Ecofeminism: A Compass for Alarming Times

The summer is over. I feel that I have just witnessed a distressing shift: the lazy days of summer now inspire a sense of dread. The warmer months have become synonymous with repeated heatwaves, massive wildfires and a dwindling water supply. And with the pitiful parching of the brightly coloured landscapes of Berthe Morisot, Vincent Van Gogh and Claude Monet.

This takes me back to one of the first texts I posted on my blog three years ago, « The Trees are Screaming ». At the time, I still thought it unlikely that the trees might suffer so much that their leaves would drop in the middle of summer. There is an increasingly jarring disconnect between the policies of our elected representatives and our individual struggle to cope with the sweltering heat, scorched plant life and ever-larger forest fires.

I feel that I have just witnessed a distressing shift: the lazy days of summer now inspire a sense of dread.

How could these changes not inspire a sense of dread when so many humans, animals and plants are struggling?

How can we go on with business as usual, when it has become alarmingly clear that no one seems to know how to put a stop to any of this?

When the decisions of our political leaders will not really correct our course? In the wake of this summer’s rocketing temperatures, I wish to explain why ecofeminism is the compass for my everyday life and activism.

In the wake of this summer’s rocketing temperatures, I wish to explain why ecofeminism is the compass for my everyday life and activism.

Ecofeminism is a current of thought and action that invites us to consider the interconnections between the social domination of women and nature. Both are subjected to archaic forms of systemic oppression. This established order allows a dominant minority to benefit from both the reproductive and domestic labour of women, and the riches of nature.

These resources have historically not been remunerated and have often been undervalued, even though the economy as we know it today could not function without them. Those who look after their home and family make a key contribution to society, but their work has never earned them any social rights, such as a pension, for example; nor has it ever been taken into account, on a macroeconomic level, in the GDP.

The interconnections between the social domination of women and nature. Both are subjected to archaic forms of systemic oppression.

Meanwhile, the growth of our economy is based on levels of productivity stoked by the extraction of fossil fuels because we take it for granted that nations can do whatever they wish with the underground and underwater wells that happen to fall within their borders. Just as we take it for granted that trees should be for timber and grow in artificially dense monocultures. That minerals should support our lifestyle, however dangerous or precarious the working conditions of the workers who extract these precious raw materials. That some animals should only exist to satisfy our taste buds, and live and die in abject conditions while we look away. Or indeed that a handful of powerful farming industry actors should exhaust and pollute our soil and groundwater, severely degrading them.

There is a long list of systemic dominations, but our internalised cultural norms can make it difficult for us to see them. Yet outlining the connections between domination and violence helps us to go back to the source of these oppressions. Our western civilisation was shaped by Enlightenment thought and its introduction of binaries like Man/Woman, Nature/Culture, Reason/Emotion. From the 18th century, the normalisation of these pairs of opposites led to the hierarchisation of categories that previously had existed on a continuum.

As an increasingly mechanistic vision of the universe displaced a more organic understanding of our place in the world, we learned to assume a central position and describe everything around us as inert “nature” or “environment”.

outlining the connections between domination and violence helps us to go back to the source of these oppressions.

Ecofeminism invites us to come together and deconstruct these binaries in order to challenge their normative value. Among the pioneering figures of the movement was Françoise d’Eaubonne, the French woman who coined the word « ecofeminism ».

More recently, Starhawk has broadened the appeal of the movement to larger audiences, especially in English-speaking countries. However, this civic movement has also been shaped by a very diverse range of voices, notably marginalised women from the South and North.

Ecofeminism invites us to come together and deconstruct these binaries in order to challenge their normative value.

The Chipko Movement is a case in point. In the 1970s, a group of Indian women from the foothills of the Himalayas chained themselves to trees due for felling. Dependent on timber for their livelihood, they felt compelled to resort to this non-violent collective action and eventually prevailed. A shared sense of outrage lay at the root of their initiative.

Yet the anger that prompted them to resist eventually yielded to the joy of acting together for a just cause. In the end, these rural women persuaded the Indian authorities to let the trees stand and show respect for nature. One of their leaders, Vandana Shiva, went on to become a global advocate for seed freedom and a vocal critic of Monsanto.

The Chipko Movement is a case in point.

Ecofeminism starts from the observation that our current political system is ill-equipped to solve the existential threats facing us. We will not succeed if we merely try to replace one system of domination with another power structure that also gives dominion to some over others.

Finding a lasting solution to the complex challenges that we face would require a long-term approach, as well as radical political and economic change.

Empowerment, the discovery that we all already have the power to act within ourselves, and that there is joy in individual and collective action, will help us to achieve the shift in perspective that can make this change possible.

Ecofeminism starts from the observation that our current political system is ill-equipped to solve the existential threats facing us.

Moving away from hierarchical binaries changes our values, allowing us to embrace an ethics of care and cultivate non-violence, love, friendship, sisterhood, solidarity, slowness and benevolence towards all living things.

There is much that we have to learn before we can turn away from the world of domination, competition and speed, but it is a worthwhile undertaking. As we break down the binaries that were thrust upon us, sensibility and non-power come to appear not just politically desirable, but necessary.

As we break down the binaries that were thrust upon us, sensibility and non-power come to appear not just politically desirable, but necessary.

Ecofeminism advocates consensual decision-making and experiments with deliberative and participatory democracy at different levels of society. In France, this type of decision-making has notably taken the form of citizens’ assemblies. The most well-known, the Social, Economic and Environmental Council’s 2019 Citizens’ Convention on Climate (CCC), saw a group of randomly selected citizens agree on an impressive catalogue of constraining measures that would have allowed France to meet its Paris Agreement commitments. The CCC’s recommendations were eventually shelved, however, because the National Assembly failed to turn this citizen initiative into legally binding legislation.

It is dizzying to think of the changes we have to make before we can build a more egalitarian world and live in harmony with the Earth. No one, no politician, whether male or female, however brilliant they may be, is likely to achieve this under the current rules of our representative democracies. And no one already born today is likely to live long enough to see the realisation of what is for now merely a utopian vision. It nevertheless is uplifting to know that a group of citizens that formed a representative sample of French society were able to agree on a number of difficult but necessary structural measures to curb the impact of climate chaos.

Slow living can palliate the feelings of frustration and anxiety provoked by our current political world’s inability to correct its course. Ecofeminism invites us to deconstruct the political polarisation that pushes the right further to the right and the left further to the left, and gives us the tools we need to reorganise society and its relationship to living things. It sidesteps the current political landscape, and its refusal to position itself within this framework alone opens up new possibilities and changes the rules of the game. As Bruno Latour used to say, there is no point pursuing the illusion of modernity, when what we need are new geo-social alliances.

Ecofeminism invites us to deconstruct the political polarisation that pushes the right further to the right and the left further to the left.

Ecofeminism is a diverse movement and taking part can take many forms – the joyous awakening of the rebel witch within, political action and civil disobedience, reconnecting with the Earth, emphasising the value of inner spirituality. In France, this movement is still a minor offshoot of feminism.

Simone de Beauvoir once wrote “One is not born, but becomes a woman” in response to the othering of women – “the other sex”. She – along with all the great feminists that came before us – fought for the right of women to have bodily autonomy and equal treatment at work.

the joyous awakening of the rebel witch within

Fifty years later, the world has changed, and so has feminism. While discrimination and violence against women and girls are still realities, we nevertheless are lucky to come after Simone de Beauvoir, Simone Veil and Gisèle Halimi, to mention only the three figures who have had the greatest impact on me.

These path breakers made it possible for us, as full citizens, to widen the scope of our demands and work to deconstruct our system of domination and its economic correlate, neoliberalism. I cannot be content to have the same rights as men if it is merely to make the world increasingly unliveable and unequal.

I cannot be content to have the same rights as men if it is merely to make the world increasingly unliveable and unequal.

And by the way, I strongly object to attempts to biologise women, for example the suggestion that women are naturally closer to nature and the values of care. This is counter-productive: whether such behaviours are innate or cultural is beside the point.

Everyone is invited to show up for themselves and join the collectives that advocate for humans and non-human living things. We are what we do. We all have it within us to ponder where we have gone wrong, search for answers, explore new paths and discover how best we can help to create a world where living things can thrive and future generations find meaning. Indeed, this is the only way to step into Autumn with a smile.

We all have it within us to ponder where we have gone wrong, search for answers, explore new paths and discover how best we can help to create a world where living things can thrive and future generations find meaning.