This theoretical exploration is an attempt to conceptualize the link between gender and urban environmental health. The proposed ecofeminist framework enables an understanding of the link between the urban physical and social environments and health inequities mediated by gender and socioeconomic status. This framework is proposed as a theoretical magnifying glass to reveal the underlying logic that connects environmental exploitation on the one hand, and gendered health inequities on the other. Ecofeminism has the potential to reveal an inherent, normative (...) conceptual analysis and argumentative justification of western society that permits the oppression of women and the exploitation of the environment. This insight will contribute to a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying gendered environmental health inequities and inform healthy public policy that is supportive of urban environmental health, particularly for low‐income mothers. (shrink)

In Nature Ethics: An Ecofeminist Perspective, Marti Kheel explores the underlying worldview of "nature ethics," offering an alternative ecofeminist approach. Seeking to heal the divisions between the seemingly disparate movements and philosophies of feminism, animal advocacy, environmental ethics, and holistic health, Kheel proposes an ecofeminist philosophy that underscores the importance of empathy and care for individual beings as well as larger wholes.

In his book The Incompleat Eco-Philosopher, Anthony Weston addresses interrelated methodological, conceptual, epistemological, educational and philosophical issues in contemporary reformist (or mor...

Author Susanne Claxton offers a new ecophenomenological perspective to Heidegger and his engagement with the Greeks, and an alternative to the ruling binary in environmental ethics of anthropocentrism and ecocentrism.

As the all-nurturing earth mother goddess. Ruether points out that merely replacing a transcendent male deity with a female one does not answer the "god-problem." What we need, in her view, is a vision of a much more abundant and creative source of life. "A healed relation to each other and to the earth calls for a new consciousness, a new symbolic culture and spirituality." writes Ruether. "We need to transform our inner psyches and the way we symbolize the.

We contribute to the scientific debate by studying the storylines, discourses and related normative judgments in parliamentary motions by private members of the Swedish parliament from the time period 2010–2019. The paper makes use of an ecofeminist theoretical framework to problematize these storylines, discourses and normative judgments. We conclude that the focus in the material is on economic and technical issues, while issues of justice play a marginal role. None of the important dimensions of energy justice are adequately considered (...) and many of the dominant storylines and discourses are based on the implicit assumption that issues of justice are insignificant. (shrink)

The superiority of democracy over other political systems in detecting and responding to ecological problems lies in its capacity for correctiveness. That this correctiveness is not operating well in liberal democracy is a further reason for questioning its identification with democracy. The radical inequality that increasingly thrives in liberal democracy is an indicator not only of the capacity of its privileged groups to distribute social goods upwards and to create rigidities which hinder the democratic correctiveness of social institutions, but is (...) also an indicator of their ability to redistribute many ecological ills downwards and to create similar rigidities in dealing with ecological ills. It is therefore not democracy that has failed ecology, but liberal democracy that has failed both democracy and ecology. Ecological denial is structured into liberalism in multiple ways, particularly through its reason/nature dualism, its limitation of democracy, its disposition of public and private spaces, and its marginalisation of collective forms of life. A radical democratic alternative would reshape the public/private distinction to open the way for a public as well as a private ethics of environmental responsibility, for the diffusion of practices of responsibility and care through crucial areas from which liberalism strips them, and for the development of a democratic culture which displaces reason/nature dualism. (shrink)

I discuss six problems with Warwick Fox’s “The Deep Ecology–Ecofeminism Debate and Its Parallels” and conclude that until Fox and some other deep ecologists take the time to study feminism and ecofeminist analyses, only disputes—not genuine debate—will occur between these two parties. An understanding of the six issues that I discuss is a precondition for such a debate.

This essay develops an ecofeminist, environmental justice perspective on the shortcomings of “choice” rhetoric in the politics of women’s reproductive self-determination, specifically around fertility-enhancing technologies. These new reproductive technologies (NRTs) medicalize and thus depoliticize the contemporary phenomenon of decreased fertility in first-world industrialized societies, personalizing and privatizing both the problem and the solution when the root of this phenomenon may be more usefully addressed as a problem of PCBs, POPs, and other toxic by-products of industrialized culture that are degrading (...) our personal and environmental health. The NRTs’ rhetoric of choice is implicitly antifeminist: it blames the victim by attributing rising infertility rates to middle-class women who delay childbearing while struggling to launch careers; it conceals information about adverse health effects and solicits egg donation and gestation services from women disadvantaged by economic status, nation, and age; and it offers no choice at all for the millions of female animals—chicks, cows, turkeys, pigs, and others—whose fertility is regularly manipulated and whose offspring are commodified as products for industrialized animal food production. An intersectional analysis shifts the discourse away from reproductive choice to a framework of ecological, feminist, and reproductive justice. (shrink)

This paper critiques a conception of intelligence central in AI, and a related concept of reason central in moral philosophy, from an ecological feminist perspective. I argue that ecofeminist critique of human/nature dualisms offers insight into the durability of both problematic conceptions, and into the direction of research programmes. I conclude by arguing for the importance of keeping political analysis in the forefront of science and environmental ethics.

NoViolet Bulawayo’s recently published novel titled, Glory, fictionalises the tragic fall of Robert Mugabe from the helm of power. The removal of Mugabe from power through the 2017 “military coup” engendered a problematic narrative that depicted the former first lady, Grace Mugabe as the biblical Eve’s doppelganger. The purported resemblance of Eve, a character from sacrosanct text, and Grace of contemporary Zimbabwe is often based on mythical and misogynist (mis)interpretations of the former as an epitome of sin and the latter (...) as instrumental to Mugabe’s demise. Arguably, the construct of Eve in Zimbabwe and the personified allegory in the fictive society of Bulawayo is profoundly laden with semantics and tropes of power together interwoven with innuendoes that denigrate women. This article reflected upon the ‘blame Eve myth’ with interlocking discourses of toxic politics and religion that reinforce phallocentric attitudes and practices that denigrate the female gender in Zimbabwe. Ecofeminism enriches the discussions of the novel Glory as a satire that provides imperative fictional sites to chart these intricate discourses. Ecofeminist framework offers insights that enrich the discussions of Eve’s myth and other representations which disparage women in the novel, Glory. The study concludes that blaming Grace Mugabe in her fictional doppelganger Marvelous, symbolically illuminates how women and the feminised nature are both insulted and held accountable for woes that befall humanity in both the fictive nation of Jidada and its referent Zimbabwe. Contribution: Ecofeminist conceptual framework has rarely been used to examine the complex connection between gender, politics, religion and nature in Zimbabwean fictional writing. Thus, this study offered fresh insights that are significant in understanding these subjects from a multidisciplinary perspective because the analyses and readings of the novel were based on literary criticism, political discourse and theology. (shrink)

Many familial and cultural traditions rely on animals for their fulfillment - think of Christmas ham, Rosh Hashannah chicken soup, Fourth of July barbeques, and so forth. Though philosophers writing in animal ethics often dismiss interests in certain foods as trivial, these food-based traditions pose a significant moral problem for those who take animals’ lives and interests seriously. One must either turn one’s back on one’s community or on the animals. In this paper, I consider the under-theorized area of intra-cultural (...) critique. My focus is how we should think about and seek to resolve inter-animal conflicts of interest that arise within our own communities and cultural or religious groups. How should a theory that takes animals seriously approach a conflict between animals’ interests and culturally important human interests in the context of one’s own cultural, ethnic, or religious group? How, for example, should we think about the person staring down at a bowl of her grandmother’s chicken soup while recognizing the moral impermissibility of slaughtering chickens for human consumption? In contrast to traditional approaches that fail to take these robust, food-based, interests into account, I offer an ecofeminist approach that highlights the importance of respecting animals’ interests while also undertaking the work of moral repair to address damage done to relationships of love and care in the process. (shrink)

In this essay, Davion argues that many arguments appealing to an “intuition” that reproductive cloning is morally wrong because it is “unnatural” rely upon an underlying moral assumption that only heterosexuality is “natural,” an assumption that grounds extreme homophobia in America. Therefore, critics of cloning who are in favor of gay and lesbian equality have reasons to avoid prescriptive appeals to the so-called “natural” in making their arguments. Davion then suggests anticloning arguments that do not make such appeals.

: In this essay, Davion argues that many arguments appealing to an "intuition" that reproductive cloning is morally wrong because it is "unnatural" rely upon an underlying moral assumption that only heterosexuality is "natural," an assumption that grounds extreme homophobia in America. Therefore, critics of cloning who are in favor of gay and lesbian equality have reasons to avoid prescriptive appeals to the so-called "natural" in making their arguments. Davion then suggests anticloning arguments that do not make such appeals.

In this essay, Davion argues that many arguments appealing to an “intuition” that reproductive cloning is morally wrong because it is “unnatural” rely upon an underlying moral assumption that only heterosexuality is “natural,” an assumption that grounds extreme homophobia in America. Therefore, critics of cloning who are in favor of gay and lesbian equality have reasons to avoid prescriptive appeals to the so-called “natural” in making their arguments. Davion then suggests anticloning arguments that do not make such appeals.

Ecofeminism is a term coined by Françoise D’Eubonne in her book Feminism or Death to show the affinities between ecology and feminism. Both women and nature are perceived as passive elements and like women who complain about patriarchal constraints, ecologists shed light on the impacts of human exploitation over nature which is affected by pollution. Some dimensions of ecofeminism are present in Leslie Marmon Silko’s The Yellow Woman. The postmodern novel contains a female character who forges a link with the (...) natural surroundings and is in a direct contact with some natural elements like plants and animals. What is specific about the heroine is that she escapes her matriarchal society and goes back to nature in order to reconstruct her identity. At the end of the narrative, the female narrator leaves the natural setting and goes back to her family to replay social roles. The present article sets out to study the importance of Mother Nature for the female narrator and to examine the affinities between Earth Mother and the female protagonist. The first part will offer a theoretical background about the basic principles of ecofeminism. Then, my analysis will touch upon the aspects of ecofeminism in the novel. However, the last part will focus on the way the narrator goes beyond her matriarchal culture and reshapes female identity. (shrink)

The feminist critical deconstruction of Western culture and theology written by Luce Irigaray could be said to represent a certain branch of ecofeminist perspectives on religion. The article analyses the symbolic structures of suppression of women, body and nature and the exaltation of spirit, culture and the androcentric God, inherent in four hymns included in the new supplement to the book of hymns in the Lutheran Church of Sweden. The analysis shows that these symbolic structures are visible also in (...) these more recent hymns, even though they can be said to also consider and bring out women's experiences. Despite their `feminist' approach, they have not, on any deeper level, affected the subordination of women and the nature-given. (shrink)

I discern in Greek myths of the goddess Athena traces of the idea of domination of mind over senses, and that men were seen as superior to women because of their naturally ruling mind. The Athenian, Platonic, androcentric, hierarchical worldview saw women as physically inferior to men. Behind courageous, wise Athena, lies Plato’s dualistic philosophy of reason, and the ideology of control. We must make a distinction between a dualistic philosophy and a holistic approach to reality. Ancient goddess Hestia’s inextinguishable (...) flame as energy of all life extended to the entire world can be read as symbolizing the interrelatedness of all life. (shrink)

The concept of diversity is at the center of environmental and social movements. This paper discusses four aspects of diversity related to agriculture: biological, social, cultural, and product and suggests that viewing diversity solely as difference skirts the issues of redistribution of power and shifting social relations. Ecofeminist conceptions of diversity are discussed with a focus on seeds, forests, and sustainable agriculture. Women's activities at the grassroots level provides new insights and pathways to diversity that combine social, agricultural, and (...) biological issues. (shrink)

The question of what an African ecofeminist environmental ethical view ought to look like remains unanswered in much of philosophical writing on African environmental ethics. I consider wha...

The question of what an African ecofeminist environmental ethical view ought to look like remains unanswered in much of philosophical writing on African environmental ethics. I consider wha...

For ecofeminists within academic contexts, the classroom is another "contested terrain "where transformative eco-cultural work should be integrated. In our case, we are a part of communication studies and try to adopt ecofeminist insight as a position for questioning dominant discourses and practices. To do this, we "incorporate popular culture as a serious object of politics and analysis" (Giroux 1997, 148). It is our hope that popular culture can be used as an ecofeminist tool for interrupting hegemonic power (...) relations and encouraging critical-relational consciousness. This paper reports an exploratory effort aimed at combining ecofeminist critiques with popular culture to employ an ecofeminist pedagogy. It begins with an ecofeminist critique of the "animal-industrial-complex" (Noske 1989). In this critique, discursive moral agents are situated within the anthropocentric and androcentric culture (Payne 1994). It then articulates an ecofeminist teaching philosophy and describes how that philosophy was applied in one case using an episode from a prime time television cartoon. Finally, it draws conclusions about what is accomplished through this exploratory case. (shrink)

The pain caused by the patriarchal totalitarianism of different modern political regimes is felt by everyone in our time: poverty, unemployment, high exploitation of both nature and humans, systematic oppression, persecution and domination, and pollution that threatens human existence. This article analyzes the different forms of patriarchy in contemporary China and explores a feminist way out. The first part examines how modern patriarchy unfolds itself through the land-enclosure movement that has caused serious pollution in China. I will show that the (...) patriarchal process of development is a double exploitation of both nature and humans. The second part turns to the patriarchy in traditional Chinese philosophies and explores possible dangers in Confucian feminism. In the last part I try to posit as a solution Daoist ecofeminism as a new democracy, wherein the feminist ontology and the freedom of all beings will be explored. (shrink)

The ecofeminist critique of dualism is applied to a consideration of two alternative paths that we might take in transplantation medicine: the utilization of organs and tissues taken from nonhuman animals, and/or further development of techniques for employing human organs and tissues, including human fetal tissue. It is concluded that from an evolutionary perspective, the assumption of a vast value disparity between human and nonhuman life is untenable, and from a moral point of view the establishment of yet another (...) institution based on a dualistic opposition between human life, postulated to be of ultimate value, versus devalued, disposable "other" life is unacceptable. We are urged to forego xenotransplantation and instead take responsibility for whatever manipulations we choose, respectfully, to make with life that is already valued as "self" rather than "other.". (shrink)

Anarchism provides a useful set of theoretical tools for understanding and resisting our culture’s treatment of non-human animals. However, some points of disagreement exist in anarchist discourse, such as the question of veganism. In this paper I will use the debate around veganism as a way of exploring the anarchist discourse on non-human animals, how that discourse can benefit more mainstream work on non-human animals, and how work coming out of mainstream environmental discourse, in particular the ecofeminist work of (...) Val Plumwood, can likewise benefit anarchist thought. Ultimately I will show that anarchism and some of the more radical strains of environmental philosophy such as ecofeminism can greatly contribute to each other and to Critical Animal Studies. (shrink)