artificial Western binary oppositions interpreted by religion, science, government, and other androcentric agencies (superiority/inferiority and as domination/subordination that include human/nature, male/female, mind/body, reason/emotion, objective/subjective, and material/spiritual). Furthermore, classism, heterosexism, racism, and speciesism as well as sexism are all presumed to be interrelated. Thus, the liberation of women and of nature from male domination and ...