Environment & Eco-Feminism

SYNOPSIS
ENVIRONMENT & ECO-FAMINISM
INTRODUCTION
The term “ecofeminism” was born of the last three decades, which intersects two critical
perspectives - ecology and feminism. It liberates political and social construction for those who
abhor the designation of nature and women. The word ‘ecology’ derives from the biological
science of natural environmental systems. It is a combined movement of socio-economic and
biological study to examine how human use of nature is causing pollution of soil, air and water,
and destructions of the natural systems which threatens the base of life. Feminism - a complex
movement with multiple layers centralizes on full inclusion of women in both political and
economic field against patriarchy, exploitation, oppression and violence against women.
According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary,(2010) “ Ecofeminism is defined as a
philosophical and political theory and movement which combines ecological concerns with
feminist ones, regarding both as resulting from male domination of society”. According to
Webster’s New World Encyclopedia (2013), “Ecofeminism is a movement or theory that applies
feminist principles and ideas to ecological issues.”1
From the various definitions we can assume that ecofeminism is the outcome of amalgamation
of feminism and environmentalism Ecofeminism can be taken as an activist academic movement
whose primary aim is to address and eliminate all forms of domination and recognizing and
accepting the interdependence and connection that humans have with Mother Earth.2
ECO-FEMINISM
Ecofeminism, also called ecological feminism, branch of feminism that examines the
connections between women and nature. Its name was coined by French feminist Françoise
d’Eaubonne in 1974.3 Ecofeminism uses the basic feminist tenets of equality between genders, a
revaluing of non-patriarchal or nonlinear structures, and a view of the world that respects organic
processes, holistic connections, and the merits of intuition and collaboration. To these notions
ecofeminism adds both a commitment to the environment and an awareness of the associations
1
Agarwal B., The Gender and Environment Debate: Lessons from India, in “Feminist Studies”, 18, 1, Spring 1992,pp. 119-158.
2
Agarwal B., The Gender and Environment Debate: Lessons from Indiain N. Rao -L. Rurup -R. Sudarshan (eds.), Sites of
Change: The Structural Context for Empowering Women in India, EFS & UNDP, 1996
1

made between women and nature. Specifically, this philosophy emphasizes the ways both nature
and women are treated by patriarchal(or male-centered) society. Ecofeminists examine the effect
of gender categories in order to demonstrate the ways in which social norms exert unjust
dominance over women and nature. The philosophy also contends that those norms lead to an
incomplete view of the world, and its practitioners advocate an alternative worldview that values
the earth as sacred, recognizes humanity’s dependency on the natural world, and embraces all
life as valuable.
Eco-faminism is two words together Ecology and feminism. Broadly, it is a feminist ecological
movement that began in the 1970’s and 1980’s.Karen Warren (1997)4gives a summary of the
connection between feminism and environmental issues in her book Ecofaminism: Women,
Culture, and Nature. She asserts that there is a relationship between the domination of women
(and others) and the domination of nature. Therefore, the movement generally claims that
ecology is a feminist issue and that feminism is an ecological issue. Eco-feminism, as an
inclusive movement, and it involves analyses of problems at an institutional or systemic level.
Eco-faminism are concerned with these types of issues:
 Oppression of Women, Nature, and Others
 Racism, Classism, Homophobia
 Political, Ideological, and Degradation
 Epistemological, Historical, Health and Technological issues related to Women and the
Environment.5
The eco-faminism movement stresses the conceptual relationship between the sexism and
patriarchy which serves to dominate women and the domination and subordination of the
natural environment. Generally, eco-feminists blame patriarchal ideology for both sexism
and what they call naturism, by which they men the domination of the natural world.
REASONS FOR GROWING ECO-FEMINISM
Movements all over the world that are dedicated to the continuation of life on earth, like the
Chipko movement in India, 6Anti-Militarist movement in Europe and the US, movement against
dumping of hazardous wastes in the US, and Green Belt movement in Kenya, are all labeled as
“ecofeminist” movements. These movements attempt to demonstrate the “resistance politics”
(Quinby 1990) working at the micro-levels of power and point to the connections between
women and nature. They also claim to contribute to an understanding of the interconnections
4
Baviskar A., Red in Tooth and Claw? Looking for Class in Struggles over Nature, in R. Ray-M. Fainsod Katzenstein (ed.),
Social Movements in India-Poverty, Power, and Politics, Oxford University Press, Delhi 2005.
5
Dietrich G., Reflections on theWomen’s Movement in India, Horizon India Books, New Delhi 1992.
2

between the domination of persons and nature by sex, race and class. Ecofeminism emerged in
the West as a product of the peace, feminist and ecology movements of the late 1970s and the
early 1980s. The term “Ecofeminism” was coined by the French writer Francoise d’Eaubonne in
1974. It was further developed by Ynestra King in about 1976 and became a movement in 1980,
with the organization, in the same year, of the first ecofeminist conference – “Women and Life
on Earth: Ecofeminism in the 80s”, at Amherst, Massachusetts, US (Spretnak 1990).
The conference explored the connections between feminism, militarism, health and ecology. It
was followed by the formation of the Women’s Pentagon Action, a feminist, anti-militarist, anti-
nuclear war weapons group. According to ecofeminist Ynestra King: “Ecofeminism is about
connectedness and wholeness of theory and practice…(it sees) the devastation of the earth and
her beings by the corporate warriors, and the threat of nuclear annihilation by the military
warriors as feminist concerns. It is the same masculinist mentality which would deny us our right
to our own bodies and our own sexuality and which depends on multiple systems of dominance
and state power to have its way”(King 1983).7
Whenever women protested against ecological destruction, threat of atomic destruction of life
on earth, new developments in biotechnology, genetic engineering and reproductive technology,
they discovered the connections between patriarchal domination and violence against women,
the colonized non-western, non-White peoples and nature. It led to the realization that the
liberation of women cannot be achieved in isolation from the larger struggle for preserving
nature and life on this earth. As philosopher Karen Warren (1987) puts it: “Ecofeminism builds
on the multiple perspectives of those whose perspectives are typically omitted or undervalued in
dominant discourses, for example – Chipko women – in developing a global perspective on the
role of male domination in the exploitation of women and nature (Datar 2011). An ecofeminist
perspective is thereby…structurally pluralistic, inclusivist and contextualist, emphasizing
through concrete example the crucial role context plays in understanding sexist and naturist
practice”.8
Ecofeminism which developed from the global feminist movement have been dialectically
affected by each other. Rachel Carson, an American marine-biologist in one of her most famous
book, ‘Silent Spring’(1962), aroused a heart-touching voice of conscience in protest against the
pollution and degradation of nature. Carson’s book sowed the seeds of the modern ecology
movement that culminated in the nationwide Earth Day of 1970.9
7
Datar C., Ecofeminism Revisited: Introduction to the Discourse,Rawat Publications, Jaipur 2011
8
Dietrich G., Plea for Survival, in “Economic and Political Weekly”, February 18, 1990.
9
Dietrich G., Reflections on theWomen’s Movement in India, Horizon India Books, New Delhi 1992.
3

A French feminist Francoise d’Eabonne has been credited with coining the word ‘Ecofeminism’
in 1974 in her book “Feminism or Death”(1980). Her book has infact become a wake-up call for
all women to lead an ecological revolution to save the planet Earth. 10
The Chipko movement in 1973 began in defense of the Himalayan forest and of the subsistence-
based economy pursued by women in harmony with nature. A noted Kenyan eco-feminist,
recipient of Nobel Peace Prize in 2004, Wangari Maathai in 1977 set up the Green Belt
Movement , a non- governmental organization in Kenya which focused to promote a positive
image of women and their independence. It encouraged women to plant trees in order to combat
deforestation and environmental degradation. However between 1980 and 1981, two important
events made the movement popular on an international level: In Washington, about 2000 women
protested against nuclear power in 1980 and in 1981 there was another protest held at the
Greenham Common Missile base in England. One would never forget the incident on the night
of 2nd and 3rd December, 1984, leakage of 40 tons of toxic gas from Union Carbide pesticides
planned in Bhopal India, where women have been mostly affected. This was one of the world’s
worst industrial disasters. The Chernobyl disaster in 1986 provoked a spontaneous expression of
women’s outrage and resistance against these nuclear technologies and experiments. Thus,
Carolyn Merchant in ‘Earthcare: Women and the Environment (1995)’ writes that: “There is no
simple relationship between the ways in which nature has been gendered both positively and
negatively as female over the past two and a half millennia, and the roles of women in society.
Nature has been revered as animate mother, feared and degraded a unpredictable witch, and
plowed as virgin land. Yet forces such as the socialization of women and care takers nurturers,
the degradation of women’s livelihood and bodies, and the double burden borne by women as
workers and homemakers in capitalist, socialist, and colonized countries have often propelled
them to act to preserve both non-human nature and themselves (Merchant 1995:1). A Nobel
Laureate Svetlana Alexievich's "Voices from Chernobyl : The Oral History of a Nuclear
Disaster"(1997), is considered to be the first book to furnish personal accounts of the tragedy
from the affected people which reveals fear anger and uncertainity.11
THEORIES OF ECO-FAMINISM
Ecofeminism emerged in the 1970s with an increasing consciousness of the connections between
women and nature. The term, “ecofeminisme,” 12was coined by French writer Francoise
d’Eaubonne in 1974 who called upon women to lead an ecological revolution to save the planet.’
10
Quinby L., Ecofeminism and thePolitics of Resistance, in I. Diamond & G. Orenstein (ed.), Reweaving theWorld: The
Emergence of Ecofeminism, Random House, California 1990.
11
Bahuguna S., Women’s Non-Violent Power in theChipko Movement, in M. Kishwar R. Vanita (ed.), In Search of Answers:
Indian Women’s Voices in Manushi, Zed Books, London 1984.
12
Bandhopadhyay J. -Shiva V., Chipko, in “Seminar”, 330, February 1987
4

Such an ecological revolution would entail new gender relations between women and men and
between humans and nature. Developed by Ynestra King at the Institute for Social Ecology in
Vermont about 1976, the concept became a movement in 1980 with a major conference on
“Women and Life on Earth: Ecofeminism in the ‘SOS, ” and the ensuing Women’s Pentagon
Action to protest anti-life I nuclear war and weapons development. During the 1980s cultural
feminists in the United States injected new life into ecofeminism by arguing that both women
and nature could be liberated together. Liberal, cultural, social, and socialist feminism have all
been concerned with improving the human/nature relationship and each has contributed to an
ecofeminist perspective in different ways;
 Liberal feminism is consistent with the objectives of reform environmentalism to alter human
relations with nature from within existing structures of governance through the passage of
new laws and regulations.
 Cultural ecofeminism analyzes environmental problems from within its critique of patriarchy
and offers alternatives that could liberate both women and nature.
 Social and socialist ecofeminism ground their analyses in capitalist patriarchy. They ask how
patriarchal relations of reproduction reveal the domination of women by men, and how
capitalist relations of I production reveal the domination of nature by men. The domination
of women and nature inherent in the market economy’s use of both as resources would be
totally restructured.13 Although cultural ecofeminism has delved more deeply into the
woman-nature connection, social and socialist ecofeminism have the potential for a more
thorough critique of domination and for a liberating social justice.
LIBERAL ECOFEMINISM
Liberal feminism characterized the history of feminism from its beginnings in the seventeenth
century until the 1960s. It is rooted in liberalism, the political theory that accepts the scientific
analysis that nature is composed of atoms moved by external forces, a theory of human nature
that views humans as individual rational agents who maximize their own self-interest, and
capitalism as the optimal economic structure for human progress. It accepts the egocentric ethic
that the optimal society results when each individual maximizes her own productive potential.
Thus what is good for each individual is good for society as a whole. Historically, liberal
feminists have argued that women do not differ from men as rational agents and that exclusion
from educational and economic opportunities have prevented them from realizing their own
potential for creativity in all spheres of human life. Twentieth century liberal feminism was
inspired by Simone de Bcauvoir’s The Second Sex (1949) and by Betty Friedan’s The Feminine
13
Merchant C., Ecofeminism and Feminist Theory, in I. Diamond-G. Orenstein (ed.), Reweaving theWorld: The Emergence of
Ecofeminism, Random House, California 1990.
5

Mystique (1963). 14De Beauvoir argued that women and men were biologically different, but that
women could transcend their biology, freeing themselves from their destiny as biological
reproducers to assume masculine values. Feminism as a radical label, they believe, could
stigmatize their long term goals. On the other hand, groups such as Friends of the River, Citizens
for a Better Environment, and the local chapter of the Environmental Defense Fund employ
many women who consider themselves feminists and men who consider themselves sensitive to
feminist concerns, such as equality, childcare, overturning of hierarchies within the organization,
and creating networks with other environmental organizations.
CULTURAL ECOFEMINISM
Cultural feminism developed in the late 1960s and 1970s with the second wave of feminism (the
first being the women’s suffrage movement of the early-twentieth century). Cultural
ecofeminism is a response to the perception that women and nature have been mutually
associated and devalued in western culture. Sherry Ortner’s 1974 article, “Is Female to Male as
Nature is to Culture,” posed the problem that motivates many ecofeminists. Ortner argued that,
cross-culturally and historically women, as opposed to men, have been seen as closer to nature
because of their physiology, social roles, and psychology. Physiologically, women bring forth
life from their bodies, undergoing the pleasures, pain, and stigmas attached to menstruation,
pregnancy, childbirth, and nursing, while men’s physiology leaves them freer to travel, hunt,
conduct warfare, and engage in public affairs. Socially, childrearing and domestic caretaking
have kept married women close to the hearth and out of the workplace. Psychologically, women
have been have assigned greater emotional capacities with greater ties to the particular, personal,
and present than men who are viewed as more rational and objective with a greater capacity for
abstract thinking.’ To cultural ecofeminists the way out of this dilemma is to elevate and liberate
women and nature through direct political action. Many 1 cultural feminists celebrate an era in
prehistory when nature was symbolized by pregnant female figures, trees, butterflies, and snakes
and in which women were held in high esteem as bringers forth of life, An emerging patriarchal
culture, however, dethroned the mother goddesses and replaced them with male gods to whom
the female deities became subservient. The scientific revolution of the seventeenth century
further degraded nature by replacing Renaissance organicism and a nurturing earth with the
metaphor of a machine to be controlled and repaired from the outside. The ontology and
epistemology of mechanism are viewed by cultural feminists as deeply masculinity and
exploitative of a nature historically depicted in the female gender. The earth is dominated by
male-developed and male-controlled technology, science, and industry. Often stemming from an
anti-science, anti-technology standpoint, cultural ecofeminism celebrates the relationship
between women and nature through the revival of ancient rituals centered on goddess worship,
the moon, animals, and the female reproductive system. A vision in which nature is held in
14
Merchant C., The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology and theScientific Revolution, Harper and Row, San Francisco 1980
6

esteem as mother and goddess is a source of inspiration and empowerment for many
ecofeminists.15 Spirituality is seen as a source of both personal and social change. Goddess
worship and rituals centered around the lunar and female menstrual cycles, lectures, concerts, art
exhibitions, street and theater productions, and direct political action (web-spinning in anti-
nuclear protests) are all examples of the re-visioning of nature and women as powerful forces.
Cultural ecofeminist philosophy embraces intuition, an ethic of caring, and web-like human-
nature relationships.” For cultural feminists, human nature is grounded in human biology.
Humans are biologically sexed and socially gendered. Sex/gender relations give men and women
different power bases. Hence the personal is political. The perceived connection between women
and biological reproduction turned upside down becomes the source of wom en’s empowerment
and ecological activism. Women’s biology and Nature are celebrated as sources of female
power. This form of ecofeminism has largely focused on the sphere of consciousness in relation
to nature-spirituality, goddess worship, witchcraft-and the celebration of women’s bodies, often
accompanied by social actions such as antinuclear or anti-pornography protests.
Cultural ecofeminism, however, has its feminist critics. Susan Prentice argues that ecofeminism,
while asserting the fragility and interdependence of all life, “assumes that women and men . . .
have an essential human nature that transcends culture and socialization.” It implies that what
men do to the planet is bad; what women do is good. This special relationship of women to
nature and politics makes it difficult to admit that men can also develop an ethic of caring for
nature. Second, ecofeminism fails to provide an analysis of capitalism that explains why it
dominates nature. “Capitalism is never seriously tackled by ecofeminists as a process with its
own particular history, , logic, and struggle. Because ecofeminism lacks this analysis, it cannot
develop an effective strategy for change.” Moreover, it does not deal with the problems of
poverty and racism experienced by millions of women around the world.” In contrast to cultural
ecofeminism, the social and socialist strands of ecofeminism are based on a socioeconomic
analysis that treats nature and human nature as socially constructed, rooted in an analysis of race,
class, and gender.
SOCIAL ECOFEMINISM
Building on the social ecology of Murray Bookchin, social ecofeminism envisions the
restructuring of society as humane decentralized communities. “Social ecofeminism,” states
Janet Biehl, “accepts the basic tenet of social ecology, that the idea of dominating nature stems
from the domination of human by human. Only ending all systems of domination makes possible
an ecological society, in which no states or capitalist economies attempt to subjugate nature, in
which all aspects of human nature-including sexuality and the passions as well as rationality-are
freed.” Social ecofcminism distinguishes itselffrom spiritually oriented cultural ecofeminists who
15
Plumwood V., Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, Routledge, London 1993.
7

acknowledge a special historical relationship between women and nature and wish to liberate
both together. Instead it begins with the materialist, social feminist analysis of early radical
feminism that sought to restructure the oppressions imposed on women by marriage, the nuclear
family, romantic love, the capitalist state, and patriarchial religion.16 Social ecofeminism
advocates the liberation of women through overturning economic and social hierarchies that turn
all aspects of life into a market society that today even invades the womb. It envisions a society
of decentralized communities that would transcend the publicprivate dichotomy necessary to
capitalist production and the bureaucratic state. In them women emerge as free participants in
public life and local municipal workplaces. Social ecofeminism acknowledges differences in
male and female reproductive capacities, inasmuch as it is women and not men who menstruate,
gestate, give birth, and lactate, but rejects the idea that these entail gender hierarchies and
domination. Both women and men are capable of an ecological ethic based on caring. In an
accountable face-to-face society, childrearing would be communal; rape and violence against
women would disappear. Rejecting all forms ofdeterminism, it advocates women’s reproductive,
intellectual, sensual, and moral freedom. Biology, society, and the individual interact in all
human beings giving them the capacity to choose and construct the kinds of societies in which
they wish to live” But in her 1991 book, Rethinking Ecofeminist Politics, Janet Biehl withdrew
her support from ecofcminism, and likewise abandoned social ecofeminism, on the grounds that
the concept had become so fraught with irrational, mythical, and self-contradictory meanings that
it undercut women’s hopes for a liberatory, ecologically-sane society. While early radical
feminism had sought equality in all aspects of public and private life, based on a total
restructuring of society, the cultural feminism that lies at the root of much of ecofeminism
seemed to her to reject rationality by embracing goddess worship, to biologize and essentialize
the caretaking and nurturing traits assigned by patriarchy to women, and to reject scientific and
cultural advances just because they were advocated by men.19 Social ecofeminism, however, is
an area that will receive alternative definition in the future as theorists such as Ynestra King,
Ariel Salleh, Val Plumwood, and others sharpen its critique of patriarchal society, hierarchy, and
domination. Women of color will bring still another set of critiques and concerns to the ongoing
dialogue.
SOCIALIST ECOFEMINISM
Socialist ecofeminism is not yet a movement, but rather a feminist transformation of socialist
ecology that makes the category of reproduction, rather than production, central to the concept of
a just, sustainable world. Like Marxist feminism, it assumes that nonhuman nature is the material
basis of all of life and that food, clothing, shelter, and energy are essential to the maintenance of
human life. Nature and human nature are socially and historically contructed over time and
16
Birkeland J., Ecofeminism: Linking Theory and Practice, in G. Gaard (ed.), Ecofeminism: Women, Animals and Nat, Temple
University Press, Philadelphia 1993.
8

transformed through human praxis. Nature is an active subject, not a passive object to be
dominated, and humans must develop sustainable relations with it. It goes beyond cultural
ecofeminism in offering a critique of capitalist patriarchy that focuses on the dialectical
relationships between production and reproduction, and between production and ecology.
In his 1884 Origin of the Family, Private Property, and take State, Friedrich Engels wrote that
“the determining factor in history is, in the last resort, the production and reproduction of
immediate life. . . . On the one hand, the production of the means of subsistence . . . on the other
the production of human beings themselves.” In producing and reproducing life, humans interact
with nonhuman nature, sustaining or disrupting local and global ecologies. When we ignore the
consequences of our interactions with nature, Engels warned, our conquests “take. . . revenge on
us. ” “In nature nothing takes place in isolation.” Elaborating on Engels’ fundamental insights,
women’s roles in production, reproduction, and ecology can become the starting point for a
socialist ecofeminist analysis.
SOCIALIST ECOFEMINISM AND PRODUCTION
As producers and reproducers of life, women in tribal and traditional cultures over the centuries
have had highly significant interactions with the environment. As gatherers of food, fuel, and
medicinal herbs; fabricators of clothing; planters, weeders, and harvesters of horticultural crops;
tenders of poultry; preparers and preservers of food; and bearers and caretakers of young
children, women’s intimate knowledge of nature has helped to sustain life in every global human
habitat. In colonial and capitalist societies, however, women’s direct interactions with nature
have been circumscribed. Their traditional roles as producers of food and clothing, as gardeners
and poultry tenders, as healers and midwives, were largely appropriated by men. As agriculture
became specialized and mechanized, men took over farm production, while migrant and slave
women and men supplied the stoop labor needed for field work. Middle-class women’s roles
shifted from production to the reproduction of daily life in the home, focusing on increased
domesticity and the bearing and socialization of young children. Under capitalism, as sociologist
Abby Peterson points out, men bear the responsibility for and dominate the production of
exchange commodities, while women bear the responsibility for reproducing the workforce and
social relations. “Women’s responsibility for reproduction includes both the biological
reproduction of the species (intergenerational reproduction) and the intragenerational
reproduction of the work force through unpaid labor in the home. Here too is included the
reproduction of social relations-socialization. ” Under industrial capitalism, reproduction is
subordinate to production.Because capitalism is premised on economic growth and competition
in which nature and waste are both externalities in profit maximization, its logic precludes
sustainability. The logic of socialism on the other hand is based on the fulfillment of people’s
needs, not people’s greed. Because growth is not necessary to the economy, socialism has the
potential for sustainable relations with nature. Although state socialism has been based on
9

growth-oriented industrialization and has resulted in the pollution of external nature, new forms
of socialist ecology could bring human production and reproduction into balance with nature’s
production and reproduction. Nature’s economy and human economy could enter into a
partnership. The transition to a sustainable global environment and an equitable human economy
that fulfills people’s needs would be based on two dialectical relationships-that between
production and ecology and that between production and reproduction. In existing theories of
capitalist development, reproduction and ecology is both subordinate to production. The
transition to socialist ecology would reverse the priorities of capitalism, making production
subordinate to reproduction and ecology. 17
IMPACT ON SOCIETY
There are two reasons that make the discussion on ecofeminism relevant in this study before
focusing on the eco social activism of Wangari Mathaai, Vandana Shiva and Arundhati Roy.
First of all, the three writer activists under study are women and ecofeminists. Secondly, women
are the ones who get affected by the impact of climate change and natural disasters first and at
the same time they often play a greater role than men in the management of eco system and food
security and sustainable development. The empowerment of women can make substantial
contribution in reducing the impact of environmental degradation. Realizing the need for women
empowerment in reducing the impact of climate change,18
Wangari Maathai says: “From food shortage to forest degradation and new and more complex
health risks, as well as an increased likelihood of conflicts over resources, the impact of climate
change threats to jeopardize the lives of women and girls. But just as many women are bearing
the greatest burden of climate change, because of their role as providers of their families; it is
women who are developing the solutions that will save our world from the impact of global
warming.”
Since the early 1970’s there has been considerable interest in the relationship between women
particularly low income rural women in developing countries and the environment, that is, the
natural resource base on which development depends. Women environmental activists have also
proven to change the status of women, particularly in rural communities, creating empowerment
opportunities beyond the environmental benefits.
17
Daly M., Gyn/Ecology: The MetaEthics of Radical Feminism, Beacon Press, Boston 1978.
18
D’Eaubonne F., Feminism or Death, in E. Marks -I. de Courtivron (ed.), New French Feminisms: An Anthology, University of
Massachusetts Press, Amherst. 1980,
10

This fact is reiterated by the 52nd Session of the Commission on the status of women (2008)19
which says ‘‘…in many of these contexts, women are more vulnerable to the effects of climate
change than men—primarily as they constitute the majority of the world’s poor and are more
dependent for their livelihood on natural resources that are threatened by climate change.
To understand the context in which Ecofeminism developed its discourse and its action in India,
it is important to briefly revise the development discourse in the globalization context.
Development is a complex issue to define due to its mutability in different times of history. From
its original meaning, a biological one that is being born and gradual evolution, development
came to be known as a metaphor of growth measured by too often partial and inaccurate
indicators determining countries wealth. The most exemplary indicator of growth is the Gross
Domestic Product, which captures all final goods and services in the market of a country
produced in a specific period. On the one hand, there is no doubt about utility of GDP in
determining the economic performance of a country and hence an economic growth. On the
other, when it is used to define development some specifications should be made. It is difficult to
find a universal definition of well-being, but what is certain is that economic growth is not
sufficient to reach it. Other elements such as social relations, equity, environmental respect,
among others, made the difference. The traditional concept of development, following the
Rostow11 stages of economic growth model, can be referred to the territorial modernization that
relates directly to the growth issue. Foundations of modernization are capital accumulation,
construction of major infrastructures, big industries, and development of consumerism culture.
Each society necessarily passes through one of the five evolving stages inevitably leading to the
final phase where Western Countries are. These five stages imply:
1. Traditional Society; the main characteristics are the absence of modern science and
technology. They are pre-Newtonian societies12, being Newton a turning point for men who
become aware about laws governing nature and how to manipulate it. Productive activity is
limited without technology progress, yet most of the resources come from agriculture.
Society is organized around families ties and possession of lands. When talking about
traditional societies, they refer to dynasties in China, the medieval Europe, the Middle East
and Mediterranean, but also post- Newtonian societies which did not triggered the second
stage of growth.20
2. Preconditions for take-off; transition is initiated. Agriculture becomes more productive,
capital is accumulated, cities and industries expand. A new culture replaces the pre-existing
one and it is based on entrepreneurship. Such process takes root in the 17th century Western
Europe, when modern science is set to pervade economy and societal organization.
19
Jain S., Women and People’s Ecological Movement:A Case Study of Women’s Role in the Chipko M ovement in U.P., in
“Economic and Political Weekly”, 19, 41, 13 October 1984.
20
Rao B., Dominant Construction of Women and Naturein Social Science Literature, in “CES/ CNS”, Pamphlet 2, 1991
11

Notwithstanding the persistence of traditional values, changes in trade modalities occur and
new key words come to the fore such as profits and modernization. Internal and external
trade develops and establishes North-South relationships having the former an economic
interest in the resources of the latter. Colonial powers coexist with traditional societies and
arrive first to the third stage of growth.
3. Take-off; it is the process of economic acceleration. Society and its institutions are
governed by economic progress: production activities are more efficient, investments in
transport, communications, technology, and resources increase, industries expand through
subsidiaries as well as urban areas, agriculture is industrialized at the expenses of peasants.
Even the political power begun to regard to economic progress as a political issue to support,
for general welfare. Historically, Britain is the first the experience the take off at the end of
17th century and early 18th century, followed by the United States, Germany, Japan, and
Russia. In the 1950s China and India recovered land in the scale of economic growth.
4. Maturity; industrial growth process continues, technology innovations spread, production
processes become more complex, cities and infrastructures increasingly develop. Institutions
and societies are drafted to support economic growth.
5. Age of high mass consumption; when in 20th century, global North societies reach
maturity, per capita income raise to a level that the consumption model goes beyond basic
needs such as food and clothes.14 Companies invest on product standardization to lower
costs and widen the consumer market. American Fordism of 20th century, based on assembly
lines, product standardization and higher wages for workers, is the best expression of this
stage.
Some reflections arise about Rostow’s theory. First, it has a dichotomous approach since it
reduces the world into categories: the part that is developed and the part is not. Economic
growth stages create an unequal interpretation of us, modern and rich and the other, poor and
underdeveloped. It makes homogenous a group of countries which lacks preconditions for
take-off. They do not have entrepreneur culture; their agriculture does not become more
productive so that they are not able to accumulate capital and trigger the “development”
process. This is the discourse legitimating colonialism, and the yardstick justifying Western
paternalism and interference in the Third World. In more recent times it justifies international
economic institutions (i.e. World Bank, IMF, etc.) intervention in the form of development
aids. The other reflection is about the 5-stage process itself. As a matter of fact, in its
structure it presumes that every existing society in the world necessarily pass through such
stages, and that there is no chance that it could follow another path of development not
driven by economic rationality. The 50% of areas covered with vegetation has been
destroyed by human activities: in Tropical Asia 62% of natural habitat has been destroyed to
convert forests in crops for industrial purpose with high rate in China (99%), Bangladesh
12

(96%), Sri Lanka (86%), Vietnam (76%). 21In India every year, over a million hectares are
ceded for commercial purposes, mining ventures, large-scale dam projects, etc. millions of
hectares irrigated by industrial installations are no longer fertile due to Stalinization or
waterlogging16. 22Lands unavailability and contaminated water resulted in the destruction of
ecosystems and people’s livelihoods. One of the more effective criticism and concrete protest
actions came from women, especially those of the South of the World, which are attributable
to the ecofeminist movement.
CONCLUSION
As a combined product of ecological movement and women’s movement, Ecofeminism not
only collects the theoretical essence of feminism, but also absorbs the theoretical
perspectives of ecologism. In addition, it also inherits and develops the previous social and
cultural critical theories. Based on the integration of these theories and the multi-dimensional
perspective of theories, in the social practice of environmental movement, Ecofeminism
often combines environmental problems and women’s problems to solve, proposes to focus
on ecological problems from a female point of view, and applies female principles to
ecological movement; at the same time, it advocates to develop feminism from ecological
principles. Therefore, when inheriting the theory and views of feminism, Ecofeminism
emphasizes to recognize the importance of ecological system protection from a female
perspective and develops its vision of feminism theory in the practice of ecological
movement. There is no doubt that this call of “back to nature” has shown a strong romantic
color. Although the ultimate goals of liberal, cultural, social, and socialist feminists may
differ as to whether capitalism, women’s culture, or socialism should be the ultimate
objective of political action, shorter-term objectives overlap. According to ecofeminists, the
relationship of humans with non-human nature must be based on love, compassion,
sympathy, empathy and care. Care is of inseparable significance in human life. Through care
an individual is related with another individual. To live in harmony with each other this
attachment of one individual with another irrespective of race, class, and sex will help in
prohibiting an attitude of mastery, supremacy, control, violence and harm. But to live
harmoniously with nature, love, care and compassion must be extended towards non-human
nature also. Weaving together the many strands of the ecofeminist movement is the concept
of reproduction construed in its broadest sense to include the continued biological and social
reproduction of human life and the continuance of life on earth. In this sense there is perhaps
more unity than diversity in women’s common goal of restoring the natural environment and
quality of life for people and other living and nonliving inhabitants of the planet.
21
Warren K., Feminism and Ecology: Making Connections, in “Environmental Ethics”, 9, 1987
22
Sharma K., Contemporary Women’s Movement in India: Its Dialectics and Dilemmas, in “TheIndian Journal of Social
Science”, 5, 1, 1992
13

Enlightenment has changed the attitude of both men and women. It is only an enlightened
self that can change its attitude towards women as well as nature and endorse sustainability
for the future generation. It is now time to seriously investigate the need of women at
different strata of society and come up with solutions as aid in order to prevent exploitation.
Enlightenment of women, concern of the society for the women and governmental policies to
come up with the solutions to the problem of women need to be integrated.
References
 Agarwal B., The Gender and Environment Debate: Lessons from India, in
 “Feminist Studies”, 18, 1, Spring 1992, pp. 119-158.
 Agarwal B., The Gender and Environment Debate: Lessons from Indiain N.
 Rao -L. Rurup -R. Sudarshan (eds.), Sites of Change: The Structural Context for
Empowering Women in India, EFS & UNDP, 1996, pp. 203-253.
 Agarwal B., A Field of One’s Own: Gender and Land Rights in South Asia,
 Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1994.
 Biehl, Janet. Rethinking Ecocofeminitf Politics. Boston: South End Press, 1991,
 Carson, Rachel. Silent Spritag. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962.
 Dankehnan, Irene and Joan Davidson. Women and Environmenf in the Third world.
London: Earthscan Publications, 1988.
 Diamond, Irene and Gloria Orenstein, eds. Reweaving the World: The Emergence of
Ecofminism. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1990.
 Eisenstein, Zillah, ed. Capifalist Patriarchy and the Cue for o Socicrlist Feminism. New
York: Monthly Review Press, 1979.
 Gilligan, Carol. In (I D@ren~ Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development.
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982.
 Jaggar. Alison. Feminist and Human Nafure. Totowa, New Jersey: Rowman and
Allanheld. 1983. King, Ynestra. “Feminism and the Revolt of Nature,” Heresies, 4, no. 1
(1981):12-16.
14

SYNOPSIS
ENVIRONMENT & ECO FAMINISM
Global &National Environmental Movements
AMITY LAW SCHOOL,NOIDA,AMITY UNIVERSITY
LL.M.(MASTER OF LAW)
SUBMITTED BY: SUPERVISED BY:
SWAPNA SHIL MR.ASHWANI PANT
ENROLLMENT NO:A0851718009 ProfessorOfAmity Law School
LL.M( International Environmental Law) AMITY UNIVERSITY,NOIDA
AMITY LAW SCHOOL
AMITY UNIVERSITY, NOIDA , (2018-2019)

Environment & Eco-Feminism

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