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1NC1NCTheir conceptualization of water as solely a resource is not neutral, but based on a western understanding of nature that allows the exploitation of nature while furthering environmental sexism by legitimizing tropes that alienate women from their laborGaard, 2001 (Greta Gaard - Western Washington University and Fairhaven College. “WOMEN, WATER, ENERGY - An Ecofeminist Approach”, Organization and Environment, Vol. 14, No. 2, pg. 160-161, June 2001, \\ethan.jxtai)Riane Eisler’s The Chalice and the Blade (1987) describes the shift from earth-based, matrifocal cultures that viewed nature as alive and sacred and valued women and men equally; she calls these “partnership” cultures, in contrast to the “dominator” cultures that slowly superceded them and in the process changed their views of nature from animistic to mechanistic, their deities from earth-based goddesses to sky gods, and their social system from networks to hierarchies. Although the associations between women and water survived the transition from partnership to dominator cultures, their meaning was reversed; no longer revered as the source of life, neither women nor water were seen as sacred in patriarchal religions. In A.D. 413, the Catholic Church decided that every child was born tainted with the original sin of its conception. It was no longer the mother’s birth waters that would bring a child to life—though once considered sacred, they were now “unclean.” Only the water blessed by a sexually abstinent male priest would bring the child eternal life through baptism (Walker, 1983, pp. 90-91). Thus, the associations between women and water continued, but in Western cultures their association signaled their shared subordination. Today, as people have for centuries, we continue to treat water as an important resource. Pure water for drinking and food preparation has been a crucial advancement in the treatment of disease. Many cultures use water for irrigation and for cleansing. Water is recognized as an environment for both recreation and transportation, a habitat for fish and other animal life. But in all of these uses, water is not usually seen as a sacred, animate source of life but rather as an essential, though inanimate, resource. Exemplifying the instrumentalism inherent in Plumwood’s (1993) master model, Western culture views water primarily as a means to its own ends, a servant to the dominant (not subordinate) population; it is difficult, in this cultural context, to imagine that water would have purposes of its own. Clean water is also treated as a resource that, like women and women’s work, does not appear in our national accounting systems. On the international market, the United Nations System of National Accounts has no method of accounting for nature’s own production or destruction until the products of nature enter the cash economy, nor does it account for the majority of the work women do. For example, Marilyn Waring (1988) has observed that in the colonial accounting systems of many developing countries, the water that rural women carry from the wells to their homes has no cash value, but the water carried through pipes has value. Moreover, a clean lake that offers women fresh-water supplies has no value in these accounting systems; once the lake is polluted, however, and companies must pay to clean it up, then the clean-up activity itself is performed by men and recorded as generating income. Only when the water is dammed, its force used to create energy that is sent over high-voltage power lines and sold to cities, does the water enter the accounting. In these ways, both water and women do not count in the international market economy. This conceptual shift is articulated in metaphorical terms as well, because not all partnership cultures have been replaced by dominator cultures. Comparing the concept of Mother Earth found in many Native American cultures with the concept of Mother Nature found in Euro-American cultures offers a case in point (Gaard, 1993). Both Euro-American and Native American cultures see a connection between women and nature, but each values women and nature quite differently. For many Native Americans, Mother Earth is to be respected and her bounty is not to be abused. From the Columbia River Plateau in Washington State, anthropologists recorded the words of Wanapam spiritual leader Smohalla, who rejected White culture; of his people’s relationship with the earth, he said, “We simply take the gifts that are freely offered. We no more harm the earth than would an infant’s fingers harm its mother’s breast” (Hunn, 1990, pp. 254-255). In contrast, the Euro-American Mother Nature is an enemy to be conquered, a force out of control unless “we” control her. At the same time, just as human mothers are expected to be self-sacrificing resources for both men and children, with no other desires or purposes of their own, the Mother Nature of Euro-American culture is expected to be all giving, to have endless supplies and resources for her children, to be always forgiving them, and to always clean up their excrement. No wonder, then, that Western culture’s elites think nothing of dumping their wastes in water, expecting Mother Nature will clean up their messes. In Euro-American cultures, the association between women and nature and the devaluation of both together exemplify one manifestation of environmental sexism.Western prioritization of capitalism and the patriarchy exploit both women and the environment while leading to mass extinctions – only an ecofeminist mindset embracing differences and our interconnectedness can solveSelam 06, Ophelia Selam - Women's Studies at the State University of New York at Binghamton, “Ecofeminism or Death: Humans, identity, and the environment”, Gale Academic Onefile, University of Puerto Rico, Faculty of Arts and Sciences //JKThe point here is to step away from alienation, and to reconnect experience as a whole with "the whole." As Merchant explains in her essay "Ecofeminism and Feminist Theory," "both women and nature are exploited by men as part of the progressive liberation of humans from the constraints imposed by nature. The consequence is the alienation of women and men from each other and both from nature" {Reweaving the Worid 103). This interconnectedness must therefore begin with a respect for all beings on the planet (including trees and plants and so on) and the realization that they are all alive. In this sense, we are trying to derail the vision that upholds the death of nature, which, as said above, does not necessarily imply a return to the "old days." According to Starhawk, "when you understand the universe as a living being, [...] then science becomes our way of looking more deeply into this living being that we're all in" {Reweaving the World 73 emphasis mine). The earth becomes a kind of "living community" {Reweaving the Worid 74). In the end, this is crucial since "a disregard for the natural ecology of a region goes hand in hand with a disregard for the natural rights of people to determine their own fate and to live in the way they choose" {Reweaving the Worid 95). The interconnectedness therefore acts within the realm of consciousness as well. Susan Griffin explains, "we think of intellectual knowledge as separate from sensual knowledge, and the spirit as belonging to a different realm entirely" {Reweaving the World 87). The result is henceforth predictable: "our experience of the world is fragmented" {Reweaving the Worid 87). Along with Starhawk, Griffin further explains, "it takes a bending of language at this point to speak of consciousness as embedded in the way we breathe, the way we stand, all the intricate numbers of relationships we have, where we live on the planet, the trees next to us" {Reweaving the Worid 93). This bending is especially necessary in order to avoid associating whole- ness with an erasure of difference. As Chris J. Cuomo points out: a crucial challenge for those engaged in ecofeminist projects is taking seriously connections, patterns, similarities, and intenwoven features of different forms of domination and exploitation without either obscuring difference and particularity through reduction, or resting in preoccupation with various forms of domination only in so far as they are related to each other" (30). An ecofeminist perspective must therefore emphasize difference while, at the same moment, seeing our interconnectedness. As a result, it is through this concoction of stories, voices, and language, that ecofeminism becomes an almost soothing expression of confusion and paradox. It inhabits this paradox and enables the freeing of expression. Far from exhibiting a fear of the unknown, it recognizes its presence with a certain amount of joy and excitement. In the end, interconnectedness creates new relations among humans and between humans and nature based on a respect for all living beings as part of one place. These new relationships compel a drastic restructuring of capitalistic patriarchy (Reweaving the World 100) that bases its view of nature on the machine model (one that can be controlled and repaired from the outside), (Reweaving the World 101). Again, it is a complete restructuring that is at stake here, not a regression; what needs to occur is not the end of an association of woman and nature, but the end of a negative association between the two, and the end of this sole association. The point is quite simple: humans and nature are connected; humans and nature are not separate. Starhawk puts it in basic terms, we all know we have to breathe; we all know we have to drink water; we all know we have to eat food; and, we all know it's got to come from somewhere. So why isn't the presentation of the environment our first priority? It makes such logical sense that it's irritating to have to say it. {Reweaving the World 78) We commonly assume that the system at work is a system that works. As a result, ecofeminism posits that a system that "works" does not make for a "good" system, or the only system that could "work." The system in place, as mentioned earlier, is indeed one that posits clean, clear-cut visions of the world devoid of chaos. Indeed, and quite ironically, the world is simplified not only through language—through the erasure of certain cultures and histories—but literally through the destruction of hundreds of species each year. In fact, it is this simplification that causes disorder, for "diverse, complex ecosystems are more stable than simple ones" (Reweaving the World 108). As mentioned above, the "Gaia hypothesis" proposes that the planet is one single living organism and that cooperation, through difference, has always been a stronger force in evolution than competition (Reweaving the World 112). Whatever the scientific merits of this theory, it remains an important thought. And through this very simple act, it prevents ecofeminism from being a dualistic world-view. Indeed, ecofeminism attempts to mimic nature by creating balance within difference, balance within chaos, and therefore seeing chaos as balance. Here again, the irony should not go unnoticed: it is this simplification of nature, cultures, and beings that continues to create new problems (ecological disasters, wars...). Vandana Shiva provides us with an example of this kind of methodology when speaking of colonialism. In her essay "Development as a New Project of Western Patriarchy," she explains that "a replication of economic development based on commercialization of resource use of commodity production in the newly independent countries created internal colonies" {Reweaving the Worid 189). So called "development" and hence colonialization result in the destruction of diversity in nature, other cultures etc. It removes people from the land, water, and forests by destroying an individual's direct link and control over "her or his" part of land. In fact, so-called "development" brought to the Third World has proven time and time again to be detrimental to women who have typically bore the costs but have been excluded from the benefits {Reweaving the World 190). Women are affected more deeply by famines because they hold the role of the feeder, the caretaker of children, the aged, and the infirm, while, in many cases, men are forced to migrate and work for industries. In the end, "maldevelopment is thus synonymous with women's underdevelopment (increasing sexist domination) and with nature's underdevelopment (deepening ecological crisis)" {Reweaving the Worid 193). The reasons, as said above, are very simple: first, there is a disregard for the diversity of things, and second. Western patriarchal bourgeois world's self-interest is deemed universal. It in turn imposes it on others {Reweaving the Worid 193) and calls it "eco- nomic growth," progress, and civilization. This so-called progress, civilization, and economic growth all guide us into poverty: monetary poverty for most, cultural poverty for all. As Shiva puts it, "the paradox and crises of development arise from the mistaken identification of culturally perceived poverty as real material poverty and the mistaken identification of growth of commodity production as solving basic needs" {Reweaving the World 199). This is, again, because development brings impoverished water, land, and genetic wealth {Reweav- ing the Worid 199); it brings simplification and hence chaos. So here we are, in the twenty first century, with this history to base our theories and an environment that is still degrading rapidly. What do we learn from this? The problems have origins (emphasis on the plural), they are deeply imbedded in our everyday practice, and they are slowly (or not so slowly) actually killing us. We there- fore begin from this point: the problem is urgent; change is needed NOW. The very person who coined the term "ecofeminism," Fran- goise d'Eaubonne (Le feminisme ou ia mort (Feminism or Death)), understood this fact completely. What does it mean to read a text, published in 1974, that alarmingly informs the reader of the problems of overpopulation and air pollution (the growing presence of C02 in the atmosphere in Paris for example)? Sighing with exasperation, the reader remembers that C02 concentrations in the air have only grown since 1974 and have now, in 2006, reached unprecedented height. And with further alarm, the reader looks out the window and perhaps notices the changes in climate, the growing distressing documentaries on the melting of ice caps, species on their way to extinction, failed efforts to stop the destruction of the rain forest, the multiplication of sandstorms and hence desertification, erosion of the top soil, etc. So with these few realizations in mind, we understand that whatever the semantics chosen to speak of the problem, the fact remains that there really is a problem and that it will, in due time, affect everyone on the planet. What else have we learned? Well, that the destruction of the earth is just another sign of the destructive powers in the hands of human beings that base their vision of the world on supposed clear cut binaries (read Truths) which, in turn, transform themselves into hierarchies. And from these hierarchies comes a specific assigned treatment. This, as we have said, is called "oppression." So what do we do? Ecofeminism tells us that unless we understand the full scope of the possibilities of oppressive acts, then we cannot effectively end oppressive practices, discourse, etc. The point, as Karen Warren her- self once made (in Feminism and Ecology), is that feminism without ecology cannot be true feminism; it becomes a blind feminism that fights oppression on the one end, but perhaps perpetuates it on the other. With this in mind, how can one motivate others to embrace some of ecofeminism's major principles? FrameworkK is PriorThe K is prior - re-understanding our values and relation to the environment develops an environmental culture that challenges the dominant narrative of human rationalismPlumwood, 2001 (Val Plumwood. “Environmental Culture - The Ecological Crisis of Reason”, pg. 3-5, Routledge, December 20 2001, ISBN 9780415178785 \\ethan.jxtai)Environmental culture and the crisis of reason The deterioration of the global ecological context of human life demands from our species a clear and adequate response, but we are seemingly immobilised, even though it is clear that at the technological level we already have the means to accomplish the changes needed to live sustainably on and with the earth. So the problem is not primarily about more knowledge or technology; it is about developing an environmental culture that values and fully acknowledges the non-human sphere and our dependency on it, and is able to make good decisions about how we live and impact on the non-human world. For the dominant global cultures of the west, the response to the crisis must either be about democratic cultural change of this kind or it must be about top-down solutions imposed on a supposedly recalcitrant citizenry, as in the extreme example of the Eco- Republic I discuss in Chapter 3. I use the term ‘cultural’ here in several ways; first to recognise some multiplicity in standpoints, situations and responses, and second, to mark a contrast with the fantasies of top-down strategies for ecological survival that seem to tempt many scientists and even some citizen environment groups. Since, as I argue in Chapter 3, such eco-authoritarian strategies are doomed over the longer term, (genuinely) democratic cultural change strategies are our best hope. The focus on culture marks a contrast with the kind of reverse ecological analysis, often originating in reductionist population biology, that reads the reductionism it adopts towards nonhuman species back into the human context and discounts the vital role of cultural difference, and by implication, projects of cultural and social change that can help us acknowledge our ecological embeddedness. It also marks a contrast with economic reductionist or determinist ways of addressing ecological issues, common both to Marxism and neo-liberalism, that focus on explanatory and change strategies exclusively or excessively in the economic field. The distortions that have produced the crisis appear across a wide range of areas in the dominant culture and require correspondingly broad projects of change. I use the term ‘culture’ as a way to focus on how deep, wide and multi-levelled the cultural challenge must be to the systems that relate us both materially and in terms of attitude and ideology to the ecological world we all-too-unwittingly inhabit. In its fullest meaning, developing environmental culture involves a systematic resolution of the nature/culture and reason/nature dualisms that split mind from body, reason from emotion, across their many domains of cultural influence. The ecological crisis requires from us a new kind of culture because a major factor in its development has been the rationalist culture and the associated human/nature dualism characteristic of the west. Human/nature dualism, as I argued in Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, is a system of ideas that takes a radically separated reason to be the essential characteristic of humans and situates human life outside and above an inferiorised and manipulable nature. Rationalism and human/nature dualism are linked through the narrative which maps the supremacy of reason onto human supremacy via the identification of humanity with active mind and reason and of non-humans with passive, tradeable bodies. We should not mistake rationalism for reason – rather it is a cult of reason that elevates to extreme supremacy a particular narrow form of reason and correspondingly devalues the contrasted and reduced sphere of nature and embodiment. Feminist thinker Elizabeth Gross puts her finger on the basic denial mechanism involved in the irrationality of rationalist forms of reason when she writes that the crisis of reason ‘is a consequence of the historical privileging of the purely conceptual or mental over the corporeal; that is, it is a consequence of the inability of western knowledges to conceive their own processes of (material) production, processes that simultaneously rely on and disavow the role of the body’.1 The ecological crisis can be thought of as involving a centric and self-enclosed form of reason that simultaneously relies on and disavows its material base, as ‘externality’, and a similar failure of the rationalised world it has made to acknowledge and to adapt itself adequately to its larger ‘body’, the material and ecological support base it draws on in the long-denied counter-sphere of ‘nature’. Rationalism and human/nature dualism have helped create ideals of culture and human identity that promote human distance from, control of and ruthlessness towards the sphere of nature as the Other, while minimising non-human claims to the earth and to elements of mind, reason and ethical consideration. Its monological logic leads to denials of dependency on the Other in the name of an hyperbolised autonomy, and to relationships that cannot be sustained in real world contexts of radical dependency on the Other. That the Other is an independent being on whom one is dependent is the child’s first and hardest lesson, even before the lesson that the nurturing Other must in turn be nurtured. It is a lesson that some children never properly learn, and neither do some cultures of denial. Rationalist culture has distorted many spheres of human life; its remaking is a major but essential cultural enterprise. The old reason-centred culture of the west which has allowed the ecological crisis to deepen to the current dangerous point may at one time have facilitated the dominant culture’s comparative advantage over and conquest of other more modest and ecologically-adapted cultures on this planet. This is speculation, but what is not speculation is that in an era when we are reaching the biophysical limits of the planet, this reason-centred culture has become a liability to survival. Its ‘success-making’ characteristics, including its ruthlessness in dealing with the sphere it counts as ‘nature’, have allowed it to dominate both non-human nature and other peoples and cultures. But these characteristics, and the resulting successes in commodifying the world (or producing ‘cargo’), are only too clearly related to our longer-term ecological and ethical failures. We must change this culture or face extinction. The ecological crisis we face then is both a crisis of the dominant culture and a crisis of reason, or rather, a crisis of the culture of reason or of what the dominant global culture has made of reason. Some might be tempted to suggest that reason is an experiment on the part of evolution, and that its hubris and inability to acknowledge its own dependency on the ecological order show that reason itself is ultimately a hazard to survival. But we would not need to deliver the sweeping and pessimistic judgement that reason itself is dysfunctional if we recognised reason as plural, and understood its political character as part of its social context. It is not reason itself that is the problem, I believe, but rather arrogant and insensitive forms of it that have evolved in the framework of rationalism and its dominant narrative of reason’s mastery of the opposing sphere of nature and disengagement from nature’s contaminating elements of emotion, attachment and embodiment. Increasingly these forms of reason treat the material and ecological world as dispensable. The revision of our concepts of rationality to make them more ecologically aware and accountable is one of the main themes of this book. Reason has been made a vehicle for domination and death; it can and must become a vehicle for liberation and life.Gendered and othered subjects are silenced by dominant discourses – means that evaluating dominant epistemology is a prior question Wolfstone 15 (Irene F. Wolfstone is an educator who holds an BA from University of Manitoba and an MA in Integrated Studies from Athabasca University. She is currently a Bombardier scholar in doctoral studies at the University of Alberta where her research explores Indigenous matricultures, cultural continuity, and climate change adaptation. "Deconstructing Necrophilia: An Ecofeminist Contribution to Growth."?Canadian Woman Studies, vol. 31, no. 1, 2015, pp. 7-13. ProQuest, .) ZEBacon silenced nature so that she could be exploited. Similarly continental psychoanalysts silenced women by denying them a subjective voice and european colonizers silenced other cultures by denying them subjectivity. Silenc ing the other’ is a colonialist strategy: “the de-mothering of nature through modern science and the marriage of knowledge with power was a source of subjugating women s well as non-European people” (Shiva, Staying 18). Freud and Lacan projected their male morphology onto the entire female gender, presenting their phallocentric imaginary and symbology as a universal truth. According to Lacan, there can be no women subjects. Subjectivity requires language, and language is masculine, grounded in the Phallus as universal signifier. Women qua women, therefore, cannot speak. When women speak, when women take up subject positions, it is not as women, but as imitation males, men in drag (Jantzen 43). Grace M. Jantzen diagnoses Lacan’s disordered think ing as masculinist repression and suggests a therapy by which the “material and maternal basis must be brought to consciousness” (97). Gayatri Spivak uses the term “othering” for the process by which colonialist discourse creates “others”— those that are homogenized and marginalized by mastering them. When Spivak asks, “Can the subaltern speak?” she does not mean that it is impossible for the subaltern to reclaim a voice; she posits that when the subaltern speak, they create a voice consciousness that may not be perceivable by dominators because it is not pertinent or useful to the dominator (Spivak 80). The correct mindset is key a prerequisiteTrone, 2018 (Cynthia D. Trone - MA @ Lesley University. “A Buddhist Perspective on the Global Environmental Crisis: Poetics of the Wild”, pg. 11-12, Mindfulness Studies Theses, 2018, \\ethan.jxtai)Mindfulness as a means to create behavioral changes that could make positive impacts on slowing or reversing global warming is emerging as an important new field of study. In developing the potential for modern lifestyles to benefit from mindfulness, a program is being introduced at the University of Wisconsin that is highly innovative. An 8-week course called Mindful Climate Action (MCA) is a multidisciplinary program focused on mindfulness-based trainings to address and modify behaviors related to environmental sustainability (Barrett et al, 2016). The study will ask the participants to look at their behavior, and “challenge the assumption that human health and happiness require large fossil fuel energy inputs” (p. 106). The curriculum includes meditation, with education about living sustainably, and insights focused on slowing climate change. Mindful eating, sustainable diet, water usage, exercise, energy conservation, climate connections, consumption, and ethical considerations will be integrated into the program. This program is just developing this year, and has great potential to be a model for ongoing studies and education, and may “represent a new ecological paradigm” (p. 108). This paradigm could inform future mindfulness programs that foster individual awareness of responsibility for environmental change. Contemplative studies that address the adaptation of human response to sustainability in the midst of climate change are scarce. But it could be the inner transformation of a flexible and open consciousness that brings valuable awareness to the urgent need for social and environmental change. Through mindful attention to consumer behavior, and clear awareness of the importance of sustainability, possibilities for individual responses to global warming become attain able. Sweden’s Lund University has created a new graduate course called “Sustainability, Mindfulness and Compassion” which indicates the possibility for wider academic space in this field. Current knowledge on mindfulness in sustainability is both scarce and fragment ed; however, it is gaining increasing momentum. The field is only just emerging; nearly all of the relevant literature has been published in the past 5 years. While there appears to be increasing consideration of mindfulness in sustainability re- search, practice, and teaching, most is related to practice. (Wamsler, et al, 2017, p. 9) Christine Wamsler, Professor of Sustainable Studies and expert in city development with a focus on inclusive climate change adaptation, approaches sustainability with both scientific and mindful disciplines. “We conclude that mindfulness can contribute to understanding and facilitating not only individual, but societal sustainability at all scales,” she writes. “We end with a call for more sustainability research that acknowledges positive emotional connections, spirituality, and mindfulness in particular, recognizing that the micro and macro are mirrored and interrelated” (p. 11). This current work in the field of sustainability reflects the importance of environmental mindfulness in understanding and encouraging individual responsibility for solutions relating to global warming. Discourse mattersEcofeminist discourse is a necessary first step to addressing oprression of a system upheld by academics, policymaking, and languageSelam 06, Ophelia Selam - Women's Studies at the State University of New York at Binghamton, “Ecofeminism or Death: Humans, identity, and the environment”, Gale Academic Onefile, University of Puerto Rico, Faculty of Arts and Sciences //JKFar from having a stunting effect, the presence of this paradox actually propels feminist thought into the very act of liberation, a practice that cannot be thought of as stagnant, but instead necessitates transgression in the Foucauldian sense, one that demands constant rethinking, constant restating, and constant retelling of stories (or the multiplication and complication of the entity called "history"). In other words, a feminist perspective can only complicate the actual telling of stories by employing a tone that defies typical academic writing without undermining it. It can also create stories that cannot define a reader, but that instead play with limits of storytelling and understanding. Within this framework, so-called "history" can now be seen as the effect of discursive attribution rather than as an attribute of individual will (Scott 124). Concurrently, "feminist thought" can create a polemic, one that is both epistemological and a provocation to action. It is through these kinds of exercises that a feminist—and especially an ecofeminist perspective—bring forth the need to question an entity such as "feminine writing," and hence, "feminine identity." But this text's endeavor does not arrogantly assume the possibility of creating a fixed and definite "feminine writing" or "feminine identity" or even a "feminist argument." The point, instead, is to witness the necessary slipperiness of these very concepts. And to help this slipperiness and to make it more "tangible," we will turn our attention to the advent of ecofeminism as such and to what it makes possible within the paradoxical "nature" of feminist practice. For a feminist text exists due to our inherently denied paradoxical existence. And with the help of a field such as ecofeminism, a practice that re- works dualism and provides a means in which to think of feminism outside of the expression of a shared identity, our identity can then be placed outside of accepted categories, outside of the "you are not this" parameter. However, if questions of writing and identity are at the center here, it is the concept of oppression (and the necessity to keep this very word) that acts as a driving force (the drive, that is, to end op- pression). However banal the existence of oppression may be, the point here Is to maintain the emotional standing of the word without reducing it to something meaningless. For in its most basic form, oppression refers to forces, which prevent a being, from growing to its (her/his) full potential physically and/or mentally. In addition, oppression implies a certain form of structure which operates at the level of knowledge; it implies a system of thought that is present within every fiber of society: its language, its actions, its morals, its laws, etc. The fight against oppression, therefore, is a fight against what most consider vital to the existence and co-existence of life itself. In the end, when knowledge and power are joined through discourse (Foucault 100), neither can be seen as stable and binary. And within this "multiplicity of discursive elements" (Foucault 100), any form of resistance to power is going to be plural. As a result, oppression is power when it has become non-negotiable and naturalized. Oppression, as a system, stays the same. What changes are the ways in which this system is maintained and how, in the end, it permeates our relations with other beings. In order to address all the issues above, we will now turn to Carolyn Merchant's The Death of Nature, and the collection of essays edited by Irene Diamond and Gloria Feman Orenstein entitled Reweaving the World. The AFF’s environmental discourse is rooted in the modern-day dominant narrative of techno-optimism. A true solution to the ecological crisis requires restructuring culture and knowledgePlumwood, 2001 (Val Plumwood. “Environmental Culture - The Ecological Crisis of Reason”, pg. 5-8, Routledge, December 20 2001, ISBN 9780415178785 \\ethan.jxtai)The role of the dominant narrative of reason in framing the crisis is rarely able to emerge clearly because it is so pervasive, as much taken for granted as part of the framework of our thought as the air we breathe. Familiar explanations of ecological failure are themselves framed in terms of that same cultural narrative, whose culmination we see in the global economic regimes that threaten the biosphere. Thus current environmental thinking tends to gives us a choice of naturalistic versus rationalistic explanations and nostrums. According to the naturalistic version of the dominant narrative, the blame for our plight should be allocated in the usual place, to the symbolically-female, nature side of the hyperseparated and warring pair, reason versus nature. It is fundamentally nature, perhaps as our ‘natural’ human selfishness or greed, or as our animality and blind instinct to breed,2 which has led us astray ecologically. And it is reason intensified that will be our hero and saviour, in the form of more science, new technology, a still more unconstrained market, rational restraints on numbers and consumption, or all of these together. But while we remain trapped within this dominant narrative of heroic reason mastering blind nature there is little hope for us. For the narrative itself and its leading characters are a key part of the problem, leading us to reproduce continually the same elements of failure – including the arrogance and ecological blindness of the dominant culture – even while we seek desperately for solutions within it. Reason in the form of scientific or technical fix also plays the hero in some alternative rationalistic and techno-optimist scenarios. Science will save us, provided we do not lose our nerve or our faith in techno-reason and our will to continue along our current path, however precarious it may seem. This is the scientific equivalent of saying that all will be well if the edicts of the market are applied with even more severity. It is less than rational because it does not take due account of the possibility of being wrong, as any fully rational position must. In another variation, it is reason in the form of the market economy and technology that will solve the problem itself, perhaps by new discoveries, perhaps by bringing about ‘natural capitalism’, which is set to save the day through voluntarily ‘dematerialising the economy’ and producing wonders of technological innovation such as the hypercar.4 The idea of a more energy efficient economy creating more employment with less materials is highly relevant to any improvement, and to ending overconsumption. But only a certain range of problems are touched by this ‘dematerialisation’ solution. The term ‘natural’ in ‘natural capitalism’ is meant to indicate both the movement of capitalism to less wasteful technology and its moving in that direction ‘naturally’, without political effort, which is carefully discounted by proponents of Natural Capitalism. But does it seem likely that global capitalism will take such a direction of its own volition when to date its unhampered movement has taken it in precisely the opposite direction, to shedding labour at the expense of increasing materials and energy throughput? The social forces that could or would make ‘natural capitalism’ take a benign direction of this kind when it is basically unaccountable remain unexplained; ‘natural capitalism’ is a deus ex machina. Increasing corporate embeddedness and responsibility is certainly not the way the rationality of capitalism is going; to assume that it is, that no political and democratic effort will be required to move it in a different direction, is either politically naive or culpably misleading. To the extent that he is ‘rational’, the corporate hero of the disembedded market locates his operation on a barge in cyberspace, searching for sufficiently ruthless or desperate localities that will minimise his costs, including allegiance, responsibilities, materials and wages. A prioritised and increasingly disembedded global market is rapidly stripping away any social or ecological embeddedness that has been achieved through centuries of democratic struggle in the national economies, using the relentless engine of global competition. To the extent that it negates the need for systematic action or deeper rethinking, relying on ‘natural’ capitalism to arrive and save us simply delays addressing the basic problems, which are not primarily technological but social, political and cultural-symbolic. Capitalism is going green ‘naturally’, Lovins et al. suggest, because greater efficiency in materials and energy is in its own interests. But capitalism must surely be divided on this score, since such a reduction is not in the interests of materials and energy producers, a big proportion of the corporate cast and some of the most powerful. In Natural Capitalism, efficiency in energy and materials is presented as the whole answer when in fact it is only a portion of the answer. If we used a fraction of the resources we currently use to build hyper-efficient solar-powered trawlers or bulldozers that continue to strip what is left in the oceans and forests, the biosphere could still be seriously damaged. More materials-efficient technologies can be used to destroy nature more efficiently, especially where there is no deeper recognition of limits or of our dependency on healthy ecological systems. It can meet human needs with less, it is true, but it is not human need the rationalist economy deals with but effective market demand, which can always be increased. Greater materials efficiency, as a technical fix, can stretch ecological limits, but it is not a substitute for the cultural process of recognising those limits, nor will it necessarily contribute to that process. ‘Natural capitalism’ will deliver some useful innovations, but what ratiogenic monsters, Frankenstein species and other negative innovations will also be created through the system’s relentless drive to substitute speed and spatial expansion for reproduction time (as Teresa Brennan has so brilliantly explained),5 and to replace naturally occurring entities by rationally engineered substitutes that are designed as market ‘equivalents’ but that have non-equivalent ecologically disruptive properties that do not register in the economic system? In an alternative version of the techno-optimist fantasy more favourable to state intervention, it is administrative reason that will rescue us. A benign covey of neutral policy makers and economic experts will manipulate ‘economic instruments’ in the interests of our long-term survival, easing capitalism gently into a dematerialisation act through regulations and ‘best practice’ standards, while a passive, consenting citizenry waits patiently for this rational economic nobility to save the day.6 Poll results showing strong and continuing public concern about the environment are cited to allay any fears about the potentially undemocratic character of this kind of solution. The same elite culture and developmentalist rationality that led us into the mess, it is assumed, will lead us right out again, without the need for any other substantial change. As in the imaginatively limited kind of science fiction that depicts a depressingly familiar range of social relationships in highly unfamiliar planetary settings, nothing outside technology itself is really envisaged as changing. The assumption that the political will can come out of nowhere to establish ecologically benign technology regimes by administrative fiat fails to consider that technology in the context of its larger culture, or to ask the key question: in what political and social circumstances could such solutions be stable and effective? 7 Technofix solutions make no attempt to rethink human culture, dominant lifestyles and demands on nature, indeed they tend to assume that these are unchangeable. They aim rather to meet these demands more efficiently through smarter technology, deliberately bracketing political and cultural reflection and admissions of failure8. But we did not just stumble by some freak technological accident into the ecological mess we have made, and it will take more than a few bright boys and better toys to get us out of it. Our current debacle is the fruit of a human- and reason-centred culture that is at least a couple of millennia old, whose contrived blindness to ecological relationships is the fundamental condition underlying our destructive and insensitive technology and behaviour. To counter these factors, we need a deep and comprehensive restructuring of culture that rethinks and reworks human locations and relations to nature all the way down. Reason can certainly play a role in this rethinking, but it must be a fully self-critical form of reason that does not flinch from examining its own role in the crisis.Representations matter and reinforce sexism and speciesismMyers, Charlene. 1999. The (non)enforcement of the convention on international trade in endangered species of wild fauna and flora (CITES): An ecofeminist and postmodernist perspective. Humanity and Society 23(2): 143-163.For instance, sexist and speciesist words link animals and women, and serve to preserve the notion that both are worthy of less consideration than men(Dunayer,1995). The myths of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, "man's dominion over the animals," and the "fall from grace" serve to denigrate both women and animals(Merchant,1996). The advent of the scientific revolution legitimized man's attempt to subdue nature and bring it into submission (Merchant,1996; Cartmill, 1993). The elitist position of science has also created the situation where pseudoscience can fairly easily be disguised as, and pass for, science (seeZimmerman,1995; Hoyt, 1994;CallicottanddaRocha, 1996).EpistemologyEcofeminist epistemology is a prior question to understanding relations and obligation to natureNhanenge 11, Jytte Nhanenge is a Danish citizen who has been working with development in Africa for many years. “Ecofeminism : Towards Integrating the Concerns of Women, Poor People, and Nature into Development”, ProQuest, //JKEcofeminist Epistemology Is Relevant KnowledgeSeen in this post-modern light, ecofeminist theory is a rational perspective. It is holistic, based on interdependence between science, society, nature, reason, emotion, facts, and values. Recognition of such interdependence is the first step towards legitimate knowledge. It is the only way to assure the inclusion of all voices, counting also the voice of the environment, in which these people express themselves. One unified view of the world is bound to exclude the lives and experiences of many people; a unified view therefore produces fragmented knowledge, which contributes to the various global crises. However, a commitment to context, pluralism, and diversity does not mean that we will abandon truth and values. Instead, we must face the fact that truth and values are constructed. They play a central part in our conceptual framework. Since we have different backgrounds, there are also alternative true and right world-versions. It is not that there is no objective, external reality, there is but the objects are both materially given and socially constructed. Thus, we must understand the way in which we regard natural objects in the broader social and institutional context. Such attention must play a central role in deliberation about moral obligations to nature. We therefore need more than only objective facts. Knowledge claims are not neutral facts; the values of the culture, which generate them, influence them. Hence, ecofeminism believes that facts are theory-laden, that theories are value-laden, and that historical and philosophical ideologies, social norms, and individual processes of categorization mold values. Yet, Lori Gruen warns that generating this kind of relevant knowledge requires methodological humility. It involves respect for differences and the assumption that one cannot immediately understand concepts or events. It encourages one to withhold early judgement, to learn to listen, and to see oneself relationally. (Gruen 1994; Warren 2000.)In sum, interdependent, subjective, and diverse experiences inform an ecofeminist epistemology. It is holistic, process-oriented, context-bound, inclusive, and affective. It is consistent with the systems theory, Smuts’ holism, and I Ching. Since it equally values feminine, yin forces and masculine, yang forces, it is a non-dualised knowledge system. One may therefore be optimistic and trust that an ecofeminist epistemology could dismantle patriarchal domination in all its forms. In doing that, an ecofeminist knowledge system could increase the quality of life for humans and non-humans alike. It could help to create peaceful ways to resolve differences. An ecofeminist epistemology would therefore be important for ameliorating the four crises. (Gebara 1999.)Ethics come firstA framework of morality is the most ethical – rationality is used to unfairly justify oppression and violenceLahar 91 – Stephanie Lahar (director of the counseling/human relations program at Woodbury College, professor for the Environmental Program at the University of Vermont, served on the Commission on the Status of Women, writer/activist, founding member of the Burlington, Vermont Conservation Board), “Ecofeminist Theory and Grassroots Politics,” Hypatia, Spring, 1991, Vol.6, No. 1, Ecological Feminism, pg 36-37, , /niki.aThe first parameter I have outlined is that ecofeminism be treated as a moral theory-a prescriptive psychological and social model that includes an idea of future potential and how best to unfold it, not just an analysis of how things were in the past or are currently. Philosopher Amelie Rorty defines such a theory and what it should do: Besides characterizing the varieties of well-lived lives, and formulating general principles and ideals for regulating con- duct, a moral theory should tell us something about how to get from where we are to where we might better be. While it needn't prescribe a decision procedure for determining every detail of every choice and action, it should, in a general way, be action- guiding: constructing a robust ethical theory requires an astute understanding of psychology and of history (1988, 15; italics added). Furthermore, a moral theory must emerge out of a felt sense of need and personal connection with the issues at hand, not just out of an abstract process of reasoning. Ethical systems based only in abstracted values fail to draw real commitments and can too easily be used as tools of manipulation and deception-for example, to rationalize military aggression on the basis of furthering democracy. Ecofeminism must be adequately grounded and contextualized to be a "robust" and action-guiding ethical theory. It should, therefore, have a foundational characterization of reality (an ontology) and escape some of the traps of classical philosophy that have helped to support conceptual splitting and dualisms. In particular, ecofeminism needs to avoid assumptions of either classical materialism or classical idealism, with connotations of inanimate substance set in opposition to a purely subjective, psychic, or spiritual quality. This means that we must develop concepts and personal sensibilities of self and world that move beyond conceptual dichotomies. Our paradigms and experiences of self and world must be monistic but differentiated to reflect their real basis in earthly life, accounting for both the integrity of individuals and collective realities and functions. Util BadUtil fails to account for non-human interestsHaab and Whitehead, 2006 (Tim Haab is a Professor in the Department of Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics at The Ohio State University and John Whitehead is a professor in the Department of Economics at Appalachian State University. Both work on a blog called Environmental Economics. Environmental Economics, 6-9-2006, "The Problems and Limitations of Utilitarianism," Environmental Economics, )/bencWhen it comes to the environment utilitarianism runs into even greater problems because humans are the sole deciders of what has value, and intrinsic value for non-humans is paradoxically granted only through human action. If a person gains utility from shooting an elephant or eating whale meat that can only be weighed against other people’s utility derived from protecting that elephant or whale; the animal’s interests for its own sake are assumed to be zero. The claim that only human interests count is not based on reason or any ethical system, but simply done by fiat. It is essentially no different than claiming that only one nation has value, or one family, or an individual person; it is essentially an arbitrary dividing line a world of millions of types of living entities, many of whom are highly intelligent social creatures with a great capacity for pleasure and pain. As a side note, advances in genetics are making it even harder to support arguments based on a unique species claim because it is likely that a male monkey has more genetic similarity with a male human than a male human has with a female human; obliterating the clear distinctions that humanity has clung to for millennia. I was recently motivated to consider these issues because of the renewed interest in whaling among some of the most advanced nations in the world (Japan,?Norway, and?Iceland). Some people in these countries (very few) desire to eat whale meat, and believe that this rather superficial interest supersedes the right to life of some of the most highly evolved creatures on the planet. The fact that whales can be harvested “sustainably” yet again shines light on the problematic nature of the utilitarian doctrine. We could probably kill thousands upon thousands of all types of whales, dolphins, turtles, elephants, rhinos, lions, and tigers and not wipe out any entire species, but does our simple desire to eat them or kill them for sport entirely negate their individual right to existence? The point is not that we should scrap utilitarianism; it has many useful purposes and at some level we do need to be able to sum up benefits and costs using a common metric in the public policy arena. But we can all agree that there are some actions that are wrong in and of themselves, and therefore, are not subject to any utilitarian calculus. I think the sooner that we can all understand the limitations of utilitarianism and think more broadly about the interests of animals and the environment we will come to realize that many of our actions today are immoral and should be stopped regardless of whether they or sustainable or not, or in some limited sense pass a cost-benefit analysis test.A new focus on populations disproportionately affected by developmental policy rather than an anti-democratic “greater good” key to a more ethical environmental justice frameworkBraun 15 – Yvonne A. Braun, (Professor of Global Studies at the University of Oregon, research interests in gender, development, environment, inequality, and intersectionality), “Interrogating large-scale development and inequality in Lesotho – Bridging feminist political ecology, intersectionality, and environmental justice frameworks,” A Political Ecology of Women, Water, and Global Environmental Change (Edited by Stephanie Buechler – Assistant Research Professor of Environmental Policy at the University of Arizona - and Anne-Marie Hanson – Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Illinois Springfield), 3/1/2015, /niki.aAs the development authorities and the state appropriated the material and natural resources of local communities for national economic growth, they codified the value of these resources in ways that reflected a privileging of private property, men’s ownership of resources, and formal, wage work. The project authorities’ limited interpretation of the value of agricultural production in these rural communities minimized the productive and generative nature of agricultural fields for household consumption, income, and entrepreneurship as demonstrated above. In particular, the work of rural people, their labor and their businesses, were undervalued or unvalued as livelihoods and left out when calculating the costs of the consequences of social and environmental change involved in large-scale dam development. Even as rural highlanders directly relied on natural resources to fulfill their daily responsibilities—as farmers, cultivators of gardens and riverine forests, gathering fuel and stones, collecting wild vegetables and herbs, and fetching water—their labor was naturalized and unacknowledged, undervalued to the extent that it did not warrant compensation in the calculations made by development authorities. The exploitation of natural resources and ensuing environmental change were presented as development in this context, which was complexly interwoven and supported by modernist assumptions about the invisibility and lack of productivity of rural people’s livelihoods. When interpreted through an environmental justice framework, these evaluative practices are an extension of an ideological position rooted in neoliberal modernization. On the one hand, large-scale, utilitarian development solutions such as large dams are seen as efficient solutions for using underutilized natural resources such as rivers and modernizing “underdeveloped” or poor societies, the consequences being justified through an argument of national development for “a greater good” (Roy 2000). Environmental justice and feminist political ecology, however, raise questions about which communities absorb the otherwise hidden or invisible consequences and who receives disproportionate benefits of “the greater good.” In this case, the disruption of rural communities—the appropriation of their fields, the relocation of their homes, and the privatization of their commons—as a result of the LHWP is premised on the privileging of market-based evaluations of resources and livelihoods and the anti-democratic assumption that political and financial elites have the right to make top-down decisions that literally sell the river, and the communities that rely on it, on a calculation of increasing GDP as a measure of a nationalistic “greater good.” While there is an environmental injustice in the paradigms that support dam building in the Third World, there is also classism and discrimination within Basotho society regarding who can absorb the costs of this nationalistic project. The remote, rural highlanders’ lives and livelihoods are less valued than the urban, educated elite, mostly men who hold the majority of decision-making power within Lesotho and control the limited local credibility within the global international development industry. In considering neoliberalism, nationalism, and development through the lens of environmental justice and feminist political ecology, a critique of global and national development agendas that transform communities and landscapes irreparably, while unevenly distributing the social and ecological costs and benefits of these national mega-projects, emerges. Whether large dam building is a case of elite self-deception about the real, lived consequences of mega-projects or a demonstration of the power of ideology and social distance in creating these kinds of nationalistic solutions to poverty and development, the environmental justice framework asks whether these elite decision-makers would prescribe and support mega-dams if they lived in the communities directly absorbing the costs? If the burdens and benefits of these projects were more evenly distributed and if those absorbing the costs of this project were involved in the decision-making, how might the moral and policy calculations be different? The environmental justice framework demonstrates the need to take egalitarian and democratic commitments more seriously and interrogate claims of “the common good” by carefully including those most likely impacted by a proposed policy in a conversation about their “good.” An intersectionally oriented feminist political ecology pushes us to consider these questions of justice through attention to power across scales and in their interconnections. In this way both feminist political ecology and the critical analytic of environmental justice may align with its normative appeal to create more just development policies informed from the perspective of lived experience rather than a singular paradigm of economic growth and market gain. Frameworks of utilitarianism always sacrifice women and other oppressed peopleLahar 91 – Stephanie Lahar (director of the counseling/human relations program at Woodbury College, professor for the Environmental Program at the University of Vermont, served on the Commission on the Status of Women, writer/activist, founding member of the Burlington, Vermont Conservation Board), “Ecofeminist Theory and Grassroots Politics,” Hypatia, Spring, 1991, Vol.6, No. 1, Ecological Feminism, pg 37, , /niki.aBasically, we are looking to develop a better alternative to a classically Western atomistic, materialist worldview-without simply flipping to its polar opposite, a holistic, idealist one with a mirror-image set of problems. Ultimately, an atomistic view that reduces life to its smallest increments endangers our lives through a fascination with the manipulation of genes and nuclear power, ignoring the interlocking relations, functions, and activities of natural and social communities. And yet holism as a principle that gives superior explanatory power and/or value to a collective entity or community can also endanger our lives by undermining the integrity of individuals and their specific needs and interests. Women and other oppressed categories of people should be especially wary of paradigms that could be construed as advocating the sacrifice of individual needs to a "greater whole"-whether that be the family, society, or "Gaia," a planetary entity. The latter has made its appearance as an ideal in some ecofeminist writing after James Lovelock took the ancient Greek earth goddess's name to describe his scientific theory of the earth as a self-regulating organism, and this was taken up by various poets, philosophers, and ethicists as a paradigm for nature. I believe, along with Marti Kheel, who writes from the context of animal liberation, that ecofeminist theory must be especially careful in outlining its guiding principles to "address the importance of individual beings as well as the larger whole" (1990, 9). The key to incorporating the integrity of individual and collective realities is an expanded concept of nature that we, as gendered human beings, can then find a place in. We must understand "natural" and "social" histories (as well as our personal lives) as processes of differentiation and incorporation that are expressions of nature rather than emerging out of nature. This way we neither annihilate ourselves in nature (reducing ourselves to a small and therefore expendable part) nor sever ourselves from the nonhuman environment and from those aspects of ourselves unmediated by social processes. At the core of the expanded concept of nature that I advocate is the rejection of a subject/object split at its root - the opposition of human consciousness and a mechanical nature - and the adoption, instead, of an ontology of nature as fundamentally material and subjective. This acknowledges different types of subjectivity in natural phenomena that include (but are not limited to) human life and mental processes. In these terms human consciousness is a specialized form of subjectivity but in no way exclusive or original. Imbuing nature with both materiality and subjectivity provides a substantial basis for commonality as well as differences between human beings and nonhuman life, without the mystification of a discontinuous conceptual leap from nature to human existence.LinksWater LinkThe aff protection of water resources recreates normative dualisms Gaard, 2001 (Greta, western Washington University, Fairhaven College. “Women, Water, Energy: An Ecofeminist Approach,” Organization & Environment, the industrialized world today, one of our most intimate contacts with water occurs over the toilet. Where did we get the idea that water was a place for waste? And how does that idea cohere with the fact that we need clean drinking water to survive?Although the water-borne toilet has been found in civilizations as diverse as the Roman empire (27 B.C.E.-284 C.E.) and in western India's Harappa civilization (circa2500 B.C.E.), it was not until 1596 that the flush toilet was invented by Sir John Harrington (Stauffer, 1999; Wright, 1960). Almost 200 years later, improvements were made that solved the odors of Harrington's toilet, and the water closet caught on in the early 19th century at about the same time the Industrial Revolution has? tened the shift of population from sparsely populated rural areas to more densely concentrated urban areas. Most towns were not prepared for the influx of population, and excrement collected in courtyards, alleyways, and streets; diseases such as diarrhoea, gastroenteritis, dysentery, typhoid fever, and even cholera were easily spread. Sanitary campaigners across Europe argued for a shift away from cesspools and privy vaults (which were not designed to deal with such large volumes of waste and thus were in constant danger of overflowing) to a system of sanitary sewage. By "sanitary sewage" they meant sewers built to carry the raw sewage away from the streets and into rivers and lakes, because engineers believed that "running water purified itself' (Stauffer, 1999, p. 7). Not surprisingly, this theory proved false, causing major outbreaks of typhoid fever in downstream cities, and highly polluted waterways. Finally, at the beginning of the 20th century, modern sewage treatment methods were developed.And this is where we are today: On one hand, we know we need pure water for drinking, for human and for environmental health; on the other hand, we still use waterways as sewers. This dichotomous view of water-pure water/ wastewater? parallels other normative dualisms of thought: wilderness/civilization, nature/cul? ture, virgin/whore, White/of color, reason/emotion. And these normative dualisms are at the root of Western culture's troubled relationship with nature.Water protection is synonymous with hypermasculine domination – it reifies man vs nature hierarchies which continually devalue and subjugate women and the environmentStrang 14 “Lording It over the Goddess: Water, Gender, and Human-Environmental Relations.” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, Volume 30, Number, Spring 2014, pp. 85-109. The concept of “the environment” itself underlines the reclassification of the nonhuman world as “other.” Such objectification is fundamentally alienating,78 and there are key relational differences between societies that dwell “within the sphere” of their material surroundings, and those for whom the earth is a “globe” to be acted upon.79 The latter view assumes ownership and authority, supporting Plumwood’s earlier argument that Nature-Culture dualism produces unequal social dichotomies and alienation from nonhuman species.80 Such concerns, articulated by the feminists and conservationists of the 1960s and 1970s, echoed the Romanticism of the late 1800s, which was similarly critical both of social elites and the “rationalization” of nature.81 But patterns of change have intellectual and material momentum. In primarily masculine colonial enterprises, patriarchal beliefs and values asserted their authority despite humanitarian critiques and indigenous resistance.82 Missionary evangelism was not just directed at conquered societies: there was an equally zealous technological Crusade to tame and dominate the “wilderness” of “virgin territory.”83 Nowhere was this more apparent than in colonizers’ efforts to control and channel water resources.84 Dams, canals, and irrigation were seen as vital civilizing enterprises, most particularly in arid places.85 Journalist Ernestine Hill’s classic account of Australian irrigation schemes initiated in the late 1800s describes the transfiguration of a continent by irrigational science.? .? .? . The invisible and illimitable waters of Australia are now being revealed and redeemed, in affinity with our fertile soils to be a habitation for mankind. . . . the sweeping floods lost in sea and sand, can all be saved. . . . Australia Felix was an arid waste, a hell of heat and flies. . . . The Lord gave the rains and rivers only to dry them up and take them back again. One man questioned the divine Creator’s plan, a Glasgow Scot named Hugh McColl. . . . Irrigation was his cry.86 This modern serpent slayer/water conqueror linked up with another Australian hero, Alfred Deakin, who “looked far into the future and saw ‘the bare and blinding desert transmuted by industry and intelligence into orchards and fields of waving grain.’ . . . The Victorian Government listened with interests to the youthful St Paul, approved his plan and set him to achieve the miracle.”87 Hill’s account describes the “Miracle of the Murray,” the “Apostles of Irrigation,” and a vision of “Utopia on the Murray.” There are biblical “Years of the Locust,” “Gentle Rain from Heaven,” and sometimes punitive “Acts of God.” But as McColl’s reported willingness to “question the divine Creator’s plan” attests, this was not just an assertion of monotheistic authority; rather, it was equally an instrumental vision of human (male) agency, in which “the environment” was an object of material subordination. The twentieth-century secularization of water heavily submerged its religious meanings. As H2O philosopher Ivan Illich argues, it became “not water, but a stuff which industrial society creates. . . . [T]he twentieth century has transmogrified water into a fluid with which archetypal waters cannot be mixed.”88 Core generative meanings were still celebrated in the lakes and elaborate fountains symbolizing the social capital of the rich. The construction of urban water-supply systems expressed the agency and moral rectitude of Victorian philanthropists. But, as these examples suggest, the process of controlling water—abstracting it, treating it chemically, redistributing it through sophisticated distribution schemes—had acculturated it sufficiently that it was more readily imagined as a product of human, primarily male, actors: engineers, chemists, and water managers. Though secularity is often presented as diametrically opposed to religious thinking, Durkheim’s view of religious cosmologies as a mirror of sociopolitical arrangements can be as readily applied to scientific understandings of the world. There is coherence between the authority of science and that presented by patriarchal monotheism. Both, in effect, place “expert” knowledge and the agency of events in male human hands and support hierarchies of power in which women and nonhumans are disempowered. Both are upheld by what political scientist Niamh Reilly calls “oppressive discursive practices” that enable subjugation and exploitation.89 By separating Culture and Nature, both encourage an instrumental approach in which both people and things are only valuable if they are “productive” in the right way. Such utilitarianism is exemplified by recent ideas about “ecosystem services” in which each aspect of ecology, each species and biological process, is measured to see how much (and whether) it serves human needs and those of a neoliberal market. Power relations are similarly expressed in another important change in human relations with water: the extension of earlier forms of enclosure to appropriate water resources. In the last two centuries, there has been rising tension between long-standing views of water as a common good, and efforts to privatize it as a commercial resource (a process still dependent on the Roman law that operationalized water management in the first place). In Britain, efforts by Victorian water companies to take over municipal roles as water suppliers were pushed back by postwar nationalization; then, in the 1980s, such collective thinking was overridden by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s determination to privatize the water industry. This generated massive public resentment, though resistance to this move stopped short of the violent protests that successfully repelled similar efforts in Bolivia.91 Such processes of marketization have been repeated internationally.92 A major result of this economic neocolonialism is that an increasing percentage of the world’s freshwater resources is now owned by transnational corporations and their (usually male) shareholders and directors, and physically controlled by their—again, usually male—hydrologists and engineers, whose enthusiasm for dams and other schemes for water impoundment and redirection remains undiminished despite intensifying protests about their social and ecological impacts.93 Although this is the briefest of sketches, in a long-term, cross-cultural view of human relations with water, it is possible to discern some coherent patterns. These show how religious and secular cosmologies, sociopolitical arrangements, and material practices have articulated, over time, to elevate men in industrialized societies to “Lord it over the Goddess,” subjugating women and less powerful societies, and asserting male ownership and agency in relation to the physical world, its resources, and its nonhuman inhabitants.Resource LinkViewing the environment as a mere resource to exploit or protect reenforces the dualism of human/nature that undergirds masculine sociopolitical dominationPhillips, 14 (Mary Phillips, researcher and author specializing in ecofeminism, maternalism, and embodied care at the University of Bristol. “Re-Writing Corporate Environmentalism: Ecofeminism, Corporeality, and the Language of Feeling.” Gender, Work, and Organization, Vol. 21 No. 5 September 2014. doi:10.1111/gwao.12047 ) SFEcofeminism seeks to transform through initiating and supporting activism and through engaging with academic, theoretical debate. It does not, however, offer a grand theory to replace current truth claims; instead Karen Warren, whose work has been highly influential in the development of philo- sophical ecofeminism, has metaphorized ecofeminism as a quilt: ‘An ecofeminist philosophical quilt will be made up of different “patches”, constructed by quilters in particular social, historical and materialist contexts’ (2000, p. 66). In the same way that the borders of a quilt can contain an infinite richness of patterns, colours and designs, the parameters of ecofeminism allow for a wide range of emphases and methodologies (Cuomo, 2002) that share a commitment to core values such as justice and caring for both human and non-human life. A focus on interwoven and cross-cutting systems of domination that justify colonialism, racism, sexism and the subordination of nature is common across ecofeminist philosophies (Cudworth, 2005; 3 Glazebrook, 2005; Plumwood, 1993; Warren, 2000). The ecofeminist project seeks to illuminate how a ‘culturally exalted hegemonic ideal’ (Kheel, 2008, p. 3; see also Gaard, 1993; Plumwood, 1993; Warren, 2000) of masculinity is promoted through a set of interrelated dualisms such as mind/body, reason/nature, reason/emotion, masculine/feminine or human/nature. The insight that Western thinking is dominated by dualism is common to much feminist philosophy (e.g., Benhabib, 1992; Butler, 1990; Cixous, 1975 [1997]; Kristeva, 1982). Indeed, there has been similar debate specifically within organization studies which has exposed how masculine rationality still dominates and thus genders organizational realities such that the feminine is rendered subordinate and of less signifi- cance (e.g., Bendl, 2008; Gherardi and Poggio, 2002; Knights and Kerfoot, 2004; Knights and Surman, 2008; Linstead and Brewis, 2004; Ross-Smith and Konberger, 2004). As Morgan (1986, p. 179) points out: the links between the male stereotype and the values that dominate many ideas about the nature of organization are striking ... Organizations are often encouraged to be rational, analytical, strategic, decision oriented, tough and aggressive, and so are men. Indeed, in a further reflexive turn, such dualistic thinking has been shown to inform the practice and writing of organizational research itself (e.g., Phillips et al., 2013; Pullen, 2006). However, despite this wealth of discussion, the inherent masculinity of corporate environmentalism remains largely unspo- ken, even by those who critique such discourses. The very few exceptions include Marshall (2011), who has focused on the ways in which sustainability leadership is gendered, and Cooper (1992), who has shown how the masculine discourses of accountancy have treated nature as an externality. Most accounts, within and without organization studies, remain anthropocentric as they do not address connections between the subordination of nature and that of other oppressed groups (Cudworth, 2005). Ecofeminist philosopher Val Plumwood (1991, 1993) details how the hierarchical ordering of contrasting pairs has produced a logic of identity that has become objectified and given the status of reality. This logic operates by differentiating self from others, where others includes the natural world. The dominant group, that which claims possession of what Plumwood terms ‘the Master identity’ and with the most power and privilege, declares for itself those attributes which it catego- rizes as indicative of an active human subject. Those who are deemed not to possess the same attributes are cast as lacking in relation to the dominant group and therefore sub-standard and Other. Non-conformance with the categories determined by the dominant group, including mind over body, reason over emotion, activity over passivity, is therefore to be considered either an inferior copy of the human, or nonhuman. As Plumwood points out: The account draws on the familiar view of reason and emotion as sharply separated and opposed, and of ‘desire,’ caring, and love as merely ‘personal’ and ‘particular’ as opposed to the universality and impartiality of understanding and of ‘feminine’ emotions as essentially unreliable, untrust- worthy, and morally irrelevant, an inferior domain to be dominated by a superior, disinterested (and of course masculine) reason. (1991, p. 5) Thus a genuinely human self is one that is essentially rational and sharply differentiated from what is presented as merely emotional or as associated with the body. Such attributes are linked to what is ‘natural’, not to the properly human realm of reason such that emotions, bodies and nature are construed as inferior and given instrumental value only. Those things which supposedly give human- ity its defining characteristics, such as rationality, freedom and the transcendence of nature (and which are all traditionally viewed as masculine) are not shared with nature or with the feminine. Hence the ideal human self does not include features associated with nature, but is defined as INCLUDEPICTURE "/var/folders/v2/gmngmby91bs_zccsgbzr43hh0000gn/T/com.microsoft.Word/WebArchiveCopyPasteTempFiles/page4image27798208" \* MERGEFORMATINET separate from and in opposition to it. The human sphere and that of nature cannot be allowed to overlap in any significant way as nature must be divided off from the human and cast as alien, hostile and inferior. Regarding nature in this way has justified seeing it only as a resource to be consumed, granted little status in its own right and positioned as secondary to the (usually) short-term interests of corporations. As corporations thus sit outside nature, the destructive potential of over-production and consumption can be largely ignored and disregarded. Not only does this have devastating consequences for nature, but threatens humanity’s existence also, as the form of rationality identified with the master identity cannot recognize: in biospheric nature a unique, non-tradeable, irreplaceable other on which all life on the planet depends. Because it has not fully come to terms with earthian existence, but clings to illusions of identity outside nature, the master rationality is unable to grasp its peril. (Plumwood, 1993, p. 194) While ecofeminism encompasses a breadth of issues and views (Cuomo, 2002), for most versions, this interrelationship and the integration of the personal, social and environmental are key. The oppres- sion of women, nature and other groups cannot be overcome in an atomistic way, but through the radical restructuring of social and political institutions to obtain a more just world for all (Lahar, 1991). The rationality and instrumentality of corporate discourses de-nature nature by denying its multiplicity and connectedness with all human life and activity (Banerjee, 2003). It has been ren- dered as ‘the environment’; a much safer and more comfortable concept that can be made man- ageable through techno-rational practices. Reason is believed to be paramount in achieving the limited change that is espoused such that rational persuasion and argument are assumed to be or even guaranteed to be the engines of change even while they act to guarantee uniformity (Olkowski, 1999). Such discourses need to be undermined and disrupted in order to nurture new values and emotional connectivity with the more than human. Corporations need to develop a relational engagement with nature that does not seek to master or dominate, but which respects difference and is sensitive to currently denied relationships of dependency on all those others by which they are sustained. The 1ac’s portrayal of water as a resource to be managed perpetuates patriarchal domination of NatureSelam 2006 (Ophelia, BA, Binghamton University, 1999, MA, Binghamton University, 2001. ECOFEMINISM OR DEATH: HUMANS, IDENTITY, AND THE ENVIRONMENT, Atenea (Vol. 26, Issue 1), 2006.) FWAccording to Merchant, social change directly influences the treatment of nature and the ways in which we actually see the world. Beginning in the sixteenth century, our language and images under- went a drastic change. This change marked the beginning of "the great opposition": organic cosmology of the "old days" on one side, and the Scientific Revolution and rise of a market-oriented culture in Modern Europe on the other (Merchant xx). This rise, compelled by a vision of exploitation and a "linear mentality of forward progress," (Merchant xxi) disrupted nature's balance with industrialization and overpopulation, causing the many natural disasters we know today. In other words, despite the 25 years that separate us from the publica- tion of Merchant's book, her point remains the same today: our cur- rent situation is no accident, no mere coincidence, but the constant bombardment of a certain type of system that, as she puts it, can literally turn the world upside-down. Merchant's goal is therefore to reevaluate "history" and, through this, revisit the "founding fathers" of modern science (Francis Bacon, William Harvey, Rene Descartes, Thomas Hobbes, and Isaac Newton) who are all responsible, in some way or another, in creating our vision of nature/the world. This reevaluation is a revisiting of history (a fundamentally feminist prac- tice), which begins with the most simple and most basic association: that of "woman" and "nature."Prior to the Scientific Revolution, people's view of an identity was based on the notion of organism. This "organismic theory" implied a more holistic approach to the human body and to the "outside" of this human body. The perception included "interdependence among the parts of the human body, subordination of individual to communal purposes in family, community, and state, and vital life permeating the cosmos to the lowliest stone" (Merchant 1). The interdependence, crucial here, implies the recognition of being part of a world; it recog- nizes the presence of others within the world, and it recognizes the impact of the self on the world. Within this framework, nature was both a caring, loving, and ordered "mother," but also wild, uncontrollable, and the creator of chaos (Merchant 2). Nature was thus something (perhaps "someone") to be both loved and feared. Nature, in other words, was alive.But, as Merchant and others have pointed out, as mechanization grew, so did the urge to dominate and control this unpredictable and bountiful nature. The image of the caring and powerful female nature began to be replaced, starting in the sixteenth century, first by the image of the greedy mother earth who hides and keeps her secrets and bounties (read metals) to herself, and then by the more popular (and still popular) image of the machine. While the organic cosmos was a world filled with vitality and energies all emanating from nature (or God or both), the mechanistic world was filled with dead and passive matter (Merchant 105). In addition, the manipulation of nature within this dead world was no longer one of individual efforts, but became associated with "general collaborative social interests that sanctioned the expansion of commercial capitalism" (Merchant 111). Far from being innocent, the attitude toward nature changed in order to socially and, more importantly, morally sanction the "need" to exploit it. The declaration of the death of nature only further sanctioned this supposed "need."This tension, between technological development and the organic images of nature (Merchant 2), only heightened through time. As Merchant illustrates, Greek philosophy and the Christian religion both entertained the idea of the dominion over the earth, but it wasn't until this Scientific Revolution that this domination metaphor spread beyond the religious sphere to permeate the social and the political (Merchant 3). The domination metaphor actually spread to its own loss of origin (its own loss of history), to become the only (read "natural") way to see nature, the outside, and ourselves.For the Scientific Revolution utilized previously established views of nature to its advantage. This image mainly operated around the parameters of cultivation and gardens. Using, as its basis, the age-old association of nature with women, both entities were then viewed as comforting, nurturing, but also providers and hence care-takers for the well-being of males (Merchant 9). This was not merely a benevolent and generous characteristic of nature, it was her unarguable duty. Nature and women were then provided with their roles, which were primarily passive, hence manageable and rapable (Merchant 39). The passivity of matter could therefore be incorporated within the "new mechanical philosophy in the form of "dead" atoms, constituents of a new machine-like world" (Merchant 20). Within this world, change could only be achieved through external forces (Merchant 20), thus reinforcing the connection between this model and commercial/exploitative structures (for both nature and women).This changing view of nature was accompanied and caused by a turn to capitalistic control for the purpose of profit (Merchant 43). Prior to this shift, farming worked on an agrarian ecosystem that closely connected the peasant community to the land (Merchant 43). These "traditional patterns of cooperation" (Merchant 44), however, hid problems that would soon become assets in the ascension of the capitalistic system. Merchant explains, "through force and the need for military security, a hierarchical structure of landlord domination had imposed itself on the communal structure of agrarian society, extracting surplus value in the form of labor, services, rent and taxes" (Merchant 44). In the end, the one who controls technology therefore controls the land.In addition to this exploitative model, the Scientific Revolution also brought the development of inorganic, nonrenewable metallic materials that, predictably, caused (and cause) vast ecological disasters (Merchant 61). The most obvious victim, forests, had already been threatened and partially destroyed due to population expansion, and hence expansion of living and growing space. But by the sixteenth century, the problem had become painfully obvious through actual shortages of wood and hence the need for coal as substitute fuel (Merchant 63). Adding to the growing need for this polluting substance (coal), the sixteenth century also saw its mining operations quadruple as the trade of metals expanded (Merchant 63).Nature, having thusly been redefined from the nurturing/benevolent mother/God(dess), to a site of chaos, disorder, and danger, suffered another blow: for the safety and longevity of humanity. Mother Earth had to be tamed; the female image had to be turned negative. After all, she was responsible for famines, plagues, tempests, etc. (Merchant 127). In the end, the beginning of the Scientific Revolution and hence "pre-industrial capitalism" (Merchant 150), marked a shift in women's roles, roles that were now more strictly defined in terms of their sex (reproductive machines) rather than their class (Merchant 150).But nature was not the only entity to be changed to a machine; the view of the body also interestingly morphed into this image. The body was now seen as something one could fix; it was something that was fixable (as long as the technologies kept multiplying). Predict- ably, the image did not stop there: women's bodies were "naturally" inferior to that of the male's, the ovaries were passive, the semen active, etc. Women were therefore "inferior" machines. As a result, nature slowly turned into a sight to be experimented on, forced into submission, and forced into "understanding." As mentioned above, these changes were done with the help of various key (new) scientists like Francis Bacon (1561-1626), whose ideas morally sanctioned the probing, exploiting, and controlling of "the outside" for the sake of knowledge (read "human benefit"). More importantly, this exploitation was sanctioned in the name of life itself (for humans).In the end, this mechanical process went directly against a vision of wholeness by furthering the fragmentation of the world into independent parts (Merchant 182). But the connections were lost in more than just symbolic ways. Research became fragmented from its environment. For the mechanical world redefined reality into a predictable and rational system of laws (Merchant 193). It was (and still is) a reality that gravitated around two major interconnected constituents of human experience: order and power (216). Descartes, Hobbes, and Mersenne (seventeenth-century thinkers), as Merchant extensively describes, were solely concerned with finding certainties within nature (203). The way to "intelligibility" was through mathematics and its logic (the "then" deemed only valid form of knowledge). In fact, this kind of thinking will force rationality onto the object of confusion; it leaves no space for paradox, and plainly denies its presence. It calls as "truth" that which has been proven, clearly and distinctly, scientifically.Solution focus LinkSolution oriented frames maintain dualism and foreclose consideration of interconnectedness Thomas B. Randrup et al, 2020, (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences with Arjen Buijs & Cecil C. Konijnendijk & Tom Wild) Moving beyond the nature-based solutions discourse: introducing nature-based thinking, Urban Ecosystems (2020) 23:919–926, development of NBS as a new conceptual approach to human-ecological connections may be seen as the present outcome of an evolutionary development of concepts. Although this paper discusses contemporary thinking on sustainable cities, we should not overlook the crucial work by René Descartes, promoting what later became named the Cartesian method, and introducing the dualisms of not only body and mind, but also of nature and culture. This dualism has been dominant ever since, and remained the cornerstone of our thinking when the concept of sustainability was developed in the 1980’s (Pereira and Funtowicz 2015). While the sustainability approach continued to distinguish nature, people, and economy, it was innovative in the way that it aimed to weigh nature’s needs equally with human social and economic needs. In addition the ecosystem service (ESS) concept was a way of describing and organising the benefits that people derive from nature (‘nature’s gift to us’). The above concepts and approaches tend to deal with, and relate to finding ways to handle the urbanisation challenges by using and ‘mobilising’ nature. The development of these concepts shows a clear pattern: the naming and framing of our relationship with nature as well as the proposed solutions increasingly focused on instrumental values of nature: what good can it do for me and to us? The introduction of the concept of sustainable development was revolutionary in the sense that it argued that sustainability and (economic) development are intrinsically related to each other. This may be seen as the start of a process of instrumentalisation, and eventually technocratisation of the framing of sustainability issues. Although the IPBES concept of “Nature’s Contribution to People” (Díaz et al. 2018) moves away from technocratic interpretations of the value of nature, the focus remains on instrumental values. Recently, the concepts of ESS, Natural Capital and Nature’s Contribution to People (ibid) have been critiqued for their technocratic ideals about knowledge, standardization, and science–society relations, for the way they combine nature and techniques, as well as for their quantification of these values (e.g., Turnhout et al. 2013; Schr?ter et al. 2014; Bekessy et al. 2018). Several scholars, predominantly from philosophy and anthropology, have argued for the relevance of non-Western approaches to nature to build new connections and responsibilities, (e.g. Latour 1993, Descola 2013). It is argued that to counter current instrumentalisation of nature, science and policy need to overcome these dualities, to build 'hybrids' (Driessen 2017), and as a result several more integrative approaches have been suggested, including “more-than-human” approaches (Whatmore 2002, 2006) and the “more-than-human” city (Franklin 2017), “post-humanist” approaches, “biocultural diversity” (Elands et al. 2015), and “relational values” (Chan et al. 2016). Such emerging efforts to overcome instrumentalisation of nature through a fundamental reconnection of humans and nature can also inspire the development of nature-based thinking. Indeed, the concept of NBS has important merits, as demonstrated by e.g. increasing attention, projects, policies, and funding (see e.g. Faivre et al. 2017, Frantzeskaki et al. 2017; Pauleit et al. 2017; Escobedo et al. 2018; Frantzeskaki 2019). According to these studies and theoretical reflections, NBS can be critiqued, as it does not necessarily involve nature but in some cases rather focus on technological imitations of nature (such as biomimicry, or hard-engineered stormwater storage structures). The dominance of keywords such as ‘solutions’ and ‘services’ in NBS discourse and practices has a strong performative effect on our thinking (see e.g., Ernston and S?rlin 2013): language and knowledge create the realities that they describe (Butler 1997). As such, speaking of solutions or services will focus our (scientific) quest and may explicitly or implicitly downplay attention for nature’s contributions or processes that are not seen as a solution or a service. Many projects start from seeking solutions for expert-driven problem definitions, which sets the boundaries for efforts to include –or not- community participation or the relevance intrinsic values of nature in planning, design, construction and management processes. However, a focus on (naturebased) services or solutions is only one part of the bigger picture. We need to look at the relations between cities and nature in a more cyclical way, deriving inspiration from nature with its cyclical and long-term ecological processes. Consequently, it is far from certain and not clear whether existing approaches will really break disciplinary boundaries or drive cross-sectoral integration in transformative ways.Protection LinkThe characterization of the environment as threatening or needing of protection reinforce the culture nature binary that perpetuates the abuse of the female body in material practicesPhillips, 14 (Mary Phillips, researcher and author specializing in ecofeminism, maternalism, and embodied care at the University of Bristol. “Re-Writing Corporate Environmentalism: Ecofeminism, Corporeality, and the Language of Feeling.” Gender, Work, and Organization, Vol. 21 No. 5 September 2014. doi:10.1111/gwao.12047 ) SFThis valuable work on the use and abuse of the female body in organizational representations and material practices has not been connected to organizational imaginaries of nature and the planet. Indeed, one of the most ubiquitous of these is that of Mother Earth or Mother Nature which flags up a connection to the maternal feminine that serves to further solidify the feminization of nature and naturalization of women. Organizations harness cultural meanings that cast Mother Nature as nur- turing or life-giving, as dangerous and fickle or as frail and in need of male protection (Roach, 2003). Sherilyn MacGregor (2013) points out how dominant narratives of climate change focus on the dangers to human life posed by extreme weather events which are cast as ‘mother nature’s revenge’ or ‘mother nature’s wrath’ in the popular media, and these are also evident in, for example, the sales pitches of insurance companies. (See ‘Flood, wind and hail: Insure your home against mother nature’s wrath’ [Morris & Templeton Insurance, n.d.], or ‘In the path of a hurricane: Surviving mother nature’s wrath’ [Insureme, n.d.] for just two of many examples to be found in a Google search.) This is not limited to climate change; a recent advertising campaign for tampons in the United Kingdom and United States portrayed menstruation as a ‘gift’ from a malicious Mother Nature who had to be outsmarted (see for an example of one of these advertisements). This particular personification of Mother Nature was of a screeching, cackling, post-menopausal woman wearing a green suit and a holly decoration in her hair; a depiction of a 21st-century witch. The interconnections between the maternal, the feminine and nature are here made very clear, such that the depiction of nature and the feminine as threatening or monstrous are mutually reinforcing.A particularly thought-provoking example of an attempt to refute dependence on the maternal is provided by the images often used by both environmental activists and corporations wishing to promote an environmentally responsible image; those of earthrise taken from moon orbit and of NASA’s whole earth image taken from space. Both images have been described as highly influential in promoting an awareness of environmental issues as the images were seen by many as a represen- tation of Earth’s vulnerability, frailty and isolation amid the vast expanse of space. However, for Garb (1990), such images create not only physical but psychic detachment as we become observers of the planet rather than earth-embedded participants. The whole earth view is ‘a rearward view of the earth, a view seen as we leave’ (Garb, 1990, p. 272), while the space programme itself is an ‘oversized literalization of the masculine idea of transcendence, an attempt to achieve selfhood freed not only from gravity but from all it represents; the pull of the Earth, of mater, dependence on the mother, the body’ (Garb, 1990, p. 272; also see Sturgeon, 2009). This typifies the uneasy ambiguity around responses to ‘Mother’ nature as wavering between thinly veiled aggression and loving concern that signals how imaginaries of the maternal and nature are intertwined.But it is not only at the level of representation that, to follow Barad (2003), the matter of bodies matters. Feminist theories of materialism as well as sociologies of the body draw our attention to human and animal bodies and landscape as both socially constituted and material entities. Bodies cannot be reduced to either a biological or sociological category, but are at the intersection of the physical, the imaginary and their material context (Gargett, 2002). This iterative relationship between bodies, imaginaries and the material world can be seen in corporeal responses to ecological crises. Colebrook (2011) describes how the news media contribute to the imaginary of climate change as having a cinematic quality. Severe weather events are reported in such a way that viewers experience them with a compelling frisson similar to that felt while watching apocalyptic or disaster movies. Affect is thus generated as a consumer product. However, there is no depth to such affect in that we are distanced from the event and fail to respond as we would if we recognized that our bodies are implicated in, and will be affected by, environmental issues; in other words, that climate change is ‘real’ and will impact on us. Colebrook links the lack of bodily involvement in climate change to the lack of ‘panic, [or] any apparent, affective comportment that would indicate that anyone really feels or fears [this threat]’ (Colebrook, 2011, p. 53). For Neimanis and Walker (2013), we need ‘to reimagine climate change and the fleshy damp immediacy of our own embodied existences as intimately imbricated’ (p. 2). Thus the imaginary and the corporeal are deeply entwined in ‘a common space, a conjoined time [and] a mutual worlding’ (Neimanis and Walker, 2013, p. 3) that is transcorporeal and which denies that human bodies and the time and space in which they exist are somehow outside nature which sustains them. As Alaimo points out ‘human corporeality in all its material fleshiness is inseparable from “nature” or “environment” ’, but the body and nature are also jumbled with ‘culture’. Refusing to separate culture and nature allows us to destabilize the culture/nature binary and to develop ethical and political positions that can contend with the ecological realities with which we are faced (Alaimo, 2008, p. 238; see also Barad, 1998).Climate Change LinkTraditional approaches to climate change marginalize women and are ineffective--Gaard, 2015 (Greta Gaard, ecofeminist activist and published author widely cited by scholars and a cofounder of the Green Party. “Ecofeminism and Climate Change” , February 24, 2015)//klzIssues that women traditionally organize around—environmental health, habitats, livelihoods— have been marginalized in debates that treat climate change as a scientific problem requiring technological and scientific solutions without substantially transforming ideologies and economies of domination, exploitation and colonialism. Issues that GLBTQ people organize around—bullying in the schools, hate crimes, marriage equality, fair housing and health care—aren't even noted in climate change discussions. Feminist analyses are well positioned to address these and other structural inequalities in climate crises, and to unmask the gendered character of first-world overconsumption; moreover, both feminist animal studies and posthumanism bring awareness of species as an unexamined dimension in climate change. A queer, posthumanist, ecological and feminist approach—brought together through the intersectional lens of ecofeminism—is needed to tackle the antifeminist threads companioning the scientific response to climate change: the linked rhetorics of population control, erotophobia and ecophobia, anti-immigration sentiment, and increased militarism. INCLUDEPICTURE "/var/folders/2v/_kz9xhsx30x4lptp5rbdjrrc0000gn/T/com.microsoft.Word/WebArchiveCopyPasteTempFiles/page1image61070848" \* MERGEFORMATINET INCLUDEPICTURE "/var/folders/2v/_kz9xhsx30x4lptp5rbdjrrc0000gn/T/com.microsoft.Word/WebArchiveCopyPasteTempFiles/page1image61063936" \* MERGEFORMATINET INCLUDEPICTURE "/var/folders/2v/_kz9xhsx30x4lptp5rbdjrrc0000gn/T/com.microsoft.Word/WebArchiveCopyPasteTempFiles/page1image61079296" \* MERGEFORMATINET Since the times of Ancient Rome, Lady Justice has been depicted wearing a blindfold representing objectivity, holding scales to weigh competing claims in her right hand, and a sword of reason in her left hand. Contemporary feminist justice ethicists have critiqued the masculinist bias of traditional western ethics for the ways it overvalues reason and objectiv- ity, devaluing women's standpoints and women's work and envisions justice-as-distribution of resources among discrete individuals with rights, rather than emerging through relation- ships which shape participant identities and responsibilities (Jaggar, 1994; Warren, 1990; Young, 1990). Ecological feminist ethics have addressed human relationships with other animals, with environments, and with diverse others locally and globally as relations meriting contextualized ethical concern (Donovan & Adams, 2007). But a feminist ethical approach to climate justice—challenging the distributive model that has ignored relations of gender, sexuality, species, and environments—has yet to be fully developed. To date, climate change discourse has not accurately presented the gendered character of first-world planetary overconsumption. For example, a prominent symbol from the Copenhagen Climate Conference of the Parties (COP 15) in December 2009 depicts an obese “Justitia, Western Goddess of Justice” riding on the back of an emaciated black man; in other artworks for the conference, a group of starving African male bodies was installed in a wide river (see Fig. 1). The image of Justitia was captioned, “I'm sitting on the back of a man—he is sinking under the burden—I will do everything to help him— except to step down from his back” (Sandberg & Sandberg, 2010, 8). Allegedly an artwork referencing the heavy climate change burden carried by the global South, and the climate debt owed by the overconsuming global North, from a feminist perspective the missing critique is that the genders are reversed: women produce the majority of the world's food, yet the majority of the world's hungry are women and children, not men. And the overconsumption of earth's other inhabitants—plants, animals, ecosystems—is not even visibly depicted. In this essay, I argue that climate change and first world overconsumption are produced by masculinist ideology, and will not be solved by masculinist techno-science approaches. Instead, I propose, queer feminist posthumanist climate justice perspectives at the local, national, and global levels are needed to intervene and transform both our analyses and our solutions to climate change. Although the “first stirrings” of women's environmental defense were introduced at the United Nations 1985 confer- ence in Nairobi, through news of India's Chipko movement involving peasant women's defense of trees (their livelihood), women's role in planetary protection became clearly articulat- ed in November 1991, when the Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) organized the World Women's Congress for a Healthy Planet in Miami, Florida (Resurreccio?n, 2013; WEDO, 2012). Seen as an opportunity to build on the gains of the United Nations Decade for Women and to prepare a Women's Action Agenda for the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro, the World Women's Congress drew more than 1500 women from 83 countries. But while its leaders alleged that the resulting “Women's Agenda 21” had been built through a consensus process, for many of those sitting in attendance, listening to one elite speaker after another, it was not clear how our views shaped or even contributed to this process of agenda-formation. Participatory democracy—long a valued strategy in grassroots ecofeminist tactics—was reduced to two dubious threads: a series of break-out discussion groups held throughout the conference, and a “Report Card” for participants to take home and use to evaluate specific issues within their communities and mobilize a local response (shaping the issues themselves had no place on the report card). Along with other ecofeminists, I felt a mix of energy, dismay, and frustration at this gathering.1 While the women leaders from many countries were valuable participants and decision-makers in the upcoming conversations at the UN Conference on Environment and Development, that weekend in Miami, too many speakers discussed women's “feminine” gender roles, our “influence” on decision-makers, and the need for “reforms” to the present system—all introduced and capped with the essentializing motto, “It's Time For Women to Mother Earth.” Despite these flaws in rhetoric and democratic participa- tion, WEDO's 1991 World Women's Congress has been hailed as the entry-point for feminism into the UN conferences on the global environment, opening the way for later developments bridging feminist interventions and activisms addressing climate change. The following year, UNCED's Agenda 21 did not in fact include the most transformative recommendations from the Women's Agenda 21—the analysis of environmental degradation as rooted in military/industrial/capitalist econom- ics, for example—or even the more reformist proposals such as implementing gender equity on all UN panels, an issue which has been taken up again at the 2013 Council of the Parties (COP) for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Warsaw, Poland (See Fig. 2). Perhaps WEDO's Women's Agenda 21 had already been undermined by the 1987 report from the World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future, led by Brundtland, 1987. This report established “sustainable devel- opment” as a desirable strategy, defined as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”—which sounds reasonable enough, until one reads the document's renewed call for continued economic growth on a finite planet, a fundamentally unsustainable endeavor. The report completely omits discussion of the First World/North's2 over-development and its high levels of production, consumption, and disregard for the environment (Agostino & Lizarde, 2012). Nonetheless, the Brundtland Report's “sustainable development” concept has shaped climate change discourse for the subsequent decades, producing techno-solutions such as “the green economy” that have perpetuated capitalist and colonialist strategies of privat- ization, and fail to address root causes of the climate crisis (Pskowski, 2013). In the two decades since WEDO's Women's Agenda 21, feminist involvement in global environmentalism has devel- oped from a 1980–1990's focus on “women, environment and development” (WED), “women in development” (WID) or “gender, environment and development” (GED) to an empha- sis on feminist political ecology in the 1990s–2000s (Goebel, 2004; MacGregor, 2010; Resurreccio?n, 2013). Initially, discus- sion of women and environment focused on women in the global South, whose real material needs for food security and productive agricultural land, forest resources, clean water and sanitation trumped more structural discussions about gendered environmental discourses (i.e. Leonard, 1989; Sontheimer, 1991), although these structurally transforma- tive elements were equally present in other texts (i.e. Sen & Grown, 1987). The focus on women rather than gender tended to construct women as victims of environmental degradation in need of rescue; their essential closeness to nature, cultivated through family caregiving and through subsistence labor, was argued as providing women with special knowledge, and their agency as laborers and leaders in environmental sustainability projects was advocated (Mies & Shiva, 1993; Shiva, 1989). Clearly, this rhetoric instrumentalized women and ignored the cultural limita- tions of the woman-nature linkage (cf. Dodd, 1997; Leach, 2007; Li, 1993); it was also significantly silent on the roles of men, and the ways that gender as a system constructed economic and material resources that produce “victims” (MacGregor, 2010; Resurreccio?n, 2013). The shift to a “feminist political ecology” (Goebel, 2004) involved a macro-level exploration of the problems of globalization and colonization, a micro-level examination of local insti- tutions for their environmental management, a critique of marriage institutions for the ways these affect women's access to natural resources, and an interrogation of the gendered aspects of space in terms of women's mobility, labor, knowledge, and power. The shift from women as individuals to gender as a system structuring power relations has been an important development in feminist responses to climate change. Viewing climate change as a purely scientific issue leads to gender-blind analysis and exclusion of data necessary to genuine solutions-- Gaard, 2015 (Greta Gaard, ecofeminist activist and published author widely cited by scholars and a cofounder of the Green Party. “Ecofeminism and Climate Change” , February 24, 2015)//klzDescribed largely from the perspective of the environmen- tal (climate) sciences (i.e., astrophysics, atmospheric chemis- try, geography, meteorology, oceanography, paleoclimatology), climate change has been most widely discussed as a scientific problem requiring technological and scientific solutions with- out substantially transforming ideologies and economies of domination, exploitation and colonialism: this misrepresenta- tion of climate change root causes is one part of the problem, misdirecting those who ground climate change solutions on incomplete analyses (cf. Klein, 2014). On an international level, solutions mitigating climate change include Reducing Emis- sions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+ Initiative), the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) that encourages emission trading, sustainable develop- ment funding for Two-Thirds countries, genetically modified crops, renewable energy technologies, and the more recent strategy, geo-engineering (Klein, 2012). On an individual level, citizen-consumers of the North/One-Thirds world are urged toward green consumerism and carbon-footprint reduction. Certainly renewable energy is a necessary and wholly possible shift; moreover, it carries within its practice the ideological shift needed to make a wider transformation in the North/One- Thirds consumers' relationship with environments and ecosys- tems. From a feminist perspective, however, the problem remains that at the highest levels of international discussion, “climate change is cast as a human crisis in which gender has no relevance” (MacGregor, 2010) and “man” is supposed to mean “everyone.” Such gender-blind analysis leads to exclud- ing data and perspectives that are crucial in solving climate change problems, while the issues that women traditionally organize around—environmental health, habitats, livelihoods— are marginalized by techno-science solutions which take center stage in climate change discussions and funding. GLBTQ issues such as bullying in the schools, hate crimes legislation, equity in housing and the workplace, same-sex marriage (not to mention polyamorous marriage) don't appear in climate discussions either. Given the gender-blind techno-science perspective dominating climate change discussions, queer feminist entry to these discussions has been stalled, trapped between Scylla and Charybdis: over the past two decades, discussions have alternated between the liberal strategy of mainstreaming women into discussions of risk, vulnerability, and adaptation, as WEDO has done; or, adopting the cultural feminist strategy of calling on women's “unique” capacities of caring for family and for environment, women's “special knowledge” and agency based on their location within gender-role restricted occupations, and lauding women's grassroots leadership. In either strategy, “gender” is restricted to the study of women, and feminist analyses of structural gender inequalities that compare the status of men, women, and GLBTQ others are completely omitted. To date, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) “Gender and Climate Change” website addresses these problems by drawing on both reformist liberal ecofeminisms and cultural (essentialist) ecofeminisms. In its statement on women's vulnerability, inclusion, and agency, the UNFCCC website asserts: “It is increasingly evident that women are at the centre of the climate change challenge. Women are disproportionately affected by climate change impacts, such as droughts, floods and other extreme weather events, but they also have a critical role in combatting climate change.” In order to perform that “critical role,” however, gender parity in climate change discussions is a minimum requirement: women need to be equal members in policy-setting and decision- making on climate change. And to have authentic, inclusive feminism, gender justice and sexual justice must be partnered with climate justice, for women of all genders and sexualities form the grassroots force within these three movements (cf. Olson, 2002). Dams LinkViewing Dams as an agent of progress and innovation only perpetuates the dualisms of human/nature by characterizing the river as the feminine “Other” to be tamedRogers and Schutten 04 (Richard A Rogers – Professor of Communication Studies at Northern Arizona University, specializing in critical rhetorical studies, PhD University of Utah. Julie Kalil Schutten – Associate Professor of Communication Studies at Northern Arizona University, specializing in environmental communication, PhD University of Utah. “The Gender of Water and the Pleasure of Alienation: A Critical Analysis of Visiting Hoover Dam.” Communication Review, 2004 Vol. 7 Issue 3, p 259-283. doi: 10.1080/10714420490492166) SFThe third segment chronicles the building of the dam and brings us into contemporary times. Primarily, this segment works to put viewers in awe of technology through a constant barrage of impressive numbers regarding the amount of concrete, money, workers, and other resources needed to build the dam (a focus which is similar to the tours, pamphlets, and other exhibits). Time and again seemingly insurmountable barriers are conquered by the designers and builders of the dam and entire towns, rail lines, and factories are built nearby to support the project. As quoted in the film, at the inauguration of the dam Franklin Roosevelt said, "this is an engineering victory of the first order. Another great achievement of American resourcefulness, American skill, and American determination." Exiting to the exhibition area after the completion of the presentation, visitors can see the visual manifestation of this patriotic ideology in a photograph showing an enormous American flag draped down most of the length of the 726-foot front wall of the dam.The ideology behind this awe is complex and grounded in systems of meaning established earlier in the presentation. In the beginning, we were told that the Colorado River was "dangerous in flood, stingy in drought, erratic in mood and timing." The "Native American" begins to refer to it as "she," and settlers discuss the need to "tame" the river. With the building of the dam, these ideologies and aspirations are manifested materially:Amid the country's economic uncertainty, the workers in this canyon gave new life to the nation's spirit as they gave new life to the desert Southwest.... When a U.S. Senate committee endorsed the construction of Hoover Dam in 1928, its report said, "a mighty river, now a source of destruction, is to be curbed and put to work in the interest of society." And so it was. Hoover Dam brought the desert flood control, a reliable supply of water, electrical power, and more.... Hoover Dam and other dams along the Colorado River contain the floodwaters spawned each spring by melting snows. And from their reservoirs flows an assured and reliable water supply for water users throughout the basin.... Wherever the system delivers water, life flourishes. ([37])The means by which "life" flourishes is the subjugation of the river. "With the tunnels open and the coffer dams in place, the Colorado River had no choice but to leave its riverbed and flow through the manmade corridors." This provides a specific example of the logic of domination over the earth that pervades the official presentation of the dam. The river is not "dehumanized" to justify this dominion, but is constructed as an anthropomorphized female, a living entity that is "out of control," "fickle," "erratic," and "capricious." The river's choice was taken from her and she became the product of full-blown "progress." "She" is forced to participate in the process of (re)production against her will, which, using the quote above, could be seen as roughly isomorphic with rape.This mentality of the dam being a great achievement, built on a foundation of power-over constructs, is evident throughout a visitor's trip to Hoover Dam and adds to the sense of pleasure and dominance in those who accept the rhetoric's hail: the subject position of "nature's master" ([ 1]). The final line of the presentation comes with a swelling of victorious music: "With every touch of its coarse concrete skin, and each sparkle that dances behind its crown, Hoover Dam reminds us of the need to dream ... and the strength of the human spirit to achieve great aspirations." What is only partially stated is that the dam represents the domination of one spirit—the "human spirit"—over an other-than- human and apparently feminine one. There is a conquering at work here, in which triumph comes at the cost of another's subordination, and that cost is almost completely ignored in the entire presentation. The "strength of the human spirit" functions to leave viewers uplifted in astonishment, and perhaps also filled with righteous pride for an enemy well vanquished. The eventual return from the air- conditioned interior to the over-hundred-degree heat outside, magnified by the ever-present concrete, adds a somatic dimension to this rhetoric of domination.The desire to maintain dams to preserve human progress is rooted in a masculine desire to exploit and dominate the feminine by characterizing her as capricious and needing to be civilizedRogers and Schutten 04 (Richard A Rogers – Professor of Communication Studies at Northern Arizona University, specializing in critical rhetorical studies, PhD University of Utah. Julie Kalil Schutten – Associate Professor of Communication Studies at Northern Arizona University, specializing in environmental communication, PhD University of Utah. “The Gender of Water and the Pleasure of Alienation: A Critical Analysis of Visiting Hoover Dam.” Communication Review, 2004 Vol. 7 Issue 3, p 259-283. doi: 10.1080/10714420490492166) SFNature as InhospitableThe second segment focuses on the history of the region prior to the building of Hoover Dam and forms the core of an argument for the necessity of the dam based on the twin ideas of water's "scarcity and capriciousness." As the theater seats rotate, the music takes on a stereotypically "Native American" connotation and the primary image is a large map of the lower Colorado River basin: Colorado, Utah, Nevada, California, Arizona, and New Mexico. The map strives to appear old, as if on yellowed parchment, yet the cities labeled (Las Vegas, Flagstaff, Sedona, Moab, and Grand Junction) have more contemporary connotations, seemingly chosen not for their historical significance in terms of population or regional importance but for their association with tourism.With images of the desert Southwest appearing on small monitors behind the translucent map, the narrator begins by dwelling on the beauty of the area. This emphasis lasts only briefly and soon we are encouraged to understand the Southwest in terms of heat and the sun, which throws the landscape into blinding focus, driving animals and human alike to seek shelter. Whether by instinct or reason, this response to the harsh climate captures in an instant the character of this vast terrain. Parched by the insistent sunlight, shivering in its absence, and almost continually devoid of surface water, much of the 790,000 square miles of the United States we call the Southwest is inhospitable. ([37])But there is hope. In one of the few positive mentions of the Colorado River during the presentation, we are told the Colorado is an "artery of life" without which "the development and survival of human society would be impossible" in the Southwest.This positive view of the river turns quickly, however, into the Bureau of Reclamation's dominant view of the river (already introduced with the earlier description of water as "capricious"): "The Colorado—dangerous in flood, stingy in drought, erratic in mood and timing—but nevertheless the purveyor of life to all who would befriend her." In addition to the use of female pronouns to refer to the river, this comment is consistent with deeply-rooted, gendered dualisms in dominant Western ideologies. Women, being more grounded in their "natural" (as opposed to civilized) existence, are not only "nurturing" but also tend to manifest undesirable aspects of nature: "erratic" and therefore "dangerous" ([24]; [31]). Such language—found throughout the rhetoric of Hoover Dam and the Colorado River—continues to be reproduced, as in [39] recent examination of Hoover Dam photographs, which describes the original motivation for the dam in these terms: "to control the radically waxing and waning flow of water in the Colorado River" (p. xv). In this case, not only are irregularity and unpredictability associated with the river, the chosen metaphor is a feminine one: the movement (flow) of the phases of the moon. [21] and [19] have demonstrated how masculinity, reason, and order are linked to notions of solidity while femininity, emotion, and chaos are linked to fluidity. The free-flowing river—nurturing of life but also erratic and often dangerous—thus fits well with patriarchal notions of undeveloped nature.A continued attachment to the dam as an agent of progress only reproduces the self/other dualism that separates humans from the natural world and reifies the process of objectification in which humans simultaneously alienate themselves from and dominate natureRogers and Schutten 04 (Richard A Rogers – Professor of Communication Studies at Northern Arizona University, specializing in critical rhetorical studies, PhD University of Utah. Julie Kalil Schutten – Associate Professor of Communication Studies at Northern Arizona University, specializing in environmental communication, PhD University of Utah. “The Gender of Water and the Pleasure of Alienation: A Critical Analysis of Visiting Hoover Dam.” Communication Review, 2004 Vol. 7 Issue 3, p 259-283. doi: 10.1080/10714420490492166) SFWestern, patriarchal cultures have been attempting to dominate nature for centuries, even millennia ([30]). With the rise of the Industrial Revolution what has been termed "progress" has systematically altered the earth, and as [34] argues, "the technological conquest of nature in the 20th century has had a scale, an arrogance, with few rivals in history" (p. 402). This conquest, as with other wars, is based on a fundamental act of objectification consisting of two key elements: separation of humans from nature (a form of alienation) and positioning nature as something needing to be tamed and put to "productive" use (a form of domination). This "divide and conquer" mentality toward nature is readily apparent in the southwestern United States with the construction of Hoover Dam, a feat viewed as one of "mankind's" greatest triumphs over nature.One way to justify the dam and its consequences is to position the Colorado River as Other. Scientific and technological needs are placed before the needs of the earth in a progressive hierarchy based on the intertwined dualisms of self/ other, culture/nature, mind/matter, and order/chaos. Through a process of positioning the environment as Other, nature is left out of the dialogue. The justification of natural destruction follows the logic of progress. The Colorado River, as a specific manifestation of "wilderness," has been constructed as in need of mastery—ordering, controlling, regulating—by humans. By scientific and economic rationalization the river has been positioned as a lesser aspect in the web of life. Technocratic and instrumental ideologies are characterized by an ethical skepticism, deeply informed by positivism and Cartesian dualism, that refuses to accept anything natural—but especially the nonhuman—as having imminent value or worth ([ 2]). Harnessing the natural flow of the river makes sense in a context in which everything is viewed as an instrumentality and nature (female/ nonhuman) in particular is "othered."If nature is labeled with the negative dualistic functions of the feminine (e.g., natural, chaotic, unproductive), it is only "logical" that the Colorado River would need a master to be prosperous. As [15] states, "wilderness is an Other to the Self of Western culture and the master identity" (p. 5). Such a structure of meaning offers the ability to assert one's solidity, orderliness, and discipline against the fluidity and chaos of the river. In Rifkin's metaphorical terms, the discourse of the dam hails westerners as the cowboys who will "ride herd on the periodicities of nature." Part of the ideological "payoff" for embracing the official discourse about the dam is the ability to engage in the subjectivity of masculine solidity and mastery.The flipside of the demonization of the river, therefore, is the elevation of the identity which harnessed it. The Hoover Dam area is loaded with a feeling of supreme accomplishment. When leaving a tour of Hoover Dam visitors are to be left with the patriotic feeling that mankind can accomplish anything. At the end of the multimedia presentation, the music swells and a feeling of security is omnipresent. The tours are completed by exiting an elevator at the middle of the top of the dam, offering a view down the middle of its arching face with the river flowing far below. This feeling of supreme power seems to be the central appeal of the official rhetoric of the dam, and offers perhaps an important answer to Steinberg's question: Why has the control over water had such an overwhelming appeal in twentieth-century America? In these discourses, and in the western United States in particular, a series of stark contrasts function to highlight the feeling and desirability of domination: solid/fluid, order/chaos, productive/wasteful, vision/matter, and culture/nature. By separating humans from the natural world, and redefining the ideal as something other than that which exists naturally, humans strive to assume power-over.Not only is the river constituted as an Other, a desacralized object whose only worth is its use for humans, but the construction of the (dominating) Self requires (and is inseparable with) the construction of the Other. Accepting this position of domination requires that visitors separate (alienate) themselves from that which they are getting the pleasure of having power over. In this sense, the meaning of Hoover Dam is intimately linked to the alienation from the natural world in which most westerners, including those in the southwest United States, live. The dam provides electricity for air-conditioning and water for pools, fountains, and lawns. In doing so, it allows desert-dwellers to exist in the hot, dry climate by separating them from the natural conditions that surround them. It allows them to live on land that could otherwise feed, clothe, and shelter only a fraction of its present inhabitants. In short, it creates a false consciousness with regard to the ecosystems in which people live by creating the illusion that we humans are separate and above those ecosystems—as if we are protected from "the laws of nature" ([18]). The alienation from the natural world enabled by the dam perpetuates the illusion that we as humans are separate from nature and its feminine qualities. Without this illusion of autonomy, both the "logic" of the dam and the subject position of "nature's master" are untenable.In rhetorical studies, it is "common sense" to hold that separation is an important ingredient in rationalizing violence. Ecofeminism echoes this general position: The more humans separate themselves from nature the easier it is to rationalize its/her destruction. However, it is not simply a matter of blatant self- interest, anthropocentrism, and false consciousness that motivates this alienation in service of domination. There are rhetorical incentives wrapped in and articulated with subjectivities and pleasures.As [34] argues, an understanding of water projects in the United States requires that we adopt a view of power as productive as well as repressive. Power operates here not only as a means to control the Colorado River, but as a means for producing a particular kind of awe and pleasure, offering visitors the subject position of "nature's master." In the context of Marxist analyses of mass culture, [22] holds that "the people" must be understood as more than passive dupes who have the ideology of the ruling classes beamed into their heads. Instead, a dialectical approach must examine how utopian ideals—in this case mastery over one's environment— are raised and then channeled, not simply imposing a false consciousness but offering an exchange of sorts, and thereby some cause for optimism. In the case of the Hoover Dam rhetoric, visitors are offered the vicarious pleasure of the master subject position as an inducement to accept the destruction of the river, its canyons, and their attendant life-forms and ecosystems. As ecofeminists state, a fundamental denial of dependency (a refusal to recognize that humans too are interconnected and interdependent with nature) is a necessary step in nature's transformation into a lifeless resource or hostile entity needing to be controlled. In turning "nature" (in this case, the Colorado River) into the "Other," we not only justify its objectification; following [16] discussion of stereotypes, the "Other" becomes a site/symbol upon which we project those traits which we ourselves embody (or at least fear we may embody), thereby maintaining the illusion of our own goodness. The Colorado River, in this instance, is the chaotic, dangerous, destructive force that enables our sense of ourselves as ordered, safe, and productive. The immense destruction wrought—on humans and nonhumans alike—by Hoover, Glen Canyon, and other dams is thereby rewritten as "reclamation," an honorable project which reaffirms our own value and perpetuates the processes of alienation by which we are separated from the consequences of our own actions (as well as from the "complex web of life to which we are inexorably bound").Geoengineering LinkGeoengineering serves as a masculine techno-fix that makes environmental destruction inevitableBari 20 (Mavra, writer, communications specialist and sociologist with a Masters from University of Amsterdam in Sociology. “Manipulating Mother Nature: The gendered antagonism of geoengineering”, The Green Political Foundation, 30 January 2020.) FW in its abundant and diverse creation is called ‘Mother Nature’: she produces, she consumes, she provides, she cares, she takes, she breathes and she even gets angry. The seamless and organic ecosystems alive in nature are often juxtaposed by the mechanical masculinity of capitalism and technology. Furthermore, as patriarchy has controlled women’s autonomy, movement and rights while also subjecting women to the male gaze. Capitalism too has subjected nature to its manipulative gaze and extracted the Earth to near-exhaustion and even, revolt. As the climate crisis looms large and capitalism scrambles to reinvent and sustain itself, Mother Nature is once again the subject of the male gaze but this time the impact may be even more oppressive. This article expands the feminist concept of ‘male gaze’ towards nature and critiques geoengineering as being an inherently male/masculine technology that is a product of and a means to further capitalistic agenda. While also analysing and exploring how binary roles of male and female extend to technology and nature dichotomy which has further gendered the world and development in a toxic way.Enter the anthropocene: Where are women in the era of man-made impact?According to scientists we have entered a new epoch - the Anthropocene - a geological age ushered in by human impact on Earth. Writer of The Anthropocene: The Human Era and How it Shapes Our Planet, Christian Schwagerl describes the era as such because, “Man has become the biggest influence on the biosphere”. More so than humans, ‘men’ have truly pushed the planet into a new era due to the systems of production and consumption created by them.Man-made laws, policies, economies and societies – culture, have used nature as their canvas and colours to create the world as we know it today. This is not to say, that women do not play a pivotal and immense role in society, economy, culture and even the climate crisis, but it is to clarify that women’s work and roles have been historically subjugated or overlooked, often making them passive in culture rather than active creators. According to Sherry Beth Ortner, distinguished cultural anthropologist, “[Culture] at some level of awareness asserts itself to be not only distinct from but superior to nature, and that sense of distinctiveness and superiority rests precisely on the ability to transform – to “socialize” and “culturalize” – nature”. Ortner draws a parallel to men and culture, and women and nature, to illuminate the domination of men over women, capitalism over nature. These binary categorizations and antagonism of course have detrimental implications for everyone on the planet and the planet itself. There are no innate qualities of ‘men’ that make them crudely dominating as there is no innate female quality of subservience but rather the patriarchal and capitalistic culture of millennia has cemented a system that ruthlessly subjugates women and nature.A history of capitalism and patriarchyIn the 1920s, capitalism and technology were drastically changing the everyday, mundane private home life, arguably “women’s realm” at the time. Refrigerators, vacuum cleaners and washing machines flooded markets in developed countries and women as keepers of home life, were of course, the target demographic. Women have also been the key consumer base of conspicuous consumption, particularly post World War I (1914-1918) as capitalism’s uptake relied on promoting the culture of abundance after the strenuous austerity of the war. It was a rather ingenious marketing ploy targeting women more than men as they were seen as the decorators of the world, the homemakers who would buy the products being manufactured by men. From ‘home-making’ to fashion and style, women became the predominant target market for capitalism’s commodities and their status in the private sphere cemented further. Going as far back as Aristotle, inherent ‘maleness’ and ‘femaleness’ were linked to activity and passivity, respectively, and millennia later, such thought still sneakily pervades much of our culture.“What men want to learn from nature is how to use it in order wholly to dominate it” - Dorinda Outram1920s economist Paul Nystrom, deemed the lifestyle changes allowed by the industrial age and technology as governed by a “philosophy of futility” and almost prophetically claimed that this increase in production/consumption would lead the world in to narcissistic and hedonistic desire, insatiable and unrelenting. This culture of abundance or perceived abundance powered the emerging middle class in countries all over the world and solidified capitalism as a world order like never before. Men established themselves as the active producers and women as the passive consumers. Ironically though, the leisure afforded to women by technology that made home duties and tasks faster, also increased women’s desire to enter the public sphere and working force. The women’s suffrage movement of the 18th and 19th Century also coincided with the Industrial Revolution, showing that while men tried to control women through the coupled entrenchment of patriarchy and capitalism and actively keep women as cultural outsiders, women still rallied to fight for rights and inclusivity.How patriarchy reduces and exploits women and natureWomen’s unrecorded and unfathomable unpaid labour throughout history and cultures, has surely a big hand in the world’s ‘progress’ and upholding the status quo. However, the barriers of entry to women in leadership roles that exist even today, have kept women’s views and perspectives out of much of the dominant culture and world decision-making. Men have predominantly constructed world systems and manipulated nature systems to fit their capitalistic quest of increasing growth and consumption.Like women, nature has also long been raw material used for technological and production progress without accountability. Ecofeminism is a worthwhile lens to explore the antagonistic relationship between nature and production, men and women, public and private, characteristic of today’s globalised and capitalist world order. Ecofeminism is an ecological movement and political theory that deconstructs the various forms of male domination in society. It intently studies the relationship between women and nature, employing the concept of gender to analyse the relationships between humans and the natural world.Many ecofeminists argue that nature much like women has been infantalised, sanitised and subjugated by patriarchal capitalism in order to establish a status quo that prioritises men and growth. Even the universally accepted term, ‘Mother Nature’ which on the surface espouses power, strength and life-giving force; actually reduces women and nature to a singular common denominator — mother, pushing women and nature back in to a solely reproductive and passive role. According to environmental policy researcher, Sarah Milner-Barry, states that, “The idea that women and nature are inherently linked is a tacit acceptance of their mutual exploitation”. She posits that though “Mother Nature,” does denote spirituality and respect that indigenous populations still uphold but today the term represents “the twinned exploitation of all that patriarchal society considers to be inferior to men”. She likens the dichotomy of nature as “savior or destroyer” to the “Madonna/whore complex” and states that this kind of reduction of complex phenomena to simplistic binaries is what needs to challenged.As the climate crisis is manifesting itself more each day, this savior/destroyer binary is indeed more prevalent in media and everyday language. We acknowledge Mother Nature as a saviour when she provides but also as a destroyer when she is wrathful. However, such language is again problematic as now that we are living in an age undeniably marred by human impact, humans are indeed the destroyers of “Mother Nature” but the patriarchal belief is that technology can be the saviour of the planet.Geoengineering: A patriarchal fallacy to save ‘business as usual’Surprisingly, what is even more disconcerting than the realisation that man-made systems have made devastating changes to the Earth, is man’s ultimate hubris - that he can be the saviour of the very destruction he has created. None more evident than the discussions and plans surrounding geoengineering. Geoengineering is the belief that technology can “solve” the Earth’s climate crisis by manipulating Earth systems, as such it is the ultimate ‘techno-fix’ on a planetary level, unprecedented in its scale, ambition and possible consequences. It aims to manipulate earth’s climate systems by artificially changing oceans, soils and the atmosphere. The geoengineering technologies that are gaining most momentum and traction are centred around:Reflecting sunlight back into space by significantly changing the Earth’s surface (Solar Radiation Management - SRM)Removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, storing it and using it underground (Bio-energy with carbon capture and storage - BECCS as part of Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR))(For an explanation of these concepts please see: or )Silvia Ribeiro, Latin America Director at the ETC Group has deemed geoengineering as a climate crisis “Trojan horse," posturing as a necessary and logical solution to the climate crisis. Ribeiro speaks to a geoengineering project in particular, Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment (SCoPEx) in the US – which falls under the Solar Radiation Management (SRM) and seems to be swiftly moving forward. This entails a Stratospheric Aerosol Injection where even the word, “injection” brings to mind phallic images of penetration.Other technological approaches also beckon back to male sexuality and power dynamics, such as that of “cloud seeding” which is a type of weather modification that aims to change the amount or type of precipitation that falls from clouds by dispersing substances into the air that serve as cloud condensation and used to increase precipitation (rain or snow), but hail and fog suppression are also widely practised in airports where harsh weather conditions are experienced. However, “despite decades of cloud seeding operations, proof that the technique works outside miniaturized clouds created in the lab has been elusive” (Chen, ScienceMag).Projects like SCoPEx are being funded and lobbied by the Fossil Fuel industry so that they can continue with unfettered depletion and extraction of “Mother Nature” as they believe they can again manipulate nature to bring an equilibrium. That man can control the delicate balance inherent in nature through cold techno-fixes, is perhaps patriarchy’s most dangerous and laughable belief.In Carolyn Merchant’s, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution, she demonstrates that until the rise of capitalism, the Earth was held in high esteem and reverence as a living mother, ”The earth was alive and considered to be a beneficent, receptive, nurturing female" (p.28). She also views 16th Century’s progress towards mining for minerals as a pivotal point where nature went from being revered and treasured to being used and striped for parts. Mining, an act of penetration of the Earth is viewed by Merchant and by many ecofeminists as “raping of the Earth”. Similarly, geo-engineer’s techno-fix has moved from penetrating nature’s soils to its skies. SCoPEx intends to use sulfate aerosols that can “increase in sulfate deposition on terrestrial ecosystems by assuming the upper limit of hydration of all sulfate aerosols into sulfuric acid” (Kravitz, 2009) and negatively impact most ecosystems. If multiple SRM schemes like SCoPEx are deployed they could further deplete the ozone layer, unequivocally and irreversibly changing the sky and endangering the thin layer that keeps life on Earth functional and possible.Despite the disastrous technical ramifications of this massive intervention on the nature system, the social, and geopolitical implications are far more threatening. “If deployed at scale, SRM could disrupt the monsoons in Asia and cause droughts in Africa, affecting the food and water supplies of two billion people," warns Ribeiro. Blatant lack or care for how geoengineering will impact the Global South disproportionately and the conspicuous absence of these countries in talks and policies around geoengineering is reminiscent of women’s absence in decision-making throughout human history. From an intersectional lens, women from developing countries will be the hardest hit by climate change and the implications of geoengineering.It is disconcerting if not surprising that the “business as usual” ethos that drove capitalistic agenda is still at work. It stands that if men have predominantly created the culture responsible for the Anthropocene that they will also be the designers and engineers of the ‘solutions’ but there is a continuation of manipulation, rather than redressing growth systems.The ‘male gaze’ extends beyond men's view and perception of women in society as objects rather than complex human beings to nature as well. Men conflate nature and women and thus the male gaze extends to nature. The planet is a thing that can be dismantled piecemeal and reassembled just as women have been disassembled to body parts and their autonomy striped away to be returned, broken and disjointed, lacking autonomy.Capitalism’s unshakeable male-gaze on natureFreud's conception of masculine scopophilia entailed the perception of seeing other people as objects, subjecting them to a controlling and curious gaze and can be referred to man’s controlling gaze towards nature as well. Just as the male gaze curtailing women’s space and autonomy is not only voyeuristic but invasive, so is man’s view of the world. Mother Nature is either pristine, mysterious, beautiful and nurturing — an aesthetic, or whittled down to mere use value. Karl Marx described the value of a commodity as its use value, a product's utility in satisfying needs and wants as afforded by its material properties. In such, the same male gaze is being used in the techno-fixes aiming to redeem man-made damage. The unflinching belief in technology to fix the problems it has created keeps a steely eye on nature’s use value as well.Ecologist Morgan Robertson, in his 2006 essay, noted that, “The nature that capital can see” is what will result in valuation of nature in a true sense via an economic context. The idea that capitalism’s male gaze fails to view nature above its use value is at the core of its myopia. While on one hand, the green economy is trying to re-think “business as usual” and monetise natural capital; on the other hand, geoengineering is attempting to re-haul nature’s systems. How are these two climate crisis ‘innovations’ to work in tandem? One solution, surely cancels out the other, which makes climate talks worldwide seem like nothing but smoke and mirrors.Not only does geoengineering stem from an overwhelmingly patriarchal universalism and status quo but, even more than in traditional engineering, women are few and far in geoengineering as a field and a lack of feminist perspectives in geoengineering and other fields of technology development is still the norm. While cohesive research and reporting on women’s participation are absent, the two most recent influential reports on geoengineering by the United Kingdom’s Royal Society and Bjorn Lomborg’s Copenhagen Consensus Center, state that women account for just 16 per cent in these reports’ panels. An even more telling measure is to read academic papers, watch climate changes talks or scour the internet for discussions on geoengineering, it becomes sharply obvious that women are in fact not much included.Scientists warn that geoengineering may even lead to a world war as countries will be impacted unevenly and the large-scale resources needed for geoengineering cannot possibly be provided in a non-exploitive, democratic way. According to Fuel To Fire, research carried out by Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), “Confronting the challenge of climate change is not a matter of future technology, but present political will and economic investment". Unfortunately, so far powerful business groups are calling the shots.Despite geoengineering’s incalculable risks, due to the powerful governmental, military and business lobbies behind it, it seems well on its way. Even more troubling is that geoengineering has created additional tools for climate deniers and provided an excuse to this, already powerful, triad to go on ‘business as usual’ and let patriarchal capitalism run amok.However, all is not lost, we are after all in the Anthropocene where human impact is increasingly powerful and women are surely becoming more active within our culture. This is not to say that there aren’t women geo-engineers or capitalists - of course there are - but it is about changing our toxic masculine systems. We must start at the very basic level by giving men and women an equal chance to colour the world. The human race is at a crossroads and while the challenges are difficult to overcome, the possibilities are also unlimited. Christian Schwagerl argues that in the Anthropocene the, “World we can no longer speak of ‘nature’ and ‘culture’ as two separate spheres. Rainforests will no longer exist just because they have always existed, but because people want them to exist…The task for the 21st century and beyond is to reclaim, regenerate and transform these landscapes”. In a world where women are gaining more equality and there is mass realisation that the old systems have failed garnering sustainability and equality, there is indeed hope that a new culture, a new relationship can emerge with and within nature. The anthropomorphized nature will no longer just be seen as feminine, passive or mother, but a collective, complex, gender fluid life-giving force once again respected and revered by all.Econ LinkEconomic growth under capitalism is bad - industrial modernity is tied to hyper-masculinity and leads to the oppression of women. Growth is only sustainable under ecofeminism.Casey Reiland, 2-4-2021, (Casey Reiland - Managing editor of CASSE. "Ecofeminism and the Steady State Economy – The Steady State Herald," Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy, \\ethan.jxtai)With few exceptions, governments across the globe ignore or even deny the conflict between economic growth and environmental protection. Yet Thunberg was brave enough to face these giants and speak the truth with a proclamation that could transform how society views economic growth. Her speech at the UN was just one example of how women have historically been at the forefront of fighting for environmental protection. Thunberg joined the ranks of Rachel Carson, Sylvia Earle, Isatou Ceesay, Vandana Shiva, and Marina Silva as impactful leaders toward improving our relationship with Earth. Like most of these women, Thunberg has been exposed to reckless criticism and mockery from politicians and financial pundits. Who can forget President Trump’s condescending tweets about her, telling her to “work on her anger management problem” and “chill”? Though Trump’s comments are irrelevant and ugly, they are unsurprising. Other climate deniers—typically white cisgender men—have also been aggressive toward activists, particularly younger women. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has received numerous attacks via social media for her environmental policies. The right-wing Media Research Center tweeted a video in 2019 of Ocasio-Cortez calling for “rapid decarbonization” and labeled her speech as “Shallow Thoughts,” with tacky sea images and music in the background. While Thunberg and Ocasio-Cortez are just two examples of women subjected to sexism and ableism, these attacks speak to a larger problem in the environmental movement: Powerful elites use sexist language to protect the growing economy that they have built their reputation and wealth on. The Fragile Masculinity of Industrial Capitalists Social scientists Jonas Anslem and Martin Hulman have described how a group of Swedish climate skeptics claimed that they were being marginalized due to their strong belief in the free market to protect society. All but one member of this group were elderly men. Anslem and Hulman argued that it was not the state of the environment that the skeptics felt threatened by, but rather the decline of the “masculinity of industrial modernity.” These skeptics, along with many other male leaders across the globe, tie their masculinity to the institutions that they financially benefit from. Environmental advocacy endangers their power because it questions these institutions. These business tycoons and politicians—the “elite directors of growth” as John Bodley calls them—cannot stand to lose the powers and privileges of industrial capitalism, so they instead attempt to debase the discussion of climate change by framing women as too emotional and unsound. Meanwhile, environmental activism was largely initiated by women. In the 19th century, women comprised a significant cohort among bird conservationists. Harriet Lawrence Hemenway and Minna Hall, for instance, ended the plume trade in the late 1800s, saving the snowy egret from extinction and leading to the creation of the National Audubon Society. Marjory Stoneman Douglas defended the Everglades against efforts to drain and “develop” it in the early 1940s. Jane Goodall began studying chimpanzee communities in 1960 and became a broad-based environmental leader (and CASSE signatory). However, claiming that environmental advocacy is “feminine” patronizes the movement and forces it into a gender binary. In contrast, intersectional feminism—or the understanding of how women’s overlapping identities impact their experience with oppression—is grounded in inclusivity. Everyone, no matter their gender, should feel welcomed and motivated to participate in environmental advocacy. Bringing a reusable bag to a grocery store does not qualify a person as “unmanly,” nor should gender be used as a weapon for degradation. Yet fragile masculinity and sexism (especially among cisgender white men) is still prevalent in discussions of environmental protection. Navigating the Labyrinth The gender gap in business and government is profound. Consider the following: Women comprise 6 percent of the members in the House of Representatives. There are only 25 women in the Senate. Forty percent of businesses in the USA are women-owned. Women make up only 28 percent of the science and engineering workforce. In the book Through the Labyrinth: The Truth About How Women Become Leaders, social psychologist Alice Eagly describes how the labyrinth is a more appropriate metaphor than the “glass ceiling” for the challenges women face in obtaining leadership positions. Women can move through the ranks in society, but every level presents a new barrier: pay gap, sexual harassment, pregnancy discrimination, etc. For women of color, these struggles are only heightened. All of these factors contribute to women being pushed from important positions of power. Eagly also points out that men are able to garner more political respect because of their assertiveness. They get more funding and support because they embody the stereotypical political figure. Women, on the other hand, must be not only competent and deliberate but also likable. For instance, Vice President Kamala Harris has proved herself as an intelligent, informed orator with a cogent platform, yet shortly after the VP debate, she was targeted as “unlikeable” and “abrasive.” As mentioned before, women in the political sphere are criticized more for emotional reasons over their policies or long-term plans. Not only are women labeled as too emotional in leadership roles, but they are also too often categorized as being “weak” or “timid.” Yet leadership is not about aggression or hostility; figureheads should be empathetic, good listeners, and team players. Eagly mentions how men are more likely to engage in physically dangerous acts to save lives, but women typically participate in relational acts that help people. For instance, women are more likely to donate organs than men. Women were also more likely to rescue Jewish people during the Holocaust. Some might argue the statistics are skewed because women lack the physical strength of men (on average) to save others from immediate perils such as drowning or animal attacks. Yet the examples above reveal that women as leaders are more likely to take risks for the good of society, not themselves. While saving someone from a burning building could earn the title “hero,” organ donors remain anonymous. Further, the majority of women who hid Jewish people in their attics have slipped quietly into the background of history. Women typically act as leaders for the sake of others, not for fame or money. How can we ensure this same motivation is applied to a diverse environmental movement? The Economic Objectives of Ecofeminism For so long, major societal decisions have been made by white men. It’s time that women are brought to the policy table. This can start with education. Women’s educational achievements have increased worldwide since the 1960s. In 2010, only a fifth of adult women had no formal schooling compared to 50 percent of women sixty years ago. However, though women are more educated than they once were, there are numerous countries where gender parity is far from achieved. Within the primary school system, there are 5.5 million more out-of-school girls than boys worldwide. Lacking proper education not only hinders women in pursuing careers, but also further causes inequity in the household, political, and social spheres. Schools should have the resources they need to empower all students. That could look like an education system that addresses intolerance in classrooms or supports students’ wellbeing instead of rewarding competition and output. The wealth gap is also a component of gender inequality in higher education. People in wealthier societies are more likely to receive higher education and have a longer life expectancy. That means that parents who struggle financially have more difficulty in supporting their families, and therefore, could contribute to women facing a decision of pursuing a career (and taking out thousands of dollars in loans) or helping loved ones at home. One way to close the wealth gap is through the “Sustainable Salaries Act,” which would “prohibit top employees in most industries from making more than fifteen times as much as the lowest-paid employees.” The salaries bill may also be packaged as a part of the Full and Sustainable Employment Act, a policy vision for a steady state economy. This vision ensures that a healthy environment will lead to a healthy economy, and that a healthy economy will lead to more opportunities for everyone. A steady state economy would supplant the pro-growth tactics that are sucking the life from marginalized people. It could be argued that the macroeconomic objective of ecofeminism is the steady state economy. Ecofeminism was conceptualized in the 1970s and used by activists to show how environmental damage is related to women’s exploitation in society. More recently, though, a new school of thought has branched out: “cultural ecofeminism.” This movement encourages the connection between women and the environment, suggesting women’s sensitivity to nature is essential for creating communities outside of the patriarchal, industrial hierarchy. Cultural ecofeminists strive to protect the environment as well as establish safe spaces for those across all social, economic, racial, and gender identities. Nothing can be changed overnight. But introducing ecofeminist principles, little by little, into corporate and public policies will build momentum for greater traction and action. For instance, ecofeminism has the potential for reforming environmental regulation. Ecofeminists are strong supporters of the public trust doctrine, a long-running challenge to the toxic masculinity of free-market capitalism. Ecofeminist policies should also be instituted in women’s healthcare and international affairs. Governments should require sexual education as mandatory in school curriculum. Women should also have free access to contraception. Further, governments should create more roles for women in their international security departments. The Women, Peace, and Security Act of 2017 is a step in the right direction. It promotes the political participation of women in the local, regional, national, and international levels of conflict resolution. As ecofeminism permeates the political sphere, and women gain more leadership positions, there should be more support for steady-state economics in the policy arena. Who knows, maybe the next Greta Thunberg is reading this right now, ready to march with a sign that reads, “Skolstrejk f?r den stabila ekonomin.”The aff’s conception of innovation is colonialist and genderedAnnie Hewitt 12-20-2020, (interview with Vandana Shiva) Neither extinction nor escape — Vandana Shiva on ecofeminism’s way out of our global crisis," Metta Center for Nonviolence, of course, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand gave this letter patent, but they got the authority through the Pope Alexander, who then a year later on the papal bull talked about the civilizing mission to sort out people like us, you know, who had to be colonized. The barbarians. But the Pope got his instructions from God. And it’s not that colonialism is over, it’s just that the Columbuses of today are the kings and queens of today; they are the Pope’s of today, and even go around as the gods of today.They control the economy. They have made money the new god. They evolve new tools, and they call it innovation. But the word innovation is derived from the word in innovare. Innovare means to renew. The seed renews. It’s innovating all the time. Women through the work they do are not just engaged in biological reproduction but in social reproduction. There would be no society without women’s contributions.The ideal, economic-favoured, and institutional society of the West is a patriarchal rejection of nature and women, drawing arbitrary boundaries between both the non-human and itself. Water protection policies must be framed with a value in nature and a rejection of the modern economic model in mindSpash and Aslaksen, 2015 (Biofeminist writers from Europe. Spash works for the Institute for the Multi-Level Governance and Development, Department of Socio-Economics, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business, while Aslaksen works in Statistics Norway. Clive L. Spash and Iulie Aslaksen, 8-1-2015, "Re-establishing an ecological discourse in the policy debate over how to value ecosystems and biodiversity," Elsevier, )/bencWhile rejection of the money motive and refusals to trade-off may seem strange and inexplicable to some ecologists, and most economists, they are in fact widely recognised in a variety of literatures. Similar concepts arise in terms of intrinsic values in philosophy, protected values in psychology, taboos in anthropology, and sacred values in various religious and spiritual traditions. This position is also strongly reflected in deep ecology (Naess, 1973). Shallow ecology can be summarised as a fight against pollution and resource depletion, framing Nature in terms of instrumental values, with a central objective of health and affluence for the ‘developed countries’. Deep ecology appeals to the intrinsic values of Nature, suggesting a relationship between the human and nonhuman world reflecting an ethics of responsibility. The problem of modernity is how to allow for and respect these values. Promotion of a specific value articulating institution can then be seen to have unintended consequences. Money has a fundamental influence on human perception of value and may lead to crowding-out of desired behavior and non-market considerations. More than failing to reflect important values, a strong reliance on the monetary approach can be destructive e.g., undermining community values (Claro, 2007). At stake is the fundamental ethical concern over the commodification of Nature: “If the valued goods that give richness to our lives are reduced to commodities, then what makes those lives meaningful is itself betrayed” (Funtowicz and Ravetz, 1994 p.197). The contradictions, conflicts and plurality of values require institutions that allow them to be expressed (Vatn, 2005). More than this the actors holding these values need to be empowered. The fundamental issue being raised here is how human-Nature relationships should be expressed and can evolve in a sense of care and respect rather than exploitation and dominance. Civilization has evolved at the cost of losing the “body’s silent conversation with Nature” (Abram, 1996 p.21). Losing the language of Nature, we are impaired in developing a language of ecology. Loss of beloved Nature has been argued to lead to a psychological state of denial of that loss (Nicholson, 2002). This calls for a transformation in human understanding of our relationship with the natural world. In pre-modern cultures people view themselves as part of the wider community of Nature in active relationships with animals, plants, landscapes, mountains, rivers, wind and weather patterns, and it is only in recent centuries that humanity has come to think of Nature as an inanimate object or, even more recently, as a human artefact. Western rationalism is too quick to condemn alternative claims to understanding Nature as asserting “super-natural” powers. This discards conviviality with Nature, a recognition of non-human sentience and the continuity between humanity’s physical and spiritual connection to Nature (Abram,1996). Feminist philosophy and ecofeminism have drawn attention to how the cultural and societal devaluation of feminine and Nature values are intertwined (Merchant, 1980;Plumwood, 1993; Shiva, 1988). Part of the feminist perspective is the emphasis on relationships, interdependence and the role of caring in sustaining and reproducing society. Feminist economists have pointed out the parallel between the economic and political invisibility of Nature in supporting humanity and women’s care work—echoed by the invisibility of indigenous cultures and of the poor (Mellor, 2005; Nelson, 1992; Waring,1989). The economic conceptualization of Nature reflects a division or “hyperseparation” between humans and the non-human world (Plumwood, 1993, 2008). Nelson (1992) questions the implicitly gendered thinking about rationality, agency and values underlying economics. The idealized economic model describes individuals as autonomous entities operating in an economy that has no biophysical reality, let alone a conceptualisation of human-Nature relationships. Economics is embedded in a dominant patriarchal, dualistic and hierarchical structure that defines a world of opposition with humans vs. Nature and men vs. women. A new transformative approach is called for that recognizes connection and relation toothers and the natural world, as well as separateness and individualism, in the complex of elements fundamental to human identity and fulfillment transformative feminism would involve a psychological restructuring of our attitudes and beliefs about ourselves and ‘our world’ (including the non-human world), and a philosophical rethinking of the notion of the self such that we see ourselves as both co-members of an ecological community and yet different from other members of it”(Warren, 1989 p.19)This appeal for a transformative approach, that integrates the social and economic withtheecological and sustainable, isa vision of human society and Nature in balance. Rather than the economy being seen as an independent entity a social ecological economic ontology recognises the ordered structure of reality in which the economy is embedded in society which is in turn embedded in the biophysical. The transformation looks for new institutions for value articulation as well as different means for organising society to reflect the values of human-Nature relationships currently being purposefully excluded under systems of capital accumulation and resource extractivism. The mistaken presumption of new environmental pragmatism is that the global biodiversity crisis can be solved without major political will or institutional change. The prevailing use of the ecosystem service approach and neoliberal markets as ‘solving’ the biodiversity crisis obscures the ecological, economic, and political complexities. The policy instruments required for biodiversity and ecosystem protection need to be framed, interpreted, and implemented in an understanding that involves “a reconfiguration of state-market-community relationships”.The drive to achieve economic growth and productivity are western, patriarchal concepts excludes of women’s work and destroys the environment. Forget “economic growth”, it’s maldevelopment, because it labels work without profit as “unproductive" and justifies the exploitation of women and natureShiva, 1988 (Vandana Shiva. “Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Survival in India”, pg. 3-5, Kali for Women, ISBN: 8188965588 \\ethan.jxtai)The displacement of women from productive activity by the expansion of development was rooted largely in the manner in which development projects appropriated or destroyed the natural resource base for the production of sustenance and survival. It destroyed women's productivity both by removing land, water and forests from their management and control, as well as through the ecological destruction of soil, water and vegetation systems so that nature's productivity and renewability were impaired. While gender subordination and patriarchy are the oldest oppressions, they have taken on new and more violent forms through the project of development. Patriarchal categories which understand destruction as 'production' and regeneration of life as passivity have generated a crisis of survival. Passivity, as an assumed category of the 'nature' of nature and of women, denies the activity of nature and life. Fragmentation and uniformity as assumed categories of progress and development destroy the living forces which arise from relationships within the 'web of life' and the diversity in the elements and patterns of these relationships. The economic biases and values against nature, women and indigenous peoples are captured in this typical analysis of the 'unproductiveness' of traditional natural societies: Production is achieved through human and animal, rather than mechanical, power. Most agriculture is unproductive; human or animal manure may be used but chemical fertilisers and pesticides are unknown ... For the masses, these conditions mean poverty.5 The assumptions are evident: nature is unproductive; organic agriculture based on nature's cycles of renewability spells poverty; women and tribal and peasant societies embedded in nature are similarly unproductive, not because it has been demonstrated that in cooperation they produce less goods and services for needs, but because it is assumed that 'production' takes place only when mediated by technologies for commodity production, even when such technologies destroy life. A stable and clean river is not a productive resource in this view: it needs to be 'developed' with dams in order to become so. Women, sharing the river as a commons to satisfy the water needs of their families and society are not involved in productive labour: when substituted by the engineering man, water management and water use become productive activities. Natural forests remain unproductive till they are developed into 3 monoculture plantations of commercial species. Development thus, is equivalent to maldevelopment, a development bereft of the feminine, the conservation, the ecological principle. The neglect of nature's work in renewing herself, and women's work in producing sustenance in the form of basic, vital needs is an essential part of the paradigm of maldevelopment, which sees all work that does not produce profits and capital as non or unproductive work. As Maria Mies6 has pointed out, this concept of surplus has a patriarchal bias because, from the point of view of nature and women, it is not based on material surplus produced over and above the requirements of the community: it is stolen and appropriated through violent modes from nature (who needs a share of her produce to reproduce herself) and from women (who need a share of nature's produce to produce sustenance and ensure survival). From the perspective of Third World women, productivity is a measure of producing life and sustenance; that this kind of productivity has been rendered invisible does not reduce its centrality to survival - it merely reflects the domination of modern patriarchal economic categories which see only profits, not life. Maldevelopment as the death of the feminine principle In this analysis, maldevelopment becomes a new source of male female inequality. 'Modernisation' has been associated with the introduction of new forms of dominance. Alice Schlege17 has shown that under conditions of subsistence, the interdependence and co of work is the characteristic mode, based on diversity, not inequality. Maldevelopment militates against equality in diversity, and superimposes the ideologically constructed category of western technological man as a uniform measure of the worth of classes, cultures and genders. Dominant modes of perception based on reductionism, duality and linearity are unable to cope with equality in diversity, with forms and activities that are significant and valid, even though different. The reductionist mind superimposes the roles and forms of power of western male-oriented concepts on women, all non-western peoples and even on nature, rendering all three 'deficient', and in need of 'development'. Diversity, and unity and harmony in diversity, become epistemologically unattainable in the context of maldevelopment, which then becomes synonymous with women's underdevelopment (increasing sexist domination), and nature's depletion (deepening ecological crises). 4 Commodities have grown, but nature has shrunk. The poverty crisis of the south arises from the growing scarcity of water, food, fodder and fuel, associated with increasing maldevelopment and ecological destruction. This poverty crisis touches women most severely, first because they are the poorest among the poor, and then because, with nature, they are the primary sustainers of society. Maldevelopment is the violation of the integrity of organic, interconnected and interdependent systems, that sets in motion a process of exploitation, inequality, injustice and violence. It is blind to the fact that a recognition of nature's harmony and action to maintain it are preconditions for distributive justice. This is why Mahatma Gandhi said, 'There is enough in the world for everyone's need, but not for some people's greed.' Maldevelopment is maldevelopment in thought and action. In practice, this fragmented, reductionist, dualist perspective violates the integrity and harmony of man in nature, and the harmony between men and women. It ruptures the co-operative unity of masculine and feminine, and places man, shorn of the feminine principle, above nature and women, and separated from both. The violence to nature as symptomatised by the ecological crisis, and the violence to women, as symptomatised by their subjugation and exploitation arise from this subjugation of the feminine principle. 1 want to argue that what is currently called development is essentially maldevelopment, based on the introduction or accentuation of the domination of man over nature and women. In it, both are viewed as the 'other', the passive non-self. Activity, productivity, creativity which were associated with the feminine principle are expropriated as qualities of nature and women, and transformed into the exclusive qualities of man. Nature and women are turned into passive objects, to be used and exploited for the uncontrolled and uncontrollable desires of alienated man. From being the creators and sustainers of life, nature and women are reduced to being ‘resources' in the fragmented, anti-life model of maldevelopment. Technology LinkThe aff’s use of technology as a solution makes domination of the political, the social, and the environment the only possible solution under western logicSelam 06, Ophelia Selam - Women's Studies at the State University of New York at Binghamton, “Ecofeminism or Death: Humans, identity, and the environment”, Gale Academic Onefile, University of Puerto Rico, Faculty of Arts and Sciences //JKBut, as Merchant and others have pointed out, as mechanization grew, so did the urge to dominate and control this unpredictable and bountiful nature. The image of the caring and powerful female nature began to be replaced, starting in the sixteenth century, first by the image of the greedy mother earth who hides and keeps her secrets and bounties (read metals) to herself, and then by the more popular (and still popular) image of the machine. While the organic cosmos was a world filled with vitality and energies all emanating from nature (or God or both), the mechanistic world was filled with dead and passive matter (Merchant 105). In addition, the manipulation of nature within this dead world was no longer one of individual efforts, but became associated with "general collaborative social interests that sanctioned the expansion of commercial capitalism" (Merchant 111). Far from being innocent, the attitude toward nature changed in order to socially and, more importantly, morally sanction the "need" to exploit it. The declaration of the death of nature only further sanctioned this supposed "need." This tension, between technological development and the organic images of nature (Merchant 2), oniy heightened through time. As Merchant illustrates, Greek philosophy and the Christian religion both entertained the idea of the dominion over the earth, but it wasn't until this Scientific Revolution that this domination metaphor spread beyond the religious sphere to permeate the social and the political (Merchant 3). The domination metaphor actually spread to its own loss of origin (its own loss of history), to become the only (read "natural") way to see nature, the outside, and ourselves. For the Scientific Revolution utilized previously established views of nature to its advantage. This image mainly operated around the parameters of cultivation and gardens. Using, as its basis, the age-old association of nature with women, both entities were then viewed as comforting, nurturing, but also providers and hence care-takers for the well-being of males (Merchant 9). This was not merely a benevolent and generous characteristic of nature, it was her unarguable duty. Nature and women were then provided with their roles, which were primarily passive, hence manageable and rapable (Merchant 39). The passivity of matter could therefore be incorporated within the "new mechanical philosophy in the form of "dead" atoms, constituents of a new machine-like world" (Merchant 20). Within this world, change could only be achieved through external forces (Merchant 20), thus reinforcing the connection between this model and commercial/exploitative structures (for both nature and women). This changing view of nature was accompanied and caused by a turn to capitalistic control for the purpose of profit (Merchant 43). Prior to this shift, farming worked on an agrarian ecosystem that closely connected the peasant community to the land (Merchant 43). These "traditional patterns of cooperation" (Merchant 44), however, hid problems that would soon become assets in the ascension of the capitalistic system. Merchant explains, "through force and the need for military security, a hierarchical structure of landlord domination had imposed itself on the communal structure of agrarian society, extracting surplus value in the form of labor, services, rent and taxes" (Merchant 44). In the end, the one who controls technology therefore controls the land. In addition to this exploitative model, the Scientific Revolution also brought the development of inorganic, nonrenewable metallic materials that, predictably, caused (and cause) vast ecological disasters (Merchant 61). The most obvious victim, forests, had already been threatened and partially destroyed due to population expansion, and hence expansion of living and growing space. But by the sixteenth century, the problem had become painfully obvious through actual shortages of wood and hence the need for coal as substitute fuel (Merchant 63). Adding to the growing need for this polluting substance (coal), the sixteenth century also saw its mining operations quadruple as the trade of metals expanded (Merchant 63). Nature, having thusly been redefined from the nurturing/benevolent mother/God(dess), to a site of chaos, disorder, and danger, suf- fered another blow: for the safety and longevity of humanity. Mother Earth had to be tamed; the female image had to be turned negative. After all, she was responsible for famines, plagues, tempests, etc. (Merchant 127). In the end, the beginning of the Scientific Revolu- tion and hence "pre-industrial capitalism" (Merchant 150), marked a shift in women's roles, roles that were now more strictly defined in terms of their sex (reproductive machines) rather than their class (Merchant 150). But nature was not the only entity to be changed to a machine; the view of the body also interestingly morphed into this image. The body was now seen as something one could fix; it was something that was fixable (as long as the technologies kept multiplying). Predict- ably, the image did not stop there: women's bodies were "naturally" inferior to that of the male's, the ovaries were passive, the semen active, etc. Women were therefore "inferior" machines. As a result, nature slowly turned into a sight to be experimented on, forced into submission, and forced into "understanding." As mentioned above, these changes were done with the help of various key (new) scientists like Francis Bacon (1561-1626), whose ideas morally sanctioned the probing, exploiting, and controlling of "the outside" for the sake of knowledge (read "human benefit"). More importantly, this exploitation was sanctioned in the name of life itseif (for humans). In the end, this mechanical process went directly against a vision of wholeness by furthering the fragmentation of the world into independent parts (Merchant 182). But the connections were lost in more than just symbolic ways. Research became fragmented from its environment. For the mechanical world redefined reality into a predictable and rational system of laws (Merchant 193). It was (and still is) a reality that gravitated around two major interconnected constituents of human experience: order and power (216). Descartes, Hobbes, and Mersenne (seventeenth-century thinkers), as Merchant extensively describes, were solely concerned with finding certainties within nature (203). The way to "intelligibility" was through mathematics and its logic (the "then" deemed only valid form of knowledge). In fact, this kind of thinking will force rationality onto the object of confusion; it leaves no space for paradox, and plainly denies its presence. It calls as "truth" that which has been proven, clearly and distinctly, scientifically. Reduction of Nature into a machine governed by rational, scientific thinking enables the ongoing oppression of Women and domination of NatureValera 2017 (Luca, Director of the Center for Bioethics, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Fran?oise d’Eaubonne and ecofeminism: rediscovering the link between women and nature: Beyond Dualism in Gender, Body, and Environment, chapter 1 of Women and Nature? Beyond Dualism in Gender, Body, and Environment, 2017.) FWIt is thanks to d’Eaubonne that the most vehement criticism of the distanc- ing of Man from Nature is back in vogue. The critique concerns his presump- tion of omnipotence generated by technological power and his ‘obsession with domination and control’ of every living being that is considered inferior (Merchant 1980). Thus, we can say that the tradition of thought inaugurated by d’Eaubonne deals with the patriarchal domination of Women and Nature by Men considered as a paradigm of any domination and exploitation (hierarchical, military, capitalist, industrial, etc.), and with the clear aim of redeeming these two fragile realities from any type of male subjection.Roots of an affinity: Women and NatureThe core of ecofeminist philosophy is therefore to make explicit the affinity between Women and Nature, between the feminine and the natural universe. In this sense, d’Eaubonne claims that “the relations between the sexes” can be defined as “humanistic and ecological issues at the same time” (d’Eaubonne 1974, 242–243). The first point of similarity between Women and Nature is arguably the concept of maternity: both are mothers. This conceptual issue, which allows us to access the anthropological level of ecofeminism, was certainly the subject of many studies within the feminist universe and has given rise to different strands of thought (Diotima 2007); here, I would like to emphasize the preeminent role that is attributed to the woman as an “authoritative and primary source of both material and symbolic existence” (Cavarero and Restaino 2002, 99) of the child, and the analogous task that is entrusted to Nature.The most important element of commonality is definitely the analogy of the structural dependence of the child upon the mother (and therefore upon Women), with that of humankind upon Nature, the Mother par excellence: “We are all closely tied to the environment, that our very existence derive from and depends on a healthy environment, as our existence once depended on a mother (or mother-figures, almost always female)” (Roach 1991, 47). Dependence is the first element of similarity, which will introduce the dynamic of exploitation. Here, then, lies the connection between Women and Nature: both are mothers; for this reason, perhaps, “the way we think about and treat the environment is related to the way we think about and treat women” (Roach 1991, 47). If we consider that ecology is the study of the house (oikos-logos), the relationship with the activity of women becomes more evident: “It is beginning to dawn on women that they must assume the responsibility for housekeeping nature” (Peterson and Merchant 1986, 465).Nevertheless, this link presents a problem of great importance: the equation of the dependence of human beings on Nature with that of the child on the mother could, on the one hand, positively remember the debt and the gratitude of the human being toward Mother Earth, and on the other hand, itcould have the exact opposite effect. Mother in patriarchal culture is she who provides all of our sustenance and who makes disappear all of our waste products, she who satisfies all of our wants and needs endlessly and without any cost to us. Mother is she who loves us and will take care of us no matter what. The last thing the environmental movement should do is encourage us to think of the environment in these terms.The assignment of a gender to the Earth is, therefore, a reckless operation, because, while it succeeds in enhancing the feminine dimension, at the same time it overloads this responsibility, allowing for the possibility of exploitation by males. Moreover, as Teodorescu correctly points out, woman’s cultural perception as mother is still stereotypical:More than ever, motherhood is a value in itself for contemporary Western society, not only in what concerns its socio-economic importance (providing labor force and national prevail), but also in what concerns woman’s cultural perception as mother. Motherhood tends to be viewed as a necessary stage in woman’s life which may be subject to delay but which should not be a non-choice, no matter if it completes other dimensions of women’s personality or if it represents the ultimate accomplishment (Jong 2010). Popular culture praises motherhood as a stereotypical, sugary display of affection towards an angel-like child through various means—films, news articles, women’s magazines, books about child raising.(Teodorescu Chapter 5, this volume, 00)The core of Ecofeminist speculation tends to emphasize the affinity between the feminine and the natural universe (defined as everything that man has not modified) and to stigmatize the selfish and utilitarian behavior of men. The definition of Ecofeminism given by one of the protagonists of the movement, Karen J. Warren, is therefore telling:As I see it the term eco-feminism is a position based on the following claims: (i) there are important connections between the oppression of women and the oppression of nature; (ii) understanding the nature of these connections is necessary to any adequate understanding of the oppression of women and the oppression of nature; (iii) feminist theory and practice must include an ecological perspective; and (iv) solution to ecological problems must include a feminist perspective.(Warren 1987, 4–5)The common fate of ‘oppression’ of Women and Nature is inscribed from the beginning in their common essence of being mothers; the generation of the child coincides with the condemnation to the child’s betrayal: “The child, every child, lives and feeds on the mother’s sacrifice: the sacrifice of her time, her body, her space, her sleep, her relations, her work, her career, her affections, and also loves, other than the love for her son” (Galimberti 2009, 17).The debt of dependency on the mother is often or almost all the time repaid by the child with an even bigger debt: the abuse or the indifference. The reasons for this abuse would be only grounded on gender and would have encouraged man to claim the right and power to subjugate the Other.The anthropology highlighted by ecofeminism (a connection exists between the mother and Mother Nature) comes to the ethical dimension, by means of the formulation (and the consequent disapproval) of androcentrism.Indeed, it seems that ecofeminism has a different stance from environ- mentalism regarding the position of Man in the cosmos: the movement has not the aim to lower human beings as such in the scale of beings, or to raise the other non-human beings, but to annihilate the logic of domination that embodies male. This was the message found in Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962): Man and Nature are not opposed but are one reality, and, for this reason, the destructive and domineering attitude of men cannot bring any fruit. The point is not to remove the man from the moral summit of the universe because he is a human being, but rather to place him within the natural context explicitly because he is a male.The ecological root of eco-feminism, then, tends to emphasize the exclusively natural dimension of Man, while, on the other hand, the feminist root aims to restore the equalities between the sexes within the human species. In this regard, ecofeminism invites us to overcome Deep Ecology,4 at least with respect to an essential element: “According to ecofeminists, deep ecologists make the mistake of fighting ‘anthropocentrism in general’. What is in question is not the Western world’s ‘human centeredness’, but its ‘male centeredness’” (Ferry 1995, 117).The Copernican revolution proposed here is addressed against the male, guilty of progressively establishing the logic of domination in the course of history, thanks to the ‘struggle for survival.’ This logic of domination, characteristic of patriarchal societies, evidently brings with it the logic of exploitation of the living beings considered inferior, first of all Women and Nature. As Luc Ferry has shown, the motivation for such exploitation has a threefold matrix: “The first traces this double oppression to the appearance of dualism, the second to that of mechanistic science, while the third base sits directly on difference, on sexually differentiated personality formation or consciousness” (Ferry 1995, 118). Let us analyze further the first two elements mentioned above,5 in order to understand more thoroughly the consequences of the ecofeminist speculation.Causes of exploitation: dualism, mechanism, and sexual differenceThe critique of dualism is one of the cornerstones of feminist thought and appears frequently as a criticism of aggressive oppositions. Man’s conception of the world, in fact, consists in the dichotomous alternation of elements, useful to create a hierarchy in the world. Unlike this tendency, the feminist one seems to be more inclined to glimpse the commonalities rather than the differ- ences; it is for this reason that Men would be more accustomed to competitive- ness and contrast, while Women would be more conciliatory and able to mediate between opposite positions.For this reason, “Ecofeminism is presented as a form of contextual thinking, pluralistic and holistic” (Marcos 2001, 148), or as an attempt to stem the masculine ‘dichotomism.’ The value of the holistic thinking for feminism not only is immediately coherent with the Gaia hypothesis, but also primarily consists in rejecting a hierarchical view of the world, focusing on the relationships between the entities of the systems rather than emphasizing the importance and diversity of individuals and their supposed position in the scale of being. Gaia is not a hierarchy, as it consists of networks, all of which are positioned at the same ontological level.In the holistic thought, every living being deserves the same ethical respect since it occupies the same position within the system: humans and non-humans are equally important. This fact explains the profound openness to animal life that characterizes the ecofeminist thought: if animals deserve as much dignity as human beings and plants do, it is not clear why rights should be granted only to humans.Within this holistic ‘non-hierarchical’ context, there are no dichotomous alter- nations such as: animated/inanimate, vegetative/animal, non-sentient/sentient, human/non-human, male/female, rational/irrational, body/mind, etc.;6 on the contrary, holism emphasizes the importance of the whole and the inter- dependence of its parts. In the whole, in fact, there are not differences, as there is variety and richness. Here, then, ecofeminism once again tends to combine elements of feminism (the adversity to dichotomies) and ecologism (the holistic vision of all), creating a more complete picture of reality and thus facing modern mechanistic reductionism (Warren 1996, xi).Baconian method has reduced the Great Living Mother into inert matter. Not only Bacon, however: the modern Scientific Revolution—from Descartes to Galileo to Newton—instituted without doubt the basis of the next techno-scientific development, has also reduced the universe to a governable machine, once and for all separating all the world of thought from the world of extension:Exterior reality, under the title of res extensa entirely detached from the interior reality of thought, henceforth constituted a self-contained field for the universal application of mathematical and mechanical analysis: the very idea of “object” was transformed by the dualistic expurgation.(Jonas 2001, 35)The profound unity of the human species with other living beings is, thus, definitively lost in the Scientific Revolution. As Carolyn Merchant writes in The Death of Nature: “The world we have lost was organic” (Merchant 2001, 274).The reduction of the res extensa to a mechanical matter has meant, moreover, that the human body itself has been reduced to ‘matter probed by scientific instruments’ and to an exhaustible resource. The seed of indeterminacy present in an organicist vision is completely eradicated from the idea that every little section of reality can respond to a logic of cause and effect and that, ultimately, can be technologically manipulated. Here we can hear echoes of the Baconian mottos.The decline of the organicist vision of Nature leaves room in the modern age to a ‘lifeless’ mechanistic view, crucial to the rise of patriarchal society: the logic of domination and power needs, in fact, a hierarchical view of the living beings. Descartes’s thought offers, on the other hand, the suitable aid to endorse the triumph of the cogito over the extended world, of the rational over the irrational, imposing such a hierarchical view and giving mastery to Man. The monopoly of the rational knowledge of Nature, brought into being by the objectification of inert reality, can be extended by analogy to the woman, who is the bearer of the emotional seed.However, it would be inappropriate to include also the male within the mechanistic picture: being a rational animal, he could avoid a reduction of his status to mere givenness. We must also underline the profound difference that emerges from the comparison between the human sexual bodies: the creative activity of man, made explicit in the active force of the sperm, is in contrast to the woman’s receptive passivity. This would be another element of commonality between Women and Nature.7 This consideration reinforces the idea of a supposed superiority of man, allowed to explore and shape inferior bodies for utilitarian purposes; in this regard, Fritjof Capra writes:Under patriarchy the benign image of nature changed into one of passivity, whereas the view of nature as wild and dangerous gave rise to the idea that she was to be dominated by man. At the same time women were portrayed as passive and subservient to men. With the rise of Newtonian science, finally, nature became a mechanical system that could be manipulated and exploited, together with the manipulation and exploitation of women.(1983, 40)Through the subjection of Nature, Man establishes himself as a ‘creator’ of the artificial life, which is the summit of culture, as Bacon writes: “In artificial things nature is held in subjugation by the empire of man, for without man these things would never have been made. But through the effort and agency of man we see bodies in an entirely new guise and as a kind of alternative universe or theatre of things” (1996, 455).The Kingdom of Nature becomes the Kingdom of Man. The Kingdom of the Artificial Life—which is the Kingdom of Man—is profoundly different from the Kingdom of Nature: it is a function of Man himself, since it manifests dynamics that Man is able to control (at least in part). Once Woman has been reduced to Nature (and, therefore, to a resource, to a mere function), she becomes completely controllable and can be subjugated.In these reflections we find the ecofeminist critique of the artificial re- productive techniques guilty of being a symptom of the reduction of Women to mere “sexual animals,”8 slaves of their function. Here lies the triumph of the patriarchal societies governed by the male power of science.Natives LinkThe aff’s use of nation-state domination subjects indigenous people to a lack of sovereignty and domination of natureSutherland 18, Tina Parke-Sutherland is a professor at Stephens College, “Ecofeminist Activism and the Greening of Native America”, American Studies in Scandinavia, 50:1 (2018), pp. 123-149. Published by the Nordic Association for American Studies (NAAS), Stephens College, (1).pdf //JKBecause of its focus on sovereignty that involves both social/gender justice and earth justice, contemporary Indigenous feminism often finds a comfortable home in the world-wide ecofeminist movement. That movement, like Chipko in India and the Green Belt Movement in Africa, works against “the unjustified domination of women, children, people of color, traditional people, poor people and the unjustified domination of nature.”5 Scholar activist Terran Giacomini identifies ecofeminist activism as resting on three bases: “(i) a recognition that the exploitation of women and nature is central to capitalism, (ii) a stand against that exploitation, and (iii) an affirmation of life-centered alternatives.”6 Although the women of the Black Mesa Water Coalition and the Standing Rock Water Keepers have not publicly identified as feminists, their work fits Giacomini’s schema. It is activism of an implicitly feminist kind.7 Their projects foreground an anti-colonial struggle to re-invest women and Indigenous people in general with the power to protect and sustain the earth. In doing so they call into question the right of nation-states to govern and at the same time promote the understanding that “Nation-states are governed through domination and coercion [while] Indigenous sovereignty and nationhood is predicated on interrelatedness and responsibility.”8The perm fails – the USfg and male-dominated tribal councils are easily coopted by industries and financial incentive – only ecofeminism alone can reinstate women-centered tribal culture and relations to the landSutherland 18, Tina Parke-Sutherland is a professor at Stephens College, “Ecofeminist Activism and the Greening of Native America”, American Studies in Scandinavia, 50:1 (2018), pp. 123-149. Published by the Nordic Association for American Studies (NAAS), Stephens College, (1).pdf //JKIn 1966 after forty years of manipulation by government and energy interests keen to use Black Mesa coal to fire the growth of Southwest desert cities such as Las Vegas, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and Tucson, both the Hopi and Navajo tribal councils secretly signed agreements leasing sixty-five thousand acres on Black Mesa to the Peabody Coal Company of Kentucky, then the largest coal producer in the United States. The leases ran for thirty-five years and were renewable for another thirty-five. Outraged Navajos tried to block the mining equipment by setting up barricades in the road. Traditional Hopis sued their own tribal council. The deal violated every guideline that the Department of the Interior had set up for leasing on public lands: competitive bidding did not happen; the agreement contained no automatic renegotiation clauses; and Peabody paid a fixed rate rather than a percentage royalty rate. “At a time when water rights in the Southwest cost $50 per acre-foot, the Hopi got $1.67 per acre-foot. The Navajo got $5 per acre-foot. At the time the royalty rate on public lands for coal mining was $1.5 per ton. The Hopi and Navajo split a rate of 37 cents per ton.”28 The lease provided few environmental safeguards, and worst of all, Peabody was permitted to pump four thousand acre-feet (approximately a billion gallons) of water a year out of the Navajo Aquifer for its mining and transportation operations.29 Announcing the leases in 1966, Interior Secretary Stewart Udall promised “[n]ew jobs, large tax benefits, and tremendous economic advantages—not only for the two Indian tribes—but for the entire southwest’.”30 Coal from the new mines would go to a consortium of twenty utilities called WEST (Western Energy Supply and Transmission) designed to power up the urban Southwest. The cities got their exponential growth, their air conditioning, their neon lights, their golf courses, and their fountains spraying precious water into the bone-dry desert air. Corporations, developers, and politicians made their fortunes. The Hopi and the Navajo did not. They remain some of the poorest people in the United States. Only about one half of their homes have running water or electricity. Peabody opened two strip mines on their leaseholds, the Black Mesa mine and the Kayenta mine. Workers literally ripped the land apart, peeling off topsoil and underlayment to expose the coal that they then dynamited into movable chunks. Vegetation died, the air filled with black dust, and toxins poisoned the irreplaceable Navajo Aquifer. Soon after the mining started, deadly green water seeped into pockmarks left on the Mesa. Navajo sheep that drank that water at noon were dead by suppertime.31 Once extracted from Black Mesa, the coal had to be transported to power generating stations. Having failed to negotiate a rail system, Peabody decided to use a coal slurry pipeline. In a slurry system the mined coal is mixed with water and then sluiced through a pipeline to its destination, the whole process taking enormous amounts of water. Peabody contracted with the giant global construction company Bechtel to build its coal slurry pipeline running 273 miles—uphill—from Black Mesa to the Mohave Generating station in Leighton, Nevada, another of Bechtel’s projects. The Mohave station provided electricity to Las Vegas, Los Angeles and other far west cities. Coal slurries are everywhere considered a disastrous waste of water, and Peabody’s became the only one operating in the United States. To slurry its coal, Peabody pumped a billion gallons a year for more than forty years from the Navajo Aquifer. In these decades, groundwater levels dropped, wells, springs, and seeps dried up, and the entire ecology of Black Mesa collapsed. The land reclamation Peabody promised proved impossible since in areas that receive fewer than 10 inches of rain a year, plants simply won’t grow back in the destroyed earth.Four years after the Mohave plant opened in 1970, a second Bechtel plant, the Navajo Generating Station near the northern rim of the Grand Canyon, came on line. Coal from the Kayenta mine, also on Black Mesa, travels by rail to the Navajo Generating station to produce electricity for the Sonoran desert cites of Phoenix and Tucson. Corporate planners figured that the two generating plants combined would require twelve million tons of Black Mesa coal a year, so Peabody needed to expand its Black Mesa operation. The thousands of Navajos who lived on the Mesa, like many other Indigenous people before them, would have to be removed.Claiming to help settle a largely fictive land dispute between the Hopi and the Navajo, Peabody lobbyists convinced the U.S. Congress to pass legislation dividing Black Mesa and conveniently giving almost a million acres to Hopi people who lived far away from the mining sites. Navajo residents who had lived on the land for generations became trespassers, and the government, not the mining company, had to pay for their removal. In 1974, the Navajo removal began along with the slaughter of their sheep flocks. Separated from their lands, many died of alcoholism and despair.The people did respond. On October 13, 1974, armed members of the American Indian Movement [AIM] marched past the security guards at Black Mesa Mine No. 1 and sat down before one of the mine’s massive drag shovels. When the operator refused to stop the shovel, one AIM member fired at him, the bullet lodging in the cab of the shovel. The occupiers issued a set of demands, most of them revolving around Peabody’s lack of attention to local concerns.The protestors refused to meet with Navajo tribal government, stating “’we have little time for tribal governments that don’t protect their people.’”34 After a week, Peabody made promises to start listening to people’s complaints, put a moratorium on new road building, and compensated shepherds for killed sheep. The AIM members left the mine, “but with an increased reputation for standing up for the interests of local Navajos and demonstrating that energy development could, at least temporarily be halted.”35 “Temporarily” is the operative word here.After AIM’s direct action, the Navajo and their allies came to Congress to protest the removal, but no one listened. Peabody Coal had by then become part of a very powerful corporate/government family that included the incredibly well-connected Bechtel. Bechtel’s former president George Schultz was Secretary of State; its former legal counsel, Caspar Weinberger, was Secretary of Defense; and former director of Bechtel Nuclear, Ken Davis, was Assistant Secretary of Energy. The president of Peabody Coal served on Reagan’s Energy Advisory Board. The Navajos did not have a chance. In 1989, when the Peabody leases needed renewal, hundreds of Navajo and Hopi testified about the negative effects of mining on their lands. Thousands of years of water had been used up in a few decades. “The water has become more valuable than the coal,” explained Hopi activist Marilyn Masayesva at the government’s environmental hearings. “The water is priceless. No amount of compensation can replace the source of life for the Hopi and Navajo people.”36 Incredibly, the George W. Bush administration renewed the Peabody lease “for the life of the mine” and even increased the allowed draw down from the aquifer. And so Los Angeles and Phoenix boomed; Las Vegas remained an oasis playground in the Mohave; and much of Black Mesa died of thirst. In 2001, in response to a report about Peabody’s dangerous drawdown of water from the Navajo Aquifer, a small group of Hopi and Navajo college students—mostly women—led by Enei Begate Peter and Wahleah Johns, formed Black Mesa Water Coalition (BMWC). They dedicated the Coalition to addressing issues of water depletion, natural resource exploitation, and public health within the Navajo and Hopi communities, especially on Black Mesa. They centered their mission on the Diné word Hózhó for “walking in beauty—living in a manner that strives to create and maintain balance, harmony, beauty and order.”37 They had plenty to do. They “supported and worked with partners in the Black Mesa region to educate Navajo communities and mobilize them to force the tribal government to stop Peabody’s use of the N-Aquifer for the slurry line.”38 That strategy at first didn’t work—the tribal government wasn’t easy to force. But the Coalition organized protests of young mothers and children and grandmothers. They allied with other groups working on similar problems, both on the local and national levels. In December of 2005 the Coalition and its partners at last defeated Peabody and Bechtel and accomplished the shutdown of the slurry pipeline. A lawsuit brought by them won stricter emission controls for the Mojave Station as well, considered the most polluting facility in the country. Bringing the old power plant up to Environmental Protection Agency requirements proved too costly, and so the WEST power consortium finally closed it. A short documentary on the BMWC’s website shows the tall main stack outlined against the blue sky, collapsing in slow motion and falling to rubble on the desert floor. Hopi and Navajo activists cheer its passing. With no destination for its tons and tons of coal, Peabody closed its Black Mesa Mine. BMWC had, in four years of hard, smart, community-based work, brought down the corporate/government giant. In January 2010, they sued for and won the revocation of Peabody’s life of the mine permit for Black Mesa. In April of 2016, Peabody Energy reported a loss of 2 billion dollars in the previous year and filed Chapter 11 bankruptcyFrom its start, BMWC faced a gendered challenge from male dominated tribal councils—the official governing bodies of the Navajo and Hopi— who have consistently supported and disproportionately benefitted from coal mining operations. Back in 1966 they signed the leases that opened up Black Mesa to exploitation in the first place. Adopting the colonizers top-down patriarchal “leadership” system—even in these traditionally women-centered cultures—the male governing structure rejected BMWC’s demands to stop the leases that permitted the drawdown of the Navajo Aquifer. The upstart, grass-roots NGO, run by young women, threatened to end the lucrative privilege they had enjoyed for so long. But the BMWC established relationships with other local sovereignty and environmental justice groups and then with national and international environmental organizations. They educated young people, and they connected with tradition elders who had always distrusted the tribal councils. They organized demonstrations and protests and testimonies. They hired lawyers, young Native women like themselves, to argue their cases in court. They enlisted volunteers and, perhaps most importantly, advocated for new ways of combining traditional land-based values with innovative, contemporary technologies. Like women-led social and environmental justice organizations around the world, they fostered development projects that benefit everyone—human and non-human alike. All the while they refused the binary logic of winners and losers by advocating for a just transition away from the deadly extractive economy. They refused to leave anyone behind, especially advocating for young people by developing ventures that gave the up-coming generation opportunities to stay on their homelands and work for a prosperous and intact Indigenous future. Development- LinkRationales of “development” cause the commodification of water and mask the consequences of infrastructure projects – struggles for environmental resources reproduce social dichotomies and have gendered consequencesBraun 15 – Yvonne A. Braun, (Professor of Global Studies at the University of Oregon, research interests in gender, development, environment, inequality, and intersectionality), “Interrogating large-scale development and inequality in Lesotho – Bridging feminist political ecology, intersectionality, and environmental justice frameworks,” A Political Ecology of Women, Water, and Global Environmental Change (Edited by Stephanie Buechler – Assistant Research Professor of Environmental Policy at the University of Arizona - and Anne-Marie Hanson – Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Illinois Springfield), 3/1/2015, /niki.aLarge-scale dam and infrastructure projects remain a common and controversial means toward development and poverty reduction in the Global South (Scudder 2006; World Commission on Dams 2000). The social and environmental consequences of large dams have been extensively debated, critics arguing the local effects—resettlement, dislocation, decreased access to natural resources—reveal the contradictions and flawed logic of dams as national development solutions (Scudder 2006). Typically the poor and marginalized absorb a disproportionate share of the costs of these projects (Roy 2000), such as development-induced resettlement (Hussain 2008), leading to local and global opposition as with the Narmada Projects in India (Khagram 2004), and long- term consequences such as higher rates of poverty for successive generations as the Gwembe Tonga who were relocated for Zambia’s Kariba Dam (Scudder 2006) have experienced. The gendered, raced, and classed nature of the institutional priorities, processes, and practices, as well as the consequences of globalized dam building, have received less sustained attention. As the significant social and environmental consequences of dams are justified through national development, the communities that absorb the most direct consequences of large-scale development become part of a rationale of “local pain for national gain” or of what is best for “the greater common good” (Roy 2000, 58, 43). Large-scale dam projects are almost without exception sited in poor, rural, and politically, ethnically, or socially marginalized communities, ironically structuring the “local pain” to disproportionately affect already disempowered populations. I argue these patterns associated with large-scale development, such as the building of mega-dams, are best interpreted through the combined fields of environmental justice, feminist political ecology, and intersectionality. In the 1980s, the concept of environmental justice emerged in the United States as a way of describing the patterns of disproportionate burdening of poor, low-income communities, and communities of color with the wastes of modern society—pollution, toxins, and locally unwanted land uses (LULUs) (Bullard 1990). As environmental justice is increasingly globalized, the way that it is defined, interpreted, and employed varies within social, political, and cultural contexts and histories (Walker 2012). Bannerjee and Bell argue that, as environmental justice broadened the initial concerns of environmental racism, the evolution of environmental justice incorporates the concept of environmental democracy, opening the discussion to consider more directly the “range of inequalities, including questions of the fair distribution of environmental goods, not only the fair distribution of environmental bads” (2008, 444–5). Freshwater is, perhaps, the quintessential environmental good—a life-sustaining resource necessary for survival, integral to well-being and livelihoods in the rural agriculturally based communities of the Lesotho high- lands. Large dams fundamentally alter riverine systems and water resources, creating rapid environmental change in the communities where they are situated. Where large dams form part of an extractive-oriented development plan, such as in the LHWP, water becomes commodified and re-organized in a logic of utilitarian and market-based development solutions. Local com- munities are generally not included in the decision-making about large dam placement and construction, yet they largely bear the burdens of the changes, such as reduced or changed access to water and riverine resources, and often in gendered ways. Political ecology, a multi-disciplinary approach that addresses concerns of both political economy and cultural ecology, emphasizes how environmental resources and decision-making are material and political, and are affected by different interests, investments, and power (Peet and Watts 2004). Feminist political ecology has long enriched the field of political ecology by bringing critical attention to the role of gender in the structuring of relations to resources and in the production of knowledge (Rocheleau et al. 1996). Gendered analysis of resource struggles, ecological practices, and power relations within relevant historical, socio-cultural, political, and geographical localities revealed more complex and critical understandings within human-environment and nature- society relations. Recent scholarship in feminist political ecology has begun to explicitly engage developments in feminist theory more broadly, highlighting the synergies between contemporary theorizing and analysis of intersectionality and “how human-environment relations intersect with various social relationships, such as class, ethnicity, and gender” (Radel 2009, 335). Contemporary feminist scholarship increasingly centralizes intersectionality, widely understood as the theorization and analysis of intersecting and mutually constituting axes of inequality and experience, such as race, class, and gender (Crenshaw 1991). Intersectional analysis (McCall 2005) reveals how social structures, relations, processes, and policies shape and constrain social experiences along axes of inequality bringing attention to multiple, mutually constituted identities and social locations. While the intersectionality approach advances efforts to capture the complexities of the lived social life of individual and group identities, institutions, structures, and systems across historical, geographical, and cultural contexts, the environment has largely gone unconsidered. Feminist political ecology brings attention to the environment, revealing how resource struggles and their consequences are gendered, how environment and gender are co-constructed, and “how lived experiences and practices are productive of, and produced through, gendered ideologies, structural power relations, and processes of both local and global change” (Truelove 2011, 145). By integrating intersectionality more intentionally, feminist political ecology considers how environmental resources and struggles are sites for the contestation and reproduction of social differences, such as gender, race, and class, and, as discussed above, as struggles over environmental justice. By engaging insights from the environmental justice literature and feminist theorizing on intersectionality within feminist political ecology’s attention to political, cultural, and geographical contexts, this chapter attempts to show the value of conversing across these interdisciplinary fields and concepts. Such analyses enable feminist political ecologists to explain and illuminate the complex lived experiences of rapidly changing water landscapes as a result of large-scale development, such as large dams, and the ways that large dam projects may be best understood as struggles with environmental justice. Dam project in Lesotho proves consequences to “development” are genderedBraun 15 – Yvonne A. Braun, (Professor of Global Studies at the University of Oregon, research interests in gender, development, environment, inequality, and intersectionality), “Interrogating large-scale development and inequality in Lesotho – Bridging feminist political ecology, intersectionality, and environmental justice frameworks,” A Political Ecology of Women, Water, and Global Environmental Change (Edited by Stephanie Buechler – Assistant Research Professor of Environmental Policy at the University of Arizona - and Anne-Marie Hanson – Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Illinois Springfield), 3/1/2015, /niki.aCommunities, households, and individuals living proximate to the LHWP also lost or endured reduced access to natural resources not owned privately, or common resources. For rural households in these remote communities, these resources were integral to the means of production and reproduction of the household and norms of commons’ usufruct governed access to and shared responsibility toward these commons. For example, local river basins provided water for multiple purposes, stones, soils, grasses, wood, and fertile farmlands. People understood the value of these commons for themselves and their community. Reduced or no access to these resources represented significant losses to rural households that have relied on these ecosystems for generations. ‘Mathebiso Mpiti, a sharecropper and mother of two, whose landless household relied on cultivating others’ fields and utilizing common resources said: [Our life] has changed because most of our resources—we used to find them at the river here. So, as the dam has covered things, grass and others are no longer available. We have no land to cultivate and no food to gather. We have nothing, it is all in that dam now. Similar to agricultural fields, these common resources also have productive and generative potential for households that use their local knowledge, often gendered, to cultivate and transform these resources into income—particularly in an environment with limited employment opportunities. ‘Malefetsane Nthako, an elderly grandmother from the village of Ha Mapeleng near Katse Dam, collected loli, a type of grass, in the river basin in order to make woven goods that she then sold in the lowlands areas. The reservoir at Katse submerged these grassy areas, leaving ‘Malefetsane and others like her with great uncertainty as to how to replace the income this resource provided: We would get loli [from the river], making baskets and sifters. Now it has closed [the potential to make woven goods]. We knew that when we made them, we could go to the lowlands and they would buy them [and] we would make a living . . . so now we don’t know what we [will] do . . . [to] make a living. ‘Mathabane Likong, a farmer and primary caregiver to her two grandchildren, suggested the resources of the river had not only economic value to households but reflected and constituted important social and cultural values: Down there at the dam there are herbs that I used to dig up from there; now that place is covered. I no more get those medicines—I mean a particular herb will be found at a particular place, they don’t just grow. I mean they chose where to grow. I no more get them. We collected wood. We dug up soils and we painted like the Basotho people . . . those soils are not there now, they are finished . . . the dam has covered up those soils. Common resources in these river basins, so integral to these rural communities, were largely seen as underutilized in the development authorities’ economistic evaluations prior to the LHWP. As river basins rich with these goods were flooded as part of the LHWP, communities and households were not compensated for these non-privately owned resources despite their regular use and local value. The loss of these resources, particularly without compensation, proved significant for economic and cultural reasons, and the effects were gendered. Indeed, poorer households’ reliance on these gathered resources as “low-cost” or “free” goods had been made possible by women’s uncompensated labor, who spent time and effort learning about different plants and soils, as well as the labor of locating, gathering, and using these resources. As the LHWP flooded the most accessible and best sources of these natural resources, the rapid environmental changes intersected with existing gender ideologies to create burdens on women to devote more of their labor to finding replacement resources within this changing landscape. This uncompensated, gendered labor adds value to the household’s way of life both economically and culturally, but is largely taken for granted as not “real work” or invisible in terms of the dominant discussions about the lived consequences of large-scale river basin development. Resettlement of households and their homes as a result of the LHWP also initiated significant environmental and social changes in the lives of those resettled. The experiences of communities varied in terms of how and where they were resettled, with some being relocated together, others moved to existing communities (called “hosts”), some moved within the general vicinity while others moved to distant places. While it is not possible to discuss the full range of these experiences here, there were patterns to resettlement that included most people not receiving fields, but rather garden space, and new houses being constructed of concrete and metal, as opposed to traditional mud, stone, and thatch. The changes forced by resettlement created a great deal of uncertainty, particularly as the loss of means of production (fields) and the change of environment meant a loss of common resources on which they had depended. As ‘Malimakatso Moubane, a resettled farmer and mother of four, described, survival in these relocation areas demanded money at a time when these households were least equipped to have access to money: The problems we meet [are] to lack something to make fire with, we do not have food, and—and you know in the mountains there were lots of food lying around, we would go to the veld and collect vegetables, we cultivated, we survived by food that we grew. Now, here, when you have got no money, everything is money. Households who were resettled in peri-urban or urban areas confronted similar struggles of a rapidly changed economic and environmental landscape. While each new house had the potential for its own outside water tap, resettlers to these areas were surprised to find the potential ease of water access was made impossible due to the high cost of water and connecting to the utility. Many households could not afford to purchase the water needed to meet their daily needs for drinking, cooking, bathing, and cleaning directly. Relative class privilege positioned some families who could afford to be able to subsidize their own water bills by selling water by the bucket to neighbors “off the grid.” Gender ideologies still positioned women in this context to largely be charged with the gathering of water and the household tasks associated with it. Women creatively managed high prices for water and water scarcity by sharing water for tasks (such as laundry), exchanging services for water, and taking turns or pooling limited resources with other women to purchase water. Tragically, the greater reliance on money also affected the ability of those resettled in a new environment to take care of their health with scarce financial and environmental resources. The ecological knowledge that many rural highlanders, particularly herbalists, had gained over generations was often rendered useless after relocation as demonstrated in the words of Vincent Kolisang, a herbalist, farmer, and father of eight: “The medicines we were used to digging up ourselves, to make ourselves feel better, are not available here . . . we live by going to the chemist [pharmacy] to buy medicines.” It was not only those forcefully relocated who suffered changes in relation to their environment as a result of the LHWP. Perhaps most ironically, many remote highlands families who continued to live proximate to the mega-dams lost access to clean, reliable water sources as the easily accessible rivers were transformed into massive reservoirs of water to be sold. Changes from damming the riverine system caused a number of consequences, including altering a number of the natural springs that supplied clean, fresh water to local communities. ‘Mathato Lejone expressed frustration about losing the water source she relied on for years explaining, “This dam has brought hardship. Now our springs have vanished. These were near to us, but now we must go far to get water.” ‘Mathato’s experience was a common one as many people reported springs drying up around the Katse basin after the creation of the new reservoir and women talked about having to find new sources of water, sometimes walking significantly further to do so (see Braun 2005b). Local people also experienced new forms of regulation that limited their access to water, as the once free flowing resource became commodified and owned under new policy doctrines designed to generate a specific model of economic development. People’s narratives about water revealed these policy contradictions in their daily lives, often in gendered ways: women walking further to find water sources to meet the everyday needs of their families; some taking the risk of “stealing” water from the reservoirs, now a criminal offense; others loathing the reservoirs that created an impasse between themselves and relatives; and still others describing the reservoirs as a site of fear and desperation, a place where some men drowned themselves when hardships resulting from the LHWP became too much. These seemingly individual narrations, or the policy stories people tell (Yanow 1995), weave together a much larger tapestry that reveals the contradictions of national development strategies in this struggle over environmental justice. Quotes presented below from two elderly people who reflected on their lived experience through broader critiques of development reveal some of these contradictions and the resulting struggles. The first quote is from a female farmer from Ha Mapeleng in the Katse area: “We are leading a hard life . . . coldness is very much. Since the dam there is no summer, there is no winter. It is very cold. We never put [heavy clothes] down. I can’t see where development is.” And this strong statement from a male farmer and chief of a village resettled due to the Mohale Dam: I don’t think it can be beneficial [to us], even if the LHWP has benefited Lesotho. But now the advantage [of the LHWP] is hurting us, the Basotho here, since we don’t get our rightful compensations. . . . So we are supposed to survive, so the LHWP benefits. As for us who are affected we don’t benefit, we are wrongly treated. Animals- LinkWestern relations to animals endorse patriarchal hierarchies of human dominationVarner 16, Tess Varner is Director, Women's and Gender Studies; Assistant Professor, Philosophy at Concordia College, “Contemporary Perspectives on Ecofeminism”, Routledge explorations in environmental studies, //JKMy own preoccupation in FAS has been with developing sociological frame- works for the understanding of human–animal relations, elaborated by empirical studies of domesticated animals used for food and companionship. I conceptualize human relations with other species as constituted by and through social institutions and processes; and these can be seen as sets of relations of power and domination which are consequential of normative practice. These sets of relations intersect to form a social system of human domination that I refer to as ‘anthroparchy’ (Cudworth 2005, 2011c). Humans have socially formed relational power over other species, but species relations are intrinsically co-constituted with other kinds of complex forms of domination (such as patriarchy, capitalism and colonialism) and consequently assume specific spatialized and historical formations.Such systems of social domination exist within a relational matrix, inter- meshing and coalescing in a particular pattern, articulated in different ways, in different times, places and spaces. Human domination therefore is differentiated, and there are different degrees of domination of other animals by humans. I use the concepts of oppression, exploitation and marginalization in order to describe this. I use the term ‘domination’ as a general descriptor for systemic relations of power which inhibits the potential of an individual organism, group, micro- or macro-landscape to ‘flourish’. ‘Oppression’ describes a harsh degree of relations of dominatory power and its application is species-specific: some species can be oppressed (such as farmed animals) and others cannot (such as intestinal flora). Exploitation refers to the use of something as a resource, and this can apply broadly, including for example the exploitation of farmed animals for labour, skin, fur, flesh and other products, or the use of animals in guarding and herding. Marginalization is the rendering of something as relatively insignificant and decentred, and has a similar meaning to humancentrism. There is diversity in the form and degree of human domination. For example, intensive forms of production in animal agriculture can be seen as extreme or strongly oppressive institutional sites. It is unlikely that all animals ‘used’ by humans experience domination in the same way, although there are strong similarities in the ways in which processes of domestication affect both companion and farmed animals. The oppressive experiences of farmed animals may be very different from those of prized ‘working animals’, such as those providing assistance for humans who are blind or deaf, for example. The lives of animals kept as ‘pets’ are often very different from those of farmed animals, but there is also evidence of cruelty, neglect and abandonment of animals by their human ‘companions’ (Cudworth 2011a). The industries that have emerged around pet-keeping in the West involve intensive breeding and also strong genetic selection for the reproduction of desirable breed (and other) traits.The domination of non-human animals in contemporary Western societies can be understood as constituted through groups of social relations which can be found in particular arenas such as production, domestication, violence, polity and culture. For example, animal agriculture is an institutional system and a set of production relations endemic to human domination. The condition of domestication may involve physical confinement, the appropriation of labour and fertility, and incarceration, which are foundational for the farming of animals. Huge numbers of a limited range of species are essential forms of property and/or labour. Animals are a specific form of embodied property, however, and it is the distinction of human from non-human life that is a priori for such commoditization. Animals produce commodities in terms of offspring, milk and eggs, which become human food. These social relations are framed by law, culturally mediated and politically supported or contested.Anthroparchal cultures marginalize non-human animals or present them in ways that are framed by human interests, and re-inscribe the norms of human domination. If we again refer to the example of ‘meat’, the hierarchical ordering of the Western diet is reproduced in the popular culture of cooking and eating in which the eating of animals is constituted as normative. This process of reproducing food cultural norms is also shaped by various kinds of intra-human difference in addition to the distinction of species that enables ‘meat’ to be eaten (Adams 1990; Cudworth 2010). Animal foodways have been relatively stable, despite significant social change, and in the West our representative regime of animals-as-meat continues to be framed by intersected discourses of difference and power, in particular those constitutive of formations of gender, sexuality and nation.Institutionalized violence is also systemic, and for species with greater levels of sentiency, this operates in similar ways to violences affecting humans. For example, animals raised and killed for food may experience pain and fear. The lives, deaths and dismemberments of animals for ‘meat’ articulate a range of forms and degrees of physical violence and in some cases, psychological harm, and reflect the complex intersections of relations of social power (Cudworth 2008). I want to now examine the arena of violence in which the intersectionalized relations of species are played out. I concentrate here on the ways in which the human/ animal binary is reproduced with respect to species violence, concentrating particularly on domesticated animals. The following two sections consider, in turn, species violence in relation to agricultural animals raised for food, and species violence in relation to animals kept as companions in the home.Oppression of animals in any form perpetuates patriarchy and gendered violence. The aff fails to call into question the root of this hierarchy. Hunnicutt 20 – Doctor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. Gwen Hunnicutt, “Chapter 2. Foregrounding patriarchy in a larger field of domination of nature” from “Gender Violence in Ecofeminist Perspective", 2020The oppression of nonhuman animals and nature is continuous with and linked to masculinist strategies of human domination. Understanding domination begs for the inclusion of human domination of nature as an operation of power. Patriarchy is frequently regarded as the basic hierarchy from which gender violence originates (Beechey, 1979). This chapter endeavors to make explicit those connections between patriarchy as a social domination that is deeply intertwined with the domination of nature. Hierarchy takes many forms—ethnic, gender, age, class, rural/urban, and so on. The common feature of all hierarchies, however, is dominance. Dominance can be defined as having power and influence over others. Treating difference as the basis for domination and superiority is the key mechanism of systems of command and obedience. Patriarchy is one form of hierarchy, among many. In this chapter, I first give attention to patriarchy as its own apparatus and explore some of the features, critiques, and variations in patriarchal manifestations and their link to gender violence. I then go on to explore two key pillars of all hierarchical systems (including patriarchy): dominance and dualisms. I then move on to more firmly situate patriarchy within a larger field of human domination over nature by exploring “the hunt”. The hunting of nonhuman animals fused a number of key elements: masculinized normalization of violence and a subjugation of the “Other” which is bound to the aggressive mastery and subjugation of nature. I continue to explore how these elements of domination that originated with “man the hunter and eventually warrior” produce familiar sexist scripts that can be linked to gender violence in a variety of ways. Ever mindful of the temptation to simplify power relations, I conclude with a section that considers the power relations explored here as more of a labyrinth than a ladder. In complicating these matrices of domination, I dismiss the possibility that achieving “gender equality” would remedy the problem of gender violence given the existence of other modes of domination, including human domination of natureAnimal Ag/CAFOs LinkThe aff’s use of the terms “animal agriculture” and “CAFO” obscure the reality of the flesh trade. It reproduces “agricultural” exceptionalism. Dunayer – Animal Rights Advocate, Princeton University Joan Dunayer, "Animal Equality: Language and Liberation", 2001, pg. 125-126Divorced from the land, numerous “animal agriculture” operations have no farming component. Yet, the exploitation of captive nonhumans for food retains the name agriculture, evoking pastoral images of cows grazing, pigs rooting, and chickens pecking in the spacious outdoors. The National Cattlemen’s Association (NCA) has urged those in the US. Cow flesh industry to use animal agriculture rather than livestock industry. Whereas industry connotes environmental damage and profit motives, agriculture suggests an ecologically friendly enterprise based on need. Say “family farm,” not “factory farm,” the NCA has cautioned.2 Factory accurately conveys the flesh, egg, and milk production methods that now predominate in industrialized nations. Farm is largely an anachronism. But, however huge and corporate, operations that keep nonhuman animals in intensive, mechanized confinement are verbally disguised as small, rustic enterprises. Don Tyson’s multibillion-dollar bird-flesh company—the world’s largest—maintains the quaint facade of a “family farm” (a label that confers tax, as well as PR, benefits).3 Even before the automated mass production of animal-derived food, applying the words agriculture and farming to nonhuman exploitation misled. However primitive, “animal agriculture” doesn’t necessarily entail land cultivation; it entails consumption, by nonhuman captives, of cultivated or naturally growing plants. Throughout its history the term animal agriculture has masked enslavement and murder. 80 has aquaculture. “Farmers” and “producers” who deal in flesh, milk, or eggs actually are slaveholders. Slaughterers are mass murderers. Assisted by words that falsify, consumers of products from nonhuman bodies pretend otherwise. Deceptive language conceals the cruel conditions and treatment suffered by food-industry captives. Understatement, euphemism, positive description of negative realities, and outright lying hide the truth.Animal ag is a form of human domination that ensures environmental destruction and gendered oppressionVarner 16, Tess Varner is Director, Women's and Gender Studies; Assistant Professor, Philosophy at Concordia College, “Contemporary Perspectives on Ecofeminism”, Routledge explorations in environmental studies, //JKGlobally, 99 per cent of all domesticates are commodities in animal agriculture (Williams and DeMello 2007: 14) to be killed and transformed into food products. The statistics are of staggering proportions. At least 55 billion land-based non-human animals are killed in the farming industry per year (Mitchell 2011), with almost 10 billion of these killed for food in the USA alone. Figures are projected to increase substantially, with an extra 360 million cattle and buffaloes, 560 million extra sheep and goats, and 190 million extra pigs needed by 2030 to match growing consumer demand (FAO 2002). There has been a phenomenal increase in the populations of farmed animals in poorer countries of the Global South, where the intensive production of stock is set to become the model for agricultural development. On current trends, 120 billion farmed animals are likely to be killed annually by 2050 (MacDonald 2010: 34).Feminist work on gender-based violence in situations of armed conflict has painted a frightening picture of what happens to humans in circumstances where routine violence and killing becomes a ‘runaway norm’, unravelling the legal and cultural taboos that police intra-human violence (Leatherman 2011: 9). In these situations, human beings find, disturbingly, that ‘we are all, after all, potentially animals before the law’ (Wolfe 2013: 105). The racialized animalization of humans (as ‘vermin’, for example, in the well known cases of Nazi Germany where Jewish people were referred to as rats and lice, or the Rwandan genocide in which Tutsis became cockroaches) has been an effective means of suspending prohibition on violence against humans and legitimating mass killing. For non-humans, however, different moral status enables mass killing to be routine rather than exceptional, and to be normalized.For Cary Wolfe, this is because animals are ‘before the law’. This has a dual meaning. In one sense, this involves standing before legal judgment; we are ‘before’, or subject to, legal judgment. In addition, animals are subjected to ‘originary violence’ in the sense that the human/animal distinction precedes the development of the law and thus is taken for granted by it (Wolfe 2013: 9). This invites parallels with the treatment of others seen as outside the frame of law in certain periods and cultures (women in Western modernity, for example). Wolfe suggests not only that animals therefore cannot be pro- tected by law, but that the human/animal distinction is continually reinforced by the ‘violence of sacrifice’; that is, animals are sacrificeable whereas humans, most usually, are not. Here he draws on Jacques Derrida’s notion that ‘beasts’ (non-human animals and animalized humans) fall below the law (Derrida 2009: 20–21) and thus might be subjected to a routine ‘non-criminal putting to death’ (Derrida 1991). This routine killing, for both Wolfe and Derrida, enables the law to disavow its own contingency. Rather, as Wolfe notes following Foucault, the law is able to ‘make live’ and to ‘let die’ by permitting the breeding, exploitation and killing of some animals for food, whilst redefining the frame of who is ‘in’ and who is ‘out’ by granting others, such as great apes, some basic human rights (2013: 11).The animals we farm for food in the West are self-aware, emotional beings with views about the world (Masson 2004). Whilst there have undoubtedly been moves to improve ‘welfare’ in the short lives of some farmed animals in the West (Bock and Buller 2013), farmed animals are made to live and let die through institutional and relational systems that involve an almost totalized system of oppressive relations. The institutions of animal agriculture, from breeding and growing to killing, are institutions of violence that are for the most part normative and legitimate. These involve the butchery of animal bodies post-killing, reproductive violences including rape, forced confinement, and the inability to express species-life behaviours. Most extreme, yet entirely normative, are the violences of slaughter involving shooting, electrocution, strangulation and throat-cutting.These institutionalized practices of violence are gendered. In my research into animal farming and the journeys of animal bodies becoming meat, I found farmed animals to be disproportionately female and usually feminized in terms of their treatment by predominantly male human agricultural workers. Farmers disproportionately breed female animals so they can maximize profit via the manipulation of reproduction; and some animals (cattle, pigs, sheep) are bred for distinctly gendered traits such as docility and mothering ability in females, and strength and virility in males. Female animals that have been used for breeding can also be seen to incur the most severe physical violence within the animal food system, particularly at slaughter (Cudworth 2008).Female and feminized animals are bred, incarcerated, raped, killed and cut into pieces, in gargantuan numbers, by men who are often themselves subjected to highly exploitative working conditions. These working conditions are structured by the gendered division of labour and characterized by a culture of machismo (Cudworth 2008).Operations of local, regional and global networks of relations shaped the development of animal food production, and the production and consumption of animals as meat was a historical process in which systemic relations of species are constituted with and through relations of colonialism. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, European countries established the global international system of meat production. Britain and Germany in particular invested heavily in land and factories in South America, primarily in Argentina in the eighteenth century, and in Brazil in the nineteenth (Velten 2007: 153). The colonial model of meat production was further enabled by the development of refrigerated shipping, which made it possible to ship ‘fresh’ meat to Europe from the USA, South America and Australasia (Franklin 1999: 130). This enabled Europeans to consume greater quantities of meat, but in order to make best use of the potential market in Europe the price had to be minimized by intensifying production and saving labour costs – typically through increased processes of mechanization which led to the development of intensive agriculture in Europe and the USA. Indeed, models of production now spread across the globe with corporate interventions in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean (Cudworth 2011b).Finally, we must also consider the impact of farmed animal agriculture on the worlds of other species and things. As is becoming increasingly recognized, industrialized animal agriculture is a driving force behind pressing environmental problems such as deforestation, water scarcity, air and water pollution, climate change and loss of biodiversity (Steinfeld et al. 2006). Thus, whilst farmed animal agriculture is an integral element of a social system of species relations in which domesticates are oppressed, it is also constituted by relations of capital, colonialism and patriarchy, and shaped in important ways by intra-human difference.Only an analysis of the way in which patriarchy and slaughter intersect can remedy the issues of industrial farming Adams 90 Carol J. Adams, "The Sexual Politics of Meat", 1990, Chapter 2. The Rape of Animals, the Butchering of Women. Pages 67-68This chapter posits that a structure of overlapping but absent referents links violence against women and animals. Through the structure of the absent referent, patriarchal values become institutionalized. Just as dead bodies are absent from our language about meat, in descriptions of cultural violence women are also often the absent referent. Rape, in particular, carries such potent imagery that the term is transferred from the literal experience of women and applied metaphorically to other instances of violent devastation, such as the “rape” of the earth in ecological writings of the early 1970s. Th e experience of women thus becomes a vehicle for describing other oppressions. Women, upon whose bodies actual rape is most often committed, become the absent referent when the language of sexual violence is used metaphorically. These terms recall women’s experiences but not women. When I use the term “the rape of animals,” the experience of women becomes a vehicle for explicating another being’s oppression. Is this appropriate? Some terms are so powerfully specific to one group’s oppression that their appropriation to others is potentially exploitative: for instance, using the “Holocaust” for anything but the genocide of European Jews and others by the Nazis. Rape has a different social context for women than for the other animals. So, too, does butchering for animals. Yet, feminists among others, appropriate the metaphor of butchering without acknowledging the originating oppression of animals that generates the power of the metaphor. Through the function of the absent referent, Western culture constantly renders the material reality of violence into controlled and controllable metaphors. Sexual violence and meat eating, which appear to be discrete forms of violence, find a point of intersection in the absent referent. Cultural images of sexual violence, and actual sexual violence, often rely on our knowledge of how animals are butchered and eaten. For example, Kathy Barry tells us of “maisons d’abattage (literal translation: houses of slaughter)” where six or seven girls each serve 80 to 120 customers a night.6 In addition, the bondage equipment of pornography—chains, cattle prods, nooses, dog collars, and ropes—suggests the control of animals. Thus, when women are victims of violence, the treatment of animals is recalled.The role of women in industrial agriculture is often overlooked. Feminist discourse a necessary prerequisite to effective policy. Phillips 09 (Ruth, Senior Lecturer in Social Work and Policy Studies in the Faculty of Education and Social Work, Education Building (A35), University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia, “Food security and women’s health A feminist perspective for international social work”, International Social Work 52(4), pages 491-492, JKS)?Women make a vital contribution to food security. The following is a summary of key targets for action made by the Pan American Health Organization’s (PAHO) gender-specific analysis of this relationship:? ? a focus on reproductive health; ? the need to recognize women’s productive labor; ? a focus on women’s rights to resources such as land or livestock? ownership, access to water rights or borrowing money; ? the disproportionate suffering of women and girls in poor house- holds from poverty, and malnutrition, especially pregnant and lac tating women; ? the need to address educational inequality.? These points reinforce the need to adopt a women-centered, feminist framework. However, despite nearly 40 years of the presence of feminism, institutions and states consistently fail to acknowledge the importance of gender. This is not to suggest that a singularly focused feminist approach would be comprehensive in addressing food security, poverty and women’s health, but rather that within a feminist framework current approaches can be enhanced and become more effective because the transformations in the underlying structural and interpersonal status of women must be supported. Ample models for broad intervention based on political and civil rights, human rights and livelihood approaches already exist (Hussein, 2002: 631) and are often compatible with feminist frameworks seeking a ‘good life’ as reflected in Mohanty’s (2004) vision above. What is different is that feminist approaches recognize? and acknowledge the specific limitations for women to fully participate and have power to control their own destinies, which make women and their children more vulnerable and at greater risk of ill health and loss of rights than men.? Resisting the notion of a world flattened by globalization and globalized problems, as Mohan (2008: 16) describes, drawing on Friedman (2005) and Sachs (2005), as endemic to international social work, a feminist analysis of the globalized world suggests many barriers to gender equality, freedom and good health. Although the MDGs have raised the need for gender equality to be actively addressed by governments, formal institutions and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as fundamental in the fight against poverty, there still appears to be a reticence to put women at the center of the policy frame. This would not occur if feminist frameworks were consistently adopted, as the central objective of a feminist framework in the areas of poverty and development is to place women at the center of the policy frame (Phillips, 2006: 27).Agricultural exceptionalism and factory farms couldn’t exist without patriarchal violence. A feminist analysis is needed to understand the true role of these elements. Yeung and Rubenstein 2013Bernice Yeung and Grace Rubenstein, The Center for Investigative Reporting “Female Workers Face Rape, Harassment In U.S. Agriculture Industry” June 25, 2013, PBS, Accessed 12-19-2013SUNNYSIDE, Wash. – Esther Abarca said the foreman drove to parts of the apple orchard that she had never seen. Deep into the ranch, in what she could describe only as a “desolate place,” he parked the truck, reached over and tried to grab her.? Weeping as she told her story, Abarca said the foreman got out of the truck when she resisted his advances. He opened the side door, climbed on top of her, and began to kiss and grope her. She called for help and tried to push him away, but he got her pants halfway off.? “I kept screaming, but there was nobody there,” Abarca said.? Abarca said she kept screaming as the foreman groped her. But then, as if suddenly chastened by her crying, kicking and pushing, she said he stopped. He told her that if she didn’t tell anyone what had happened, he’d give her $3,000 for a new car.? Abarca, a mother of three, said she refused the money.? “I told him that that was the very reason why I had come here to work, that I did not need him to give me any money at all,” she said.? The foreman’s alleged first assault came in 2009, during the long days of the Yakima Valley apple harvest in central Washington. An immigrant from Mexico, Abarca was new to the Evans Fruit Co., one of the country’s largest apple producers.? Nearly four years later, Abarca’s story was the subject of a federal court case testing whether the owners of Evans Fruit looked the other way as their workers claimed they were subjected to repeated sexual violence and harassment by an orchard foreman and crew bosses.? It was a rare public accusation for an immigrant, many of whom fear retaliation and deportation if they speak up. Abarca was testifying in only the second case of a farmworker claiming sexual harassment to reach a federal court trial.? Although the exact scope of sexual violence and harassment against agricultural workers is impossible to pinpoint, an investigation by The Center for Investigative Reporting and the Investigative Reporting Program at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism reveals persistent peril for women working in the food industry. An estimated 560,000 women work on U.S. farms.? In partnership with FRONTLINE and Univision, CIR and IRP spent nearly a year reviewing thousands of pages of documents and crisscrossing the nation – from the tightly ordered orchards of the Yakima Valley to the leafy tomato fields of southern Florida – to hear workers’ stories of sexual assault.? Hundreds of female agricultural workers have complained to the federal government about being raped and assaulted, verbally and physically harassed on the job, while law enforcement has done almost nothing to prosecute potential crimes.? In virtually all of the cases reviewed, the alleged perpetrators held positions of power over the women. Despite the accusations, these supervisors have remained on the job for years without fear of arrest.? At the trial, Abarca was among more than a dozen women who had accused a foreman, Juan Marin, and a handful of crew leaders at Evans Fruit of sexually assaulting or harassing them. For her part, Abarca said she had been topping off bins with just-picked apples when the foreman called to her from his pickup. He told her to get in the truck, she testified.? Marin said he never sexually assaulted or harassed Abarca or any of the other women, and he has not been arrested or prosecuted in criminal court for the allegations.? At a federal civil trial this year featuring 14 women telling their stories, a jury found that whatever had happened at Evans Fruit, it did not create a sexually hostile work environment, which had to be established before the company could be held liable.? Government attorneys who prosecuted the civil case have requested a new trial. In court filings, they called the verdict “unmoored from the actual evidence.”? Marin, who had worked for Evans Fruit for more than three decades, said the claims are based on lies and rumors spread by “a bunch of jealous people” who are trying to win money from the company.? “I’ve been accused of sexual harassment, and that’s completely a lie,” Marin said in one of several interviews. “Because I never bothered nobody. The only thing I’ve been doing in my life is work. To me it’s so unfair, because I never did nothing like that in my life.”? Nevertheless, two complaints against Marin prompted owner Bill Evans to write him a letter in 2006, four years before Marin was fired for alleged embezzlement.? “We don’t have the time or energy to continue dealing with the problems you are bringing down on us,” the letter said. “Any further incidents or complaints of sexual harassment and you will be discharged.”? The company drafted its first sexual harassment policy in 2008.? A National Problem? Reports of harassment and sexual violence against female farmworkers span the U.S. map.? In Molalla, Ore., a worker at a tree farm accused her supervisor of repeatedly raping her over the course of several months in 2006 and 2007, often holding gardening shears to her throat. If she complained to anyone, he allegedly told her, he would fire her and kill her entire family.? The supervisor never was prosecuted, and a civil case against the tree farm was settled for $150,000 in 2011 without the company acknowledging wrongdoing. The payment went to the woman and three family members who said they were harassed or fired in retaliation.? Three hundred miles away, in Lind, Wash., an egg farm manager forced a woman working alone in a hen-laying house to routinely give him oral sex to keep her job between 2003 and 2010, according to a statement she gave to the sheriff. In an interview with the sheriff, the manager denied the accusation. He did not return calls for comment.? That case was settled for $650,000 this year – most of it to be paid to the woman and four other workers who claimed the company had fired them in retaliation for complaining. The manager no longer works at the farm.? In a case pending in Mississippi federal court, dozens of women hired to debone chickens at a poultry processing plant said they were violently groped by a supervisor between 2004 and 2008. One woman who said she was grabbed between her legs had to seek medical attention, according to court filings.? And a worker at a Salinas, Calif.-based lettuce farm accused a manager of raping her in 2006 – a charge he denied to company management, according to court documents. Maricruz Ladino sued the grower, and the case was settled for an undisclosed amount in 2010. She did not file a police report, and there was no criminal prosecution. He no longer works for the company.? “There are supervisors who try to use their power to mistreat people or to abuse them,” said Ladino, who has since left the company. “And it’s very difficult to fight against that because we are working out of necessity, because we need to provide for our families.”? Dan Fazio, director of the Washington Farm Labor Association, an employment firm that coordinates farm and seasonal employees in the Pacific Northwest, said similar problems exist in other industries, and he points to an example of workplace rape that involved a real estate company.? “Harassment occurs in agriculture,” he said, “but there is no proof that it occurs more (often) in agriculture.”? But a review of the 41 federal sexual harassment lawsuits filed against agricultural enterprises since 1998 – when the first federal lawsuit was filed against an agricultural company for failing to stop harassment or abuse – reveals a pattern of supervisors accused of preying on multiple workers.? Among these were at least 153 people who alleged workplace abuses, the vast majority by their superiors. Of the lawsuits, 7 out of 8 involved workers claiming physical harassment, assault or rape.? According to civil court documents, in nearly every case, workers made complaints to company management and, among those, 85 percent faced retaliation – such as being demoted, fired or further harassed. In their review of the federal cases, CIR and IRP could not find a single case in which the men accused of sexual assault or rape in the civil suits had been criminally prosecuted.? Cycle of Silence? An estimated 50 to 75 percent of U.S. farmworkers immigrated to the U.S. illegally, according to advocacy groups and government surveys. In interviews, more than 100 government officials, law enforcement officials, lawyers and social service providers said shame, fear of deportation or losing a job, language barriers and ignorance of workplace laws keep low-wage immigrant laborers silent.? For government lawyer William R. Tamayo, whose father worked at sugarcane plantations in Hawaii, the first inkling of what was happening to women in America’s fields and packinghouses came when he visited with California labor advocates in the mid-1990s.? “They said farmworker women were talking about the fields as the fils de calzón, or ‘fields of panties,’ ” said Tamayo, the regional attorney in San Francisco for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which files sexual harassment lawsuits on behalf of employees, including farm and food factory workers. “They referred to the fields as the ‘green motel.’ ”? Without immigration papers or job options, many agricultural workers live the largely traceless lives that low-wage seasonal work demands. For some, it’s a shadow dimension of disposable phones, weekly visits to check-cashing chains and elusive last-known addresses.? It’s a life based on the incessant search for the next job in whatever crop needs harvesting. Migrant workers can land year-round gigs at dairies or processing plants, but it’s not easy to forget their own financial instability – and supervisors know this.? If a foreman wants to test the extent of his authority, here are the perfect victims, worker advocates said.? “Sexual violence doesn’t happen unless there’s an imbalance of power,” Tamayo said. “And in the agricultural industry, the imbalance of power between perpetrator, company and the worker is probably at its greatest.”? The combination of financial desperation and tenuous immigration status make agricultural workers vulnerable to workplace violence and less inclined to report crimes. The federal government estimates that 65 percent of all sexual assault and rape victims never report the crime.? Immigrants, especially those who entered the country without authorization, are even less likely to complain, according to academic studies.? The legal research and advocacy group ASISTA surveyed more than 100 women working at Iowa meatpacking plants in 2009. An analysis of these surveys shows that 41 percent said they’d experienced unwanted touching, and about 30 percent reported receiving sexual propositions.? More than 25 percent of the women said they’d been threatened with firing or harder work if they didn’t let the aggressor have his way.? It’s a similar picture in California, where a UC Santa Cruz study of 150 female farmworkers published in 2010 found that nearly 40 percent experienced sexual harassment ranging from verbal advances to rape on the job, and 24 percent said they had experienced sexual coercion by a supervisor.? Many take sexual harassment as a job hazard, advocates said.? When attorney Laura Mahr started talking to Oregon’s female farmworkers about sexual harassment and assault, some of them said, “ ‘Oh, that’s not just part of the job? You have laws about that?’ ”? Many women, Mahr said, have risked their lives to cross the border, sometimes becoming indebted to human smugglers along the way. Coming forward means possibly losing their livelihood.? “It’s an epidemic in the field,” said Dolores Huerta, co-founder of United Farm Workers. “It goes back to the vulnerability that women have … especially if they’re undocumented. And you know, the machismo culture of power and when you think of this type of sexual harassment or rape, it’s always about power of men over women.”?Geoengineering LinkGeoengineering relies on Western masculine thought that ignores “othered” expertise and enforces man’s domination of NatureSachidanand 20 (Tanishka, BA in Biology and Environmental Studies from Mount Holyoke College. “Geoengineering & Its Gendered Effects: A Case For Feminist Scientific Leadership”, FII, 18 August 2020.) FWThe Gender Problem Of GeoengineeringOver the years, ecofeminists have raised concern over geoengineering’s hyper-masculinist approach towards addressing the climate crisis. “Geoengineering is wrong because it is the ultimate expression of patriarchy…Scientists who are playing these games, investors financing it, are doing it without global or local consent, without thinking of the consequences or what it can lead to and without being bound to responsibility. Therefore, it is the ultimate expression of all the destructive tendencies of patriarchy” says Vandana Shiva in an interview. The idea of fixing damaged biophysical systems through a one-size-fits all engineered approach is dangerous as it may have unintended consequences in different parts of the world. For example, the ‘marine cloud brightening project’ implemented on a large-scale can potentially disrupt precipitation patterns in some parts of the world and pose problems for communities relying on seasonal monsoons. Ecofeminists have pointed out that geoengineering would severely impact natural-resource dependent communities in developing countries, especially women from these communities. Feminist theorists have also noted that much of the planning for geoengineering has come from western male scientists, raising concern about the underrepresentation of women and scientists from marginalised communities. The current lack of diversity within the field of geoengineering paints a grim picture of future inequalities; it foreshadows the exclusion of women from future decision-making on a geoengineered earth. (Buck, Gammon and Preston, 2013)Geoengineering, in a way, furthers the imperial legacy of disqualifying those whom imperial governance has always “othered” within humanity. Conceptualised by mostly men from western countries, geoengineering validates the superiority of the ‘western enlightened man’. It makes him ‘take responsibility’ for future decision-making while downplaying expertise from diverse voices within humanity. Geoengineering Encourages Exclusion Geoengineering is a purely technocratic solution endorsed mainly by western governments and corporations and seeks to serve a small section of humanity. It ignores the complex histories within humankind along with our varying relationships with ecologies; It alienates indigenous knowledge on climate mitigation to establish the supremacy of western scientific thinking.Geoengineering is human-centric and fails to acknowledge the various forms of life we share our planet with. It endorses the imperialist narrative of ‘man’s dominance over nature’. “We are all mixed up with other species, we can’t live without them, without intestinal bacteria we can’t digest our food. Without plants and animals, we can’t make a life, we can’t be human” says feminist theorist Anna Tsing in a lecture.Consumption LinkWestern addiction to self-gratification through consumption drives us to the brink of destruction, evidencing a necrophilic desire towards domination of the gendered, othered Earth. Wolfstone 15 (Irene F. Wolfstone is an educator who holds an BA from University of Manitoba and an MA in Integrated Studies from Athabasca University. She is currently a Bombardier scholar in doctoral studies at the University of Alberta where her research explores Indigenous matricultures, cultural continuity, and climate change adaptation. "Deconstructing Necrophilia: An Ecofeminist Contribution to Growth."?Canadian Woman Studies, vol. 31, no. 1, 2015, pp. 7-13. ProQuest, .) ZEWestern science favours mechanism and reduction- ism—two theories that separate humans from nature and support a worldview, which holds that nature is inert and mindless compilation of parts that have no inherent meaning. Francis Bacon, the so-called father of modern science, turned science into a gendered activity in which men exercise hegemony over nature and “others” (Sardar 2). Bacon was Attorney General for King James vi who reigned during the worst of England switch-hunts, and this fact provides context for his misogynist language in which nature is no longer a wise, venerated Mother Nature, but a wanton female to be conquered by male aggression. Using language of the Inquisition, Bacon urged the domination of nature for human use: He compared miners and smiths whose technologies extracted ores for the new commercial activities to scientists and technologists penetrating the earth and shaping “her” on the anvil. The new man ofscience, he wrote, must not think that the “inquisition of nature is in any part interdicted or forbidden.” Nature must be “bound into service” and made a “slave,” put “in constraint,” and “molded” by the mechanical arts. The “searchers and spies of nature” were to discover her plots and secrets.... Nature placed in bondage through technology would serve human beings. (Merchant, RadicalA5) The science of mechanistic reductionism reduces nature to a machine that has value only insofar as it has utility for humans and can be converted into a commodity that supports capitalist economics. Newtonianism posits that the cosmos is “like an immense clock, a mechanism whose basic components and principles could be revealed and examined through science. According to a Newtonian worldview, nature is a machine and is no more than the sum of its parts,” meaningless in itself and subject to control by humans (Suzuki 15). ‘The transformation of nature from a living, nurturing mother to inert matter enabled capitalism to expand its exploitation of nature (Merchant, Death 182). “The re moval of animistic, organic assumptions about the cosmos constituted the death of nature— the most far-reaching effect of the Scientific Revolution” (Merchant, RadicalAS). Today, mechanistic science is the ideology that legitimates industrial capitalism and its domination of nature (58), feeding a culture of greed that is emotionally disconnect ed from the earth. Necrophilia is indicated by Western addiction to self-gratification through consumption, an addiction so intractable that it must be fed even when it clearly contributes to climate change. The perversion is manifest as pervasive disavowal— the state of disordered thinking which observes our culture’s slow death due to climate change but denies that it is so and makes no effort to reduce carbon emissions. A philosophy of natality contributes to the project of disrupting mechanistic reductionism by drawing on the sciences of relationality that understand organic nature as creative, self-organizing systems which are active, intelligent, communicative and intentional. Charlene Spretnak, in Relational Reality, insists that New Sciences show us that “all entities in the natural world, including us, are thoroughly relational beings of great complexity, who are both composed of and nested within contextual networks of dynamic and reciprocal relationships” (4). Rights LinkRights-based environmentalism reifies the self/other dualisms at the root of the ecological crisis. Ecofeminist valorization of care and connection is key.Gaard 93 (Greta Gaard is Professor of English and served as Founding Coordinator of the Sustainability Faculty Fellows at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. Her scholarship and teaching emerge from the intersections of student-centered pedagogy, antiracist feminisms, environmental justice, queer ecologies and critical animal studies, exploring a wide range of issues, from postcolonial ecofeminism to children’s environmental literature, and the ecopolitics of climate change. “Living Interconnections with Animals and Nature.”?Ecofeminism, Temple University Press, 1993, pp. 1–12.?JSTOR, stable/j.ctt14bt5pf.4.) ZEAs Nancy Chodorow's and Carol Gilligan's studies have repeatedly shown, a sense of self as separate is more common in men, while an interconnected sense of self is more common in women.2 These conceptions of self are also the foundation for two different ethical systems: the separate self often operates on the basis of an ethic of rights or justice, while the interconnected self makes moral decisions on the basis of an ethic of responsibilities or care. Whether these self-conceptions and affiliated ethical systems are innate or culturally learned is uncertain. Gilligan has noted that while both sexes have the ability to access both types of moral reasoning, the "focus" phenomenon is particularly gender-based: that is, men tend to focus on rights, whereas women tend to focus on responsibilities. What is certain is that a failure to recognize connections can lead to violence, and a disconnected sense of self is most assuredly at the root of the current ecological crisis (not to mention being the root cause of all oppression, which is based on difference).3 It is now common knowledge that rights-based ethics (most characteristic of dominant-culture men, although women may share this view as well) evolve from a sense of self as separate, existing within a society of individuals who must be protected from each other in competing for scarce resources. In contrast, Gilligan describes a different approach, more common to women, in which "the moral problem arises from conflicting responsibilities rath~r than from competing rights and requires for its resolution a mode of thinking that is contextual and narrative rather than formal and abstract. This conception of morality as concerned with the activity of care centers moral development around the understanding of responsibility and relationships, just as the conception of morality as fairness ties moral development to the understanding of rights and ruleS."4 Similarly, Karen Warren's "Toward an Ecofeminist Ethic" describes eight boundary conditions of a feminist ethic; that is, conditions within which ethical decision making may be seen as feminist. These conditions include coherence within a given historical and conceptual framework, an understanding of feminism as striving to end all systems of oppression, a pluralistic structure, and an inclusive and contextual framework that values and emphasizes humans in relationships, denies abstract individualism, and provides a guide to action.s The analyses of Gilligan and Warren indicate that ecofeminism, which asserts the fundamental interconnectedness of all life, offers an apropriate foundation for an ecological ethical theory for women and men who do not operate on the basis of a self/other disjunction. Personhood LinkSimply shifting conceptions nature from non-human to human fails and reifies oppressive western relationalities by failing to address androcentric individualism in normative environmentalism. Ecofeminist relations solve.Mallory 99 (Chaone Mallory is an Associate Professor of Environmental Philosophy at Villanova University.?Toward an Ecofeminist Environmental Jurisprudence: Nature, Law, and Gender,?thesis,?August 1999;?Denton, Texas. ( July 15, 2021),?University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library,?; .)ZESince around the 1970s feminism has made important contributions to Anglo legal theory by revealing the ways in which legal discourses and the institutions, they uphold are particularly masculinist, thereby creating and reinforcing gender inequality in society. Feminist legal scholars have exposed key assumptions about human nature contained by law, assumptions that are basic to the general liberalist ontology upon which law in western culture is founded. Liberal political philosophy of the sort which characterizes the vast majority of American political thought7 carries and reproduces the belief that human society is comprised of discrete and isolated individuals, relating only externally and more or less at will, who because of their atomistic individuality posses certain economic and personal entitlements which can be expressed and defined through political forms such as rights-talk and social contract theory. This belief I will call the thesis of ontological separatism, because it holds that humans are essentially separate from one another and especially from the more-than-human-world.8 Although the feminist criticism of law is richly varied and complex (and this chapter will address some of its most important theoretical positions), its primary claim is that underlying the law as it is usually justified and practiced is a normative concept of rationalism which privileges and reifies a belief in epistemic and moral universality and objectivity.9 This, say feminists, is a male viewpoint, not one universally true of human beings. In fact, it directly excludes the perspective of women,10 who instead tend to experience themselves as situated in the world contextually and relationally. This perspective I will call the thesis of ontological embeddedness . Drawing from a vast array of feminist scholarship,11 feminists are able to effectively demonstrate that while men tend to understand themselves as fundamentally separate from others, women tend to view themselves and form their identities in terms of their relationships and connectedness to others. Thus one of the main goals of feminist legal theory is to explain this difference12 in the way that women and men experience themselves in the liberal state, and to persuade legal institutions that they will be more just and socially efficacious if they take account of the particularities which make up women’s (and men’s) experience. Feminist jurisprudentialists argue that utilizing what I am calling the thesis of ontological embeddedness would produce a better and more inclusive model for legal decision-making than the current legal standard of applying abstract and depersonalized legal rules, which are considered “fair” simply because they purport to be neutral and universalizable. The problem, say feminist scholars, is that such formulas (based on what is called an “ethic of justice”) ignore legally-relevant difference, especially difference that is itself constructed by unequal social relations,13 and assume that all “normal” experience is congruous with the experience of the “average” white, educated and socially privileged male. Thus the viewpoint that claims to be the view that all reasonable person’s would agree upon (it is telling that this has until recently been called the ”rational man” standard), is in actuality privileging the perceptions and social reality of dominant groups. Ecofeminism and Beliefs About Human Nature In a manner analogous to the feminist challenge to the notion that human beings are fundamentally separate from one another, ecofeminists and other environmental ethicists challenge the assumption that human beings are fundamentally separate from the rest of nature. In doing so, ecofeminists have simultaneously attacked the conceptual notion of a natural hierarchy14 of beings, a notion which has conveniently served to posit humanity as ontologically and morally primary. In a manner similar to the way that men in patriarchal culture view themselves as superior to and thus entitled to subjugate women, human beings view themselves as superior to the other-than-human environment. This, according to environmental ethicists,15 is the problem of anthropocentrism — seeing the world from a human-centered point of view and believing persons to be superior to or “above” nature. What I am suggesting here is that there are profound similarities between the masculinist (or androcentric ) viewpoint of law and the anthropocentrism which riddles our value systems, and that eradicating the multiple structures of opression requires that a jurisprudence be constructed which addresses gender and environmental issues simutaneously. Ecofeminism, because it argues that there is no way to escape anthropocentrism without also overcoming androcentrism, is the discourse through which this project can best be extended. Feminist jurisprudence would, on this account, benefit from exposure to the insights of ecofeminism. Concomitantly, constructing a transformative environmental jurisprudence will require that attention be paid to the ways in which gender opression focuses and spreads harms to the natural world.IR LinkTheir problem-based approach to solving crises locks in existing structures of oppression - shifting our understanding of IR is keyCitrenbaum, 2020 (Brett Rapkin-Citrenbaum - PoliSci & IR @ Goucher College. “Wading Upstream: The Case for Ecofeminism as a Solution-Oriented, Critical Theory Approach”, pg. 11-15, Goucher College, May 2020, \\ ethan.jxtai)Problem-Solving versus Critical Theory in International Relations Scholarship Within the international relations scholarship, there are two predominant schools of thought: problem-solving theory and critical theory. Both examine the global arena, though with very different assumptions and goals. Robert Cox was integral in laying out the exact differences between these two types of theory. He demonstrated what each entails, what purpose they serve, and where their flaws lie. Much of the work in and around this topic is directly from his initial article, or in response to him. Cox identifies problem-solving theory as essentially mainstream IR theory, for example realism and liberalism. He defines the basis of problem-solving theory as taking “the world as it finds it, with the prevailing social and power relationships and the institution into which they are organized, as the given framework for action.”11 Essentially, problem-solving theory takes the world for granted, assuming international structures, relationships, and actions are natural. Cox claims that its general goal is “to make these relationships and institutions work smoothly by dealing effectively with particular sources of trouble.”12 In layman's terms, problem-solving theory looks at individual problems and irregularities in a vacuum and attempts to “fix” the issue and restore the world to its previous state. On the other hand, critical theory does not assume the international system is natural, let alone a good basis for peace and justice. Critical theory, according to Cox, “stands apart from the prevailing order of the world and asks how that order came about.”13 The goal of critical theory is not to simply revert back after a problem has occurred, but to look at the international arena more holistically and understand how the actions of states and non-state actors have led to a given situation. They seek to understand the origins of institutions, as well as social and power relations, rather than taking them for granted. Critical theory also values the idea of change, and believes that the world system is ever evolving. Its goal, as articulated in writing at least, is to act as “a guide to strategic action for bringing about an alternative order.”14 the roots of critical theory and the ways in which it “challenges” traditional understandings of IR. Critical theorists have specifically explored the concept of knowledge—who is given knowledge, and who gets to decide what knowledge is. International relations is in desperate need of self-reflection in order “to counter the privileging of sophisticated forms of technical rationality and instrumental reason which effectively detach knowledge from other human interests—namely intercommunity understanding and emancipation.”15 If mainstream IR aims to maintain the status quo, then its goals inherently include the continued oppression of marginalized countries, communities, and individuals. Furthermore “as a preliminary step towards a more adequate understanding of global life… scholars must reject the notion that the value of theoretical inquiry is limited to the pragmatist criterion of instrumental usefulness, a theme central to the ‘technical realism’ of influential figures such as Waltz,” meaning that mainstream theory, such as realism, believes that “theoretical inquiry” has to have an immediate and obvious use for such knowledge.16 In other words, problem-solving theories are simply taking the international arena for granted and aiming to “solve” the problem right in front of them, as Cox illustrated. There is no room for curiosity or inquiry; no potential for a complete re-imagination of systems, for they are understood as a fact; as natural. However, critical theory provides a structure for such re-imagination. For example, Marx and Hegel’s historical perspective proposes that history would end after the process of becoming is over and we’ve reached our ultimate potential. They argued that feudalism destroyed the system of master and slave, and capitalism brought down the structure of lords and serfs, capitalism will inevitably fall apart due to the divide between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.17 In sum, critical theory is necessary, for it “does reflect upon the process of theorizing and, in reconnecting theoretical knowledge to human socio-political interest, it opens up the otherwise foreclosed debate on the construction of reality.”18 In short, critical theory is essential to understand how society has arrived at this particular construction of reality. This assertion of critical theory is crucial, but that is still only a part of the puzzle. We need to understand how we got here, but also where to go next. We must learn how to learn from history, but also accept that history has happened and we are living in the present, therefore we must act now to aid those most negatively impacted by our flawed history. A large part of this work is learning from the past, understanding how systems to the gendered way environmentalism is talked about.22 Here, the relationship between power and the absence of urgent conversations about climate change in the IR field is explicitly exposed, for “natural resources and geographical spaces have been viewed as resources for increasing state power and wealth,” since the seventeenth-century, therefore climate change will not be centered because actions to combat it will not directly nor immediately further the power or wealth of a given nation.23Rationality LinkAn approach to sustainability grounded in rationality crowds out the potential for a transformative embodied future and reinforces the dualisms that stigmatize non male bodiesPhillips, 14 (Mary Phillips, researcher and author specializing in ecofeminism, maternalism, and embodied care at the University of Bristol. “Re-Writing Corporate Environmentalism: Ecofeminism, Corporeality, and the Language of Feeling.” Gender, Work, and Organization, Vol. 21 No. 5 September 2014. doi:10.1111/gwao.12047 ) SFMaternal bodies and ‘Mother Nature’Thus far, I have argued that corporate environmentalism is an example of the logic of patriarchy that ‘others’ nature such that it can be denied or appropriated. I now turn to a specific form of interrelated othering that focuses on the female and maternal body. Ecofeminism itself became subject to such othering. It became tarred with the brush of essentialism as some of its adherents focused on what they regarded as historical, biological and experiential affinities between women, women’s bodies and nature. Critics argued that this risked antifeminist complicity with patriarchal ideas in which the inherent inferiority of women is located in the a priori disorder or anarchy of the female body itself. The ability to minimize, subjugate and govern corporeality’s unwelcome sensuous, emotional and anarchic intrusions is associated with a superior mind, whereas women are positioned as less able to control their bodies in its passions, flows and fluxes. Not only are women more completely embodied than men, but the boundaries of that embodiment are fluid and insecure. Women, in general, menstruate, nurture another body within their own, give birth and lactate; their bodies thus leak, trouble and overflow the boundaries between self and other and are perceived as a source of contagion (Grosz, 1989). The conventional masculinist imaginary can thus justify women as not only inferior in the civil and social sphere but cast them as objects of fear and repulsion. The power and tenacity of such ideas meant that many feminists were wary of engagement with the female body or with its theorization (Shildrick and Price, 1999). Ecofeminism in particular faced a critique that it promoted a form of ‘motherhood environmentalism’ (Sandilands, 1999, p. xiii) that ‘considers both feminist and ecological any place where the words women and nature are mentioned together in a sentence’. Many ecofeminists distanced themselves: from the ‘touchy-feely,’ religious, and reproductive celebratory strands [of ecofeminism]; jokes about placenta-eating covens of ex-hippies became (and remain) common. (Thompson, 2006, p. 507)Such approaches were critiqued for arguing that woman was somehow closer to nature, for celebrat- ing ‘traditional’ womanly or nurturing values and ignoring intersectional dimensions of class, ethnicity, able-bodiedness and so forth. While much of the more general critique was unfair, decontextualized and inaccurate, and such accusations were often used to dismiss ecofeminism as a whole (Sturgeon, 1997), the outcome was that corporeality became an almost unspeakable issue within ecofeminism (for exceptions, see Field, 2000; Glazebrook, 2005; Twine, 2001). Although ecofeminist work has focused on relations of power as they relate to the impacts of environmental degradation on the bodies of women (e.g., Shiva, 1988), reproductive technologies (Cudworth, 2005) and the production of food (Kheel, 2008), academic ecofeminism has tended to avoid engaging with potentially important contributions to ecofeminist thought provided by post-structuralist approaches to the body.Demonstrating that the body is devalued in opposition to the mind has always been an important part of the project of ecofeminist philosophers (e.g., Plumwood, 1993; Warren, 2000) but ecofeminism needs to go further in a more positive engagement with theorization of the body in order to draw on the possibilities offered by embodied experiences of nature that produce emotion, love and care (Glazebrook, 2005). Visceral responses to the natural world and to its representation can challenge corporate rationalist discourses that represent the body as the negation of thought and reason such that it shares ‘a devalued position with women and nature’ (Field, 2000). As a first step to mounting such a challenge, I consider how nature and the feminine have been appropriated by or ‘cleansed’ from the discourses of corporate environmentalism (cf. Pullen and Rhodes, 2008) and to do this, I draw on Moira Gatens’ notion of the imaginary body. This refers to ‘those images, symbols, meta- phors and representations which help construct various forms of subjectivity’ (1996, p. viii), and is helpful in thinking how bodies are implicated in organizations. She argues that social bodies, and in particular the body politic, are cast as the product of man’s reason, rationality and logic. Such imaginary bodies are metaphors in that they are grounded in ‘an image of a masculine body which reflects fantasies about the value and capacities of that body’ (1996, p. 25). Such a body represents itself as a unified whole which disavows and excludes difference, other representations and imaginaries. ‘Deviation takes the form of gibberish’, argues Gatens (1996, p. 26), making the point that others are silenced as mad, hysterical or irrelevant. This resonates with critiques of the discourses of corporate sustainability (e.g., Prasad and Elmes, 2005) which note how the rationality and ostensible common- sense of organizational discourses of sustainability dismiss more radical alternatives and shut down the generation of potential and more transformative futures. As Field (2000) points out, there is no place for women’s bodies in this representation, as the masculine body politic distances itself from the corporeality attributed to women which is perceived as uncontrollable, excessive, disruptive and irrational.Liberalism LinkLiberal reform trades off with institutional change and reinforces systemic issuesBirkeland 93 – Janis Birkeland (Honorary Professorial Fellow, faculty of architecture, building and planning, University of Melbourne), “Ecofeminism: Linking Theory and Practice,” Ecofeminism: Women, Animals, Nature (Chp 2, edited by Greta Gaard) (1993), (ed.).%20Ecofeminism.pdf, /niki.aMuch green strategic thought is still trapped in liberal reformist thought in other ways as well. A liberal paradigm may be adequate for resolving social justice issues, but not preservation ones. This is because it frames all environmental issues in terms of distributional claims among competing interests in resources.64 That is, reformists tend to equate environmental ethics with "egalitarianism" because it is consistent with the concept of rights, the "social contract," and the "mushroom" model of Man. In this framework, responsibilities are construed as merely mutual rights. If social justice is simply transposed onto animals, however, we would "balance the interests" between humans and animals, or incrementally trade off nature to meet human needs. This limited egalitarian conception of ethics is still commonplace in green thinking. Similarly, as in liberalism, much green thought has emphasized the self over community. Mainstream liberals devalue the idea of community as being a mere aggregate of individuals, whereas I use "community" to refer to a sense of mutuality and reciprocity (rather than a parochial identification with a particular group). Mainstream liberals hold that Society should not impose a particular conception of the good life or of what constitutes human fulfillment. Though few would quarrel with this proposition, it excludes the idea of community from its conception of what is essential to human well-being. It fails to fully appreciate that we are what we are because of nature, culture, and emotional bonds. Thus, liberalism reflects and reinforces the estrangement of autonomous Man from the feminine, community, and nature. Liberalist green thought does not fully escape this legacy. It is also two-tiered-relating to the self and the biotic community-though it seeks to bridge this Man-made gap. While it attempts to reunite Man with nature, it leaves community and the women's culture in the background. Furthermore, this Manstream emphasis on the individual "at one with nature" distracts attention from structural and systemic issues. Institutions embody values, so they must be changed as well. Of course, some constructive institutional reforms have been put forth by Manstream theorists, and others: reforms such as bioregionalism, decentralized and direct democracy, and the new economics.65 These ideas, however, can also be supported by anthropocentric perspectives and in fact draw on the prior work of anthropocentric ecologists, social ecologists, and anarchists.66 Also, as Judith Plant points out, these new lifestyles and organizational modes require feminism: the revaluing of life-giving values, conflict resolution, physical work, and the reintegration of men into the home: One of the key ideas of bioregionalism is the decentralization of power: moving further and further toward self-governing forms of social organization. The further we move in this direction, the closer we get to what has traditionally been thought of as 'woman's sphere' -that is, home and its close surroundings. . . . The catch is that, in practice, home, with all its attendant roles, will not be anything different from what it has been throughout recent history without the enlightened perspective offered by feminism. Women's values, centered around life-giving, must be revalued, elevated from their once subordinate role.67 Another vestige of liberalism in Manstream thought is the view of political activity as being exclusively a means to an end: a goal-oriented activity. However, grassroots or hands-on community involvement is an important means of self-realization as well. For example, it has often been suggested that people "need to save themselves before they can save the forests." However, in the absence of serious personal problems, it is hard to understand how one can make such a separation: when part of a rainforest dies, part of us dies. Personal development, I believe, requires the sometimes painful process of community participation as well as contemplation. Furthermore, the view of politics as a means to an end is corrosive. When we implicitly suggest "we need power to make change," we have already begun to compromise. There is certainly nothing wrong with criticizing anthropocentrism in favor of biocentrism per se. The significance of ignoring the very real problems of building community and restructuring institutions, however, is this: an environmental ethic that does not offer a chance of saving the natural environment is not an environmental ethic. The relationship between social change and individual perception or spirituality is, therefore, crucial to the relevance of the Liberalists' program for social transformation. Hence we now embark upon the politics of mysticism and transcendence. Deep Ecology LinkDeep ecology perpetuates patriarchy by universalizing “humanity”Selam 06, Ophelia Selam - Women's Studies at the State University of New York at Binghamton, “Ecofeminism or Death: Humans, identity, and the environment”, Gale Academic Onefile, University of Puerto Rico, Faculty of Arts and Sciences //JKOne can also trace the influence of ecofeminism within the more radical section of the environmental movement called "deep ecology." As Michael Zimmerman explains, deep ecology "maintains that the environment crisis is the inevitable outcome of the history of West- ern culture" {Reweaving the World 139). And within this movement lie variations in interpretation that are all visible within much of ecofeminist theory. Ecology begins with the idea of conservation, which stems from our obligation to future generations. Following this idea, ecology then introduces the concept of "moral extensionism," which asserts that the environmental problems arise from our "unethical treatment of nonhuman beings" (Reweaving the World ^39). Through this approach, non human beings are worthy of moral consideration and legal standing (Reweaving the World 139). The next stage of ecological consciousness is ecological sensibility, or deep ecology, which asserts that "the industrial pollution, species extinction, biospheric degradation, and nuclear annihilation facing the Earth are all symptoms of anthropocentrism" (Reweaving the IVor/d 139-140). Deep ecology denies the "human versus everything else" dichotomy and thinks "nondualistically" (Reweaving the World 140), rejecting ideas such as atomism, hierarchalism, rigid autonomy and abstract rationalism (Reweaving the Worid 141). Here again, ecology is not in opposition to science; rather it opposes its "enslavement to economic and nationalistic interests" (Reweaving the World 141). Further, as with ecofeminism, deep ecology presents the need to change laws immediately as well as presenting the urgent need to "revolutionize" humanity's understanding of itself and the world around it. As mentioned earlier, the main contribution that ecofeminism brings to deep ecology is the realization that so called "humanity" is divided though issues of gender, race, class, sexuality, geography, etc. In other words, it is not only Western culture that is at fault; it is also patriarchy (and with it, capitalism). As a result, ecofeminism necessitates a critique of abstraction (so present within deep ecological thought), and hence a turn to concrete and personal relationships to other people and the Earth (Reweaving the World 146). Without this, deep ecology falls into the very trap of patriarchy by hiding difference or pretending that so-called "true" equality really exists. Or, as Vandana Shiva eloquently puts it, "it cannot understand equality in diversity" (Reweaving the World 192). Furthermore, ecofeminism acts as a new way to interpret the so-called outside. Read, for instance, the following premise by Brian Swimme: "what I would like to do here is to take a couple of central and extraordinary facts provided by scientists and interpret them ac- cording to the vision of some brilliant ecofeminists" (Reweaving the WoridM). According to him, inspired interpretations can only "come alive within an ecofeminist consciousness" {Reweaving the World 21), something that is impossible within the traditional reductionist interpretation of current scientists {Reweaving the Worid 20). Consider also his following conclusion: Silence linkIssues devoid of gender are a clear indicator of hegemonic masculinity; this has created a situation where masculine is the norm. Kronsell 06,Annica Kronsell: Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Lund, edited by Brooke A. Ackerly: Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Vanderbilt University, Maria Stern: Lecturer and Researcher at the Department of Peace and Development Research, Goteborg University, and Jacqui True: Senior Lecturer in the Department of Political Studies at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, Feminist Methodologies of International Relations, 2006, Cambridge University p. 109 I became interested in what Hearn and Parker (2001: xii) call “the silent unspoken, not necessarily easily observable, but fundamentally material reality" of institutions. Silence on gender is a determining characteristic of institutions of hegemonic masculinity and this is a key point. It indicates a normality and simply "how things are." men are the standards of normality, equated with what it is to be human, while this is not spelled out (Connell 1995: 212). Hegemonic masculinity "naturalizes the everyday practices of gendered identities" (Peterson and True 1998: 21). This has led to the rather perplexing situation in which "men are persons and there is no gender but the feminine” (Butler 1990: 19). Hence, masculinity is not a gender; it is the norm. It should be noted that in the Swedish context, this masculinity norm derives from a standard associated with white, heterosexual, male bodies. What I focus on is the normality, reproduced within organizations and how that can be approached methodologically. The goal is to problematize masculinities and the hegemony of men (cf. Zalgwski 1998a: 1). This is a risky enterprise because masculine norms, when hegemonic, are never really a topic of discussion. They remain hidden - silenced — yet continue to be affirmed in the daily practice of the institutions. Kathy Ferguson (1993: 8), for one, suggests we challenge that which is widely acceptable, unified, and natural, and instead perceive it as being in need of explanation. Breaking the silence is to question what seems self-explanatory and turn it into a research puzzle, in a sense, by making the familiar strange. It means giving the self-explanatory a history and a context. Cynthia Enloe (2004; 1993) encourages feminists to use curiosity to ask challenging questions about what appear as normal, everyday banalities in order to try to understand and make visible, for example, as she does, the gender of` international relations (IR) both as theory and as practice. The first step is to question even the most banal or taken-as—given of everyday practices of world politics. In her study on women’s collective political organizing in Sweden, Maud Eduards (2002: 157) writes that “the most forbidden act" in terms of gender relations is to name men as a political category, which transfers men from a universal nothing to a specific something. If this is so, how can we actually study such silences? What are the methods by which we can transcend this silence on gender? ImpactLaundry listOnly ecofeminism can save us from assumptions that lead to a war on life itselfAnnie Hewitt 12-20-2020, (interview with Vandana Shiva) Neither extinction nor escape — Vandana Shiva on ecofeminism’s way out of our global crisis," Metta Center for Nonviolence, does ecofeminism decolonize this violent process of a war against life itself, and the war against women, and war against the future? By removing the false assumptions of superiority and separation. Those are the two key issues. The false assumptions that we are separate from nature and powerful men are masters of nature. The false assumption that powerful men are in charge of our future. And the false assumption that some races, some religions are superior.All the violence we see around the world today is around the rising of the false idea of superiority – superior race, superior religion. In my country, killings are going on in the name of a superior religion. Ecofeminism removes these false assumptions and turns our times into the celebration of the creativity of nature, the creativity of women. It turns our times into a refusal to go extinct. It turns the back to a violent system, a violent way of thinking.I mean, the way the coronavirus has been handled is a military operation. I got a message from friends in Italy. They’re talking about triage. Triage was a war term that in a war you let the very wounded be there. Second lot, who can’t really be rescued, you let them die. Only one-third you save. Now, can you imagine a future in which the world is being pushed to the edge, and meantime while new crises are coming, they’re saying only one-third of you deserve to live for a short while? Well, we will make you redundant too because they’re all talking about artificial intelligence making 99% of humanity redundant.The problem is artificial intelligence downloading the mechanical paradigm of this age of capitalist patriarchy. Having a machine learn a few steps and then feeding that data back to us as serfs of the Alexa. I’ve just launched a campaign on Women’s Day because the announcement was made by a government that our children would be taught about eating by Amazon’s Alexa, that there’d be labs in schools when an Alexa would sit there and give instruction to kids. And we said, “No, Mother Earth will be the teacher. We’ll start gardens of hope. Our grandmothers will be the teachers of how we know what good eating is about, which is based on diversity. Because without diversity, our gut microbe cannot be fed and nourished.Because if we begin with Alexa for food, they’ll say, “Why do we need teachers? Just have some computer learning, you know, Alexa, and let her repeat the lessons. Why do we need doctors? Why do we need people? Why do we need nature?”Let me conclude with this whole idea of fear of nature. We are part of the earth and we can live on this earth in ways that we don’t destroy the planet, we don’t destroy the future. Every child, every woman, every indigenous person has a promise for the future.Cartesian understanding of the physical as other and inferior to the self creates violent hierarchies and drives existential ecological destructionWolfstone 15 (Irene F. Wolfstone is an educator who holds an BA from University of Manitoba and an MA in Integrated Studies from Athabasca University. She is currently a Bombardier scholar in doctoral studies at the University of Alberta where her research explores Indigenous matricultures, cultural continuity, and climate change adaptation. "Deconstructing Necrophilia: An Ecofeminist Contribution to Growth."?Canadian Woman Studies, vol. 31, no. 1, 2015, pp. 7-13. ProQuest, .) ZEThe ideology of dualism and human separation can be traced to Greek philosophers, and is embedded in the Abrahamic religions; however, Rene Descartes is considered the father of modern dualism. Descartes’philosophy consolidated and augmented Bacon’s reductionism and formed the intellectual context for the current ecological crisis (Plumwood, Nature, n.p.). Descartes held that there are two kinds of existing things: physical and mental. He argued that self-conscious awareness is a unique human achievement that elevates humans above all other species (Suzuki 15). Cartesian dualism seeks to master the body in order to reside in purely rational, intellectual states. Dualistic thinking categorizes phenomena into binary opposites in which one part of the binary is valuated as superior while the categorical other’ is devalued as inferior or primitive; thus, Cartesian dualism bastions hierarchical systems of domination: anthropocentrism, sexism, racism, androcentrism, colonialism, ableism and classism. Human-centeredness, or anthropocentrism, is the hyper/ separation of humans as a special species; it weaves a dangerous set of illusions about the human condition into the logic of our basic conceptual structures. Human-centeredness is a complex syndrome which rationalizes the delusions of being ecologically invulnerable, beyond animality, out side nature, and thus beyond the reach of the sixth mass extinction event (Plumwood, Nature np). Human/nature dualism conceives humans as not only superior to but as different in kind from the non-human, which is regarded as a lower non-concious and non-communicative physical sphere (Jantzen 32f). Cartesian thinking is necrophilic in that its goal is to control the mind by transcending the body in order to achieve immortality and divinity in death. An otherworldly preoccupation is particularly evident for Christian and Islamic religionists who valorize martyrdom and yearn to escape embodied life for a heavenly home. The secular obsession with transcending the body manifests in celebrating war and building elaborate war memorials that beautify youth who die in battle. Science valorizes its own heroes— the astronauts who transcend our planet in space ships. Natality is situated in the continuum of ecocentric philosophies that include deep ecology, ecofeminism, organicisim, and indigeneity. Freya Mathews’s ecofeminist philosophy moves beyond deep ecology to explore ecological interconnectedness or “oneness” to describe personhood as the embodied relation of self to the self-re alizing universe in the extended region of space time (149). An ecocentric philosophy recognizes that all beings are equal and interdependent in the living systems of nature, which is itself capable of agency and intentionality. As relationality with earth deepens, we acknowledge our ecological vulnerability and our animality. Interdependence is linked to the principle of sufficiency (enoughness) that frees humans from the drive to acquire and consume in accordance with the competitive ideology of capitalism (Plumwood, Feminism 5). Necrophilic perversion violates the “other” after the “other” has been silenced and incapable of giving consent; it is indicated by the ethical void of globalization in which multinationals appropriate the homeland of Third World cultures without their consent, degrade their landscapes, pollute their environments and impoverish the people in order to feed the insatiable addiction of Western consumers. In contrast, a feminist philosophy of natality embraces difference and plurality. Monoculture Multinationals promote monoculture by marketing seeds that are genetically modified so that they cannot self-propagate, compelling farmers to purchase seeds an nually instead of seed-saving. In India, more than 280,000 farmers have committed suicide after being forced into bankruptcy after investing in expensive, unreliable patented seeds. Vandana Shiva is a critic of multinationals who claim Indigenous farmers’ collective knowledge as their invention through biopiracy patents—a type of enclosure of the intellectual and the biological commons. Shiva advocates for farmers’ right to save and exchange seeds in order to preserve biodiversity. Necrophilia is indicated by the complicity of governments and multinationals to make seed-saving illegal. Indigenous farmers protect their biocultural heritage by actively resisting Monsanto. On the face of it, their protests may appear to be conservative resistance to modernity, but at the heart of their active resistance is a radical reclamation of the traditional knowledge that sustained biocultural diversity in the past. Like the Roman Janus, they look into the distant past in order to look deeper into the future, while Montsanto takes a short term view of future profits bypromotingacultureofdeath in“Roundup-Ready”seeds. Monoculture is three dimensional; it manifests as loss of biodiversity, loss of languages, and loss of cultures. The emerging field of biocultural studies has collected data that indicates the rates of culture loss and language loss parallel the rate of loss of biodiversity (Maffi 412). According to Luisa Maffi, an anthropogenic extinction crisis is indicated by the massive loss of biodiversity in Earth’s plant and animal species and in the health of the ecosystems that sustain them. Cultures and languages are vanishing under the rising tide of global monoculture, and Maffi worries that we are rapidly losing critical life-support systems and the human knowledge that can teach us how to live in balance with our planet (414). Natality celebrates plurality and difference and recognizes that biocultural diversity is critical to cultural continuity. Vandana Shiva’swork reflects the intersection of biocultural diversity, matriculture and political revolution: “When nature is a teacher, we co-create with her—we recognize her agency and her rights” (Shiva, Everything n.p.). EnvironmentPatriarchy is the root cause of environmental destructionHunnicutt 20 – Doctor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina Greensboro Gwen Hunnicutt, “Chapter 2. Foregrounding patriarchy in a larger field of domination of nature” from “Gender Violence in Ecofeminist Perspective", 2020I present an alternative way to illuminate the problems of gender violence by employing patriarchy as a core theoretical concept, but with one caveat: this concept should be brought into conversation with ecofeminist scholarship. Gendered dominance is a complex feature of social life. The concept of patriarchy must be situated within other forms of hierarchy and domination from which it is inextricably embedded. The exploitation of the earth shares a common patriarchal core with other modes of domination. For example, the same dominance model that undergirds exploitation of the more-than-human-life-world parallels that of nations. The overdevelopment of wealthy nations exists in a colonial relationship to underdeveloped countries. The poverty in underdeveloped countries is a consequence of the exploitation and engineered dependence of rich nations. Maria Mies and Vandana Shiva (2014) point out how a similar colonial relationship exists today between “Man and Nature, between men and women, between urban and rural areas…. In order to maintain such relationships force and violence are always essential” (p. 56).Environmental issues cannot be separated from unjust power dynamics like between masculinity and femininityKlemmer and McNamara, 2019 (Cary L. Klemmer and Kathleen A. McNamara, Klemmer has a PhD in social work from the University of Southern California. McNamara is a clinical social worker and has a PhD in social work from USC. “Deep Ecology and Ecofeminism” , December 2019)//klzNatural Ecological Theories: The Key ConceptsTheorists of the deep ecological and ecofeminist movements in social work have attempted to develop and find affirmation for frameworks that integrate person and natural environment trans- actions (Drolet, 2012). These frameworks view traditional ecological theory as too conservative sociopolitically, and too detached from nature, spirituality and critiques of power relations in the systems of human interaction (Besthorn, 2012; Besthorn & McMillen, 2002; Stephens et al., 2009). These theorists posit that the ways in which the social work field has framed its response to the climate crisis using a traditional ecological systems approach have perpetuated a person on the environment as opposed to a person in the environment worldview. In this way, the field supports the conceptualization that humanity is detached from and superior to the natural environment and misses an opportunity to advocate for the underserved and undervalued, in this case: nonhumankindThree central ideas of ecofeminist thought have been solidified by Besthorn and McMillen (2002). The first is that there is currently an uneven and exploitative power dynamic between masculinity and femininity that equally mirrors the split between humankind and nature. Similarly, all things demarcated by humankind fall either within nature or that which is outside and superior to nature (Besthorn & McMillen, 2002). These demarcations are oppressive, are hierarchical, and are presupposed and unquestioned by all institutions of modernity. From an ecofeminist lens, the “twin oppressions” (Besthorn & McMillen, 2002, p. 224) of patriarchy and anthropocentrism are con- joined in their preponderance and could be mutually destroyed. In other words, to dismantle one of these hierarchical, oppressive structures would lead to equal disability of the other: “issues of environmental degradation and concerns for a reanimated person/nature consciousness cannot be separated from all forms of injustice, whether toward nature or other human beings” (Besthorn & McMillen, 2002, p. 223). This critical perspective that troubles the concept of dominant and passive sides of a coin leads logically to the question of whether such binaries can and should be eradicated entirely.The second construct posits that all forms of domination, either of humans or of nature, are feminist concerns (Besthorn & McMillen, 2002). Ecological critiques are simply incomplete without an appraisal of unchecked power and the effect of its operation in society (Stephens et al., 2009). Without social critique of power, underlying misogyny and disdain of nature cannot be unveiled. As scholar and environmental activist Vandana Shiva (1997) put it, the rise of globalization and industrialism has ushered in the gendered construction of nature as “passive, inert, and valueless,” not dissimilar to the characterization of femininity (para. 38). To provide social critique and to promote positive change is one main aim of the ecofeminist social and political movement. This objective is closely aligned with the political and social objectives of deep ecology (Besthorn, 2012; Gray & Coates, 2013; Ungar, 2002).The third main idea of ecofeminism is that humanity has lost consciousness of the sacred inter- connectedness of all things (humankind and nonhumankind) due to the institutions of modernity (Besthorn, 2012; Ungar, 2002). Modernity, which is encapsulated by the ideas of enlightenment thinking, seeks continued progress as ultimate good. Here, progress is defined as the accumulation of scientific knowledge (Ferreira, 2010). This view is flawed according to ecofeminists and deep ecologists who see the accumulation of knowledge through positivism as the continued and increas- ing dominion of humankind over nature (Besthorn, 2012; Besthorn & McMillen, 2002; Stephens et al., 2009). An objective of ecofeminist thought therefore is to reignite within social consciousness the idea that the whole of humanity is greater than the sum of its parts. Each of these parts shares a fundamental interconnectedness, a premise that also categorizes deep ecological thinking (Kober, 2013; Ungar, 2002). It therefore follows that commitment to political and social action is inherently spiritual, especially in relation to climate change (Besthorn & McMillen, 2002; Gray & Coates, 2013).Deep ecology is closely aligned with ecofeminist theorizing and is the study of the mutual dependency found in all aspects of an ecosystem both social and natural/environmental (Alston, 2013; Diehm, 2014; Jones, 2010; Stephens et al., 2009; Ungar, 2002). Besthorn (2012) explains that, “rather than individual experience as separate from the environment, [in deep ecological theory] the environment exists in individuals as they cultivate awareness of being one with all that exists” (p. 252). Humankind, in their relationship with one another, is the embodiment of nature. Simply stated, there is an interconnectedness of all things, and the dominant behaviors of society have an effect on all things, human and nonhuman.According to Gray and Coates (2013), there has been a shift throughout human history from that of an ecologically centered philosophy to that of an anthropocentric presumption. The shift from ecocentrism to anthropocentrism facilitates humankind to seek and legitimize dominion over nature. The reigning dominance of market-based systems and an overreliance on continuous scientific and economic growth have led to the overconsumption of natural resources and the current environ- mental crises, especially those problems caused by warming temperatures (Besthorn, 2012; Dom- inelli, 2011, 2013; Gray & Coates, 2013; Peeters, 2012). Both ecofeminist and deep ecological theorists posit that we need to change widely held ideology and political and economic structures that operate on the assumption that a valuable life is one rich in material possession and consumption (Besthorn & McMillen, 2002; Gray & Coates, 2013; Stephens et al., 2009). Deep ecology’s remedy to environmental crisis does not include the development of more sustainable technologies that would allow only for continued domination of the environment (Peeters, 2012). Instead, addressing climate change will not be possible without radical social change.Dualistic thinking is the root cause of environmental problemsTaylor, 2020 (Affrica Taylor, associate professor in?Faculty of Education, Science, Technology and Mathematics?at the University of Canberra, Australia and a founding member of the?Common Worlds Research Collective, an international network of childhood and feminist scholars and educators. “Downstream River Dialogues: An Educational Journey Toward a Planetary-Scaled Ecological Imagination” , March 29, 2020)//klzThe task of rethinking our interdependent futures beyond the horizons of the modern Western paradigm necessarily involves shifting educational research beyond the human-centric preoccupations and structuring Cartesian dualisms that stunt our research imaginations (Silova & Rappleye, 2015; Silova et al., 2020). This is because the dualisms that pervade the research methods and pedagogies of modern Western-style education entrap us within the bifurcating business-as-usual of setting all-knowing human subjects apart from known-about others (human and nonhuman). In the process of separating humans off from the rest of the world, dualistic thinking reiterates the presumption of exclusive and autonomous human subjectivity and agency and obfuscates how all lives, fates, and futures (including those of the nonhuman) are mutually determining and entangled. These same structuring dualisms and human-centric preoccupations have even more dire impli- cations in these precarious times of cascading geo/biospheric earth systems collapses. Central to these collapses are anthropogenic global warming and mass extinctions, which have been brought about by the kind of human-supremacist thought and action that presumes that we can endlessly exploit the earth’s finite resources with impunity. Such delusions of human separateness from and dominion over the rest of the world deny the interdependencies of life on earth and distort our imaginings about our place and agency within it. As the opening quote from Val Plumwood (2007a) suggests, if we cannot find another mode of imagining and living, we may not survive the ecological crisis that our myopic self-serving actions have wrought upon the earth. All of this begs the pressing question: What can those of us involved in the business of education do to redress this situation? Western modernity is rooted in dualism that has shaped the exploitative relationship between humans and natureCross 18 – Crain L. Cross, Department of Jurisprudence, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria. “Ecofeminism and an ethic of care: Developing an eco-jurisprudence,” Acta Academica: Critical views on society, culture and politics: Vol. 50 No. 1 (2018) 6/14/2018 /niki.aMan’s dominion over nature can be traced back to the rise of modernity (the age of Enlightenment). It was during this time that scientific experimentation, and the use of animals in this, was at the forefront of the development of a modern society, endorsed by a ‘masculine’ rationalist paradigm (Singer 2002: 198). The rise of modernity also led to the division of labour and the rise of capitalism (Donovan 1990: 362). This was the basis for the private and public sphere division: on the one hand, the private sphere defined woman’s place at home and on the other the public sphere as the space wherein men work and endure the struggle for survival (Donovan 1990: 362). This resulted in the a distinction between reason and emotion: reason is seen as a masculine characteristic needed for the survival of men and emotion a feminine characteristic kept within the confines of the home (Donovan 1990: 362). The period of the Renaissance brought with it the rise of humanist thought, which by no means meant humanitarianism or acting humanely (Singer 2002: 198). Humanist thought was the view that humans are the centre of the universe (the development of anthropocentricism) (Singer 2002: 198). Cartesian dualistic objectivism developed by Rene? Descartes was one of the leading philosophies at the time, laying the groundwork for the instrumental use and ultimately the exploitation of nature (Singer 2002: 200). Men deny any connection to nature by using a certain kind of rationality as a psychological tool to entrench their position as not only outside of but also as controllers of nature. Patriarchy is rooted in the belief that man is separate from and superior to nature because of man’s ability to be rational. Man has ‘othered’ the natural environment through these masculine tools. Humanity sees this position of being outside of nature as advantageous as it provides a vantage point from which man can be the “masters of nature” (Plumwood 1991: 10). This mind-set in terms of which humans regard themselves as ‘separate from and controllers of nature’ has created a dichotomy between ‘us’ as humanity on the one hand and nature as ‘it’ on the other. A masculinist modernity in the modern era, epitomised by masculine qualities of rationality and power, has shaped the current relationship that humans have with nature. Susan Bordo says that the Cartesian philosophical paradigm is the ultimate masculinisation of thought and that it is a reaction against feminine thought (Donovan 1990: 364). In terms of this theory, the “organic female earth” becomes a mechanical entity which is not alive; the only way of understanding ‘it’ is through the objectification of ‘it’ (Donovan 1990: 364). Bordo, in her article The Cartesian masculinity of thought, says that modern scientific thought “crystalized masculinist modes of thinking” (Bordo 1986: 441). Modernity created a specific form of consciousness as scientific and in creating this consciousness it has disposed of all that is feminine within it (Bordo 1986: 441). The Cartesian project was rooted in the total separation from the natural and the feminine (Bordo 1986: 451). The feminine becomes the ‘other’ and from this position, mastery and domination become a possibility (Bordo 1986: 452). The organic ties which once existed between man and nature are now negatively reimagined in terms of man as the engineer of the separation (Bordo 1986: 452). She becomes ‘it’ and ‘it’ can now be understood not through a sympathetic lens but by the objectification of ‘it’ (Bordo 1986: 452). This thinking has shaped the current relationship humans have with nature. The relationship, as a result, has taken on a dualistic form, defining man as separate from and opposite to nature. I identify this oppressive relationship as one of the main causes of the destruction of the environment. The instrumental use of nature by society has been a result of this ‘separate from nature’ mind-set, thus this mind-set needs to be addressed in order to limit its damaging effects (Plumwood 1991: 10). Modernity can be said to be inherently anthropocentric because it ‘others’ the natural environment. Modern anthropocentrism treats any difference from humanity as inferior, which leads to the subordination of all parties who are seen as part of nature (Plumwood 2006: 504). Nature is thought of as the collection of whoever is more primitive than man; included in this category are women who are seen as less developed than their male counterparts (Plumwood 2006: 503). Progress is then seen as the control of the barbaric non-rational state of nature by the rational male (Plumwood 2006: 503). Val Plumwood calls this “rational colonisation” as she attempts to show that it is a prominent feature of Western modernity (Plumwood 2006: 503). It relies on this power imbalance and need of masculinity to dominate (Plumwood 2006: 504). Plumwood makes reference to “the difference imperative” in terms of which all that is important in being human has to be regarded as opposite to and completely different from nature (Plumwood 1991: 10). This creates a dichotomy between humans on the one hand and nature on the other (Plumwood 1991: 10). This human vs nature (expressed as human/nature) dichotomy is known as a dualism (Plumwood 1991: 10). Modern ‘masculine’ thinking entrenches power relations as dualisms which include, for example, human/nature, masculine/feminine, and rationality/emotion (Plumwood 1991: 6). Similarities can be drawn from the human/nature dualism to other dualisms, for example, that of the masculine/feminine, humanity is whatever is not natural and this view extends to the feminine too; humanity is whatever is not feminine, which shows a masculinist tendency (Plumwood 1991: 11). The characteristics which are attributed to humans are rationality and the ability to be autonomous, which are not shared with nature (Plumwood 1991: 10). It is an anthropocentric culture which reaffirms the human’s position as outside of and distant from nature (Plumwood 1991: 10). Ecofeminist literature shows us that each of these dualisms have two things in common. Firstly it represents an unequal relationship; one side of the dualisms is always seen as more valuable than the other (Kheel 2007: 40). Secondly, it is the fact that the valued half is always the masculine form, directly or by association (Kheel 2007: 40). This is why the human/nature dualism can be called a hyper- separation, which means that it extends way past the mere dichotomy but is rooted in the fact that the dominant entity (humanity considered as man-kind) is completely opposite to the subordinate entity (nature) (Plumwood 2006: 504). The human/nature dichotomy is maintained through the rejection and total denial of the similarities between humans and animals (Plumwood 1991: 10). There are no shared similarities but only sharp distinctions between what makes us humans versus them as animals (Plumwood 1991: 10). Dualistic power relationships divide the world into sets of opposites (Kheel 2007: 39). It is the Western, modern, masculinist view of the world that has led to a dualistic relationship with nature, endorsed by the rationalist epistemological paradigm (Plumwood 1991: 10). The root of the dualistic way of thinking can be traced back to a mechanistic view promoted by modern science (Kheel 2007: 40). In Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant writes that “we are always to treat humanity, both in [our] own person and in the person of every other, always as an end, never as a means merely” (Kant 1964: 76). This means that humanity has a direct duty to act in a moral manner towards other rational humans beings. Humanity, however, only has an indirect duty to act in a moral manner towards non-rational animals (Kant 1997: 212). Kant puts forward that animals do not, in and of themselves, exist as ends as they have no self-consciousness therefore man does not have a direct duty to act in a morally relevant manner towards animals but merely in an indirect one (Kant 1997: 212). Animals are considered means to an ends, that end is human beings (Kant 1997: 212). There is an indirect moral duty toward animals because Kant recognises that human behaviour towards animals is analogous of behaviour between humans (Kant 1997: 212). This means behaving in a harmful manner towards animals is only relevant to the extent that this behaviour will harden one’s treatment to one’s own kind, human beings (Kant 1997: 212). This is known as the “formula of ends in itself” (Kant 1964: 76). The only reason why we would have a duty to animals is that it translated into an indirect duty to humanity (Kant 1997: 213). In terms of this indirect duty it would be acceptable to, for example, experiment on animals because they are animals, and exploit natural resources because nature has a merely instrumental value to humanity, though harming an animal should not be a sport as it could translate to cruelty between humans. Kant says, “He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men” (Kant 1997: 213). Plumwood writes that the formula of ends in itself highlights the ego of this interpretation of morality, seeing humanity as the centre (anthropocentric) (Plumwood 1991: 6). This understanding of morality can be seen as being distant from emotion while aligning itself with the realm of a certain kind of rationality (Plumwood 1991: 4). A Kantian formula of ends in itself is situated within the field of rationality, which is a separate entity from emotion, kindness or caring (Plumwood 1991: 4). This draws strongly on the reason/emotion dichotomy (Plumwood 1991: 5). Women and animals have been classed as non-rational by the masculinist rational definition of the ‘self’ (Plumwood also refers to this as rational egoism) (Plumwood 1991: 6). And as a result the feminine, emotion, the body of the woman and nature have been denied value, thus seen as inferior and given instrumental status (Plumwood 1991: 6). The supremacy afforded to this understanding of reason by a patriarchal society is one of the core reasons why Western modernity can be seen as having an anthropocentric character (Plumwood 1991: 6). Plumwood says that the dichotomy between care (kindness) and morality is a false one (Plumwood 1991: 7). The capacity to care, to experience empathy and understanding of the sensitivity of a situation is part of our moral compass (Plumwood 1991: 7). JM Coetzee’s book The Lives of Animals (1999) is a short novel based on the fictional main character Elisabeth Costello. In this story, Costello, an Australian writer of ground-breaking feminist fiction, is invited to give a lecture to literature students (Coetzee 1999: 12). Costello elects to lecture on the rights of animals. In the story, Costello has very strong opinions regarding the way in which humanity treats animals, so much so that her son asserts that her opinions go as far as to be ‘propaganda’ against cruelty to animals (Coetzee 1999: 14). After reading this novel one seems to wonder whether Elisabeth Costello is JM Coetzee’s alter ego in that they share the same sentiments towards cruelty to animals. Costello makes the following observations with regards to the masculinist theory of rationality: According to the writings of St Thomas of Aquinas, rationality comes from God, therefore because humans were created in the image of God, humans themselves are inherently rational; Plato said that the universe is based on rationality and through the understanding of reason we can come to an understanding of how the universe works (Coetzee 1999: 24). Reason and the universe are therefore seen as the same being (Coetzee 1999: 25). Costello says that nature is seen as property, humanity is seen as god-like, and that by extension of Plato’s theory non-rational beings do not have an understanding of the universe but follow its rules blindly, unlike rational humanity (Coetzee 1999: 25). Costello cannot agree with any of these standpoints (Coetzee 1999: 24). Costello says: Both reason and several decades of life experience tell me that reason is neither a being of the universe nor the being of god. On the contrary it looks suspiciously like the being of human thought; worse than that, like the being of one tendency of human thought. Reason is the being of a certain spectrum of human thinking. And if this is so why should I bow to reason (Coetzee 1999: 24). I agree with Costello’s perspective of rationality as a product of the human mind. It would make sense that this understanding of rationality as a product of the human brain would in turn also be a product of speciesism.2 BiodiversityBiodiversity policies fail- will be circumvented without ecofeminism.Myers, Charlene. 1999. The (non)enforcement of the convention on international trade in endangered species of wild fauna and flora (CITES): An ecofeminist and postmodernist perspective. Humanity and Society 23(2): 143-163.Having lived in the beautiful province of British Columbia, Canada, for most of my life, I feel strongly about the protection of Canada's wildlife. Keeping in mind the increasing claims about BC's bears being poached for their galls and feet, I began an honours thesis in criminology in an attempt to understand this tragedy. I found that the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species a/Wild Fauna and Flora(CITES) appeared to have little effect on reducing the killing of Canada's wildlife. This discovery led me to question why so few resources, financial or otherwise, were lent to solving this problem. I found ecofeminist writings helpful in explaining the lack of enforcement of CITES. Animals other than humans have been placed in a position of subordination to humans throughout history, which may partially explain why CITES has had little impact-it has been designed to protect endangered species, while still allowing trade in them! Thus, it seemed to me that postmodernism could provide a useful perspective for viewing the apparent lack of concern about the depletion of species, especially the notion of challenging dominant discourse about animals. It has been my goal in this paper to utilize ecofeminist and postmodernist perspectives in an attempt to uncover the viewpoints in modernist discourse which have contributed to the relative non-enforcement of CITES. Currently held ideologies about the importance of animals (as expressed in modernist discourse) must be challenged before the manner in which human streat animals, including endangered species, will be improved.WarEcofeminism’s emphasis on cooperation forces men to redefine their identity which solves warNhanenge 11, Jytte Nhanenge is a Danish citizen who has been working with development in Africa for many years. “Ecofeminism : Towards Integrating the Concerns of Women, Poor People, and Nature into Development”, ProQuest, //JKEcologically based economic activities relates to new types of relationships among people, and between people and nature. It includes respect for nature in her richness and diversity, both for her own sake, and also as a precondition for survival of all. Therefore, human interaction with nature must relate to cooperation and reciprocity. In this way, humans learn to see themselves as being part of nature. It also includes a different relationship between modern and indigenous peoples, and between men and women. Society must respect the spiritual value indigenous people give to their homelands. Similarly, men need to learn to value the work of women. Men must share in women’s unpaid subsistence work and in the responsibility for creation and preservation of life on the planet. This requires a change in division of labor and a parallel change towards values like mutuality, solidarity, reliability, sharing, and caring, respect for the individual, and responsibility for the whole. Thus, many men will need to redefine their identity. In itself, this will bring about more harmonious relationship, but it will also give a positive side effect: being involved in these activities willkeep aggressive men busy, so they do not have time to pursue war. In this way, a subsistence perspective will contribute to de-militarization of aggressive men in particular, and of society in general. Since a subsistence perspective does not base its concept of a good life on the exploitation and domination of nature and other people, all can live in peace. In this way, trust and security is available for all. Consequently, a network of peaceful, stable, reliable, and nondominating human and natural relations is the foundation of subsistence communities. (Gaard 2001; Mies and Shiva 1993.)Ecofeminism solves warNhanenge 11, Jytte Nhanenge is a Danish citizen who has been working with development in Africa for many years. “Ecofeminism : Towards Integrating the Concerns of Women, Poor People, and Nature into Development”, ProQuest, //JKAwareness May Bring about a Peaceful World If the hope is to create a world where people live peacefully together, treating a person as a means for own ends must be considered unacceptable. Viewed in this way, corporal punishment of children is unacceptable. Anyone who is ignoring the right and wishes of another person, behave in an unacceptable way. If anyone is criticizing others, using them, or treating them with discourtesy, then they behave in unacceptable ways. Hence, creation of a peaceful world requires that people become aware, get in contact with their feelings, and change their behavior. Most do not like change, although the world is changing all the time. However, to generate peace, people need to learn to respect one another. It is not possible to create friendships, when some are treating others as their possession or as objects for use. Neither can we base friendship solely on competition. The person who always want to be right, and compete with other people about being right, cannot make friends. He is generating a situation of a predator and a prey. People need to learn that the dualist categorization of people is fundamentally false and alienating. No one is inherently inferior or superior; each individual is unique, having his or her own way of perceiving reality. Others must tolerate that fact, even though they cannot always approve of a person’s view. However, rather than seeking conformity, people should celebrate the difference there is between people. Because living in a complex world with a variety of ideas is more rewarding and interesting than living in a box with a few simple thoughts. (Rowe 2000.) The works of Dorothy Rowe and Alice Miller have also inspired the well-known development author Robert Chambers in his writings. He agrees with them that family relationships are hugely influential on people. What sort of people we are, depends on the powerlessness we felt as children. Thus, the most powerful development input is to change the way adults treat children. Those who are violent as adults are often those who experienced violence as children. Since research shows that Hitler, Stalin, and Ceausescu all endured violent abuses as children, it is strange that the treatment of children by their parents is not a matter of massive global public concern. Organizations like UNICEF and PLAN International, which are committed to children, should make this a priority. For Chambers, the bottom line for change is to be nice to people. This includes to show courtesy, respect, patience, consideration, generosity, and to be sensitive to others’ reality. Such virtues are the core of personal and interpersonal well-being, and it includes the very youngest. Conclusively, a world without violence and war must start with caring about its children. (Chambers 1997.)OppressionPursuit of superiority over nature and the devaluation of non-human lives reifies hegemonic masculine violenceHunnicutt 2019 (Gwen Hunnicutt, Associate Professor of Sociology and Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of North Carolina Greensboro, PhD in Sociology from the University of New Mexico. The intersection of masculinity, gender violence, and domination of nonhuman animals, Gender Violence in Ecofeminist Perspective, 2019.) FWHegemonic masculinity as anti-ecologicalWhile masculinities vary tremendously across time and place, masculin- ist traits are typically expressed as being in opposition to female traits (Plumwood, 1993). Further, masculinity is often regarded as superior to both women and nature (Kheel, 2008). It is these two features of mascu- linity: opposition to feminine traits and superiority over nature that binds and shapes a worldview toward both the more-than-human-life world and human–animals. Marti Kheel (2008) exposes the anti-ecological underpin- nings of hegemonic masculinity. In particular, Kheel (2008) isolates the masculinist theme of “transcending the female-imagined biological world” among holist philosophers (p. 3). In Nature Ethics (2008), Marti Kheel argues that hegemonic masculinity is built on men transcending nature, the body, and those persons, both human and nonhuman, deemed to be lesser through their associations with the natural and the animal. Kheel (2008) argues that masculine identity may be a major contributor toward violence against nature. The inability to live up to masculine ideals may lead to vio- lence when men feel unable to stake a claim to a masculine identity through “legitimate” means (Hunnicutt, 2009).The cultural motif of the heterosexual white male ritually performing masculinity and achieving “manhood” by dangerous contests with nature is replete in Western society (Evans, 2002). Images of political candidates who are running for office commonly portray themselves as hunters, or stage hunting events during the course of a political campaign. The symbolic mes- sage of a man with a gun hunting in the woods communicates hegemonic masculinity, self-sufficiency, and the ability to tame and conquer “wild” elements. During the 2004 U.S. Presidential election, John Kerry, a Demo- cratic Senator from Massachusetts, who unsuccessfully made a bid for the presidency, staged an elaborate, highly choreographed Geese hunting trip. Even as Kerry was not a hunter, posing as one was a strategic deployment to (re)claim entitlement to nature as the province of privileged, white, het- erosexual males.Consider how often we see the “man triumphs over nature” motif in contexts where men aspire to power and dominance, where the symbolic displays communicate that nature must be conquered, often violently. In Homer’s The Odyssey, Odysseus, facing his greatest peril, says, “I will stay with it and endure through suffering hardship, and once the heaving sea has shaken my raft to pieces, then will I swim”. How often in the archetypal hero’s journey is a man violently struggling against nature—and how does that archetypal struggle come to define our gendered existence? In a poem by D.H. Lawrence, The Snake, the narrator admires and fears the creature and out of fear tries to kill it. The theme of men subjugating a wild, uncer- tain, threatening, formidable nature is a central theme in our Euro-Western cultural imaginings of masculine dominance.The origin of dominating animals is an ancient mechanism of transcendence for males. Joseph Campbell (1991) notes that in Celtic myths men follow animals into the wilderness to find lands which lead to trans- formation. But men in these same ancient myths practice animal slaying as transcendence—a way to transform consciousness. Even the very act of meat-eating is a performance of masculine self-affirmation (Adams, 1990). In these instances, we see males seeking an ascent to a higher iteration of manhood or a declaration of gender by subduing nonhuman animals.Lynn White (1995) and Rosemary Radford Ruether (1983) traced the roots of our culture’s tendency to exalt masculine attributes over the character- istics of women, children, the earth, and nonhuman animals. Christianity’s emphasis on anthropocentrism rather than locating the sacred in the earth, dominion over nature, placing hell beneath the earth, and worshiping a sky god, have all contributed to a patriarchal social order and anti-ecological masculine configurations. Prior to monotheistic, patriarchal religions that worshiped war-like sky god archetypes, value was instead given to nature and its cycles, fertility, nature, and women (Gaard, 2017).The category of “animal” is foundational to understanding hegemonic masculinity. Throughout history, particular human populations have been described as more bestial or less “evolved” than others. Classifications of in- ferior or “animal-like” are bound up with notions of savagery, cognitive and physical ability, dependency, and even sexuality. The dividing line between animal and human has been embedded in gendered and racialized debates where assumptions about human traits have been used to classify animals (Taylor, 2017). Animal–human relations might be evoked in the portrayal of cultural difference as well. Politically motivated productions of hierar- chies based on so-called “civilized” societies may be equated with greater distance from the “animal” (Seager, 2003). This scheme of differentiation is relevant to hegemonic masculinity because part of the narrative structure of masculinity—as a diffuse worldview—involved transcending the natural world.Existing hierarchies that place humans above animals and men above women have greatly influenced how we classify species (Cochrane, 2010). Our classification of animals is not entirely informed by biology but is also socially determined (Bekoff & Pierce, 2017). The categorization of nonhuman animals as inferior goes hand in hand with the practice of de- humanization. And the practice of dehumanization exposes a plethora of bigotry: racism, sexism, ableism, heterosexism, and so forth. In this an- thropocentric system, the world is the domain of “man” while animals (and human populations closely associated with the animals) inhabit a lesser, subordinated realm.Hegemonic masculinities are anti-ecological (anti-life), and it follows that masculinity-as-dominance may be reaffirmed through violence. Marti Kheel (1995) examines the rather romanticized writings of hunters and de- tects not only sexual overtones but also the sentiment that the activity of hunting is important in the development of “manhood”. It is possible that wild animals represent longings, urges, and needs that align with particu- lar masculinities throughout history. In the hunt for masculine self-identity, violence is a key part of hunter’s ethical code, albeit a restrained, denied, or renamed violence (Kheel, 1995). Kheel (1995) goes on to point out that this masculine identity strives to seek expression in opposition to the natural world.Corporate capture silences the ‘other’ and degrades democracy, establishing a terminally unsustainable and exploitative monocultureWolfstone 15 (Irene F. Wolfstone is an educator who holds an BA from University of Manitoba and an MA in Integrated Studies from Athabasca University. She is currently a Bombardier scholar in doctoral studies at the University of Alberta where her research explores Indigenous matricultures, cultural continuity, and climate change adaptation. "Deconstructing Necrophilia: An Ecofeminist Contribution to Growth."?Canadian Woman Studies, vol. 31, no. 1, 2015, pp. 7-13. ProQuest, .) ZEThe ever-fetishised need for dualisms and exploitive justifications—Western thought has rooted within society the patriarchal domination over the Other. A view through a gendered lens is a prerequisite to start tackling the ontological mechanisms behind natural oppression and exploitationRuder and Sanniti, 2019 (Modern ecofeminists from the School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability University of Waterloo in Canada. Sarah-Louise Ruder and Sophia Rose Sanniti, 3-11-2019, "Transcending the Learned Ignorance of Predatory Ontologies: A Research Agenda for an Ecofeminist-Informed Ecological Economics," MDPI, .) /benchenCentrally, ecofeminism is rooted in an assumption that the dominations of nature and women are inextricably linked [27,28,30,31,51,52]. This transdiscipline encourages inquiry on the causes and systems perpetuating environmental degradation and gender-based oppression to consider how they may interact, to work toward just and sustainable futures. The focus on gender is necessarily a starting point to examine structures of power more broadly, as “injustices based on gender, race and class are related to the ideologies that sanction the exploitation and degradation of the environment” [28] (p. 23). Ecofeminism asserts that “how we treat nature and how we treat each other are inseparably linked” [53]. For example, much like clean water and air, the labour of women in the home, such as cleaning, cooking and caring for children and elders, is taken for granted in many cultures and conventional economic systems [15,21,54,55]. While fundamental to the vitality of communities and economies, nature and women are mere externalities in formal economic accounts. There are also tangible links between the domination of nature and the domination of women’s bodies. In communities experiencing rapid resource extraction, women are more likely to experience sexual violence [56,57]. In Fort St. John, British Columbia the per capita crime rate is higher than any other municipality and 78% of women have experienced violence (n = 300)—even higher, 93%, for Indigenous women [56]. Further, socio-economic implications of resource extraction tend to increase substance use and economic dependence in relationships, which can be additional risk factors for gender-based violence [58,59]. Beyond coincidence or association, the twin oppressions of nature and women manifest in a shared logic or motive of domination that perpetuate violent and exploitative ways of being, which we name predatory ontologies. For our ecofeminist framework, we emphasize Plumwood’s theory of dualisms as central to the logic of Othering and the predatory ontologies it engenders [31]. Othering is a process of separation and estrangement of subject-object to permit domination (e.g., self-other, human-nature, etc.) [21]. Only when something is Other or separate from us, can it be dominated. The fracture of self-other runs through Western thought with value hierarchies (reason/emotion, human/nature, civilized/primitive, etc.) [31,51,53]. One entity is socially constructed as primary, dominant or superior and the Other is the negation, reducing the diversity of entities and experiences outside of the self to one amorphous negation (e.g., referring to any and all non-white peoples as People of Colour). As is common in contemporary feminisms, ecofeminism practices intersectionality through the analysis of gender, race, class and species, among other dimensions of identity [21,30,60,61].For example, interaction of sexism and classism is demonstrated through the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change’s reporting that women are more likely to be poor than men and poor women are more at risk in situations of climate disruptions because they are less likely to have access to decision-making power, resources and information during a crisis or job security [62,63].It is important to note that the concept of ‘intersectionality’ is attributed to Kimberlé Crenshaw and her contributions to Critical Race Theory, to which ecofeminism is indebted. Still, the ‘intersectional’ essence of ecofeminist theory—as well as black feminism—predate Crenshaw’s conception of the term in 1989 [60], exemplified by Mies’ analysis of colonialism, racism and patriarchy [21,28,30,61]. Much like ecological economics, ecofeminism is problem-focused and oriented toward transformation. There are differences in power among humans, between humans and nonhuman life, and between present and future generations. As such, ecofeminism is directed toward intersectional, interspecies, intergenerational justice and the solutions must be implemented together. Ecofeminists declare nature to be a feminist issue because an understanding of gender-based oppression can inform an understanding of the domination of nature and vice versa.Ecofeminist philosophy examines the oppression, specifically of women and nature, and how they are associated by a culture constructed on the domination of Nature as “feminine” Mallory 10Chaone Mallory, Associate Professor of Environmental Philosophy at Villanova University, What Is Ecofeminist Political Philosophy? Gender, Nature, and the Political, Fall 2010, 10.5840/enviroethics201032333I here provisionally define ecofeminist political philosophy as an area of intellectual inquiry that examines the political status of that which we call “nature” using the insights, theoretical tools, and ethical commitments of ecological feminisms and other liberatory theories such as critical race theory, queer theory, postcolonial theory, environmental philosophy, and feminism. It is the principal tenet of all ecofeminisms that varieties of oppression, especially but not exclusively the oppression of women and nature, are interconnected, and that these intersections of oppressions manifest on both material and conceptual levels.6 That the degradation and subordination of both women and nature are regarded by ecofeminists as linked conceptually, historically, materially, and not “essentially,” should at this point, some three decades out from the published origins of academic ecofeministtheorizing,7 be well-recognized by those working in related fields, such as environmental philosophy and feminism. But noting how this recognition highlights the political project of ecofeminism has not been as well articulated. Ariel Salleh, in her groundbreaking Ecofeminism as Politics: Nature, Marx, and the Postmodern provides one exception. Salleh writes: The basic premise of ecofeminist political analysis is that ecological crisis is the inevitable effect of a Eurocentric capitalist patriarchal culture built on the domination of nature, and the domination of Woman ‘as nature.’ Or, to turn the subliminal Man/ Woman=Nature equation around the other way, it is the inevitable effect of a culture constructed on the domination of women, and domination of Nature ‘as feminine.’ . . . Women are not ‘closer to nature’ than men in any ontological sense. Both women and men are ‘in/with/of nature,’ but attainting the prize of masculine identity depends on men distancing themselves from that fact. Ecofeminists explore the political consequences of this culturally elaborated gender difference.Thus, traditional notions of “man” as separate from and above nature, and woman as closer to a devalued nature have, as Salleh remarks, political consequences for women, men, and nature; and furthermore, I suggest, such notions are themselves the effect of a politics that seeks to establish and maintain the ecological superiority of humans and the cultural superiority of men. To return to the claim made at the outset of this paper, all ecofeminisms implicitly have a political analysis, and are political interventions into a variety of discourses and practices. Ecofeminist political philosophy makes the implicit political content of ecofeminism explicit. Or, to repeat slightly differently something else stated earlier, an ecofeminist political philosophy critically examines ways conceptions and praxes of nature and gender are entwined with our understanding of what constitutes the political. Ecofeminist political philosophy addresses such questions as the following:Climate ChangeWestern hegemonic masculinity produces climate change – only an ecofeminist reevaluation of our being in relation to nature combined with active engagement are k2 stop environmental impactsVarner 16, Tess Varner is Director, Women's and Gender Studies; Assistant Professor, Philosophy at Concordia College, “Contemporary Perspectives on Ecofeminism”, Routledge explorations in environmental studies, //JKThere is now overwhelming evidence that climate change is happening. More specifically, the impacts of climate change in terms of the frequency and intensity of severe weather events, as well as more insidious ecological changes, are beginning to become ever more apparent. The fifth report of the IPCC (2014) forecasts that, on current global trajectories, greenhouse gas and carbon emissions will lead to warming in excess of the 2°C increase over pre-industrial levels deemed ‘safe’. Indeed it could reach 3°C or even a cata- strophic 4°C. However, Western governments and businesses appear paralysed by inertia and apathy, unable to develop and implement programmes of radical change (Wittneben et al. 2012), while publics also demonstrate low levels of engagement (Doan 2014). It is difficult to make sense of the disconnect between what is known about the urgent action required to avoid ecological disaster and what political sociologist Ingolfur Blu?hdorn describes as society’s ‘adamant resolve to sustain what is known to be unsustainable’ (2007: 272, cited in Doan 2014: 634).One explanation is that in the West we have become disconnected from our bodies, and our bodies are disconnected from nature. We physically seal ourselves off from the effects of the weather and climate in our homes, offices and cars such that we are largely insulated from and cannot feel, viscerally, how weather patterns might be changing in the West as well as further afield. Moreover, we are emotionally distant from the ways in which our activities are impacting on nature and on other humans. Claire Cole- brook describes this as hyper-hypo-affective disorder; an over-generation of affect stimulated by current modes of consumption accompanied by affect fatigue such that there is ‘an inverse relation between the wider and wider extension of affective influx and the ever-diminishing intensity of affect’ (Colebrook 2011: 45, emphasis in original). In terms of the ecological dangers that confront us, Colebrook (2011) describes how the news media contribute to the imaginary of climate change as having a cinematic quality. Severe weather events are reported in such a way that viewers experience them with a compelling frisson similar to that felt when watching apocalyptic or disaster movies. Affect is thus generated as a consumer product. However, there is no depth to such affect in that we are distanced from the event and fail to respond as we would if we recognized that our bodies are implicated in and will be affected by environmental issues; in other words, that climate change is ‘real’ and will impact on us. Colebrook links this lack of bodily involvement in climate change to the lack of ‘panic, [or] any apparent, affective comportment that would indicate that anyone really feels or fears [this threat]’ (Colebrook 2011: 53). We are thus emotionally and physically alienated from weather and from its effects.For ecofeminist philosophers, such distancing is part of an alienation from and instrumental use of nature symptomatic of the ‘logic of patriarchy’1 (e.g. Kheel 2008; Plumwood 1993; Warren 2000). This logic is reinforced through sets of interrelated dualisms such that putative human authenticity is coterminous with idealized, hegemonic masculinity defined in opposition to what is taken to be natural, nature, or the physical or biological realm. This creates a disembodied and disengaged subject ‘free and rational to the extent that he [sic] has fully distinguished himself from the natural and social worlds’ such that ‘the subject withdraws from his own body, which he is able to look on as an object’ (Taylor 1995: 7). The ecofeminist project challenges such dualistic thinking in order to undermine the alienation and disconnection from nature that are its outcome. The recuperation of body and its visceral inhabitation in the world has to be part of that project. For Neimanis and Walker, it is imperative that we ‘reimagine climate change and the fleshy damp immediacy of our own embodied existences as intimately imbricated’ (2014: 559), where the imaginary and the corporeal are deeply entwined in ‘a common space, a conjoined time [and] a mutual worlding’ (ibid.: 560). If we can embrace the materiality of our bodies, that we are organic beings embedded in nature, then perhaps we can overcome our alienation and estrangement from nature. Thus the body has to be of fundamental importance in challenging the ways that nature, femininity and emotionality are cast, and beginning to reimagine them. However, ecofeminist approaches to the body which acknowledge the interrelationships between the subordination of body, nature and femininity are relatively absent, and work theorizing body/nature awareness stops short of suggesting how such an awareness can be stimulated and translated into action.So the challenge is to develop ecofeminist thinking around the body that can lead to action, and to do this I combine an ecofeminist approach with the work of French feminist He?le?ne Cixous, a writer and poststructuralist philosopher2 who strives tirelessly to disrupt the binary thinking privileging rationality and instrumentality that characterizes the logic of patriarchy. Her focus is on writing the body to find modes of representation that do not alienate us from nature. I start with a more detailed outline of one of the main elements of ecofeminist philosophy: mounting a challenge to inter- related sets of dualisms which support systems of subordination not only of nature but of all ‘othered’ groups and, importantly for the purposes of this chapter, the material body itself. I then argue that ecofeminism must engage with corporeality and reaffirm the importance of visceral emotion to develop an affective engagement with nature. Writing creatively in and of the body is suggested as one means to help us reflect on our organic embeddedness, and to further develop this I turn to the work of He?le?ne Cixous. This complements and resonates with the ecofeminist project by calling for a revaluation and rewriting of the body which can subvert patriarchal logic. Building on this, I articulate the specific contribution of this chapter by exploring how such embodied and poetic writing is a form of activism that can help overcome our current inertia, and I offer the example of activist and eco-poet Susan Richardson’s work.Western relations to nature cause irreversible warming – only a step towards ecofeminism solvesVarner 16, Tess Varner is Director, Women's and Gender Studies; Assistant Professor, Philosophy at Concordia College, “Contemporary Perspectives on Ecofeminism”, Routledge explorations in environmental studies, //JKAs we and the contributors in this edited collection argue, it is now even more urgent that we develop the means to move from ‘unhealthy, life-denying systems and relationships to healthy, life-affirming ones’ (Warren 2000: 200) so that we can live in this world in a way that ‘recognizes and accommodates the denied relationships of dependency and enables us to acknowledge our debt to the sustaining others of the earth’ (Plumwood 1993: 196). In the 30 or more years since ecofeminists first argued that nature must be included in theorizing and acting against constellations of injustice and exploitation, the environmental, economic, social and political crises caused by those con- stellations have grown deeper. Below, for example, we argue that the carrying capacity of the planet is collapsing and yet our dominant economic and political ideologies exacerbate catastrophe. A deployment of radical ideas, strategies and politics which re-connect the human and more-than-human world is needed now more than ever. As Gaard points out:An intersectional ecological-feminist approach frames these issues [of eco-justice] in such a way that people can recognize common cause across the boundaries of race, class, gender, sexuality, species, age, 6 Mary Phillips and Nick Rumens ability, nation – and affords a basis for engaged theory, education and activism. (Gaard 2011: 44).The degradation of the environment continues apace. The World Wildlife Fund’s (2014a,b) Living Planet Report shows that between 1970 and 2010, populations of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish around the globe dropped 52 per cent (World Wildlife Fund 2014a). That we have lost half of the world’s living creatures in fewer than two generations is both appalling and heartbreaking. The reasons given for what can only be described as a form of genocide are habitat loss and fragmentation, pollution, unsus- tainable use of land and overfishing of the seas, and the poaching and killing of higher mammals for their body parts in traditional medicines or for food. We are ripping up the natural fabric of our planet that supports all life. A summary of The Living Planet Report goes on to say:In addition to the precipitous decline in wildlife populations the report’s data point to other warning signs about the overall health of the planet. The amount of carbon in our atmosphere has risen to levels not seen in more than a million years, triggering climate change that is already destabilizing ecosystems. High concentrations of reactive nitrogen are degrading lands, rivers and oceans. Stress on already scarce water sup- plies is increasing. And more than 60 percent of the essential ‘services’ provided by nature, from our forests to our seas, are in decline. (World Wildlife Fund 2014b: n.p.)So, alongside the insidious degradation of nature to which it is contributing, climate change is now recognized as having the potential to destroy much of the life on the planet – including human life. There is an overwhelming scientific consensus that human activity is causing climate change that will have, indeed is already having, serious negative impacts (Cook et al. 2013; Maibach et al. 2014). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (IPCC 2014) points to the effects of warming in the melting of polar ice and glaciers, leading to rising sea levels, to increasing salination and scarcity of water supplies, and to desertification even in what are now temperate zones of the planet. It warns that extreme weather events such as rainfall and storms in some places, and prolonged drought in others, will become even more severe and more frequent. In the anodyne language of its Synthesis Report, the report is abundantly clear on the potential consequences:Without additional mitigation efforts beyond those in place today, and even with adaptation, warming by the end of the 21st century will lead to high to very high risk of severe, widespread, and irreversible impacts globally (high confidence). Mitigation involves some level of co-benefits and of risks due to adverse side-effects, but these risks do not involve the same possibility of severe, widespread, and irreversible impacts as risks from climate change, increasing the benefits from near-term mitigation efforts. (IPCC 2014: 17)The Overseas Development Institute found that climate change would impact directly on development goals such as food security, availability of water and health outcomes, and that these would then negatively affect gender equality, employment and income poverty (ODI 2014). Those who currently have the smallest share of resources will be most affected such that current global inequalities will be amplified.Ecofemnist intervention via social work is key to reject domination in approaches to climate changeKlemmer and McNamara, 2019 (Cary L. Klemmer and Kathleen A. McNamara, Klemmer has a PhD in social work from the University of Southern California. McNamara is a clinical social worker and has a PhD in social work from USC. “Deep Ecology and Ecofeminism” , December 2019)//klzDeep Ecology and Ecofeminism in the Social Work FieldThe social work profession has developed deep ecological philosophy and ecofeminist ideals for purposes of informing clinical intervention. Many in social work have used the theories of ecofe- minism and deep ecology to suggest an expanded ecological theory that is inclusive of both the natural physical environment and also the natural being of humankind and their interrelationships, community, and spirituality (Adger, 2000; Ferreira, 2010; Gray & Coates, 2013). These theories direct social work to move from anthropocentrism to ecocentrism, dualism to holism, individual to community, and progress to well-being (Gray & Coates, 2013). Deep and feminist ecology attempts to expand the methods of social science research and clinical intervention (Dominelli, 2011; Drolet, 2012), for example, by honoring the spiritual narratives of indigenous communities, more thor- oughly defining constructs of sustainability, and by highlighting the importance of physical place to communities (Alston, 2013).Deep ecology has been summarized into eight distinct principles. The principles adapted from Naess (1989) for social work professionals by Ungar (2002) are all individuals have intrinsic value outside of one’s usefulness for human consumption; diversity offers the potential for the emergence of unique solutions; structured alliances must be situated to increase diversity of resources; service delivery systems ought to be managed by community stakeholders; these systems should be kept small; public policy must allow communities the capacity to function on their own; that which benefits individuals and their communities is the benchmark of development; those who align with these points have an obligation to amend their methods and organizations to achieve these goals (p. 488).Ultimately, such a manifesto calls on practitioners to view all entities, both human and nonhuman with a stance of equanimity, to ensure that a diversity of resources are channeled to communities so that they may “help them help themselves” (Besthorn, 2012; Gray & Coates, 2013), and to guide human service organizations to achieve these aims by remaining small, and seeking guidance from community stakeholders rather than boards or bureaucracies (Ungar, 2002). Finally, in practice, social workers must advocate for policies that situate the well-being of communities as the bench- mark of social and economic developmental processes (Ungar, 2002).The many ways in which these principles have been operationalized by social workers to meet the need of environmental crisis include educating on the issues associated with environmental degra- dation, promoting sustainable energy production and consumption, and mobilizing communities to protect their futures through local social work focusing on environmental problem-solving (Dom- inelli, 2011). Many examples of ecofeminist and deep ecological social work practices exist and include supporting prison abolitionists’ fight to decriminalize Indigenous and environmental protest; supporting youth environmental leaders globally, such as climate activist Greta Thunberg (2019); working in solidarity with undocumented farm workers; and advocating for comprehensive immi- gration reform and immigrant labor rights in order to green our food systems (Bhuyan et al., 2019, pp. 292–293).Social workers at the microlevel and mezzolevel provide psychoeducation to ensure that groups and organizations understand environmental problems so that global-level knowledge can affect local action. Furthermore, on the macrolevel, social workers can bring people together to defend international policy such as the Kyoto Protocol (UNFCC, 1997). As stated by Dominelli (2011) “Social workers, with their skills in seeing the whole picture and mediating between conflicting groups, can facilitate implementation discussions at international policy and community levels” (p. 434). In all, these interventions are led by workers not bound within the confines of an agency but bring the decision-making process out of the bureaucratic boardroom and into the spiritual and communal spaces of those being serviced (Ungar, 2002).Social worker Julie Drolet (2012) recounts an ecofeminist intervention whereby community- based participatory action research was used in British Columbia, Canada, to inform and guide potential interventions. The community-based participatory action research process lead to identi- fication of desired interventions and needed policy advocacy. It was found that issues of environ- mental degradation and change were significant concerns of local community research participants and that local and national government action on these issues was desired. This intervention led to an identification of the problem as understood by the community as well as their desired changes, namely, advocating for further development of community-managed food gardens, and more auton- omy in managing and identifying the use of natural ecological resources that were central to local economies (Drolet, 2012). Ecofeminist intervention develops agency, allows for reflection, and promotes community action (Drolet, 2012).In another example, social worker Michael Ungar (2018) synthesized the literature on resilience, pointing out that research in this area has traditionally been anthropocentric. He highlights the adaptive and resilient ways in which plant and animal regimes have survived human-made distur- bances and underscores the capacity-building possibilities that present themselves in the face of adversity (Ungar, 2018). Such a perspective, which acknowledges connections between human and nonhuman elements in a community and earnestly weighs trade-offs present in an adversity–resi- liency process, would be beneficial to the social work profession as it addresses this grand challenge.Ecofeminist and deep ecological interventions take into account the subjectivities of those affected by climate change and create space for communities to learn and dialogue on both envi- ronment and other social issues that are believed to be interconnected; a social problem does not arise without equal problem in the natural ecological realm (Alston, 2013; Drolet, 2012). Jones (2010) highlights interventions of this nature that utilize experiential learning related to issues of environmental exploitation and destruction. Jones recommends taking clients and students of social work to community gardens, degraded waterways, waste management facilities, and natural ecolo- gical rejuvenation sites. These experiences prompt intervention participants to question their poten- tially limited knowledge of ecological environmental issues and their underdeveloped frameworks to question and solve problems of social and natural ecological dimension.In concurrence with these methods, indigenous scholars have recently provided examples of social work that incorporates place-based teaching. Billiot and colleagues (2019) share on their work to teach social work students through embodied learning about the sand creek massacre in the state of Colorado. In their example of this type of teaching, explicit connection-making between historical violence perpetrated in part by important figures in the student’s academic community was made, and a site visit was utilized to promote a deep ecological perspective for students who illustrated their interconnectedness with their environment and its history. These scholars also give an example of mental health interventions that engage with the natural environment: The Yappall ?? Choctaw Road to Health intervention uses a place-based, outdoor mode of communal and individual healing for women of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma (Billiot et al., 2019). These are but two examples on how social work practitioners, researchers, and administrators can incorporate place- based, historically aware educational classes and health interventions using these paradigms.Deep ecological and ecofeminist interventions promote communities’ ability to enjoy one another and nature. Naess (1989) argues “We need types of societies and communities in which one delights in the value-creative aspects of equilibrium rather than the glorification of value-neutral growth; in which being together with other living beings is more important than exploiting them” (p. 24). Deep ecological and ecofeminist interventions attempt to bring individuals, families, and communities together outside of the realm of enjoyment as demarcated by market-based economy. These interventions teach individuals and communities to enjoy one another, to be in and revel in natural spaces, and to observe and create art and music (Besthorn & McMillen, 2002). This occurs simultaneously in communities while advocacy ensures that socially marginalized groups receive adequate resources to engage in these types of activities; market-based economies have disenfran- chised many from accessing these types of value-driven lifestyles (Peeters, 2012).Interventions such as those described here are supported by critical methodologies such as educator Paulo Freire’s (2000) perspective-shifting take on the ways in which educator, student, and environment are defined. Freire (2000) states “The oppressor consciousness tends to transform everything surround- ing it into an object of its domination. The earth, property, production, the creations of people, people themselves, time—everything is reduced to the status of objects at its disposal” (p. 11). Proposing to shift this framework, Freire (2000) advocates for humans to become aware of their “incompletion” (p. 29) and to actively reject the process of valuation, domination, and oppression. The social work profession would do well to similarly be aware of its “incompletion” as it works toward achieving justice for humans, all sentient creatures, and the nonsentient material of the planet alike.Militarization/Colonization/ImperialismGender violence is a root cause of militarized and masculinized exploitation of the earth. Nature is portrayed as feminine and the colonizer as violently masculine. Hunnicutt 20 – Doctor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. Gwen Hunnicutt, “Chapter 2. Foregrounding patriarchy in a larger field of domination of nature” from “Gender Violence in Ecofeminist Perspective", 2020Military projects are so much about securing land, natural resources and conquest—controlling the earth’s resources through aggressive, masculine might (Mohanty, Riley, & Pratt, 2008). Gloria Anzaldúa’s poem “We Call Them Greasers” exposes rape as part of the violence of colonization. Pointing to civilization and nature, Anzaldúa reveals the history of violent conquest in American westward expansion into “virgin” territory where the white colonizer is associated with civilization and masculinity but also with violence (Coles & Zandy, 2007). Meanwhile, the colonized are represented as both feminine and close to nature, waiting to be possessed (Madsen, 2018). Annette Kolodny (1975) examined troping in exploration-narratives and found that generally the land is represented as female and the explorer is both male and a rapist. Both Kolodny (1975) and Anzaldúa deconstruct how the history of colonialization, militarism, conquering land, and dispossession are rooted in gender violence. That patriarchal belief systems are correlated with gender violence should be expected where restrictive attitudes about gender are embraced (Freeman, 2017). Freeman, writing in the Guardian, points out how both the military and Islam are male-dominated, male-focused, gendered hierarchical systems that practice strict sexual divisions of labor, and manipulate the social and sexual control of girls and women in service of their objectives. In patriarchal systems, a woman’s “value” is determined by sexual purity, but also by race, class, age, appearance, and reproductive status.Perm AnswersMutually exclusiveAff focus on immediate risks forecloses the radical potential needed to address social and environmental destruction. Can’t wish away the KPlumwood 02 Val Plumwood Australian Research Council Fellow @ Sydney ‘2 Environmental Culture p. 127Dobson and Norton both express concern over the unnecessary divisiveness they think the critique of anthropocentrism engenders. There are some valid points in their critique of the deep/shallow division and especially the 'failure of ecophilosophy to make itself practical' which I take up below. However, division among environmentalists is not necessarily as destructive or undesirable as Norton assumes. Some (if not all) of what is involved in the worry about the division between the deep and shallow approaches is an authentic, if sometimes unfortunate and debilitating, problem about framework challenges which is by no means peculiar to the environment movement. Any movement (feminism is a good example) involved in forms of social change which try to challenge major, entrenched cultural norms finds itself in a conflict of choice between, on the one hand, moderate strategies aiming for 'success' in terms of immediately achievable political changes within the framework and on the other, radical strategies of mounting more difficult, long-term and extensive forms of cultural challenge to framework norms. To insist on unity is to support the status quo and defeat the dynamic of change and challenge.While the level of conflict between framework and non-framework challenges ('shallow' and 'deep') can often be augmented or reduced by various theoretical and practical strategies, it cannot simply be wished away by reconceiving the difference in terms of 'two tasks', different but in no way conflicting. 5 The conflict is real to the extent that a framework challenge is needed, and to the extent that conventional political work for change in a given society demands conformity to the problematic framework. Although serious splits and Othering hinder the interchange process, the search for 'unity' among environmentalists on terms which deny either side of this dilemma is seriously misguided. The conflict certainly cannot be adequately resolved by abandoning the more strenuous and challenging forms of framework critique and the conceptual tools associated with them, on the grounds that they prevent unity and make moderates uncomfortable, especially in the corridors of power. As many social movements have shown, movement vigour and long-term effectiveness depend not so much on unity as on an appropriate tension and dynamic interchange between moderate and radical elements to enable mutual goal maintenance and redefinition; loss of either vigour or vision results when either party vanquishes the other, or when productive interchange ceases. And framework challenges and conflicts are the very place where philosophy most clearly show its practical value.Framework proves the aff and the alt are incompatiblePlumwood 02 Val Plumwood Australian Research Council Fellow @ Sydney ‘2 Environmental Culture p. 174-176Framework stances and the myth of mindlessness.The program of conceptual work needed to counteract ethical hyper- separation must includes a program of expanding and decenrering philosophical vocabularies to eliminate unwarranted and unnecessary rationalism and intellectualism. 13 These function (in much the same way as the old literacy tests that were used in the past to exclude blacks and minorities from voting) to exclude non-humans from the basic concepts and descriptions necessary to applying ethical vocabularies. Narrative and communicative approaches to environmental ethics are ruled out when philosophers or scientists insist on such unwarrantedly reductionist and hyper-separated philosophical vocabularies. For these we must re-admit the rich intentionality we attribute to the natural world in ordinary, unself-conscious and un-rationalised' speech contexts. The intentional recognition stance I outline below of recognising earth others as fellow agents and narrative subjects is crucial for all ethical, collaborative, communicative and muturalistic projects, as well as for place sensitivity.As I have argued, to the extent that there are framework choices here, there are good reasons (including the reason of prudence in out current context) to choose more generous conceptual stances that maximise our sensitivity to the non-human world, and to chose them over the traditional reductive frameworks that maximise insensitivity. People have been taught to identify rationality - wrongly - with human- centredness, reductionism and meanness (parsimony) towards the non-human world. Framework choices for explaining and relating to the non-human world are not unconstrained by the way the world is, but even conservative philosophy of science concedes that there is significant scope for choice because theories are inevitably underdetermined by this factor. Major framework choices like those between neo-Cartesian and counter-hegemonic stances towards the non-human are still more radically open to choice, because such theories have radically self-reinforcing and performative aspects. An honest assessment would recognise how our possibilities for interaction with and perception of the world are influenced in major ways by the postures we ourselves choose to adopt. Innumerable examples from the history of racism and sexism show how significant expectations and prior stances of closure are for what we can experience and perceive about another who is conceived in hegemomic terms.'In the non-human case, if our dominant theories and reinforcing cultural experience lead its to stereotype earth others reductively as mind- less 'objects', non-intentional mechanisms with no potential to he commu- nicative and narrative subjects, as lacking potential viewpoints, well-being, desires and projects of their own (all intentional concepts), then it is quite likely that we will be unable to recognise these characteristics in the non- human sphere even when we are presented with good examples of them. What is required in order to be 'a receiver' of communicative and other kinds of experience and relationship is openness to the other as a communicative being, an openness which is ruled out by allegiance to reductive theories. To view such differences as simply 'theory choices' is to overstate the intellectualist and understate the performative aspects involved, which is captured somewhat better in the terminology of posture or stance. is it to be a posture of openness, of welcoming, of invitation, towards earth others, or is it to be a stance of prejudged superiority, of deafness, of closure?This said, there are still some aspects of theory choice that turn on comparisons between intellectual outcomes and explanatory power, even if they do not exhaust the meanings here. The theory choice approach I advocate here would situate our allegiance to a particular theory in the context of competing frameworks, which includes a choice between a narrowly human-centred Cartesian-based account of mind as conscious- ness that carries severe limitations for understanding other species and a potentially de-centred but still largely undeveloped alternative of inten- tional recognition that can allow the concept of mind to take radically different forms. Its greater breadth offers a way to counter hegemonie and over-centralised concepts of mind and to avoid singularisrie, unnecessary and over-determined rankings of broad categories of beings.Any Link = Reject the permAny risk of a link jams the door open to dualistic thinking and fails to meet the neg’s frameworkPlumwood 02 Val Plumwood Australian Research Council Fellow @ Sydney ‘2 Environmental Culture p. 147If recognising moral considerability for non-humans opens the door to an interspecies ethic, neo-Cartesian Minimalism, the first position I will consider here, jams the door at the point where it is open just a crack. Minimalism makes a minimal extension of ethical recognition, and thinks about it in anthropocentric terms as just that - an extension of dominant human ethics. The most human-like 'higher animals', who are claimed to be the only possessors among the non-humans of the supposedly defining human characteristic and sentience or awareness' may be admitted to the ethical sphere, but the door is firmly closed --- all others. Minimalism has as its goal the enlargement of the human jlre of ethics rather than an ethical integration of human and non-human: spheres, thus adopting a strategy which, as I argue below, must result in minimal admissions to the privileged class. This ethical stance minimally challenges or reinforces anthropocentric ranking regimes that base the worth of a being on their degree of conformity to human norms or, resemblance to an idealised 'rational' or 'conscious' subject; and it often aims explicitly at minimal deviations from the prevailing political assumptions and dominant human-centred ethic they are tied into. It aims to minimise recognition of diversity, focussing on ethically relevant qualities like mind, consciousness and communication only in forms resembling the human and failing to recognise that they can be expressed in many different, often incommensurable ways in an ethically and ecologically rich and diverse world?A major project for a non-anthropocentric form of culture would be that of developing ethical and epistemic frameworks that can give non-humans a non-derivative, non-secondary or instrumental place. This ethical project cannot be carried out in terms of the neo-Cartesian Minimalist program outlined by Peter Singer and is not well expressed in terms of the concept of tights developed by Tom Regain I discuss in the next secrion below, These two philosophers have led, a commendable and ac: e opposition to the dominant humanistic assumption that ethics is effectively confined to the human sphere, contesting through vigorous argument historic exclusion of non-humans from western ethics. 1 think that a strong case can be made for extending some kind, of ethical treatment appropriate to persons to our nearest evolutionary reiatives in the primate family, and that it is imperative to extend many elements of human-style ethics to other sentient beings." But I do not see that the possibility of such an extension provides any good reason why we should maintain the stance of closure towards other non-humans. An effective challenge to moral dualism entails recognising the continuity of all life forms and contesting the full framework of human/nature dualism, involving the ethical exclusion not only of animals but of nature itself.AT Env pragmatismEnvironmental pragmatism fails – it’s too sweeping and should be rejectedMintz 04, Joel A. Mintz has been a faculty member at Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad College of Law since 1982. He teaches courses in Environmental Law, Torts, and Environmental Enforcement, and he has taught courses and seminars in Land Use Planning, State and Local Government Law, and Comparative Environmental Law. “Some Thoughts on the Merits of Pragmatism as a Guide to Environmental Protection”, Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review, //JKNotwithstanding these significant actual or potential benefits for environmental protection, however, pragmatism is not necessarily a panacea for the environmental cause. Despite its apparent virtues, pragmatic theory also has several limitations as a possible guide to environmental policymaking. One such limit has been well-expressed, albeit in a more generalized fashion, by Thomas Grey: Theories that make their mark in the world tend to be bold, sweeping and dramatic-it is their drama that wins them an audience .... Over the clatter and squeak of practical affairs, a theory will be better heard if it offers either the bang-bang of intellectual entertainment or the trumpet call of spiritual uplift. ... Accordingly, pragmatist theory, that modest theory of the middle way, will often be rejected.151 For all its practicality, its sensitivity to facts, and its recognition of both the need for innovation and the importance of social needs, pragmatism lacks a certain marquee value, at least in the sense noted by Grey.152 While workable and forthright, pragmatic methods seem destined never to hold appeal for those environmental supporters who seek a more emotionally stirring, intellectually flamboyant, normative theory.153 Moreover, as a result of its self-conscious focus on experiential learning and experimentation, as well as its tendency toward a pluralistic, tentative notion of "truth," pragmatism alone seems unlikely to provide "right answers" to a good many disputed environmental questions. "Social justice" and "social needs" are abstract, malleable concepts that may give little concrete guidance to participants in certain environmental disputes. Similarly, pragmatism's rejection of fixed, abstract notions of right and wrong, while flexible and useful in some contexts, may also risk falling into what the editors of the Renaissance Symposium call "the quicksand of relativism. "154 The affs methodology relies techno-rational approach to sustainability only reinforces the socio-political status quo apathy under the symbolic guise of pragmatic sustainabilityPhillips, 14 (Mary Phillips, researcher and author specializing in ecofeminism, maternalism, and embodied care at the University of Bristol. “Re-Writing Corporate Environmentalism: Ecofeminism, Corporeality, and the Language of Feeling.” Gender, Work, and Organization, Vol. 21 No. 5 September 2014. doi:10.1111/gwao.12047 ) SFIt is alarming that in the face of looming ecological crisis, corporations largely persist in an instru- mental view of nature such that it is represented as a risk requiring mastery, domination and management or as a resource to be commodified and consumed (Banerjee, 2003). Corporate dis- courses relating to the environment have been shown to be overwhelmingly focused on utilitarian techno-rationalism where the business case is foregrounded (Banerjee, 2002; Milne et al., 2006, 2009; Prasad and Elmes, 2005; Wittneben et al., 2012). Banerjee (2003) argues that the organizational para- digm of environmental sustainability is based on an economic rationality which relies on the primacy of market forces and a continued commitment to growth that, it is claimed, can be achieved without undue destruction of the environment. Claims to pragmatism and action provide symbolic reassur- ance (Greer and Bruno, 1996) that businesses are ‘doing’ sustainability, but the preservation of nature is sacrificed to the preservation of the socio-political status quo (Harvey, 1996) such that there is an absence of deeper questioning that might result in radical change (Livesey, 2002; Milne et al., 2006). Thus, the notion of ‘sustainability’ has been captured by corporations who represent it in their own terms and to further their own interests (Banerjee, 2011; Fineman, 2001; Milne et al., 2006, 2009) and, as a result, corporations are paralysed by apathy and inertia (Wittneben et al., 2012). To counter this, it has long been evident that socio-political structures, economic systems and cultural values and identities must be re-orientated (Wittneben et al., 2012) by a reclaiming and reinvigoration of the concept of nature (Banerjee, 2003), a spiritual re-awakening and personal, affective engagement with the natural environment (Crossman, 2011; Pruzan, 2008; Starkey and Crane, 2003). Theory on the intrinsic value of nature should exist outside environmental pragmatismSamuelsson, 2010 (Lars Samuelsson, a professor in environmental philosophy at Ume? University. “Environmental Pragmatism and Environmental Philosophy: A Bad Marriage!” , Winter 2010)//klzOn page ii of Environmental Pragmatism—a page devoted to information about the Environmental Philosophies Series (in which Environmental Pragmatism is a volume)—we can read that “Philosophy, in its broadest sense, is an effort to get clear on the problems which puzzle us.” In the present paper, I argue that environ- mental pragmatism, as characterized above, is not a proper philosophical position at all, on this very understanding of philosophy.12 The reason is simply that envi- ronmental pragmatism, rather than seeking clarity on puzzling problems, advises us to avoid such problems (or at least to sidestep them for pragmatic reasons). I want to emphasize that my argument is not just a play with words. As stated in the quoted passage about philosophy, philosophy is here understood in its broadest sense. Seeking clearness about puzzling problems should be one of the minimal (necessary) requirements in a philosophical position.13 A position which does not do so, or which recommends that we avoid seeking clarity with regard to puzzling problems, is just not a philosophical position.14Let us for the moment suppose, for the sake of argument, that pragmatists are right that theoretical debates, such as those about intrinsic value in nature, are hindering the ability of the environmental movement to forge agreement on basic policy imperatives.15 Does it follow that philosophers should not participate in such debates? It certainly does not. As philosophers we should not let our choices of objects of investigation be guided by pragmatic considerations of this sort (e.g., shared environmental or political goals). As philosophers we should ask and try to find answers to the philosophical questions that have caught our interest—that puzzle us—irrespective of the consequences of so doing (at least most of the time—see below). In the discussion below, I use the question of whether or not (and in what sense) nature has intrinsic value as an example.To make the point clearer, consider the following analogy: some people believe that questioning the possibility of free will provides a threat to morality. Even if this claim were true, philosophers should of course ignore this pragmatic reason—at least unless some extraordinary circumstances counted strongly against doing so —and continue to question and discuss the possibility of free will. The problem of free will is simply an intriguing and fascinating object of investigation, which warrants the attention of philosophers. Investigating such (puzzling) problems is what philosophy is all about. But suppose that some extraordinary circumstances made it the case that we ought not, all things considered, to investigate the problem of free will. Suppose we had somehow found that if it were shown that human be- ings lack free will, in a certain sense, then all moral standards would break down, which in turn would lead to the end of human civilization. Such a finding should torment our philosophical hearts. As philosophers we should wish to continue to investigate also this problem, even if we would have to accept that, all things considered, we ought to stop. The reason for giving up on the problem of free will would be a non-philosophical reason: it would be a reason from, so to speak, outside of philosophy for not undertaking philosophical investigations into a particular philosophical problem.16Returning to the question of intrinsic value in nature, we may first note that nothing that even remotely resembles this scenario obtains in this case. But that is not the main point here. The point is that even if it did, and if we therefore had decisive reason to avoid discussing this question, that would be an equally non- philosophical reason.17 It would not be an expression of an alternative philosophical approach (at least not as philosophy has been understood here and in the Light and Katz anthology). Plausibly, however, environmental pragmatists in general do not think that discussing the intrinsic value of nature is “dangerous”—they merely think that nothing practically useful comes out of such discussions. But the above points apply to this more modest position as well. “That nothing practically useful comes out of it” is not a philosophical reason. One can argue that many philosophical discussions are such that nothing practically useful comes out of them (although I think that one should be very careful about making such claims—also regarding the question of intrinsic value in nature). It is difficult to see the direct practical relevance of several (most?) questions within, e.g., epistemology, metaphysics, and the philosophy of language. There is no reason why environmental philosophy should constitute a special case here. If epistemologists are allowed to continue pursuing their philosophical investigations without first establishing the practical relevance of these investigations, then, surely, environmental philosophers who are interested in the possibility of intrinsic value in nature should be equally allowed to continue pursuing their investigations into this question without first establishing its practical relevance. Philosophy is theoretical by nature.Of course, an underlying assumption here is that if one is an environmental philosopher, then one’s overriding aim is to “save nature.”18 But even if that is true in many cases, it is irrelevant here. Indeed, the assumption that environmental philosophers generally embrace such aims may rather be (and is, unfortunately, by some) taken to count against them, as philosophers. It is usually considered a theoretical merit to be dispassionate and unbiased about one’s subject of investiga- tion. Also people who do not take as their overriding aim to save nature must, of course, be allowed to pursue environmental philosophy.Perhaps it might be thought that environmental philosophy constitutes a special case because of the urgency of the environmental problems. Given this urgency, one may want to claim that environmental philosophers ought to use their criti- cal talents to contribute to solving these problems (in a more direct way than by pursuing theoretical environmental philosophy).19 There is plausibly some truth in this claim: most of us (who have the possibility) should probably do more than we currently do to contribute to solving environmental problems—among other things invest our critical talents. But, again, environmental philosophy does not constitute a special case in this respect. Astrophysicists in general could probably also do more to contribute to solving environmental problems, as could psycholo- gists and linguists—they all possess critical talents. It is not necessarily the case that environmental philosophers are best suited to attend to the practical matters highlighted by environmental pragmatists. Actually, much of what Light says about these matters suggests that they are not.20 Two questions seem particularly important from an environmental pragmatist perspective: (1) which states of various natural systems are the ones that best serve different (human) ends? (2) Which are the best ways to motivate people to contribute to the task of realizing such states of these various natural systems? Both of these questions are better left to the empirical sciences (such as ecology, psychology, human physiology, sociology, etc.).21Environmental theory is inevitable and is k2 influence pragmatic discussionsSamuelsson, 2010 (Lars Samuelsson, a professor in environmental philosophy at Ume? University. “Environmental Pragmatism and Environmental Philosophy: A Bad Marriage!” , Winter 2010)//klzThe question of whether nature has intrinsic value is philosophically interesting in its own right, and there is every reason to pursue it even if doing so would put some hindrances in the way of policy-forming environmentalists—they will simply have to face up to the challenge of overcoming these hindrances (and perhaps there is something useful to be gained on the way).24 As Dale Jamieson has recently written,. . . some philosophers have wanted us to move beyond discussions of intrinsic value and get on with saving the world. However, deep questions about the nature of value do not disappear upon command. It is the job of moral philosophers to address such questions. While moral philosophy can contribute to clear-headed activism, it is not the same thing, and should not be confused with it. Discussions of intrinsic value are not going to go away.25With regard to the worry expressed by environmental pragmatists that such theoretical discussions in environmental philosophy stand in the way of developing (good) environmental policy, I believe that this worry is highly exaggerated. I think it both (1) overestimates the practical importance of environmental philosophy, and (2) underestimates the practical significance of investigating questions concerning intrinsic value in nature: (a) to think that environmental philosophy has the power of significantly slowing down the environmental movement (or of considerably speeding it up) is to overestimate the importance of environmental philosophy within that movement. Environmental philosophy is but one part of the environmental movement, and I have seen no compelling arguments to the effect that it is such an important part as to have this power. (b) On the other hand, there is at least some evidence that both the environmental movement, and political decision makers, have been influenced by theoretical discussions within environmental ethics, such as those concerning intrinsic value in nature.26When Light and Katz take the overriding aim to be “finding workable solutions to environmental problems now,” this is certainly a praiseworthy initiative, and in one respect this aim is indeed an overriding aim, but it should not be the overriding aim of environmental philosophy per se (although it may, of course, be the overriding aim of particular environmental philosophers). The question of whether or not, and in what sense, nature has intrinsic value does not stand in contrast to questions of finding workable solutions to environmental problems. To the contrary, such questions can often go hand in hand. Debates about intrinsic value in nature take place within environmental ethics, while finding workable solutions to environmental problems is a question for the entire environmental movement (indeed, for everyone). The whole field of environmental ethics (as well as the wider field of environmental philosophy) can be seen as a part of this larger environmental movement, within which it has its specific role. While the aim of this larger movement is indeed to find workable solutions to environmental problems, the role of environmental eth- ics is (among other things) to provide theoretical foundations for these solutions. Environmental ethics interacts with other parts of the environmental movement in various ways, and a lively internal debate within environmental ethics should be seen as a sign of health for the environmental movement at large, indicating both self-criticism and the absence of dogmatism.27Given the nature of philosophy (and of ethics), it is principally a good thing that environmental ethicists are not completely united on the theoretical level, that they force each other to refine their theories and meet objections (so that they are an efficient medicine against dogmatism). (Complete unity on philosophical questions should normally arouse our suspicion.) Such a lively environmental eth- ics is a resource for the environmental movement. If we abandon the theoretical questions, and reduce disagreements to an allegedly harmless moral pluralism—as environmental pragmatists want us to do—this “liveliness” may disappear, and environmental ethics may become a philosophically empty shell, interesting only for those who already accept the environmental goals which it would then be its sole purpose to defend (from various perspectives, and with various principles, but with one voice). Such a pluralist “ethic” would be pointless for the purpose of moral reasoning, if not question-begging; it could be used to defend almost any goal that its adherents would want to defend.This line of reasoning leads us over to the aspect of environmental pragmatism that I find most disturbing, from a philosophical point of view, namely, that it gets things in the wrong order. Instead of starting with the question of what is valuable— what we have reason to cherish or bring about—environmental pragmatists start by simply stating that there are certain “basic policy imperatives” that we should implement. These are the imperatives that we can expect various environmentalists from various camps (philosophical and other) to be able to agree upon: “appropriate environmental praxis will determine the limits and the content of environmental philosophy and political theory.”28 The idea is that from an environmentalist per- spective certain goals are desirable, and theoretical philosophical debates stand in the way of agreeing on, and in the end implementing, these goals. In a reply to McShane, environmental pragmatist Norton writes:It was my intention, then [in Sustainability: A Philosophy of Adaptive Ecosystem Management], to lead the discussion of environmental ethics and policy away from ideology based in a priori theories, toward open-ended, post-metaphysical discourse in which the emphasis is on improving communication and increasing cooperation in decision making by finding actions that support many values.29It may seem obvious that there are certain basic environmental policies that are good, and that we ought to defend. But this fact is not itself a justification of these policies. It is the job of philosophers to provide such justification (if they think these policies are correct). Moreover, as philosophers we should at least remain open to the possibility that we might be wrong about these policies being correct (even policies supporting, and supported by, many values). If we believe that a certain policy is warranted, then we should argue for this claim on the basis of the considerations that make us believe it, and (theoretically) defend these consider- ations (e.g., that some things are valuable).30 It is in that way we can argue that an environmental praxis is appropriate. The claim that it is appropriate is a norma- tive claim, and to defend such a claim we have to turn to normative theory. We should not decide, beforehand, that such a claim is correct, and then (on pragmatic grounds) construct the most plausible framework for making it seem correct (or for convincing decision makers and others that it is correct). That, if anything, looks like dogmatism!31 Most importantly, it is deeply unphilosophical.32 We may have good reasons to do it as environmentalists, but not as philosophers.33Environmental philosophy results in policy changeCallicott, 2002 (J. Baird Callicott, co-Editor-in-Chief of the Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy and Professor, President of the International Society for Environmental Ethics, Bioethicist-in-Residence at Yale University. “The Pragmatic Power and Promise of Theoretical Environmental Ethics: Forging a New Discourse” , February 2002)//klzPragmatist environmental philosophers have (erroneously) assumed that envi- ronmental ethics has made little impact on environmental policy because environmental ethics has been absorbed with arcane theoretical controversies, mostly centred on the question of intrinsic value in nature. Positions on this question generate the allegedly divisive categories of anthropocentrism/ nonanthropocentrism, shallow/deep ecology, and individualism/holism. The locus classicus for the objectivist concept of intrinsic value is traceable to Kant and modifications of the Kantian form of ethical theory terminate in biocentrism A subjectivist approach to the affirmation of intrinsic value in nature has also been explored. Because of the academic debate about intrinsic value in nature, the concept of intrinsic value in nature has begun to penetrate and reshape the discourse of environmental activists and environmental agency personnel. In environmental ethics, the concept of intrinsic value in nature functions similarly to way the concept of human rights functions in social ethics. Human rights has had enormous pragmatic efficacy in social ethics and policy. The prospective adoption of the Earth Charter by the General Assembly of the United Nation may have an impact on governmental environmental policy and performance similar to the impact on governmental social policy and behaviour of the adoption by the same body in 1948 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Belatedly, but at last, the most strident Pragmatist critics of the concept of intrinsic value in nature now acknowledge its pragmatic power and promise.In one of the most ancient and venerable sources of Chinese philosophy, the Analects, a disciple asks Confucius what he would do first were he to become the prime minister of the State of Wei (Hall and Ames 1987). Without question, Confucius replies, first I would rectify names. His disciple was puzzled by this saying; and for a long time so was I. But no more, for I am coming to appreciate the power of names, and of discourse, more generally, in the formation of environmental policy.The true answer to Juliet's question, 'What's in a name?' in Shakespeare's play, is 'Really, quite a lot'. Consider various names for women - 'chicks 'babes', 'broads', 'ladies'. The feminist movement has made us keenly aware that what we call someone or something - what we name him, her, or it - i important A name frames, colours, and makes someone or something available for certain kinds of uses ... or abuses. Even the name 'lady' is freighted with s much baggage that it is not worn comfortably by many women. A major effort of feminist politics has been the rectification of names for women, and more generally, the rectification of gender discourse.Self-styled Pragmatist environmental philosophers have complained that environmental philosophy has been bogged down in ivory-tower theorising to little practical effect (Norton 1992). Here I argue that theoretical environmenta philosophy has had and is having a profound, albeit indirect, practical effect on environmental policy. It has done so by creating a new discourse that environ mental activists and environmental professionals have adopted and put to good use. At the heart of this new discourse is the concept of intrinsic value in nature I sketch the history of this concept and its associated discourse, and indicate how it is practically impacting environmental policy.ENVIRONMENTAL PHILOSOPHY MORE THEORETICAL THAN APPLIEDEnvironmental philosophy has been less an 'applied' subdiscipline of philoso- phy than some of the other applied subdisciplines with which it is often lumped - biomedical ethics, business ethics, and engineering ethics, for example Environmental philosophy has, more particularly, been more involved with reconstructing ethical theory than with applying standard, off-the-rack ethic theories to real-world environmental problems.In large part that is because standard ethical theory had been so resolutely - even militantly - anthropocentric that it seemed inadequate to deal with today' s environmental problems. In scope and magnitude, contemporary human transformation of the environment is unprecedented. Gradually, the impact of human activities on nonhuman nature became almost ubiquitous in scope and unrelenting in intensity, so much so that by the mid-twentieth century, the existence of an environmental crisis was widely acknowledged. And the contemporary environmental crisis seems morally charged. For example, the current orgy of human-caused species extinction seems wrong - morally wrong. And not just because the anthropogenic extinction of many species might adversely affect human interests or human rights. Most first-generation environmental philoso- phers, therefore, took the task of environmental ethics to be constructing a nonanthropocentric theory of ethics that would somehow morally enfranchise nonhuman natural entities and nature as a whole - directly, not merely indirectly to the extent that what human beings do in and to nature would affect human interests and human rights.This was the burden of the first academic paper in the field, 'Is There a Need for a New, an Environmental Ethic?', by Australian philosopher Richard Routley, presented to the Fifteenth World Congress of Philosophy in Varna, Bulgaria in 1973 (Sylvan 2001). A similar task was set by Norwegian philoso- pher Arne Naess (1973) in his paper, 'The Shallow and the Deep, Long-range Ecology Movements: A Summary'. In the first paper on environmental ethics by an American philosopher, Holmes Rolston III ( 1 975) argued that the central task of environmental philosophy is to develop a 'primary', not a 'secondary', 'ecological ethic' . Animal rights theorist Tom Regan ( 1 982) reiterated Rolston' s understanding of the enterprise - that a proper environmental ethic was 'an ethic of the environment' , not an ' ethic for the use of the environment' , which he called a mere 'management ethic'.Environmental Philosophy creates a discourse that is prerequisite to pragmatic policyCallicott, 2002 (J. Baird Callicott, co-Editor-in-Chief of the Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy and Professor, President of the International Society for Environmental Ethics, Bioethicist-in-Residence at Yale University. “The Pragmatic Power and Promise of Theoretical Environmental Ethics: Forging a New Discourse” , February 2002)//klzWe sometimes forget, I think, that we live, move, and have our human being in a world of words, as well as in a physical world beyond words. For all i importance - which above all environmental philosophy affirms and celebrate - that world beyond human words is only accessible through the portal of human discourse. In conclusion, therefore, we must agree with Confucius that the first order of business in any policy arena is to rectify names, so that our policies and practices are framed in terms of the most efficacious and transformative discourse. The way Confucius would rectify names is by administrative fiat. In a democracy we do so by means of the free and sometimes technical philosophical discussion of frequently controversial and sometimes new and radical ideas. While that discussion, especially if it is carried on largely in the academy, may seem far removed from the fray of public policy debate and hopelessly impractical, in multiple and diffuse ways it seeps out of the ivory tower into the public domain, and finally funds the formation of public policy and practice. That has, demonstrably, been the case with theoretical environmental ethics and its central idea, the intrinsic value of nature.Contemporary environmental pragmatism failsIrwin 07, Ruth Irwin is a Doctor of philosophy - climate change, technology | Sustainability Thought Leader | Cultural Transition Facilitator, “The neoliberal state, Environmental Pragmatism, and its discontents”, Taylor & Francis online, //JKIn contemporary hands there is an interesting shift from empiricism towards Idealist subjectivism. While contemporary Pragmatism remains critical of the concept of the objective environment as separate from humanity, it goes on to privilege the ‘subjective’ interpretation of the environment and fails to acknowledge that nature always exceeds the human ‘world’ such that epistemology is always simply beliefs that are contingent upon our natural experiences. For contemporary Pragmatists the privileging of the human side of the culture versus nature dualism results in the statement that there are no non-anthropocentric or intrinsic values. Pragmatic theory derives axiology from the immediate socially empirical context and actively engages in existing political, social, and presumably environmental issues. At the turn of the 19th century, Pragmatism was radically engaged developing a dynamic theoretical framework that caste off subjectivist Idealism. Now these contemporary environmentalists, who should be in a position to take the most challenging, forward thinking, and creative aspects of Pragmatism, are instead allowing these ideas to coagulate and stiffen into a protective regard for the status quo by returning again and again to the subjectivist tradition of philosophical Idealism. Therefore, they are forced back into the hierarchical relation of dualisms that privileges subject over nature, culture over nature. The rejection of dualisms and the interconnection of environmental and subjective experiences is designated a one sided anthropocentric outlook. Pluralism is reduced to a ‘single moral enterprise’ and the fragile, always incomplete knowledge of the manifold world is simply occluded. Contemporary Pragmatists pride themselves on their active engagement with social issues and fail to see that their engrossment with the short term is at the peril of the environment and humanity in the long term.Environmental pragmatism is capitalist and defends the squo – only an ethic of care solvesIrwin 07, Ruth Irwin is a Doctor of philosophy - climate change, technology | Sustainability Thought Leader | Cultural Transition Facilitator, “The neoliberal state, Environmental Pragmatism, and its discontents”, Taylor & Francis online, //JKWhile I sympathise with the desire for urgent and practical action, I do not think careful thinking requires postponing all environmental care. It is naive and even dangerous to relegate the myriad debates about Utilitarian versus intrinsic value, or anthropocentric versus non-anthropocentric, or individualist versus community aims, and even monad versus pluralist beliefs, to a ‘convergent’ interest in environmental protection. Norton believes that non- anthropocentric ethics will turn out to converge with anthropocentric ethics because in the end both are politically contested by humans (Norton, 2005: 508). While I think his point that political dualism may collapse towards the same ends, the notion of a mature political convergence, or dialectical synthesis is not necessarily going to be the case. Clearly not all political views are interested in environmental protection. Some interest groups claim to be environmentally motivated, such as big business including ‘sustainability’ in their mission statements and advertising without any genuine attempt to alter capitalist practices in a far-reaching way. Conflicting strategies produce divergent politics that play out in the practices of activists, politicians, citizens and schoolteachers. Theoretical premises affect the organising paradigms, self- understanding and the actions of societies, communities, and individuals. In a global world, anthropocentric capitalism dominates the ‘view’ that the media, advertising, education, work ethic, consumerism and so forth take on the environment. As Heidegger cogently argues, everything in the modern world is enframed and understood as potential resource. So thinking our way out of these conundrums is vitally important, in both the short and long term, for realigning the relationship that humanity as a whole has with the earth in all its aspects. Diverging ideas about how the relationship between humanity and the earth can be best cared for is a constructive way forward (and impossible to annihilate) because different contexts generate different relationships. Thought is like biodiversity; difference shelters contingent possibilities for unexpected problems, monoculture fails when confronted with new disease, or new weather conditions, new predators, new constraints, and new conditions of possibility.It could be argued that Light and others like him (I am alerted to John Barry and Brian Norton by the anonymous reviewer) might not necessarily be read as defenders of the neoliberal ‘status quo’. For while Light, Barry, and Norton wish to use metaphors that are readily comprehensible by the citizenry rather than strange, esoteric, or in the case of radical greens, ecocentric, metaphors, then their language and ideas remain encased in the neoliberal framework. It is (sometimes arduous, sometimes joyful) thinking that will enable the paucity of the market metaphor to be contextualised to a small segment of social interaction rather than an overarching explanatory force for all events, and all being. Barry in particular is worth considering more fully, but that will have to wait for another occasion. Suffice to say at this point that I do think these authors tend to defend the status quo too tightly.An epistemological shift is keyIrwin 07, Ruth Irwin is a Doctor of philosophy - climate change, technology | Sustainability Thought Leader | Cultural Transition Facilitator, “The neoliberal state, Environmental Pragmatism, and its discontents”, Taylor & Francis online, //JKIf the environmentalist project is to generate action, then a genuine epistemological shift amongst the global population is required. The piecemeal pockets of revegetation, nature ‘enhancement’, isolated national parks, sustainable management, urban recycling and so on may only contribute very limited environmental ‘good’ and preserve narrow ecological niches, but at the same time, they contribute ideas towards a paradigm shift that normalises concern for ecology rather than the present atomised alienation of humanity from our surroundings.Light is intrigued by the need to ‘convince people’ to pursue environmental ends. Unfortunately this is the only element of interest in his essay, ‘The case for a practical pluralism’, which is a superficial skate over what is for him familiar terrain. He does little to explain the various forms of pluralism apparently advocated by the authors he surveys. He blithely avoids any engagement with ‘deconstructive poststructuralist diffe ?rance’ (Light, 2002b: 15) by naming and shaming it as moral relativism.Relativism entails abandoning the view that there are some moral stances better than others that could guide our ethical claims about how we should treat nature. If we admit relativism then, one could argue, we would give up on attempts to form a moral response to the cultural justifications put forward to defend the abuse or destruction of other animals, species or ecosystems. Relativism entails that ethics is relative to different cultural traditions. (Light, 2002b: 7)Light maintains a North American faith in the ‘normative force’ of American cultural superiority. This criticism of relativism neglects the emphasis on critique, where evaluation based on mutual respect for differing viewpoints can still come to an ethical decision – but quite possibly not a consensus.‘Pragmatic’ resignation to Western prejudice avoids the hard ‘development’ questions about uneven global wealth distribution, skewed global economic and environmental policy. Avoiding theory results in ignoring the absorption of old liberal and more recent environmental terms, such as ‘choice’, ‘freedom’, ‘equality’, ‘sustainability’ into the neoliberal lexicon and its resultant policy initiatives that are being implemented in nations around the planet. Ignoring theory is to ignore what is actually going on.Reformism BadTransformative ecofeminist solutions that restructure institutions solve for exploitation, oppression, and existential isolation – reformist trade-offs weaken the agency of activistsLahar 91 – Stephanie Lahar (director of the counseling/human relations program at Woodbury College, professor for the Environmental Program at the University of Vermont, served on the Commission on the Status of Women, writer/activist, founding member of the Burlington, Vermont Conservation Board), “Ecofeminist Theory and Grassroots Politics,” Hypatia, Spring, 1991, Vol.6, No. 1, Ecological Feminism, pg 29-30, , /niki.aAn ecofeminist analysis includes the human exploitation of the nonhuman environment in its list of interwoven forms of oppression such as sexism and heterosexism, racism and ethnocentrism. Specific theories differ as to the cause or causes of social and environmental domination and exploitation, but conceptual dichotomies are seen as key to maintaining such conditions. These include oppositional and value-laden categories of masculine and feminine, mind and body, public and private, and nature and society, which in turn rest on and uphold a basically Cartesian, atomistic worldview that has characterized Western thought. Accompanying this is a sense of psychological splitting, an existential isolation in which people tend to lose touch with their own value and internal coherence as well as that of human and nonhuman others through processes of objectification. In human extremities such as pornography or war, for example, individuals are ultimately stripped of any sense of humanity or subjectivity as they are reduced to a sexual object or a faceless enemy. The mutual exclusion that thinking in conceptual dichotomies engenders makes us think that violence against women, militarism, and the destruction of ecosystems are issues that can be analyzed separately. Politically, we may feel that we have to make trade-offs between social and environmental initiatives, choosing, for example, child-care programs or pollution cleanups. Further- more, the existential isolation that is sign and symptom of the social condition that ecofeminism sees and critiques weakens us as potential agents of social and political change. The central theme of most versions of ecofeminism, therefore, is the interrelationship and integration of personal, social, and environmental issues and the development of multidirectional political agendas and action. Ecofeminism is transformative rather than reformist in orientation, in that ecofeminists seek to radically restructure social and political institutions. Women's liberation is contextualized in human liberation and a more ecological way of living on the earth. Within this broad context, how have ecofeminists expressed their values through political activism? What is the theory or theories that have supported ecofeminist politics up to this point, and what parameters and directives will lend coherence and robustness to continued political development? Govt ActionThe perm fails – it endorses neoliberal policymaking while infinitely consuming a finite world - only a shift from status quo governmental relations with nature towards ecofeminist ideals solvesVarner 16, Tess Varner is Director, Women's and Gender Studies; Assistant Professor, Philosophy at Concordia College, “Contemporary Perspectives on Ecofeminism”, Routledge explorations in environmental studies, //JKAt the same time, global institutions, many national governments and business continue to drag their feet in terms of making the transformative changes that are required to mitigate against disaster. When the United Nations Climate Change Conference is held in Paris in December 2015, it will be over 20 years since the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, at which a small number of countries agreed to limit greenhouse gas emissions. There has been some response in terms of developing climate legislation, and groups such as the We Mean Business coalition (formed in June 2014 and made up of over 500 global companies – see ) are calling for stronger agreement and action, although this is based on a business case approach that sees growth opportunities in mitigation (Phillips 2014, 2015). Little if any real progress has been achieved. Indeed, the 2009 climate summit in Copenhagen was an opportunity for 115 world leaders to make a binding agreement regarding carbon reduction, but it was an opportunity squandered as it descended into bickering and fiasco. The Copenhagen Accord that was cobbled together did not last and had little impact. Most Western national governments have sidelined a focus on carbon emissions in favour of economic growth following the global 2008 crash (Ellis and Bastin 2011). Public opinion too is weaker in terms of recognition of how dangerous climate change is and in terms of the actions that should be taken to mitigate it (Doan 2014). This is, in part, a result of disinformation produced by powerful vested interests, the remoteness of the discourses through which climate science is disseminated and feelings of powerlessness when confronted with the scale of the problem. However, to quote Naomi Klein:We know that if we continue on our current path of allowing emissions to rise year after year, climate change will change everything about our world. ... And we don’t have to do anything to bring about this future. All we have to do is nothing. (Klein 2014: 4)This brings us to the next reason why contemporary perspectives on eco- feminism are needed. Over a period when it was argued that governments needed to act together to produce robust regulatory frameworks and other means to reduce carbon emissions and prevent natural degradation, they have instead done the opposite. Most Western governments and businesses support economic and political positions that broadly subscribe to the ideology of neoliberalism. While neoliberalism is a polysemic and contested term, it is broadly deployed in this text as a mode of political and economic rationality that has been characterized by deregulation of labour markets and privatization. As Harvey argues, it is a ‘theory of political and economic practices that proposes that human wellbeing can be best advanced by lib- erating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights, free markets and free trade’ (Harvey 2005: 2). While neoliberalism is not an end-state, such that it is more accurate to say that processes of neoliberalization are taking place, the current political consensus is that the interests of a society, con- ceptualized as a set of atomized individuals, are best served through the operation of market forces. From a neoliberal perspective, the supposed economic rationality of the market will provide solutions to challenges such as climate change. Governments are positioned as having a minimal role in imposing regulation, striving instead to provide the conditions in which markets can operate (Dowling and Harvie 2014). Voluntary initiatives and complex market mechanisms created by corporations, industry associations, and even some environmental campaigners working in concert are seen as more attractive and more effective than direct regulation. This has resulted in the increasing commoditization of nature such that its value is calculated in economic terms and it is acquired and regulated by means of the market (Bo?hm et al. 2012). Concurrently, neoliberal economic policy and the poli- tics of austerity have resulted in flows of assets, wealth and income to an increasingly small elite and to richer countries (Bo?hm et al. 2012; Cingano 2014), increasing inequality and making it even more difficult for individuals and majority world states to undertake the mitigation and adaptation measures necessary to combat climate change impacts. Current government, business and even many NGOs’ approaches to environmental issues such as climate change are thus based in the imperatives of the market. This has resulted in a regime which Newell and Paterson (2010) call ‘climate capitalism’, where strategies of ‘decarbonization’ and ‘greening’ offer only minimal dis- ruption to patterns of economic growth and expansion of the global economy, and are presented as opportunities for further capital accumulation.Through its focus on the ways in which rationality is thus privileged, ecofeminism provides resources from which to illuminate and challenge the current orthodoxies which are further cementing ecological, social and economic crises. Ecofeminist philosopher Val Plumwood (1993, 2006) has charted how the foregrounding of reason accompanied the rise of capitalism. Systems which privilege and facilitate the self-interest of the rational, and therefore fully human, individual deny both human and Earth others. Those associated with the more-than-human, reproduction, the body and the unpaid labour of those demarcated into nature’s sphere become invisible and unvalued inputs to an increasingly rationalized economy. The characteristics of Homo ?conomicus, natural because economic rationality is deemed to be inherent in all persons, underpin and legitimate neoliberal concepts in which supposedly rational motives take primacy over and above other conflicting and transient motivations such as emotions, desires and attachments (Langley and Mellor 2002; Held 2006). This has justified regarding nature instrumen- tally: as a resource to be consumed rather than given status and value in its own right, which has had devastating consequences for nature, but which also increasingly threatens humanity as we have outlined above. For Plumwood, the forms of logic and rationality associated with current dominant political and economic models are thus inherently illogical and irrational, and carry within them the seeds of their own destruction. Such forms are unable to account for and recognize:in biospheric nature a unique, non-tradeable, irreplaceable other on which all life on the planet depends. Because it has not fully come to terms with its earthian existence, but clings to illusions of identity outside nature, the master rationality is unable to grasp its peril ... (Plumwood 1993: 194)This results in ‘the kind of use of an earth other which treats it entirely as a means to another’s ends, as one whose being creates no limits on use and which can be entirely shaped to ends not its own’ (Plumwood 1993: 142). In contrast, the ecofeminist imperative is to consider how to create the ‘possibility of meaningful, equitable and pleasant lives for all people in the present, [that] does not destroy either its ecological foundations or its capacity for social and physical reproduction in the future’ (Perkins 2007: 227). It seeks to contribute to humanity’s collective understanding of how to build more sustainable socio-economies-ecologies through a concern for nature and for equity within and between species and between generations. As Val Plumwood argues, ecofeminism should be seen as ‘an attempt to obtain a new human and new social identity in relation to nature’ (1993: 186) in an act of opposition and resistance to the instrumentalization and commodification characteristic of current social and economic life.Any perm gets co-opted by underlying power structuresBirkeland 93 – Janis Birkeland (Honorary Professorial Fellow, faculty of architecture, building and planning, University of Melbourne), “Ecofeminism: Linking Theory and Practice,” Ecofeminism: Women, Animals, Nature (Chp 2, edited by Greta Gaard) (1993), (ed.).%20Ecofeminism.pdf, /niki.aIf people see the environmental movement as a platform for personal and professional advancement, and if they cannot assume leadership roles, they will move on to another forum. Patriarchy thus creates fertile ground for cooptation, which affects both the credibility and the long-term effectiveness of the movement. As long as the green movement remains Patriarchal, government and industry will be able to set the agenda and rules of the game. The unconscious desire to be accepted by the powerful or Society at large means activists can be "bought off" by giving them a stake in the power structure. This is why new forms of "conflict resolution" have been merely means of reducing conflict, rather than means of resolving the problem. A case in point is the recent trend in Australia toward negotiation and mediation between industry and environmental "spokesmen," which has really been a form of corporatization-that is, a process in which resources are allocated via negotiated arrangements between government and powerful special interest groups. For conservation groups to be included in this process at first blush appears a major victory-the legitimation of environmental concern. And there have been initial positive results, such as access to vital information. However, conflict resolution conducted by power brokers is not a real departure from business as usual. Corporatization is a power-based decision-making mechanism and a means of cooptation: a round table does not change the shape of power relations under the table. Any power-based decision-making mechanism will be exploited by special interests, as we have seen with the Forest and Forest Industries Strategy in Tasmania. This collaborative effort between Greens and industry served as a smokescreen for the development of draconian "resource security legislation" that has turned 1. 7 million hectares of Tasmanian forest irretrievably into logging wnes. In the long term, the corporatization of the environmental movement is no answer. The process is reminiscent of a board game devised in the United States: "Blacks and Whites" was designed so that the black pieces had all kinds of strategies and maneuvers available to them, but, although the "playing field" looked level, they could never win. Moreover, industry can always counter public demand for wilderness by creating a greater public demand for consumable goods, or as in Tasmania, frightening the country into a depression. Industry knows that the best way to close people's minds is to tighten their belts. Defense of EcofeminismAT Race/not inclusiveRace-oriented critiques of ecofeminism are outdatedVarner 16, Tess Varner is Director, Women's and Gender Studies; Assistant Professor, Philosophy at Concordia College, “Contemporary Perspectives on Ecofeminism”, Routledge explorations in environmental studies, //JKCelebratory accounts of global activism, and of Chipko in particular, rapidly gave way to more critical reflections. Discussions of Chipko, and of the place of activism in the developing world, have often focused on the anthologies mentioned earlier – Plant (1989a) and Diamond and Orenstein (1990b) contain chapters by Shiva on Chipko as well as other chapters that refer to it. Sandilands (1999: 54) offers one example of such a critique in her account of these anthologies: ‘The inclusion of race was not especially analytical; it did not in most cases, suggest ways in which women may have different relations to particular ecological issues or problems, and it did not look deeply at the ways in which these traditions have themselves been lost or reconstructed in particular social contexts.’ She elaborated on the characterization of indigenous cultures as ‘somehow pure, somehow dissociable from what colonization has done to those different cultures and social practices. Also problematic was their general assumption that all ‘women’s practices in nature are (at their core at least) benign, caring and respectful’. Sandilands (ibid.: 55–56) concluded her discussion on a relieved note: ‘But (I’m very happy to say) this mode of discussion is no longer predominant in ecofeminist literatures that question racism and colonialism.’ Others offered different resolutions to the apparent problems posed by these texts. One route was turning to research on women in the West, in the so-called developed world. Chris Cuomo (1998: 8–9) wrote that ‘while there is a tendency in Western ecofeminist theory to describe the work of rural Third World women as paradigmatic ecofeminist activism, one sees little effort (in the literature) to develop specific models that examine the politics of “first world” mega consumption on ecofeminist grounds’. Cuomo’s suggestion was taken up by Sherilyn MacGregor (2006: 128) in accounting for her own research with women in Ontario: ‘I am making the point that the experiences and ideas of urban-dwelling women in the overdeveloped world are as interesting and informative to ecofeminist thought as those of “peasant” women in developing countries.’ Examining the activism of women in the West is, I think, understandable and necessary – indeed, my own research thus far has been based in Canada or the UK (Moore 2001, 2004, 2011, 2015; Moore et al. 2014) – but this strategy brings problems of its own, not least erasing existing references to Western movements already commonly cited, including Greenham Common, the Seneca Women’s Encampment, the Women’s Pentagon Actions, the strong anti-toxics movements in the United States, and the Women’s Environmental Network. Many organizations and actions in the developed world have focused intensely on (over)con- sumption and its impact elsewhere. Such a resolution may also imply that (Western) eco/feminists can have nothing to say regarding women and the environment in the Third World. It also ignores ways in which Third World women can speak and be seen and heard by Western eco/feminists. Most significantly, it belies the myriad ways in which North and South are inti- mately interconnected through histories of colonialism and slavery, through patterns of trade and the effects of environmental degradation, and through the movements, both real and virtual, of activists. All of these connections are manifest in the work of many eco/feminist organizations. Some, such as Women for an Independent and Nuclear Free Pacific, are alliances between women in the North and South. Thus, shifting one’s focus from the South to the North requires careful attention to the specificities and contexts of histories and transnational connectivities. Questions of race and indigeneity were also central for Noe?l Sturgeon (1997: 116), who identified Plant (1989b) and Diamond and Orenstein (1990b) as ‘the most prominent representatives of the diversity within ecofeminism’. In focusing on discourses that ‘center on the idealization of “indigenous” women as symbolic representatives of ecofeminism’, Sturgeon (1997: 113–114) critically summed up some of the assumptions embedded in such accounts of indigenous women: that non-industrialized cultures are seen as more ecological, as not enacting a Western separation of nature and culture, and possibly as embodying more egalitarian gender relations. Nonetheless, I want to revisit some of the criticisms of the anthologies. For instance, Sturgeon (ibid.: 121) appeared dismissive of Plant’s apparent reliance on Native American rituals in her contribution to the collection The Circle Is Gathering. Yet this becomes more complicated when one attends to Plant’s location in British Columbia – her discussion drew on specific First Nations cultures and her embeddedness in particular communities, rather than on generalized ideas of ‘Native Americans’ as such. I do not wish to fuel Canadian excep- tionalism or to ignore the fact that the indigenous people of North America have their own approach to national boundaries – my point is that Sturgeon’s argument may rely on reading a specific First Nations iconography as a generalized indigeneity. Plant’s ongoing commitment to bioregionalism may also contribute to the intentionality and specificity of her account and the imagery in her chapter and in her approach to the anthology. When Healing the Wounds was published in the United Kingdom, its cover was changed, perhaps in recognition that it invoked a specific indigeneity that might not be understood in the UK context; the new cover featured a crystal that diffracts light in a rainbow of colours. Furthermore, critiques of the anthologies have tended to attribute agency to their editors but have paid much less attention to the intentionality of the contributors. One is left with the prospect that the women of colour whose essays appeared in these supposedly essentializing, universalist collections were naive romanticizers of their own cultures. If this was so, how could we make sense of the inclusion of black, developing world, and indigenous women who explicitly critique these kinds of discourses? I speculate that it is not only a case that editors wanted to be inclusive, but that authors may also have wanted to be included in these collections, no matter how problematic they might seem. Perhaps this desire was in part due to the persistence of eco/feminism’s orientation to global and transnational interconnections, as well as to environmentalism and spirituality. Over time, Chipko and other movements slowly disappeared from the literature or became the focus of criticism, allowing authors to demonstrate the theoretical sophistication of their feminism by publicly dis- tancing themselves from such movements. Thus Carlassare’s (1994) overview of eco/feminism was perhaps the last moment when claims about diversity could easily be made. While Greta Gaard (1998: 3) once declined an invita- tion to write a monograph on eco/feminism, believing that it ‘would not do justice to such a multivocal grassroots movement’,5 by the mid- to late 1990s, collective polyvocal texts such as anthologies and special issues of journals had been largely superseded by the monographs of white authors, most of whom were North Americans. This irony leads me to question whether the assumptions of essentialism and universalism have been sufficiently and empirically worked through. AT essentialismCriticisms of ecofeminism are misdirected and mislabel theories in an effort to silence activist speech and colonize their laborsVarner 16, Tess Varner is Director, Women's and Gender Studies; Assistant Professor, Philosophy at Concordia College, “Contemporary Perspectives on Ecofeminism”, Routledge explorations in environmental studies, //JKAs well as the attack on ecofeminism for its supposed essentialism, post- structuralist feminism tended to ignore or criticize ecofeminism because of its central tenet that linked structurally the oppression of women and of nature. Poststructuralist feminism, exemplified in the work of Luce Irigaray, He?le?ne Cixous, Lois McNay and Rosi Braidotti (to name but a few), draws on the work of French theorists such as Derrida, Lacan and Foucault to contest ahistorical and deterministic appeals to structure as an external given that we can apprehend independently of the institutional, cultural and other practices by which it is named, reinforced and measured. However, Thompson argues that such critiques when applied to ecofeminism are misdirected if they view accounts with a structural argument as ‘static and hopelessly beguiled by the singularity of truth and reason’ (Thompson 2006: 511). Most ecofeminist theorists eschew structuralist thinking that would posit a fixed and ahistorical relation between women, nature and their interrelated causes of oppression. On the contrary, they argue that such causes are historically and culturally determined, and embrace post- structuralist repudiation of determinism and its focus on multiplicity and difference (e.g. Sandilands 1999). At the same time, and from a different direction, academic ecofeminists were accused of threatening the pluralism of ecofeminism and of privileging philosophical approaches. This was described as a colonizing strategy, employed to gain academic standing that excluded activist, spiritual and majority world ecofeminists (Cook 1998).Others argued that ecofeminism romanticized the experiences of indigenous cultures and practices, which amounted to a form of colonialist appropria- tion (see Moore, chapter 1 in this volume and Sturgeon 1997, especially ch. 4, for a detailed review). Several ecofeminists have themselves pointed out that this amounts to an unethical exploitation of such women in order to develop academic theory. For example, Gaard writes:Naming the activism of others in a way that they have not, effectively puts words in their mouths; contradicts, silences or erases their activist speech and colonizes or appropriates their labors for the use of others. The problem becomes obvious, finally, when one realizes that the naming and appropriation is taking place across the lines of races, class or nationality ... and those most likely to engage in such naming tend to be white, middle-class academic women in industrialized nations. (Gaard 1998: 13)The accusations and pressures with which ecofeminism was assailed were such that many erstwhile ecofeminists no longer called themselves such (Gaard 2011; Sturgeon 1997). The rate of publication of books and journal articles admitting an ecofeminist perspective slowed considerably. This is a serious concern, to which this edited volume responds.Ecofeminism transcends essentialist identarian categorizations and rather incorporates different subjects and entities under feminist principles.Moore 2008 (Niamh Moore is associate professor and deputy head of the School of Geography, University College Dublin. She is president of the Geographical Society of Ireland and a member of the Royal Irish Academy Social Sciences Committee. (2008) Eco/Feminism, Non-Violence and the Future of Feminism, International Feminist Journal of Politics, 10:3, 282-298, DOI: 10.1080/14616740802185486) ZETHE CLAYOQUOT SOUND PEACE CAMP While Clayoquot has garnered significant attention in academic writings, the eco/feminist dimensions of the campaign have yet to receive sustained attention, despite the centrality of eco/feminism to the (mixed) camp. That women played a key role in the campaign, and that eco/feminism was an integral aspect of events of the summer of 1993 was recognized even by the Vancouver Sun with their headline ‘Eco-Feminists Run “Peace Camp” at Clayoquot Sound’ (Bell 1993). Women activists have also written their own stories. Betty Krawczyk, on the first day of the camp, and one of three grandmothers jailed for refusing to sign an undertaking not to return to the blockade, has written autobiographi- cally in Clayoquot: The Sound of my Heart (Krawczyk 1996). Jean McLaren (1994) has recorded daily life at the camp in Spirits Rising: The Story of the Clayoquot Peace Camp 1993. Chris Lowther’s (1996) A Cabin in Clayoquot recounts living in Clayoquot as well as providing an account of the summer of 1993. Shelley Wine’s (1999) award-winning documentary Fury for the Sound: The Women at Clayoquot, which was shown on Canadian television, brought many of the women involved in the Clayoquot campaign into the living rooms of those who never made it to the camp. Yet ecofeminism did not evenly inflect the campaign, and even when eco- feminism emerged and began to be articulated and practised, it was the subject of constant negotiation and renegotiation, and sometimes even overt conflict. Elsewhere I have provided an account of one of the meetings of the Friends of Clayoquot Sound in the late 1980s where the notion of feminist principles was introduced, here meaning the philosophy and practice of non-violence and the use of consensus decision making. This followed growing frustration for many of the women with existing practices (Moore 2003b, 2004). The shift emerged at a meeting during which a number of men were felt to have dominated dis- cussion and to have prevented women from contributing to the debate. Valerie Langer, of the FOCS, recounted this meeting: ‘So we started at that time organ- ising ourselves as a consensus decision-making organisation with feminist principles and it happened to be the feminists in the group who were willing to stick it out . . . some of whom were men.’7 There are two related issues to note here. First, that this articulation of fem- inist principles did not rely on any recourse to ‘woman’ as a foundational and necessary category for feminist politics; on reflection this version of feminism was open to men in the group too. Second, the intentional refusal of feminism as an identity politics, this destabilizing of the subject of feminist politics, opened up and made way for a version of feminism which attended to the process of political activism. These ‘feminist principles’ were also invoked when the peace camp was set up in the summer of 1993. The camp was widely recognized as being based on a philosophy and practice of non-violent civil disobedience. The Code of Non-Violent Action was very visibly displayed on the notice board beside the area where meals were eaten and meetings held: 1.Our attitude is one of openness, friendliness and respect towards all beings we encounter. 2. We will not use violence, either verbal or physical, towards any being. 3. We will not damage any property and will discourage others from doing so. 4.We will strive for an atmosphere of calm and dignity. 5. We will carry no weapons. 6. We will not bring or use alcohol or drugs. That these ideals might be linked with ‘feminist principles’ was perhaps less obvious to those who may understand feminism as being about ‘women’s issues’, narrowly defined. Perhaps the most visible place where feminist politics were made explicit was on the Welcome Handout, quoted here, which was given out at the camp: ‘We use a consensus process based on feminist principles. We believe that sexism, racism, and homophobia are forms of oppression which are linked to the oppression of Nature. We strive to make Camp a safe space, free of oppression.’ Notably, feminist principles were not just specified in terms of gender, or sexuality, but were defined in terms of linking sexism, racism and homophobia with the ‘oppression of Nature’. Links with other ‘-isms’ and oppressions could perhaps also be inferred here; the short list presented may not have been exhaustive. Thus feminism was here defined as not just being about ‘women’, but about challenging all oppressions, including the oppression of nature, including an understanding that these oppressions might be linked. This femin- ism, with its emphasis on the oppression of nature, may be understood as ecofeminist. Explicit in this feminist approach to politics and organization is the recognition, born of many years of second-wave feminism, that feminism cannot be about ‘women’ only, but must also address all oppressions. Feminism was defined through processes – consensus and non-violence – and an understand- ing of the interlocking nature of many oppressions, rather than through the construction of any identity politics. This understanding of feminism is not idio-syncratic; it is rather a manifestation of the directions and concerns of western feminism in the early 1990s. The category of ‘woman’ as the basis of feminist politics has been shattered – and not only for deconstructive feminist theorists – for activists the question of sustaining activism across differences has been crucial. In a small community where the politics of race, class, gender and nature (to point only to the most salient material conditions of people’s lives in Clayoquot Sound) are everywhere visible, to understand feminism as only about ‘women’, and then as only about certain women, would be impossible. The maternalist discourses purported to be dominant in women’s environmental activism and at women’s peace camps were significantly absent in this instance 9 (Moore 2007). This version of eco/feminism disrupts any simple recourse to essentialism as a way of reading the events of Clayoquot Summer 1993. Yet while I offer here a recuperative account of eco/feminist activism in the Friends and at the camp, I do not intend that it can be read as a definitive and resounding rebuttal of any and all charges of essentialism in ecofeminism gener- ally, or even at the Clayoquot peace camp specifically, nor to suggest that ecofe- minism is therefore never ‘essentialist’. However it should also be clear that I am not interested in evaluating various instances of ecofeminism, here or elsewhere, as essentialist, and so dismissing them. Nor am I interested in providing a reading or interpretation of any events as anti-essentialist and therefore superior. Rather I want to examine the moments where the category of ‘woman’ (and ‘man’) might appear and be invoked to explore to what ends and with what effects. I have pointed to the intentional politics of (some of) those organizing and participating in the peace camp. But it would be a mistake to assume that this intentionality was (or ever could be) sustained at all points through the summer by any one individ-ual, or to suggest that this ethos on the part of the organizers might have comple- tely permeated the camp and all those attending. Thus, in the next section I move on to describe in some detail one incident that graphically reveals the gap between intention and daily practice at the camp, through examining tensions over the meanings and practice of peacekeeping and non-violence. And just as my account is not intended as a definitive rebuttal of essentialism, neither is the following intended as an account of the failure of ecofeminism, nor as evidence of the inevitable reiteration of essentialism in ecofeminist politics, but rather as a reminder of the ongoing work which politics requires and demands. The ‘problem’ of essentialism is not one that can be resolved once and for all, but rather demonstrates the importance of ‘a continual reflexivity over how the borders which sustain conceptual entities such as “woman” and “women” are constituted through acts of exclusion or othering’ (Ahmed 1998: 91). My attention to conflict at the camp is intended in the spirit in which Dana Shugar (1995: x) offers her study of conflict in separatist women’s communities ‘in hopes that our conflicts will become one part of, rather than the end of, our com- munity’; that is, that rather than being implicated in a narrative of the end of fem- inism, that stories of conflict, will constitute part of the ongoing and continuous story of feminism. Ecofeminist genealogy and orientation away from western dualisms undergoes a continual reflexivity over conceptual entities of women which opens up transformative possibilities of meaning.Moore 2008 (Niamh Moore is associate professor and deputy head of the School of Geography, University College Dublin. She is president of the Geographical Society of Ireland and a member of the Royal Irish Academy Social Sciences Committee. (2008) Eco/Feminism, Non-Violence and the Future of Feminism, International Feminist Journal of Politics, 10:3, 282-298, DOI: 10.1080/14616740802185486) ZEWe can understand the Clayoquot peace camp as a microcosm of eco/feminist politics, as a moment when new possibilities came into focus, when some people lived an alternative life/politics, and were changed forever, when eco/feminism was practised, and the meanings of eco/feminism negotiated and contested, and as a moment which graphically and traumatically demon- strates the difficulties of sustaining transformatory politics on a daily and ongoing basis. The particular incident recounted here is neither an exception which can be ignored, nor evidence of the ‘failure’ of the peace camp because no one story suffices, but rather a manifestation of the importance of every story and the contestations over stories. As Magnusson and Shaw (2003: 283) note, [p]recisely because Clayoquot is a hopeful sort of place, a place where the new politics (as frequently conceived) has been practiced for some time quite effec- tively, it may work as a reminder to us that the new politics (if that’s what it is) is no easier than the old. Any account of Clayoquot which would reduce what happened there to an essentialist politics, would do a disservice to activists, to eco/feminist theory and to narratives of eco/feminism. A genealogical approach, which eschews any straightforward categorization, and disavowal, of peace camps as matern- alist and essentialist, in favour of an examination of how the category of woman is invoked and to what political ends, has much to offer eco/feminism. Rather than focusing on adjudicating whether ecofeminism, or specific eco- feminist activisms, texts, practices are essentialist, or anti-essentialist, atten- tion shifts to examining the work in which particular mobilizations of the category of woman are implicated. Thus, rather than the figure of the feminist peace activist, or the feminist peace camp, being overdetermined, in a way which negates the possibility of transformations in meaning, eco/feminist peace camps then can be understood as sites of struggle over the meaning of woman, and the practice of eco/feminist politics, where the meanings of woman, and eco/feminism, are not just reified but are also refigured. Accounts of feminism which attempt to resolve the ‘problem’ of essentialism by positing a progress narrative whereby post-structuralist feminist theory super- sedes earlier essentialisms, rely on a problematic opposition of essentialism and anti-essentialism, and an assumption that this ‘problem’ can be resolved theoreti- cally (Hemmings 2005). Hemmings has posed the need ‘to suggest a way of ima- gining the feminist past somewhat differently – as a series of ongoing conversations rather than a process of imagined linear displacement’ (Hemmings 2005: 131). Thus as well as making a contribution to our understanding of eco/ feminism and essentialism, a vital meta-narrative of this article is a reflection on several decades of feminism, and on the stories that we tell about feminism. This is necessarily part of a bigger project: to ‘open up a political imaginary for femin- ism that points the way beyond some of the impasses by which it has been con- strained’ (Butler and Scott 1992: xiii). Ultimately this article offers a counter to apocalyptic narratives about the death of feminism, and aims to open up a space for imagining feminist futures. A genealogical return to an eco/feminist peace camp allows us to examine rather than assume the essentialism purported to be rife. Eco/feminist activism might then be understood as an important site for the interrogation of eco/feminist theory, demonstrating neither the simple persistence of maternalist peace politics, nor the progressive emergence of anti-essentialism, but rather the messy and complicated ongoing work of politics. Eco/feminist peace camps may then be understood, not as quaint throwbacks to the na ??ve politics of the 1970s and 1980s, but rather as sites of the ongoing struggle over the category of ‘woman’ and ‘women’ in feminist politics. In this way Clayoquot can be understood as a site for the production of more hopeful stories, and for the imagining of eco/feminist futures. Worrying about essentialism strips ecofeminism of potentialVarner 16, Tess Varner is Director, Women's and Gender Studies; Assistant Professor, Philosophy at Concordia College, “Contemporary Perspectives on Ecofeminism”, Routledge explorations in environmental studies, //JKIn the desire to prove that eco/feminism is not essentialist, that it is resolutely anti-essentialist or can be recuperated as strategically essentialist, eco/feminists have implicitly, if perhaps unintentionally, conceded that essentialism has indeed constituted an appropriate and meaningful frame for theorizing eco/ feminism, and women and nature. I suggest that the shift to typologizing – including by eco/feminists themselves – marked the moment when eco/feminist academics succumbed to narratives of eco/feminism’s essentialism and lost their earlier optimism regarding eco/feminism and its radical diversity. In this process eco/feminist academics ceded much of eco/feminism’s radical anti-dualistic potential to essentialism. Sturgeon’s (1997: 168) plaintive question – ‘What has the ecofeminist movement done or not done to deserve its exclusion from certain feminist circles?’ – is indicative of some eco/feminists’ bewilderment over the failure of other feminists to recognize their feminism. I think it is fair to say that neither anti-essentialism nor strategic essentialism has succeeded in proving eco/feminism’s feminism to (other) feminists. Arguably eco/feminists have been caught up in defending themselves against the implicit or explicit charge of essentialism, constraining the possibilities for theorizing. In this process examining ‘women’ and ‘nature’ was oddly displaced from the centre of inquiry.I suggest that the challenge for eco/feminists now is to ask the question anew: to shift focus from the supposed question of essentialism and to take up again the question of women and nature. This is, I suggest, an interesting and intriguing moment to pursue this project – after all, in the meantime other feminists have begun to write about ‘nature’ in some guise. Donna Haraway of course always did; but more recently there has been the emergence of what is variously termed ‘new materialism’, ‘feminist materialism’, ‘material feminisms’ (for example: Alaimo and Hekman 2008; Barad 2003; Coole and Frost 2010; Grosz 2005). Yet these writers appear to proceed without the taint of essentialism – this is in itself an interesting puzzle, how do they manage this? Perhaps there is something for eco/feminists to learn – or to contribute?Both Sara Ahmed and Maureen McNeil (Ahmed 2008; McNeil 2010) focus on new materialism’s explicit abandonment of critique in favour of a more affirmative approach, and in particular a positive approach to biology. This convergence of a rejection of critique with a renewed focus on matter, biology and nature is indeed provocative in the context of eco/feminism, and is suggestive of one of the ways in which such theorists avoid the critique of essentialism or even anti-essentialism. Rather than a defence of anti-essentialism, Grosz and others offer an assertion of feminism’s need to pay attention to biology. However, as Ahmed notes, this assertion is made possible only by forgetting a vast amount of feminist work on biology and, I might add, intense critique of essentialism. This, as McNeil terms it, ‘affirmative post- millennial feminist theory’ appears to avoid the ‘critique’ of essentialism by seeming to forget that there ever was an extensive feminist conversation about biology, and nature, through its radical proclamation of the ‘new’. Both Ahmed and McNeil share an understanding of critique as a close and generous engagement with other feminists, but it is not clear that this is Grosz’s understanding of critique. Ahmed is explicit that her concern is about the routine production of feminism as anti-biological, particularly as a founding gesture of a ‘new materialism’. She is clear that there is much that is exciting in this work. Her concern is that this gesture ‘would have problematic consequences for our understanding of the genealogy of feminist thought’ (Ahmed 2008: 24). Although, interestingly, Richard Twine makes an analogous point about Ahmed’s own work: ‘whilst Ahmed criticizes the new materialists for inadequately acknowledging feminist work on the biological, neither she nor most of the new materialists acknowledge ecofeminist scholar- ship’ (Twine 2010: 402). Nonetheless, Twine optimistically suggests that ‘the emergence of a feminist new materialism ought to usher in a renewed con- versation between feminism and ecofeminism due to shared interests’ (Twine 2010: 402). It is not, however, clear to me whether new materialists might recognize shared interests, or shared natures. The new materialism serves as a potent reminder that while nature and essentialism are often aggregated in feminist theory, this is not always the case, a point easy to forget from an eco/feminist perspective. Ahmed reminds us not to lose sight of ‘how matter matters in different ways, for different feminisms, over time’ (Ahmed 2008: 36), and would likely not object to the same being said of ‘nature’. Ahmed’s attention to the genealogy of feminist thought is key here, and returns me to Sturgeon. Sturgeon’s genealogical critique of the practice of constructing typologies may remain pertinent – after all, these post-millennial feminist theorists do not necessarily write so much about activism or spirituality, raising the question of what (else) these approaches might have had to forget in order to resist critique and avoid the accusation of essentialism. Paying attention to which biologies and natures are remembered and which are forgotten may be crucial. At the same time, feminist critiques of essentialism and anti-essentialism might begin to offer some alternative tools, including genealogical methodologies attentive to shifting biologies and natures, to eco/ feminists who wish to escape the tri-partite schema of essentialism, anti- essentialism and strategic essentialism, and to think diversity/diverse natures again. All of which suggests that eco/feminism may yet have much (to) promise.Their essentialism argument misreads our criticism- gender is a social construction which is enforced contingently?Sjoberg 09(Laura, Assistant Professor of Political Science with an affiliation with the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Florida. Her research has focused on theoretical and empirical approaches to gender and security, including war theorizing and the study of women’s violence, Security Studies 18.2, JKS)In order to understand feminist work in ir, it is important to note that gender is not the equivalent of membership in biological sex classes. Instead, gender is a system of symbolic meaning that creates social hierarchies based on perceived associations with masculine and feminine characteristics. As Lauren Wilcox explains, “gender symbolism describes the way in which masculine/feminine are assigned to various dichotomies that organize Western thought” where “both men and women tend to place a higher value on the term which is associated with masculinity.”23 Gendered social hierarchy, then, is at once a social construction and a “structural feature of social and political life” that “profoundly shapes our place in, and view of, the world.”24? This is not to say that all people, or even all women, experience gender in the same ways. While genders are lived by people throughout the world, “it would be unrepresentative to characterize a 'gendered experience' as if there were something measurable that all men or all women shared in life experience.”25 Each person lives gender in a different culture, body, language, and identity. Therefore, there is not one gendered experience of global politics, but many. By extension, there is not one gender-based perspective on ir or international security, but many. Still, as a structural feature of social and political life, gender is “a set of discourses that represent, construct, change, and enforce social meaning.”26 Feminism, then, “is neither just about women, nor the addition of women to male-stream constructions; it is about transforming ways of being and knowing” as gendered discourses are understood and transformed.27Accusations of ecofeminism as essentialist have been disproven?Gaard 11 (Greta Gaard?is an ecofeminist writer, scholar, activist, and documentary filmmaker. Her theoretical work extending ecofeminist thought into queer theory, queer ecology, vegetarianism, and animal liberation has been influential within women's studies.) "Ecofeminism Revisited", Academia.edu, , . Accessed on June 26, 2021. || OES MPThe charges against Eco feminists as essentialist, ethnocentric, anti-intellectual goddess-worshippers who mistakenly portray the Earth as female or issue totalizing and ahistorical mandates for worldwide veganism—these sweeping generalizations, often made without specific and supporting documentation, have been disproven again and again in the pages of academic and popular journals, at conferences and in conversations, yet the contamination lingers. Ecofeminism in the 1980s was indeed a broad umbrella for a variety of diversely infected approaches, some of which were rooted in essentialist (cultural) feminisms, just as others grew out of liberal, social, Marx-ist, anarchist, and socialist feminisms (Gaard 1993b, 1998; Merchant 1995; Sturgeon 1997), and in the 1990s, eco feminist theories continued to renew and ground their analyses, developing economic, material, international, and intersectional perspectives. Misrepresenting the part for the whole is a logical fallacy, a straw-woman argument that holds up an “outlier” position and uses it to discredit an entire body of thought. Why would mainstream feminism resist the endings of eco feminism so strongly? What could be at stake? Eighteen months after publishing Josephine Donovan’s “Animal Rights and Feminist Theory” (1990), in June 1992, the leading journal of academic feminism, S, rejected a review essay of eco feminism its managing editors had commissioned just a year earlier. The editors’ reasons for their decision included the following: “eco feminism seems to be concerned with everything in the world . . . [as a result] feminism itself seems almost to get erased in the process” and “when [eco feminism] contains all peoples and all injustices, the one tuning and differentiation lose out.” The review essay summarized the ways eco feminists had noted connections among the oppressions of nature, women, and all those constructed as “ feminine” by examining global economics, third world debt, mal development, industrialized animal food production and food scarcity, reproductive rights, militarism, and environmental racism. To these researched and documented observations, Signs editors replied that “this is really an opinion piece [and] the ties to women are not very clear.” Reluctant to believe that socialist feminists would so blithely reject a feminist approach to environmental problems, the essay’s authors attributed these reactions to a possible personality conflict and resubmitted the article to another feminist journal—with the same results.Alt SolvesSolves EnvironmentOnly an ecofeminist perspective can solve for overconsumption and environmental destructionValera 2017 (Luca, Director of the Center for Bioethics, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Fran?oise d’Eaubonne and ecofeminism: rediscovering the link between women and nature: Beyond Dualism in Gender, Body, and Environment, chapter 1 of Women and Nature? Beyond Dualism in Gender, Body, and Environment, 2017.) FWD’Eaubonne, the subjugation of Nature and Women, and the ‘practical’ needs that support ecofeminismIn the discussion of the most relevant issues concerning ecofeminism, we have gone well beyond Franc?oise d’Eaubonne’s philosophical speculation: the main objective of the French activist was, however, to highlight the responsibility of men in the subjection of Women and Nature:Practically, the whole world now knows that the two most urgent threats of death are overpopulation and overconsumption; instead, we are a little less aware of the entire Male System’s responsibility—precisely because it is male (and not capitalist or socialist)—in these two dangers, but yet very few have discovered that both threats are the logical culmination of one of the two parallel discoveries that gave power to men in the last centuries: their ability to inseminate the Earth like Women, and their contribution in the act of reproduction. Until then, only Women had the monopoly of agriculture and the male believed that the Earth was fertilized by the Gods. At the same time, from the moment he discovered the farming and reproductive possibilities, the “great revolution” occurred for the benefit of Men, as described by Lederer. Once the Earth was taken hostage, and the same happened for fertility (and, therefore, for industry), and for the womb of the woman (and, therefore, for fecundity), it was logical that the exploitation of both would lead to this analogous double danger: overpopulation, i.e., an excess of births, and the destruction of the environment, i.e., overconsumption.(d’Eaubonne 1974, 220–221)The main reasons that support the emergence of ecofeminism are, therefore, historical reasons, and makes sense only within a practical horizon—as shown by Karen Green:feminism and ecology are then linked, not logically or conceptually, but practically, for, when women are not forced to reproduce in order to eat, and when they are given the opportunity to fashion the world that their children will inherit along rational principles, we will be well on the way toward solving the demographic aspects of the environmental crisis.(1994, 133)Thus, ecofeminism has a historical and a practical justification (just as its meaning and raison d’e?tre9 are mainly practical): this appears to be a satisfactory thesis, at least from an analysis of d’Eaubonne’s writings. The main practical reason of ecofeminism is the following: it is necessary to eradicate all forms of patriarchy, in order to free both Women and Nature from slavery.10On the historical level, however, the establishment of patriarchy coincided with the rise of capital—as a fundamental value of society: “Capital is but the last stage of patriarchy, just like profit is but the last mask of power” (d’Eaubonne 1999, 180).11 Thus, the patriarchal system is based on the logic of the appropriation of the capital in the forms in which it becomes available: with regard to Women, this results in the appropriation of the reproduction and fertility; and, with regard to Nature, it is expressed in the possible and indefinite consumption of resources. In this sense, the “suppression of patriarchy is not only women’s liberation, but hope of salvation for the whole species” (d’Eaubonne 2000, 176). The roots of such thinking can be found, as noted earlier:in spite of the fecund powers that pervade her, man remains woman’s master as he is the master of the fertile earth; she is fated to be subjected, owned, exploited like the Nature whose magical fertility she embodies. The prestige she enjoys in men’s eyes is bestowed by them; they kneel before the Other, they worship the Goddess Mother.(de Beauvoir 1956, 98)Solves ClimateEmbracing ecofeminist insights solves climate change and environmental degradation Bove, 21 (Tristan, International Studies and Chinese graduate of DePaul University. “Ecofeminism: Where Gender and Climate Change Intersect,” , 2021) Elevating women ranks among the most substantive measures governments can take to mitigate the climate crisis. Educating and empowering women can have a quantifiable effect on reducing a country’s emissions, and actively involving women in discussions on climate policy often leads to more sustainable development action. Ecofeminism has been employed in scholarly circles as a theoretical lens through which to understand the ways gender inequality intersects with humanity’s relationship with the environment. While short-lived, ecofeminism has informed the modern environmental justice movement, and may hold the key to recognising how elevating women can help achieve equitable sustainability as well as reduce emissions.Ecofeminism first emerged in North American and European academic circles in the 1970s as an offshoot of the feminist movement, and specifically linked the subjugation of women to humanity’s oppressive relationship with nature. It was employed as a theoretical framework to better understand how hierarchical and dualist definitions of gender could explain humanity’s dominating role in its relationship with the environment.Beginning in the 1980s, ecofeminism began to inform feminist and environmental activist and artistic movements. Heroes of the ecofeminist movement included several major intellectual and political figures. Fran?oise d’Eaubonne, a French author considered a leader in her country’s feminist movement, coined the name “ecofeminism” in 1974. Petra Kelly, a proclaimed ecofeminist, was a German politician who co-founded the German Green Party, the first political party with a predominately environmental platform to achieve national prominence. By the end of the 1990s, ecofeminism began to come under fire from critics, who dismissed the framework as essentialist, in that it could not fully address either feminist or environmentalist concerns. Ecofeminism’s exclusive focus on the relationship between gender and nature left no room for considerations of other crucial factors, such as race or class. Janet Biehl, an American social ecologist, notably criticised the ecofeminist framework as an oversimplification of complex hierarchical structures and forms of domination.Today, the relevance and use value of ecofeminism has largely faded from activist and intellectual circles. However, the concepts behind the framework can still be applied to understand why elevating women can intersect with achieving equitable sustainability targets, and have such a measurable effect on mitigating environmental impacts.EcofeminismEcofeminism seeks to reexamine both the feminist and environmentalist movements and augment each of their arguments. The framework examines how gender and nature intersect, specifically how binary definitions falsely categorise opposing groups, assigning disproportionate value to one grouping and encouraging hierarchical thinking.Binary definitions are used to easily distinguish between what is dissimilar. Within the context of gender, binaries are used to distinguish between male and female. When examining humanity’s relationship with nature, a similar binary exists wherein man-made creations are considered entirely separate from nature.Binary definitions give rise to oppositional dualism, where one side is not only described as different from the other, but as its complete opposite, such as opposite genders. Ecofeminism claims that a similar oppositional dualism exists in conventional definitions of humanity’s relationship with nature. When humans look to develop further, natural environments are seen either as obstacles to be overcome or resources to be exploited. Within this framework, human development is seen as opposite to the preservation of nature. Urbanisation, for instance, necessitates environmental loss. Oppositional dualism is complemented by the creation of hierarchical structures where cultures assign more value and power to one side of the binary. Ecofeminism sees hierarchies exhibited in gender relations through patriarchal social structures, and in relations with nature through an anthropocentric view that humanity is more valuable than nature and all other living beings. An ecofeminist framework cites hierarchical thinking and oppositional definitions as reasonings behind the subjugation of both women and nature. These constructs can often justify masculinised acts of violence and domination towards women, animals and the natural world. These acts are often expressed through masculine cultural norms, such as hunting, domesticity and exploitation. While ecofeminism can function on a theoretical level, it has proven difficult to apply empirically. One of the main criticisms levied against ecofeminism is that, by only considering the connection between women and nature, it fails to account for the differences between individual women that can only be understood through more comprehensive frameworks analysing race or class.Other schools of ecofeminism have developed over the years that expand its scope beyond gender. Vandana Shiva, an Indian environmentalist and author, developed a framework of ecofeminism that incorporates a postcolonial analysis, describing race-based and imperialist acts of domination as developments of historical oppositional dualisms. Shiva also describes women as ‘safeguards’ of natural resources, a role that leaves women especially vulnerable to natural disasters and environmental degradation perpetuated through capitalist markets.Ecofeminism began to fall out of favour during the 1990s, around the time environmental justice emerged as a framework employed by both scholars and activists alike. Environmental justice refers to the fair treatment of all people, regardless of identity, in the development and implementation of environmental laws. Environmental justice seeks to ensure equitable treatment of all people with regards to environmental impacts.Environmental justice often addresses environmental issues of direct relevance to society, such as pollution and food security. The non-discriminatory nature of environmental justice and the relatability of its goals allowed it to become widely adopted in activist circles. Given ecofeminism’s limits as a theoretical framework, it was unable to permeate activist and general audience barriers to the same extent. Despite its present use in some academic circles, ecofeminism has largely fallen out of favour, superseded by the environmental justice movement.The environmental justice movement’s non-discriminatory nature means that gender is rarely specifically addressed as a key to understanding the climate crisis and how to solve it. This is in spite of the fact that empowering women is a substantive if not critical factor to reducing emissions and ensuring a more sustainable future. Highlighting gender inequalities and improving women’s access to healthcare, education and support resources has a measurable impact on reducing emissions and minimising environmental degradation. Studies also show that elevating women in legislative fields yields better outcomes in environmental policymaking, as well as more coherent efforts in international environmental cooperation. Despite its limitations, ecofeminism may provide a framework that addresses not only gender inequality, but also indicates what social stigmas need to be removed for nations to pursue more robust and impactful environmental action.Elevating WomenIntersections between the environment and social issues are ubiquitous, although often overlooked. Resolving issues in one area can have a cascading effect on improving conditions in the other. For instance, decades of racist housing policies in Richmond VA, USA, limited investments towards improving living standards in neighbourhoods that were primarily home to communities of colour. Today, these neighbourhoods can be up to 8°C warmer than predominantly white neighbourhoods during summer, severely affecting health standards, especially for children. Understanding the structural reasons behind these inequities can shed light on how these issues can be resolved. For instance, more investments into creating urban green spaces and more expansive tree cover would improve environmental quality and health standards in these neighbourhoods, while also addressing inequities rooted in racist attitudes of governance. Failure to recognise the intersections between climate change and social issues damages the prospects of finding solutions to either. In the case of gender equality, elevating women through social initiatives, specifically improved access to healthcare and education, has a direct impact on reducing emissions by reducing a country’s total fertility rate. Currently, the world’s population is estimated to be around 7.8 billion. By 2050, the UN estimates that this will balloon to between 9.4 and 10.1 billion. Climate change solutions are tied to population; when a population increases, more food and energy need to be produced. Additionally, as populations in developing countries grow, so does their economic capacity, as more and more people are able to escape poverty and accumulate wealth. Population growth accompanying economic expansion in developing countries is neither unnatural nor undesirable, although it will inevitably lead to higher individual carbon footprints and rises in nations’ overall emissions. To mitigate the environmental impact of population growth, states can pursue social initiatives that promise equal access to healthcare and education opportunities regardless of gender.Where women spend more years in school, total fertility rates tend to fall. Studies worldwide show that improving access to education grants women more varied career options, the choice to delay marriage and ultimately have fewer, healthier children.You might also like: How Some International Treaties Threaten Our Ability to Meet Climate Targets ecofeminismFig. 1: Relationship between female education and fertility rates in Ethiopia, Kenya and Ghana; World Bank; 2015.Cultural, economic and health factors currently impede far too many women, particularly young girls, from attending school. The UN estimates that women make up more than two thirds of the world’s illiterate population, and that only 39% of girls in rural areas attend secondary education, compared to 45% of rural boys.From a social perspective, improving literacy rates for women yields important benefits. Upward mobility and increased job opportunities can give women more agency to decide what to do in their lives, and are less likely to be forced into marriage or marry as children. Additionally, as literacy rates among women rise, income level, nutrition and child survival rates tend to rise as well. Policies that can achieve these outcomes include making schools more affordable, granting girls easier access to healthcare and contraceptives, reducing the time and effort for youth to get to school and making schools safer spaces for young girls overall. Social initiatives that allow young girls better access to healthcare and education can empower and elevate women to make their own career and life decisions. This can have cascading positive effects on the environment by reducing total fertility rates over time. It is important that any social initiative addressing fertility rates or the roles of women not act as a form of forceful population control, such as a one-child policy, which can entail unintended and severe social consequences.In addition to curbing population growth, improving women’s access to education can have a strong impact on sustainable resource management in economies reliant on agriculture. In many countries, women are responsible for the management of natural resources, including water, fuel sources and food. A 2015 study of communities in the Western Himalayas showed that women tend to be responsible for the conservation and management of critical natural capital, including forests, wetlands, wildlife and agricultural fields to supply basic needs for their families.Another important factor to consider is that cultural barriers in many parts of the world currently impede women from owning their own land and securing loans or insurance policies. Globally, only 13.8% of agricultural landholders are women, despite the fact that 38.7% of employed women work in agriculture, forestry and fisheries. ecofeminismFig. 2: Percentage of agricultural land controlled or owned by women by country; FAO Gender and Land Rights Database, sourced by BBC; 2017.These obstacles, combined with women’s roles as land managers and lack of access to education, make the effects of climate change, resource loss and agricultural failure significantly more palpable and dangerous for women than for men. In situations of poverty and resource scarcity, women tend to bear greater burdens than their male counterparts. A 2020 study demonstrates how traditional gender roles intensify and gender-based violence increases when climate change depletes natural resources and ecological services.These inequities create what is called the agricultural gender gap. Because of cultural restrictions and economic limitations, women tend to produce less from the same amount of land as men and are forced into a low productivity trap. This leads to unnecessary demand for further land development and deforestation. Worldwide, if women farmers had the same economic and legal rights as men, global crop yields could increase by up to 30%, making agricultural production more efficient and limiting further environmental loss. In addition, closing the agricultural gender gap could save up to 150 million people worldwide from hunger. The agricultural gender gap serves as an example of how social initiatives can yield positive environmental outcomes. Ensuring better access to quality education and healthcare, and therefore elevating women to become more active decision-makers in their communities, can be a uniquely effective force in economic growth and development. Women & Environmental PolicymakingIt is critical for legislators to understand how social issues are linked to environmental impacts. Climate change does not affect people equitably, and policymakers need to understand how to account for these inequities with climate legislation that spurs fair socio-economic growth while tackling the climate crisis.As in many political and decision-making spheres, women are alarmingly underrepresented in global environmental policymaking. Women hold only 12% of top national ministerial positions in environmental sectors worldwide. Combined with a lack of decision-making responsibilities granted to women in local communities, the voice of environmental policymaking has always been disproportionately male.Elevating and empowering women should not stop at ensuring access to education and healthcare. Women should have their voices heard at all levels, and actively participate in environmental policymaking. Permitting women to do so tends to lead to more effective environmental policy outcomes.Women have often been found to be more invested in social issues, including education, healthcare and environmental impacts. Research also indicates that women who hold an elected office tend to prioritise resolving tangible issues that directly affect other women, families and children. Given that women and children are disproportionately affected by climate change, women in politics have shown themselves to be more aware of environmental impacts, and integrate relevant solutions into their policy agendas.Women in decision-making roles have also shown more proclivity towards protecting natural resources. A 2015 policy brief catalogued women’s participation in local and national environmental policymaking in El Salvador, Chile and Vietnam. The report found that women are often in better positions to apply local knowledge to climate responses, and tend to prioritise preserving natural resources. In addition to a predisposition towards strong domestic climate action, women decision-makers have also proven to be better negotiators and more likely to cooperate in international environmental pacts. A 2005 study found that, controlling for other factors, countries with a higher proportion of women in government were more likely to ratify international environmental treaties than other nations. The study also found that women in politics were significantly less likely to impose environmental and health risks on others.There are a growing number of studies and reports worldwide that indicate how women tend to prioritise environmental protection and strong climate action. A 2014 Australian study found that women tend to consider environmentalism a stronger part of their personal identity than men. A study of US homeowners affirmed that women are often more conscious about the environmental footprint of the products they consume. A review of research done between 1988 and 1998 concluded that women have stronger environmental attitudes and behaviours than men, regardless of age or country of origin.An upcoming study, to be published in February 2021, analysed the demographics of current environmental activists by surveying 367 respondents across 66 countries. The study concluded that the newest generation of climate activists skews female. Of the study’s respondents who were over 65, only one quarter were women. Of respondents under 25, two thirds were female. This trend reflects a demographic shift of climate activism. The newest generation of climate activists tends to be young, female and highly educated. Developed and developing countries alike need to harness these trends and elevate today’s female youth to become political leaders in the climate movement.ecofeminismFig.3: Age and gender demographics of climate activists across 66 countries worldwide; Boucher et al; Energy Research and Social Science; 2021.Revisiting EcofeminismThe ecofeminist movement attempted to define how binary definitions and hierarchical structures define gender relations and humanity’s relationship with the environment. Perhaps the theory was too far ahead of its time, as the disproportionate impacts of climate change on women could not yet be visualised.Women are 14 times more likely to die from a climate-related disaster than men, and suffer disproportionately from resource depletion and consequential poverty. These impacts are caused by traditional gender roles that limit opportunities for women. A lack of access to education and healthcare services further exacerbate the issue.While modern approaches such as environmental justice are able to broadly define how climate change affects different people in different ways, the relationship between the environment and gender can shed light on very substantive solutions to both issues, and should be addressed specifically by policymakers. Understanding the connection between the environment and gender is not only important because of the disproportionately gendered impact of climate change, but also because of the potential environmental solutions that can emerge by elevating women.In addition to education, states must provide women with the resources needed to finance their own ambitions and pursuits. Microfinancing, a type of financial or crediting service that directly targets individuals and small firms that are otherwise unable to access conventional banking services, has proven particularly successful in elevating women in rural areas. Microfinancing can be provided by local communities, governments, NGOs or specialised microfinance institutions.By empowering women and granting them equitable access to critical services, countries can improve their economies, improve the efficiency of their economic and material output and markedly reduce their emissions. Elevating women to actively participate in environmental policymaking at all levels also allows for a more determined and proportionate political voice.A framework such as ecofeminism can help acknowledge how social issues and the environment are intertwined, and how solutions in one area can influence positive outcomes in the other. Where social inequalities and climate change intersect is often where the most impactful resolutions and policy measures can be found. Recognising where these intersections lie and how to meet them is critical to ensuring equitable sustainability and understanding humanity’s relationship with the environment.Solves NukesEcofeminist protest shuts down nukesZitouni’14(Benedikte Zitouni, “Planetary destruction, ecofeminists, and transformative politics in the early 1980s”, November 2014, Interface, retrieved from: , JH)There’s a good chance that Noa felt calm because she was at the camp, actually doing something about the nuclear problem. In more general terms, women’s camps undid the nuclear twists of mind. The camps loosened fear’s grip. They broke the apocalyptic spell. This is one of the big achievements of the ecofeminist protests of the early eighties: women got out of the end-of-time paralysis; they stopped running against time and started working at change for the long run. How did they do this? How did they break the spell? It’s hard to tell, as collective causality meanders, but the rituals definitely played a major role. Indeed, at the camps, all kinds of rituals were set up, all meant to raise constructive womanly powers against the powers of planetary destruction. This was no easy feat. Rituals are demanding. They require a consecrated place, a cosmology and a community of their own, if not authentic ones, at least effective ones. Only when those requisites were met, could the rituals truly take hold and the spell be broken. The requisites’ value was well understood by the Seneca women. In the summer of 1983, following Greenham Common, they opened the camp with these words: “We pledge allegiance to the earth, And to the life which she provides, One planet interconnected, With beauty and peace for all.” (Cataldo & co. 1987, 21). They then reclaimed the land around the nuclear arms depot by planting rose bushes and by decorating the fence with tokens of life’s beauty. Last, they declared their connection to the Iroquois women who in 1590 had assembled in Seneca Falls in order to stop warfare, and to the women of the Declaration of Sentiments who in 1848 had gathered there to demand equal rights and the end of slavery. The camp’s song said no different: “We are the old wimmyn, We are the new wimmyn, We are the same wimmyn, Stronger than before.”(Linton 1989, 242) As one participant and former organizer of Amherst recalled: the camp was, from the start, embedded in “Herstory” (Paley 1998[1983], 149). The same was true for other camps. At Greenham Common, women took much time and effort to construct collective pasts (Roseneil 2000, 13-37). The suffragettes were often called upon. Woolf’s Three Guineas - a 1938 feminist essay on women facing the upcoming World War II - allowed for further connections between the young and the old. Many campers also read feminist historical accounts such as Daly’s Gyn/ecology or Eihrenreich and English’s Witches, Midwives and Nurses. Through this, they connected to the Diggers of the 17th Century - agrarian communists before their time - and to the prosecuted witches of Early Modern Europe. This, in turn, led them to take interest in pagan earth-based religions. And let’s not forget that the Greenham women had socialist and Marxist roots too; that they explicitly linked their struggle to the civil rights movement, the gay movement and the women’s liberation front, amongst others. Their genealogies were plural. Women’s camps were multi-facetted. And this was not considered a flaw. In making pledges, consecrating spaces and telling stories, women didn’t aim at taking a univocal stance but they aimed at sustaining the camps. They opened up another civilizational time-frame, away from the planetary apocalypse and into herstory or history-making. As one put it: “We cannot alter the course of the world if we are paralyzed by fear.” (Julia Park in Coll. 1985, 112) In such a civilizational time-frame, all kinds of rituals could then be held. Pagan and seasonal celebrations, witches’ and dead’s commemorations, women blockades and lesbian rallies, spiral dances and chain-making, Halloween and 4th of July parties, night-watches and anger rites, ... all fitted in, and all raised womanly powers. As a camper said about the Puget women stomping their feet and dancing circles until one of Reagan’s Seattle meetings was over: “The energy we raise is phenomenal” (Cynthia Nelson in Coll. 1985, 79; see also GTU St 14-31) Many rituals could be described that way. But two stand out. Two raised powers so phenomenal that they gained world-wide acclaim. Both happened at Greenham Common during the winter of 1982-’83. One is known as “Embrace the Base”; the other as “Silo Dance”. On December 12th 1982, 30.000 women encircled the base’s nine miles’ perimeter. They decorated the fence with belongings of the living, of children and grandchildren, and, at set times, while holding hands, sang songs which they had learned by heart. “It felt like a reclamation of life.” (Liz Knight in Cook & Kirk 1983, 86) Another woman recalled how the ritual went beyond the given: I’ll never forget that feeling; it’ll live with me for ever. The lovely feeling of pinning the things on; and the feeling, as we walked around, and we clasped hands. It was even better than holding your baby for the first time, after giving Interface: a journal for and about social movements Article Volume 6 (2): 244 - 270 (November 2014) Zitouni, Planetary destruction 258 birth - and that is one of the loveliest feelings you can ever have. When your babe’s put in your arms and you give it a cuddle. Because that is a self-thing - selfish thing really, between you and your husband, isn’t it? The baby. Whereas Greenham - it was for women; it was for peace; it was for the world; it was for Britain; it was for us; it was for more. (Mary Brewer in Liddington 1989, 244). Embrace the Base 1982. Postcard with printing: "USAF Greenham Common, 12 December 1982. Photo (c) John Sturrock/ Network. ACME Cards”. Source: Glamorgan Archives, Cardiff. Women for life on earth records, 1981-2002, Correspondence, draft articles, and news-cuttings relating to activities at Greenham Common peace camp 1982-1984. DWLE/6/10. With permission from John Sturrock. Three weeks later, on New Year’s Eve, at midnight, forty-four women climbed onto a missiles-sheltering silo. They danced for more than an hour. Police was slow to react and the secretly invited press had plenty of time to take pictures. Those pictures went around the world. People were impressed. Women had dared to challenge the military power in what seemed an almost suicidal act at the time. One recalled: “In my mind I saw [the silos] as revolting man-made boils on the earth’s surface, full of evil. I wanted to let out the feelings I have about the threat of nuclear war - the fear and the dread. And I wanted to concentrate on the future, to feel optimistic and get strength and hope that we can stop it. I kept thinking about celebrating life. What actually happened was that I did just that. When we got on the silos, even though we were so excited, I stood quietly for a few minutes, with my eyes closed, and let it all drain out of me. After that I just kept thinking about being alive!”(Juliet Nelson in Cook & Kirk 1983, 54-55) Greenham women and other campers made history. Thatcher cursed them many times over. Gorbachev hailed their influence. They strained international relations when some of them even visited the USSR. They had succeeded in being a nuisance. In the UK, after the Newbury base was dismantled, land was returned to the commons - a rare victory indeed. In the US, the anti-nuclear protests - of which some were ecofeminist - that followed the Three Miles Island meltdown led the country to stop building domestic nuclear plants for many years. In retrospect, it seems that these victories are based on the understanding that extraordinary times call for extraordinary means, rituals included, and that the end of time has to be replaced by the long run. As one ecofeminist stated: “We need no new [post-apocalyptic] heaven and Earth. We have this Earth, this sky, this water, to renew.” (Keller 1990, 263) To sum up: the ecofeminist protests of the early eighties were places of tales and rituals where women gained a sense of power, where they knew that they could and would make a difference.Solves WaterCommunity based approaches of bringing women into water management key to address “development” issues and practice an alternate epistemologyPerkins and Walker 15 – Patricia E. Perkins and Patricia Figueirdo Walker, “International partnerships of women for sustainable watershed governance in times of climate change,” A Political Ecology of Women, Water, and Global Environmental Change (Edited by Stephanie Buechler – Assistant Research Professor of Environmental Policy at the University of Arizona - and Anne-Marie Hanson – Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Illinois Springfield), 3/1/2015, /niki.aBoth the Sister Watersheds project and the CCAA project, as well as the Green Change Project, explored practical methods of increasing women’s “voice” in water management processes. Table 7.1 lists and summarizes some of the ways to do this. It has been our experience that these sorts of workshops, training programs, exercises, and strategies are adaptable and can be appropriate in a wide range of circumstances in both the Global South and the Global North. Table 7.1 Participatory and inclusive processes Ways of bringing women into water management, starting at the community level Community mapping: residents collectively draw maps of important water features in the neighborhood and how extreme weather affects them; then discuss. Photo-voice: community members photograph local scenes significant to them, in relation to climate change effects, and discuss/share with government officials. Water dialogues: local residents discuss specific water issues with government officials, in forums facilitated by civil society organizations. Water walks/storytelling parades: using waterways as a focus, local residents and visitors tour stream beds and floodplains, stopping for special presentations on local history, wildlife, food production, music, community assets, etc. Collective storytelling workshops: community groups use selected “props” to spark creativity as they compose a joint story about the local watershed, sharing personal memories and expertise. Community-based water monitoring: community groups work with government authorities to monitor pollution, biostatus, and flooding/drought in local waterways. Water conflict mediation training: special CSO-run training programs address water conflicts (e.g. over standpipe access, fugitive emissions of pollutants, riparian rights, etc.) through skills training and information on how to access government supports. Water harvesting: CSOs work with household members to develop ways of retaining rainfall from roofs and yards for home and garden use, and spread related practices. Community gardening: CSOs locate space and train and organize community members to plant and water gardens for collective food production. Leadership training: CSOs work with government and watershed committee officials to develop inclusivity training and confidence-building workshops for women, to welcome and facilitate their participation in water governance institutions. As noted above, these types of grassroots water and climate change programming and organizing address long-standing, difficult gender inequities which have proven intractable despite decades of work, but which are nonetheless increasingly important in times of climate change. By creating spaces within local communities where women can share their knowledge of local water and climate conditions, develop confidence and respect for each other’s abilities, and work together to devise and implement solutions, this sort of watershed-based organizing addresses gendered social inequities by making and calling for fundamental changes in governance. In feminist political ecology terms, this allows women to make use of their gendered environmental knowledge to work to advance their rights and responsibilities through networked grassroots political activism. Engaging women and applying their expertise is fundamentally important for long-term climate change adaptation, particularly during environmental crises. Women’s knowledge of local ecological and water conditions must be shared and utilized in local, national, and international decision-making processes—for reasons of both justice and efficiency. Democratic mediation of equity conflicts related to water, and sustainable long-term management of water resources, are only possible through civil society’s participation in water governance. Moreover, because climate change mainly manifests itself through storms, floods, and droughts, climate change adaptation starts within watersheds and engages various scales of ecological and social interaction. Community-based, “people-centered” approaches to climate change are crucial for adaptation strategies that address social and gender inequalities and allow women to serve as active agents of change in their communities. As Toulmin has argued: Past history shows that the poor and vulnerable do not get a fair share of resources unless they can mobilize effectively and there is parallel pressure on the powerful to make decisions in favor of the many, not the few. . . . This means making sure that the voices of ordinary (people)—women, men, young, old, farmers and slum dwellers—are heard loud and clear as the policies and institutions for addressing the most challenging of global problems are developed. Although community-based interventions offer unique opportunities for community involvement in climate change adaptation decision-making processes, and have the power to enhance the adaptive capacity of individuals, households, and communities, this approach is not perfect. Community projects tend to have short timescales, small budgets, and limited scope—i.e. they address some locally relevant climate change impacts, but not necessarily other contextual development challenges (Ludi et al. 2014). Thus, the projects mentioned in this chapter faced some important limitations. The CCAA project, for example, ran for only three years, which is simply insufficient considering the time required to identify vulnerable communities, liaise with community leaders and elders, introduce the project to the community, identify one or more direct impacts of climate change through participatory community workshops, and begin implementing the project. Similarly, the project focused on a handful of direct climate change impacts—e.g. water scarcity, floods—but not on other drivers of vulnerability, such as poverty. More specifically, the project did not provide assets to community members or directly help to improve their livelihoods; instead, the project focused on raising awareness of climate change, educating community members on the climate change impacts facing their communities, improving community access to information, and facilitating women’s interaction with other stakeholders, including government and private actors. The six-year Sister Watersheds project similarly focused on environmental education, confidence-building for political engagement, and local green community development. Whether these project activities were sufficient to substantially improve local people’s capacity to adapt to or affect long-term changes (climatic or otherwise) is uncertain, and probably untestable. However, by strengthening local civil society organizations and reinforcing their water and climate justice related initiatives, these projects may have laid the groundwork for ongoing socio-political activism related to both climate change and deeper “development” issues. Cross-cultural collaboration is another area of challenge and growth for projects such as ours, and for all who intend to address climate justice. Since our work has involved communication and collaboration across various kinds of difference—race, class, gender, the academic-grassroots divide, language, ethnicity, nationality—we have been aware of the need for sensitivity and attention to these differences throughout, and we have tried to create both formal and informal spaces for discussion and interpersonal sharing as a way of building trust and confidence in each other to facilitate our work together. For example, at the CCAA project’s first meeting where most of the CSO and academic partners were meeting each other for the first time, we obtained special funding which allowed the African partners to visit Brazil together, make “field visits” to see successful public engagement and green community development initiatives there, and spend informal time together as well as more formal meetings where we discussed our joint goals for our project. We scheduled a session on gender at this first meeting, in order to share our understandings of gender and its importance in our project. Both the CCAA and Sister Watersheds projects involved student internships with CSOs, international student exchanges with CSOs in other countries, language instruction for exchange students, faculty field supervision of students’ off-campus work, joint writing projects for students and junior faculty team members, and technical support visits to share organizing ideas from the Global South in other countries including Canada—all methods for bridging various kinds of difference and building team members’ experience with how to do so. Our project started from the premise that local CSOs are already doing great work, so we should support them with funding and by building local and global university connections; by doing this we avoided many cross-cultural mistakes, because local organizations were in the lead. The biggest cross-cultural challenge in any “development” project relates to money. As long as the budget comes from an international organization with its own objectives, conditionalities, and reporting requirements, and as long as the budget is administered through a university with its special bureaucracies and regulations, projects have a constant struggle to maintain good will, solidarity, and a semblance of participatory process. Over the course of our work, we encountered a number of frustrations related to funding delays and rules, which highlighted the importance of good language skills on the part of key project participants (the coordinator and staff responsible for finance and reporting in each partner organization), full transparency on all requirements and budget changes, and good groundwork to establish trust and a common sense of project goals and shared responsibilities. It is easier to bear these day-to-day hassles when all collaborators share the privileges and challenges of working together on a global problem like climate justice. Existing development challenges—such as poverty, gender, and structural inequalities—and inadequate infrastructure aggravate the climate vulnerability of the poor, and of many women in particular. This chapter has summarized some ways that women are working together on climate education and water governance, helping to inspire and generate related strategies in other places which address both climate-related and underlying structural inequities. These stories demonstrate the essence of feminist political ecology—what Ariel Salleh calls an “embodied materialist understanding (which) is indispensable to the trans-discipline of political ecology . . . the vital citizenship politics of ecological feminism” (2009, 6). Women start in their local communities, build on their gendered local knowledge, share skills and experiences, respect leaders as they emerge, work to build political rights for women through grassroots activism, and communicate with others elsewhere who are facing related and similar challenges to build movements at ever-larger scales within watersheds and other ecological and social structures. As Salleh notes: an ecological feminist perspective emerges from praxis – action learning. . . . The global majority of women – being mothers and care givers – are culturally positioned as labour right at the point where humanity and nature interact. . . . It is certainly no exaggeration to say that the entire machinery of global capital rests on the material transactions of this reproductive labour force. . . . [T]hese agents of complexity are practicing both an alternative economics and an alternative epistemology. . . . The bearers of ecological and embodied debt are thus not simply victims of capitalist patriarchal institutions, they are leaders, and their people’s science is one for the global North to emulate. (2009, 7–8) Especially in times of climate change, this pattern of global organizing and leadership is urgent and compelling. Solves DamsEcofeminist ethics of environmental justice solve the aff – combination of ecological democracies, economies, and spiritualities that recognize the interdependence and value of all life by engaging in “power with” rather than “power over” stops destructive dammingGaard 01 (Greta Gaard – ecofeminist writer and scholar, Professor of English at University of Wisconsin-River Falls, founding coordinator of the Sustainability Faculty Fellows, MA Claremont Graduate School. “Women, Water, Energy: An Ecofeminist Approach.” Organization & Environment, June 2001 Vol. 14, No. 2, pp 157-172. ) sfThese examples of environmental sexism, environmental racism, and environmental classism reveal something about Western culture's attitude toward nature. They reveal how as inhabitants of Western culture we are conditioned to think about water and how we are conditioned to think about power. And our conception of power and energy, as well as our relationship to water, is based on a linear model that is now showing itself to be not only inaccurate, but life threatening. This linear model is based on the assumption that energy can be continuously extracted from nature-from water, from poor people, from people of color, from women-without giving back anything of sustenance. In the linear model of power production, energy is extracted, distributed, consumed, and in the process, wastes are produced: noise, electromagnetic radiation, flooding, pollution. In nature's energy model, production and consumption form a continuous flow; there is no waste (Mies & Shiva, 1993).A fundamental insight of feminism has been its understanding of power and power relationships. From a feminist perspective, power in itself is a neutral entity that can be used in different ways. Domination of others-whether in the form of rape, slavery, animal experimentation, colonialism, clear-cutting, or damming-- has been called "power over" and is part of the violent and oppressive framework that feminists reject. In contrast, teaching or supporting others in using their own inner strength, deriving strength from their relationships, or working in coalition with other groups for the good of life on this earth has been called empowerment, or "power with." It is this peaceful use of power that feminists advocate; its implications for social justice, for environmental justice, and for sustainable energy production can be denied only at the risk of human and ecological health.Many scientists, environmentalists, and politicians alike are now predicting that the wars of the 21 st century will be over water. By the year 2025, it is predicted, one out of three people will live in countries that are short of water (Postel, 1997). Worldwide, about 80% of water use goes for agriculture, and demand is increasing ("Study: Water Crisis Looms," 1998). In view of these facts, it is clear that we must make changes in our lifestyles and consumption habits. Although we rarely think about water when we see an automobile, we need to realize that producing a typical U.S. car requires more than 50 times its weight in water; a kilogram of hamburger or steak produced by a typical California beef cattle operation uses about 20,500 liters of water (Postel, 1997, p. 190). As long as the purchase price of material goods fails to account for the social and environmental costs, shifting our purchases away from such water-intensive products will be an important strategy for achieving water sustainability. But the purchasing choices of individual consumers (green consumerism) pale in comparison to the institutional choices made by industry and government. We need to change the socioeconomic infrastructure that mediates Western culture's relationship with water, and to do this we need three types of change to occur simultaneously-changes in the practice of democracy and in the areas of economic accounting and cultural beliefs.As the experiences of citizens from Cross Lake, Manitoba, to Wausau, Wisconsin, and Sumas, Washington, make clear, government is being heavily influenced by corporations and is not responding to citizen input. Voting more regularly or lobbying our elected officials does not seem to be influencing the political system when this system is too closely tied to corporate economics. To restore the genuine practice of democracy, corporations need to be brought under the control of the government, and the government must be brought back to serving the people for whom it stands. Shifting our cultural views from anthropocentrism to an interconnected worldview that includes "all our relations" (LaDuke, 1999), we need a political system that recognizes the citizenship of mountains and lakes as well as the citizenship of humans of all races; we need an ecological democracy (Gaard, 1998; Plumwood, 1995; Sandilands, 1995).Second, the life-sustaining value of pure water needs to be reflected through a form of economic accounting, that is, accounting that counts both the environmental costs of overconsumption and pollution as well as the value of free-flowing rivers and pure, widely available drinking water. As the indigenous people of North America have advised, we need to account for both the material as well as the spiritual and psychological value of environmental health for all residents of the land. To safeguard against situations that allow corporations to place undue pressure on poor communities, urging them to accept polluting industries and toxic wastes, we need an economic system that pays a living wage to every worker, one that does not require workers to risk their health for their jobs, one that values the work that women do, and one that respects the value of indigenous peoples and indigenous homelands. We need an ecological economics (Gaard, 1998; Mellor, 1997; Plumwood, 1995; Waring, 1988).At the same time that we reclaim our democracy and adjust our economic accounting, we need to transform our inherited cultural beliefs, for a democracy is capable only of representing the beliefs of the people who participate in it. Democracies are not inherently ecological, feminist, or antiracist unless the people within them make them so. Currently, the democracies of North America do not give full citizenship to people of nondominant races and genders, and this exclusion is antidemocratic; moreover, they rely on a separation between the public citizen and the private individual, thereby separating the functions of production and consumption. To remedy these errors, we need to "close the loop," in effect, to restore the connections between public and private, between culture and nature, between reason and the erotic, between energy and emotion, between the mind and the body; we need to recognize and nourish the interdependence of White and non-White citizens and people of all genders. We need a partnership culture, one that acknowledges our human identities as fundamentally interdependent with human and nonhuman others.Ecological spirituality is part of this cultural shift and is needed as well. One spiritual path known for its ecological commitments, Buddhism suggests that the impediments to our spiritual unfolding are the same as our problems with social and environmental injustice and can be traced to three root forces-greed, hatred, and delusion (Payutto, 2000). These forces are also at the root of Western culture's troubled relationship with water. Greed is at the root of this culture's failure to account for the environmental costs of water pollution; rather, we profit by polluting. Hatred contaminates our relationship with nature, with racialized others, with our bodies as nature. Delusion, or wrong view, comes into play when we think we can treat water any way we want and get away with it, that this earth is not a closed system, and that the consequences of our polluting behaviors will not come back to us. Today, we can no longer flush and forget. An ecological spirituality recognizes the immanence of the sacred here and now, in the interdependence of all life, and in each glass of water.Power can be shared in ways that honor our various relations with each other and with the land. The choice is up to us.Solves NativesThe alt combines new modes of ecological thinking and awareness of social power dynamics k to challenge colonialityTaylor, 2020 (Affrica Taylor, associate professor in?Faculty of Education, Science, Technology and Mathematics?at the University of Canberra, Australia and a founding member of the?Common Worlds Research Collective, an international network of childhood and feminist scholars and educators. “Downstream River Dialogues: An Educational Journey Toward a Planetary-Scaled Ecological Imagination” , March 29, 2020)//klzIt was Val’s lifelong project to hammer home the danger of “hyperseparating” ourselves off from the rest of the world, as if we were somehow outside of nature and thus “ecologically INCLUDEPICTURE "/var/folders/2v/_kz9xhsx30x4lptp5rbdjrrc0000gn/T/com.microsoft.Word/WebArchiveCopyPasteTempFiles/page4image67014016" \* MERGEFORMATINET invulnerable” (Plumwood, 2009). Addressing those of us well-schooled in the dualisms of modern Western knowledge systems, she warned us not to believe the maxim that humans are the only beings (or entities) who exercise intentional agency and not to be hoodwinked by the concomitant illusion of human autonomy. She also urged us to resist entrapment in the progress narratives that propel the quest for human mastery and control over nature (Plumwood, 1993)—pointing out that these same progress narratives that once justified colonial invasion are still driving our “commodity economies” (Plumwood, 2007a). Near the end of her life, when the full and sobering significance of human-induced climate change was gaining traction under the rubric of the Anthro- pocene, Val insisted that the root of the problem is our inability to fully exercise our “ecological imaginations” in the face of hegemonic human-centric progress narratives (Plumwood, 2007a). She was unequivocal that we will have no future unless we can “see past the post-enlightenment energy, control and consumption extravaganza” (Plumwood, 2007a) and recognize that we’re an integral part of the same ecological systems that sustain our lives (Plumwood, 2007a, 2009). Such recognition, which can only be gleaned through an inseparable “ecological imagination,” was foundational to her vision for the “different mode of humanity” that we so urgently need to grasp and pursue (Plumwood, 2007a). Val’s own “ecological imagination,” which was intensely lived as well as thoroughly philoso- phized, continues to inspire the scholarship of many feminists associated with the environmental humanities. For instance, Katherine Gibson et al.’s (2015) introduction to the edited collection Manifesto for Living in the Anthropocene uses Val’s prophecy “We will go on in a different mode of humanity, or not all” (Plumwood, 2007a) as a springboard into detailing the kind of ethics that are required for a different mode of living in the Anthropocene. Paraphrasing Val, they explain that this entails two shifts: Firstly, repositioning ourselves unambiguously within the environment; and secondly, repositioning the nonhuman within the cultural and relational ethical domains previously deemed exclusively human.4 They also suggest that we need to cultivate new modes of attentive- ness in order to notice and learn from what is going on in the lively, interactive, and agentic world around us (Gibson et al., 2015). This accords with Val’s insistence that nature is never passive and inert and that humans are not the only intelligent, narrative subjects engaged in world-changing agentic relations (Plumwood, 2009). In order to communicate this, Val urged us to write “nature in the active voice” (Plumwood, 2009) in a manner that recognizes the animacy of all “earth others” and enters into dialogue with them. Within Val’s distinctively critical form of ecofeminism, however, recognition of the earth’s animacy or what she also referred to as the “materialist spirituality of place” (Plumwood, 2002, pp. 218–235, my italics) should never preclude a critical awareness of the social power relations that are inscribed on places and affect their inter-relationships. To simultaneously appreciate the earth’s animacy and the politics of place relations, Val proposed journeying as a way of stepping outside INCLUDEPICTURE "/var/folders/2v/_kz9xhsx30x4lptp5rbdjrrc0000gn/T/com.microsoft.Word/WebArchiveCopyPasteTempFiles/page5image67015168" \* MERGEFORMATINET of our everyday instrumentalist relationship to place and entering into a “dialogical” mode of “multiple place-encounters” (Plumwood, 2002, p. 233). Ecofeminist movement\s successfully protect the natives’ land and right – the Black Mesa Water Coalition and the Standing Rock Water Keepers – two movements that were led by women result in the shutdown of mining pipelinesSutherland 2018 (Tina P, Stephens College. “Ecofeminist Activism and the Greening of Native America,” Nordic Association for American Studies, 2018, )But some traditions are strong; some stories echo down through the ages. And so in the last few decades, Native girls and women have taken the lead in rejecting the false choice between prosperity and sustainability and are bringing their communities together, as their mythic mothers did, to protect and restore the land and the right relation between humans and non-humans that has been their business all along. Their ecofeminist activism has spread throughout Native America, and their many organizations have had success, as Winona LaDuke explains: Despite our meager resources, we are winning many hard-fought victories on the local level. We have faced down huge waste dumps and multinational mining, lumber, and oil companies. And throughout the Native nations, people continue to fight to protect Mother Earth for future Generations. Some of the victories include… a moratorium on mining in the sacred hills of Northern Cheyenne, Blackfeet, and Crow territory; an international campaign that stopped the building of mega-dams in northern Canada; the restoration of thousands of acres of White Earth land in Minnesota; and the rebuilding of a nation in Hawai’i.25 Among these actions, two stand out: the Hopi and Navajo Black Mesa Water Coalition in the Southwest and, most recently, the Standing Rock Water Keepers action to stop the completion of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Black Mesa Water Coalition Black Mesa is a four thousand square mile plateau in northern Arizona. Twenty-one billion tons of low-sulfur coal, the largest deposit in the United States estimated at a value of $100 billion, lie just below the surface. The Mesa is home to sixteen thousand Navajos and eight thousand Hopis, the Hopi lands completely surrounded by the larger Navajo domain.26 Further down below the coal, rests the Navajo Aquifer, a subterranean pool of pure ice-age water, the source of life for humans and non-humans on the desert reservations.27 Like so many colonized peoples around the world who suffer from the “curse of oil,” the fossil fuel riches of the Navajo and Hopi homeland have nearly been their undoing. For Indigenous peoples, it is not good to have something someone else wants. In 1966 after forty years of manipulation by government and energy interests keen to use Black Mesa coal to fire the growth of Southwest desert cities such as Las Vegas, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and Tucson, both the Hopi and Navajo tribal councils secretly signed agreements leasing sixty-five thousand acres on Black Mesa to the Peabody Coal Company of Kentucky, then the largest coal producer in the United States. The leases ran for thirtyfive years and were renewable for another thirty-five. Outraged Navajos tried to block the mining equipment by setting up barricades in the road. Traditional Hopis sued their own tribal council. The deal violated every guideline that the Department of the Interior had set up for leasing on public lands: competitive bidding did not happen; the agreement contained no automatic renegotiation clauses; and Peabody paid a fixed rate rather than a percentage royalty rate. “At a time when water rights in the Southwest cost $50 per acre-foot, the Hopi got $1.67 per acre-foot. The Navajo got $5 per acre-foot. At the time the royalty rate on public lands for coal mining was $1.5 per ton. The Hopi and Navajo split a rate of 37 cents per ton.”28 The lease provided few environmental safeguards, and worst of all, Peabody was permitted to pump four thousand acre-feet (approximately a billion gallons) of water a year out of the Navajo Aquifer for its mining and transportation operations.29 Announcing the leases in 1966, Interior Secretary Stewart Udall promised “[n]ew jobs, large tax benefits, and tremendous economic advantages—not only for the two Indian tribes—but for the entire southwest’.”30 Coal from the new mines would go to a consortium of twenty utilities called WEST (Western Energy Supply and Transmission) designed to power up the urban Southwest. The cities got their exponential growth, their air conditioning, their neon lights, their golf courses, and their fountains spraying precious water into the bone-dry desert air. Corporations, developers, and politicians made their fortunes. The Hopi and the Navajo did not. They remain some of the poorest people in the United States. Only about one half of their homes have running water or electricity.Peabody opened two strip mines on their leaseholds, the Black Mesa mine and the Kayenta mine. Workers literally ripped the land apart, peeling off topsoil and underlayment to expose the coal that they then dynamited into movable chunks. Vegetation died, the air filled with black dust, and toxins poisoned the irreplaceable Navajo Aquifer. Soon after the mining started, deadly green water seeped into pockmarks left on the Mesa. Navajo sheep that drank that water at noon were dead by suppertime.31 Once extracted from Black Mesa, the coal had to be transported to power generating stations. Having failed to negotiate a rail system, Peabody decided to use a coal slurry pipeline. In a slurry system the mined coal is mixed with water and then sluiced through a pipeline to its destination, the whole process taking enormous amounts of water. Peabody contracted with the giant global construction company Bechtel to build its coal slurry pipeline running 273 miles—uphill—from Black Mesa to the Mohave Generating station in Leighton, Nevada, another of Bechtel’s projects. The Mohave station provided electricity to Las Vegas, Los Angeles and other far west cities. Coal slurries are everywhere considered a disastrous waste of water, and Peabody’s became the only one operating in the United States. To slurry its coal, Peabody pumped a billion gallons a year for more than forty years from the Navajo Aquifer. In these decades, groundwater levels dropped, wells, springs, and seeps dried up, and the entire ecology of Black Mesa collapsed. The land reclamation Peabody promised proved impossible since in areas that receive fewer than 10 inches of rain a year, plants simply won’t grow back in the destroyed earth.32 Four years after the Mohave plant opened in 1970, a second Bechtel plant, the Navajo Generating Station near the northern rim of the Grand Canyon, came on line. Coal from the Kayenta mine, also on Black Mesa, travels by rail to the Navajo Generating station to produce electricity for the Sonoran desert cites of Phoenix and Tucson. Corporate planners figured that the two generating plants combined would require twelve million tons of Black Mesa coal a year, so Peabody needed to expand its Black Mesa operation. The thousands of Navajos who lived on the Mesa, like many other Indigenous people before them, would have to be removed. Claiming to help settle a largely fictive land dispute between the Hopi and the Navajo, Peabody lobbyists convinced the U.S. Congress to pass legislation dividing Black Mesa and conveniently giving almost a million acres to Hopi people who lived far away from the mining sites. Navajo residents who had lived on the land for generations became trespassers, and the government, not the mining company, had to pay for their removal. In 1974, the Navajo removal began along with the slaughter of their sheep flocks. Separated from their lands, many died of alcoholism and despair.The people did respond. On October 13, 1974, armed members of the American Indian Movement [AIM] marched past the security guards at Black Mesa Mine No. 1 and sat down before one of the mine’s massive drag shovels. When the operator refused to stop the shovel, one AIM member fired at him, the bullet lodging in the cab of the shovel. The occupiers issued a set of demands, most of them revolving around Peabody’s lack of attention to local concerns.33 The protestors refused to meet with Navajo tribal government, stating “’we have little time for tribal governments that don’t protect their people.’”34 After a week, Peabody made promises to start listening to people’s complaints, put a moratorium on new road building, and compensated shepherds for killed sheep. The AIM members left the mine, “but with an increased reputation for standing up for the interests of local Navajos and demonstrating that energy development could, at least temporarily be halted.”35 “Temporarily” is the operative word here. After AIM’s direct action, the Navajo and their allies came to Congress to protest the removal, but no one listened. Peabody Coal had by then become part of a very powerful corporate/government family that included the incredibly well-connected Bechtel. Bechtel’s former president George Schultz was Secretary of State; its former legal counsel, Caspar Weinberger, was Secretary of Defense; and former director of Bechtel Nuclear, Ken Davis, was Assistant Secretary of Energy. The president of Peabody Coal served on Reagan’s Energy Advisory Board. The Navajos did not have a chance. In 1989, when the Peabody leases needed renewal, hundreds of Navajo and Hopi testified about the negative effects of mining on their lands. Thousands of years of water had been used up in a few decades. “The water has become more valuable than the coal,” explained Hopi activist Marilyn Masayesva at the government’s environmental hearings. “The water is priceless. No amount of compensation can replace the source of life for the Hopi and Navajo people.”36 Incredibly, the George W. Bush administration renewed the Peabody lease “for the life of the mine” and even increased the allowed draw down from the aquifer. And so Los Angeles and Phoenix boomed; Las Vegas remained an oasis playground in the Mohave; and much of Black Mesa died of thirst. In 2001, in response to a report about Peabody’s dangerous drawdown of water from the Navajo Aquifer, a small group of Hopi and Navajo college students—mostly women—led by Enei Begate Peter and Wahleah Johns, formed Black Mesa Water Coalition (BMWC). They dedicated the Coalition to addressing issues of water depletion, natural resource exploitation, and public health within the Navajo and Hopi communities, especially on Black Mesa. They centered their mission on the Diné word Hózhó for “walking in beauty—living in a manner that strives to create and maintain balance, harmony, beauty and order.”37 They had plenty to do. They “supported and worked with partners in the Black Mesa region to educate Navajo communities and mobilize them to force the tribal government to stop Peabody’s use of the N-Aquifer for the slurry line.”38 That strategy at first didn’t work—the tribal government wasn’t easy to force. But the Coalition organized protests of young mothers and children and grandmothers. They allied with other groups working on similar problems, both on the local and national levels. In December of 2005 the Coalition and its partners at last defeated Peabody and Bechtel and accomplished the shutdown of the slurry pipeline. A lawsuit brought by them won stricter emission controls for the Mojave Station as well, considered the most polluting facility in the country. Bringing the old power plant up to Environmental Protection Agency requirements proved too costly, and so the WEST power consortium finally closed it. A short documentary on the BMWC’s website shows the tall main stack outlined against the blue sky, collapsing in slow motion and falling to rubble on the desert floor. Hopi and Navajo activists cheer its passing. With no destination for its tons and tons of coal, Peabody closed its Black Mesa Mine. BMWC had, in four years of hard, smart, community-based work, brought down the corporate/government giant. In January 2010, they sued for and won the revocation of Peabody’s life of the mine permit for Black Mesa. In April of 2016, Peabody Energy reported a loss of 2 billion dollars in the previous year and filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy.39 From its start, BMWC faced a gendered challenge from male dominated tribal councils—the official governing bodies of the Navajo and Hopi— who have consistently supported and disproportionately benefitted from coal mining operations. Back in 1966 they signed the leases that opened up Black Mesa to exploitation in the first place. Adopting the colonizers top-down patriarchal “leadership” system—even in these traditionally women-centered cultures—the male governing structure rejected BMWC’s demands to stop the leases that permitted the drawdown of the Navajo Aquifer. The upstart, grass-roots NGO, run by young women, threatened to end the lucrative privilege they had enjoyed for so long. But the BMWC established relationships with other local sovereignty and environmental justice groups and then with national and international environmental organizations. They educated young people, and they connected with tradition elders who had always distrusted the tribal councils. They organized demonstrations and protests and testimonies. They hired lawyers, young Native women like themselves, to argue their cases in court. They enlisted volunteers and, perhaps most importantly, advocated for new ways of combining traditional land-based values with innovative, contemporary technologies. Like women-led social and environmental justice organizations around the world, they fostered development projects that benefit everyone—human and non-human alike. All the while they refused the binary logic of winners and losers by advocating for a just transition away from the deadly extractive economy. They refused to leave anyone behind, especially advocating for young people by developing ventures that gave the up-coming generation opportunities to stay on their homelands and work for a prosperous and intact Indigenous future. Today BMWC facilitates Navajo and Hopi joint organizations and projects to combat environmental injustice across the Navajo Nation and Hopi and throughout North America, as the website explains:Because BMWC’s founders were raised to value our culture, and trained in the environmental justice movement, we know we must break our dependence on the fossil fuel industry to realize our true potential. The sub-goals of the No Coal & Environmental Justice Program are to: hold Peabody Coal Company accountable for the damage done to Black Mesa’s water, environment, and community health; to replace Black Mesa’s coal complex with renewable energy; and to instill polices that promote a just transition for Black Mesa and the Navajo Nation.40 To that end, the Coalition established The Restorative Economy Program, The Navajo Wool Market Improvement Project, and The Food Sovereignty Project. All three bring young people together with traditional elders to cultivate “an economy that benefits our people, strengthens our culture, and returns the term ‘economy’ to its original meaning—the management of home.”41 The Coalition continues its educational outreach in high schools and the Navajo Community College and has established the Southwest Indigenous Leadership Institute that focuses on grass-roots organization and movement building. The Coalition, along with the Hopi Foundation, is also helping develop community-owned companies to produce both wind and solar energy and even looking forward to industrial-scale expansion.42 Its Solar Project may have the greatest impact for the future well-being of Black Mesa and its peoples, representing a first step towards a just transition away from a fossil fuel dependent economy. This green economic development work was bolstered in July 2009, when BMWC founded the Navajo Green Economy Fund and Commission within the Navajo National government. In 2013 the Coalition secured from the California Public Utilities Commission a fund which uses revenues from the sale of sulfur dioxide allowances from the shut-down of the Mohave Generating Station to pay development grants for renewable projects that benefit the Hopi Tribe and Navajo Nation. These funds help support its sustainable development projects. According to co-founder Enei Begate Peter, non-polluting technologies, such as wind and solar, with the traditional technologies, such as weaving and farming, and with that unity we can open up new doors of opportunity for ALL our people—young and old, college educated and land educated alike.43 The success of the Black Mesa Water Coalition rests at least in part on their refusal to accept the forced choice between environmental justice and economic survival and their promotion of sustainable economic renewal in keeping with traditional earth-based values. Their return to the values of their grandmothers appeals to traditionalists and elders in both tribes and brings together the wisdom of the old with the innovative energy, education, and technical savvy of the young. Mostly women, young and old, make up these collaborative networks. They are used to acting for the good of the people and for the good of the land. Like their mythic cousin Kochinnenako, they have become the living link between the people and each other, reconnecting them to the land, the wellspring of their cultural identity. Moving cultural values into the 21st century (but leaving out the sex), a wind turbine is their Whirlwind Man, the recharging Navajo Aquifer their Thunder Kachina, and the Sun the ultimate source of energy as it has always been. Largely thanks to them, Black Mesa has a green future. The Black Mesa Water Coalition is an example of ecofeminist activism at its most successful.The Standing Rock Water Keepers While the women of the Black Mesa Water Coalition lead in their Hózhó way, they oppose one of most powerful and dangerous forces operating today—the fossil fuel industry. Terran Giacomini urges an understanding of “extractivism as a form of violence toward women and children. It is part of rape culture and it is a continuation of colonization. It is the commodification of the natural world, and it is destroying us.”44 The Water Keepers at Standing Rock took on that fight as well as they tried to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline from being finished. The Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) stretches underground 1,172 miles from the Bakken shale oil fields in northwest North Dakota, through South Dakota and Iowa, and terminates at an oil tank farm near Patoka, Illinois. Dakota Access, a Houston based company and a subsidiary of Energy Transfer Partners, is building the pipeline. The $3.78 billion project was announced to the public on June 25, 2014, and informational hearings for landowners took place between August 2014 and January 2015. With the completion date set for January 1, 2017, the project was 87% completed on November 26, 2016. Pipeline construction did create a number of jobs, but Energy Transfer Partners estimates that only 12 to 15 permanent employees will be needed to maintain the pipeline, most of them working in Iowa.Supporters argue that the pipeline provides a more reliable method of transport to refineries than rail or road and that it will improve the overall safety of oil transportation. Data does not support that claim.45 Now 70% of Bakken oil is transported by rail, and everyone agrees that pipeline transport will be cheaper. Supporters also claim that oil from the Bakken fields will help the United States attain energy independence. But after a 40-year ban on the exportation of U.S. crude (excepting Alaskan crude which has always been refined in Asia), the Congress recently allowed its export once again. It’s difficult to imagine how North Dakota crude, refined in Japan or China and then shipped back to the United States for sale, can promote “energy independence.”46Dakota Access originally proposed laying the pipeline near the mostly white city of Bismarck, North Dakota, but the Army Corps of Engineers rejected that route when Bismarck residents opposed having the pipeline threaten their water supply. The route now crosses 90 feet under the Missouri River at Lake Oahe, 500 feet from the Standing Rock reservation. This willingness to expose Native people and their homelands to environmental risks unacceptable for non-Native people follows the common racist pattern. As Winona LaDuke explains, “today [Native] lands are subject to some of the most invasive industrial interventions imaginable.” LaDuke catalogues a few:Reservations have been targeted as sites for 16 proposed nuclear waste dumps…. Seventy-seven sacred sites have been disturbed or desecrated through resource extraction and development activities. The federal government is proposing to use Yucca Mountain, sacred to the Shoshone, as a dumpsite for the nation’s high-level nuclear waste. Over the last 45 years, there have been 1,000 atomic explosions on Western Shoshone land in Nevada, making the Western Shoshone the most bombed nation on earth.47Facing the possibility of a potentially disastrous oil spill into the Missouri River, First Nations people from around the world and other environmental activists, in April, 2016, began a direct-action protest encampment on the Reservation near Lake Oahe at the confluence of the Cannon Ball and Missouri Rivers. Led by women calling themselves Water Protectors/Keepers, they bitterly opposed the pipeline. They fear a pipeline leak would destroy the tribe’s only source of drinking water and contaminate the supply for millions of people who live downstream. The Water Protectors also tried to preserve cultural and religious landmarks throughout the area, some already destroyed by pipeline construction.The Water Protectors direct-action at Standing Rock and the Black Mesa Water Coalition have much in common. Both are led by women, both fight against the huge transnational fossil fuel industry and the government structures that serve its corporate interests; both work for tribal and environmental justice. But in other ways the two movements could not be more different. They arose in profoundly different cultures, different circumstances, and different regions. They publicly position themselves in almost opposite ways. Black Mesa Water Coalition, and the stories about it in the media, hardly mention the fact that women lead most of its projects while the Standing Rock Water Protectors organized explicitly around an inspirational and tradition-based understanding of Indigenous womanhood. Yet as the two movements bring together Native and non-Native groups from all around the world, a common enemy emerges: the relentless and ruthless corporate/governmental drive for power and profit above all else. And so these movements take their places alongside similar women-led and women-centered movements for social and environmental justice around the world that “fundamentally challenge the colonial and capitalist status quo.”48While the Black Mesa Water Coalition, originating in an academic setting and led by college students, has for sixteen years strategically planned its many grassroots actions, legal battles, and development projects, the Water Protectors’ attempt to thwart the Dakota Access Pipeline was by all accounts a happy kind of direct-action chaos. Throughout the spring and summer of 2016 various encampments sprung up like prairie flowers. At last more than 10,000 people—Native and non-Native alike—some from as far away as Tibet, Sweden, Guatemala, and Brazil and from nearly every one of the United States, including Hawaii and Alaska, camped on the Reservation and surrounding public lands, coming and going as their other responsibilities dictated. Many brought their horses with them.Water Protectors’ attempt to thwart the Dakota Access Pipeline was by all accounts a happy kind of direct-action chaos. Throughout the spring and summer of 2016 various encampments sprung up like prairie flowers. At last more than 10,000 people—Native and non-Native alike—some from as far away as Tibet, Sweden, Guatemala, and Brazil and from nearly every one of the United States, including Hawaii and Alaska, camped on the Reservation and surrounding public lands, coming and going as their other responsibilities dictated. Many brought their horses with them.Music, drumming, and prayer continually circled the tents and yurts and trailers. Every day through the summer and fall, various groups, some in traditional dress, paraded to pledge their support for the movement—not only to protect Indigenous people’s rights and the lands they inhabit, but also to protect the earth and combat global climate change.The Standing Rock movement sought to halt, and even reverse, the “settler colonialism” that has displaced, replaced, and in many cases wiped out Indigenous peoples and cultures in the United States for hundreds of years and usurped their homelands. As Potawatomi scholar-activist Kyle Powys Whyte explains, [s]ettler colonialism refers to complex social processes in which at least one society seeks to move permanently onto the terrestrial, aquatic, and aerial places lived in by one or more other societies who already derive economic vitality, cultural flourishing, and political self-determination from the relationship they have established with the plants, animals, physical entities, and ecosystems of those places.50 The groups moving into the already occupied lands, the invaders, we call “settlers”; the invaded, in this context, we call “Indigenous peoples.”51As women-centered Indigenous myth reminds us, Native people’s explicit identity derives from their precise inter-relationships with their homelands—the “plants, animals, physical entities, and ecosystems of those places.” While those complex and profound connections constitute individual and group selfhood and survival, they also embody the sacred. At the time of contact with Euro-Americans, the sacred homeland of the Lakota/Dakota/Nakota people who now live at Standing Rock included huge swathes of the Great Plains stretching from modern day North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Wyoming, and Montana and into Canada—all the way to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Here, White Buffalo Calf Woman taught the Lakota how to dance for the Sun and keep their subsistence world in perfect balance. Through military actions, massacres, broken treaties, animal extinctions, laws and policies so unjust they defy description, religious oppression, forced sterilization, and boarding-school terrorism, the United States government—and its army of settlers—has today corralled the Lakota/Dakota/Nakota people into a number of small reservations in North Dakota and South Dakota. That their cultural identity has survived such a vicious and systematic onslaught attests to their incredible resilience and, perhaps, to their sacred bonds with the non-human world. LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, who founded the Sacred Stone resistance camp in April, sums up the peoples’ centuries-old struggle: “We must remember we are part of a larger story. We are still here. We are still fighting for our lives on our own land.”52The Dakota Access Pipeline, as it tunnels its oily “blacksnake” beneath the bed of the Missouri River, threatens this identity-forging bond because it threatens the River, the source of life for the land and its People. As one small link in the chain of the climate-altering, worldwide fossil-fuel dependency, the pipeline and the oil extraction industry it services threaten Earth, the Mother herself. For a People whose survival system—cultural, physical, and spiritual—depends on sacred connection with the land, what could be more devastating?The Standing Rock Indian Reservation straddles south-central North Dakota and north-central South Dakota. The Canon Ball and Missouri Rivers come together to form the northern arrow-head of Reservation land. The tribes living there include “bands of the Hunkpapa and Siha Sapa of the Lakota Nation, and the Hunkpa and Cuthead bands of the Dakota Nation, and Yanktonai grouped under the Nakota.”53 A legend told by the Arikara (or Ree) tribe explains the origin of Standing Rock. In the story a woman, angry with her husband because he had taken a second wife, refused to go with her band when they broke camp early one morning. She sat down on the ground with her baby on her back and, some say, her dog beside her. By noon the husband feared that she might despair and take her own life, and so he sent his two brothers back to bring her along. When they got to the old camp, they called to the woman. “Sister-in-law, get up. We have come for you. The camp awaits you.” She did not move or answer, and when they touched her head, they found that she had turned into stone. The band considered the stone wakan (holy) and decorated a travois and a pony to transport it from camp to camp as they moved. The Standing Rock Reservation was named for the stone woman, baby on her back, who refused to leave. Her figure stands there today.54Like her, the Water Protectors stood fast. Mythic themes of cultural survival and sacred connection, of ancestors and as-yet-be-born-children, of water, earth, and blood, flow through the language of the many powerful women, young and old. That language molds their particular brand of ecofeminism—their Tribe if you will. “With conviction and care, the women convey that protecting water and sacred places has always been their traditional role as women, and they are taking a fierce stand to ensure a healthy life for generations to come.”55 In interviews, many of them equate the respect for women with the respect for Earth and water: “We know that we come from the water, the first environment is this water, and the women carry that. We carry that water inside of us. And this is about connection…. It is time for all people of all nations to wake up and listen to the water. Water is life.”56Only ecofeminism can restore native women’s power and their culture– any federal legislation will only weaken their power and rightsSutherland 2018 (Tina P, Stephens College. “Ecofeminist Activism and the Greening of Native America,” Nordic Association for American Studies, 2018, )Because so much of the historical record was created by European or EuroAmerican men with little access to or understanding of women’s roles and activities, racial stereotypes compounded by gender stereotypes, sexism, and ethnocentrism distort our understanding of historical women’s lives.10 Native women stand, and have always stood, at the intersection of their Native-ness and their Women-ness, their ethnicity and their gender. That intersectionality was impossible for early (male) anthropologists, historians, and settlers to conceptualize. It is not all that easy to navigate now. In The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions, Paula Gunn Allen asserts that pre-colonial Native cultures were women-centered. “Traditional tribal lifestyles are more often gynocentric than not, and they are never patriarchal…. American Indians have based their social systems, however diverse, on ritual, spirit-centered, womenfocused world views.”11 Murphy agrees that “balanced, more egalitarian gender relations [were] typical of most indigenous peoples before they were influenced by European-style patriarchy.”12 “In many tribes, Native American women had spiritual, political and economic power … at least equal to men.”13 Federal legislation did much to undo women’s power: spirituality usefully applies to both the Black Mesa Water Coalition and the Water Keepers of Standing Rock. The passage of the Indian Reorganization Act imposed an elected tribal council format that was based on a Eurocentric governmental model, and traditional ways of selecting leaders were wiped out. The Dawes Act… gave tracts of land to male heads of household, further eroding if not completely extinguishing Native American women’s role.14 Many scholars draw their conclusions about the pre-colonial status of women, at least in part, on an analysis of Indigenous myth since myths often reveal pre-colonial attitudes about gender, gender roles, and sexuality as well as human persons’ essential relations with the non-human world. The special strength of mythic history lies in its oral transmission—not just in its Indigenous origins. In the oral tradition, living storytellers transform myths to make them relevant to generation after generation, so the stories live on in meaningful, not just symbolic, ways. The danger, of course, is that a told story may pass away if all those who know it die. On the other hand, the written word and story can live on past the human reader, but it inevitably loses relevance as its language and context ossify. Its value dissolves wholly into the symbolic, or it lends itself to endless cycles of exegesis. Rather than fix Native culture in the past, then, the updating and retelling of myth continuously refreshes cultural knowledge and world view and works to keep Native-ness present and vital. Girls and women in Native myth variously function as creators, embodiments of the sacred, and culture-bringers. Even a quick retelling of some of these narratives—from the arid canyon lands of the Southwest near Black Mesa as well as from the prairies of the Lakota—shows women’s power to serve as a kind of connective tissue, linking together, through story and ritual, human persons and non-human persons. It is this power to bring together, to connect and make whole, that contemporary Indigenous ecofeminists embody today.Solves US-MexicoRather than engaging in colonial negotiations of resources, ecofeminism seeks to dismantle the western binaristic logics that drive border conflicts in an orientation towards interconnectedness with nature.Holmes 16 (Christina Holmes is an Associate Professor of women's, gender, and sexuality studies. She is the author articles such as “Mapping and Misrecognition: Ecofeminist insights into Chicana Feminist Aesthetics,” and “Sacred Genealogies: Spiritualities, Materiality, and the Limits of Western Feminist Frames.” She also contributed “Five-Year Study in Hiring Trends in Gender, Women’s, and Feminist Studies” to the?Feminist Studies?special issue on the state of doctoral degrees in W/G/F/S Studies. Ecological Borderlands: Connecting Movements, Theories, Selves, University of Illinois Press, 2016, pp. 16-17. ) ZE Similarly, Bronwyn Davies’s (In)scribing Body/Landscape Relations (2000) explores coextensive bodies and landscapes and investigates practices that facilitate intersubjective awareness. She writes, “Because of the lack of practice in reading our bodies in this way [i.e., as body/landscapes], I have sought here to develop a new form of embodied writing. I adopted a number of strategies for disrupting my taken-for-granted clichéd ways of knowing my own body/ landscape relations” (19). Davies traveled to unfamiliar landscapes and wrote about her embodied responses to such settings, reflectively noting the ways those responses are both bodied and culturally inscribed. She also engages with a process she calls “collective biography”: “Here, a group of Australian women explore, through stories of childhood in specific landscapes, the ways in which belonging with/in landscape is achieved in the double sense of becoming appropriate and being appropriated with/in Australian landscapes” (11). In both cases, the act of reflection and writing about embodied/encul- tured relationships with the natural world does not so much reflect our actual relationships or reveal aspects of our “true selves,” but instead represents a performance of becoming body/landscape. Through creative subversions of the norm and reinscriptions of ourselves with our environment, we stage new relationships and alliances that may be oriented toward more socially and eco- logically just movements. Not to be misconstrued as a new-age effort to get “in touch” with nature, such practices hail us to deconstruct the binary between humans and nature altogether and to see ourselves as coextensive. Nonetheless, as with all subversions, challenging the norm will not guaran- tee movement toward justice in itself. In tracking the ways some Chicana and Mexican American scholars, artists, and activists developed practices toward performative intersubjectivity, this book explores the staging of human/landscape deconstructions in ways that do not merely embrace an idealistic ecological intersubjectivity; many of the examples depicted pair performative reconstructions of ecological intersubjectivity with a historicizing critique of the patriarchal, racist, and imperialist ordering of human/landscape relations, pointing the viewer to embrace an openly counterhegemonic positioning. To return to Anzaldu?a again, consider the ways she figures herself as part of the borderlands. Borderlands/La Frontera tells an economic, political, and envi- ronmental history of Mexico/south Texas that is interwoven with the author’s personal history and that of her family. Culture clashes within traditional patri- archal, Chicano nationalist, and racist Anglo cultures, all of which are confin- ing in their misogyny and homophobia, shape the new mestiza consciousness that defines possibilities for those that dwell on this border (and possibly oth- ers). This consciousness is a heightened level of awareness that can see above competing discourses and their conscriptions and has the potential to rewrite histories, myths, lands, and bodies to make them anew. Although Anzaldu?a has been criticized for her revisionist histories and the leeway she takes in myth- making, her aim is not to accurately portray the past, but to change the pres- ent.13 For example, one of the recurring symbols in her mythology is that of a serpent that represents Earth and the natural world. In Borderlands, Anzaldu?a writes, “Like the ancient Olmecs, I know Earth is a coiled Serpent. Forty years it’s taken me to enter into the Serpent, to acknowledge that I have a body, that I am a body and to assimilate the animal body, the animal soul” (48). Focusing on Anzaldu?a’s return to the region in which she grew up, now challenged with drought, poverty, and a militarizing border patrol, Priscilla Ybarra’s ecocriti- cal reading of Borderlands makes the performativity of the woman-nature (or body/landscape) connection plain: [Anzaldu?a] associates the image of a serpent with Earth itself—the natural environment. But she does not stop there. She also extends the metaphor to herself—she finds her bodily materiality in the act of “enter[ing] into the Serpent,” and in so doing she realizes her direct connection to the animal world and the greater natural environment. In a book where she dwells on the challenges as well as opportunities presented by boundaries—borders, differences, discriminations—ultimately she breaks down the boundary between humans and the natural environment. (2009, 186) Ecofeminism solves transnational water disputes by fostering sustainable communal water practicesPerez Aguilera 16 (Dr. Abigail Pérez Aguilera researches and writes about contemporary Indigenous movements, literature written by women of color and its connections to environmental social movements, forced displacement, gender violence, and global politics. Her most recent work appears in Ecocriticism and Indigenous Studies: Conversations from Earth to Cosmos. She is currently teaching at Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Utah. Feminist Decolonial Politics of the Intangible, Environmental Movements and the Non-Human in Mexico, Arizona State University, May 2016, pp. 96-101. ) ZEIn a town named Huitzo, which is located about 30 minutes away from Oaxaca City, exists a collective of women who are working towards community building, traditional medicine, and self-managed projects (proyectos autogestivos). The name of this cooperative is Unitierra Huitzo, and is related to Unitierra-Oaxaca City. This organisation, Unitierra is a community based project that intends to de-professionalized education as well as depart from state sponsored and private educational institutions.The difference is that this collective is run by women and has a different approach to the needs of the community. My first visit with them was in relation to eco-techniques. I asked if they identify themselves as ecofeminists, and the reasons why they are interested on having a space for the community. The group of women, are dedicated to self-reliance through economic projects, and the employment of eco-techniques at their homes. Although Unitierra-Huitzo works at a local level, it brings to question what is understood and theorize as eco-feminism in places like Mexico, since this organization works from a community based approach and responds to the necessities (immediate and long-term) of the community. Different from Rgem, and other civil organizations the group of women at Unitierra-Huitzo, have an approach to gender, that recognizes the need to separate themselves from state institutions and that the coloniality of gender functions in a distinctive way. As Lugones (2010) comments; “unlike colonization, the coloniality of gender is still with us; it is what lies at the intersection of gender/class/race as central constructs of the capitalist world system of power. Thinking about the coloniality of gender enables us to think of historical beings only one-sidedly, understood as oppressed.” (746) Therefore, the projects at Unitierra-Huitzo revolve around an idea of autonomy from the state and from a traditional heterosexual arrangement of family. The idea of paths to autonomy and of communitarian feminism are core ideas to the Unitierra- Oaxaca and Unitierra-Huitzo. (Ornelas 2004) Influenced by the 1994 Zapatista movement and from critical perspectives to capitalist development, publishing collectives at Unitierra-Oaxaca have published texts both from the Global South and Global North, including Bolivian feminist activist, Julieta Paredes (2010), Spanish author Casilda Rodrigan?ez, among others. With the introduction and distribution of different works, academic (or not) through organizations that are based on communalism, is possible to see and foster a descentralization of the ways knowledge is concentrated in academic circles. A critical piece to understand an ecofeminism from below is how it is built based on the daily experience of men and women. For example, Unitierra-Huitzo and the group of women who founded it, are working within the social context of Huitzo. The immediate needs of the community are attended, for example by incorporating eco- techniques to houses, and creating self-managing programs (projectos autogestivos) that ensure a long term sustainable projects of living. The question remains if Unitierra-Huitzo, an all women organization, can be defined as an eco-feminist group? Since it is on its early stages of formation, it is difficult to say where the organizations is going. But in a small scale, these women are challenging coloniality of gender including an eco-feminist perspective from below. Considering their positionalities as mestiza women in the town of Huitzo, departing from the economic, social and spiritual needs offered by the modern/colonial/capitalist/patriarchal system is a starting point of a potential eco-feminist project. These acts are in small scale andthey depart from an institutionalized ecofeminism. Most of the people who participated in Unitierra-Huitzo, are self-identified mestiza women between the ages of 30-50 years. For Lola Santo Olalla, a participant in Unitierra- Huitzo, one of the key components of this organization is their focus on indigenous knowledges and non-Western forms of healing. For Lola, this group of women have offered a de-centralized space in Huitzo, a small town in the state of Oaxaca. The challenge for this organisation has been to attract young people to the workshops, and new exchange students and professors. The incorporation of new programs on nutrition, and projects of community projects are working on influencing the ways knowledge is being transmitted and reproduced. As Gebera (1992) comments; “working on epistemology is not just a matter of trying to influence the process of transmitting knowledge; it is working toward changing the hierarchical power structure itself, which continues to propagate itself in the underlying structures of our society and, in consequence, of our knowing” (21). The potential changes that Unitierra-Huitzo can bring to new ways of knowing is through a communitiarian feminism that serves as way to recognize otherness and to organise the society and life itself. (Cabnal 2010; Paredes 2010; Espinosa Min?oso 2009) It is possible to say that Unitierra-Huitzo engages in some sort of transnational feminism based on the exchange of experiences they are fostering with feminist groups from Mexico, Europe and the USA. For Desai (2005) transnational feminism is the process of connections and exchanges among women in different geopolitical locations. Although there is not a direct participation in global forums (as other feminist activists in Mexico and Latin America) the people who participate in the activities promoted by Unitierra-Huitzo, have been fostering virtual and on-site exchanges with students, scholars, activists and people interested in projects that allow “distinctive political and cultural resources [...] that can sometimes advance the growth of knowledge.” (Harding 2006, 153) Moreover, Unitierra-Huitzo rather than presenting as a group of women in need, they offer an expertise apart from the (Western) scientific gaze. It is possible conceptualize and theorize about ecofeminism from below that focus on local and indigenous knowledge systems challenging what counts as universal knowledge. (Appleton, et.al 2011; Hess 2007; Perez Aguilera and Figueroa Helland 2011) Other groups by indigenous and mestiza women that have been working ‘from below’ towards environmental justice and defense of the land and women’s rights are the Red Nacional de Mujeres Indi?genas: Tejiendo Derechos por la Madre Tierra y Territorio (National Network of Indigenous Women: Weaving Rights for Mother Earth and Territory) (RENAMITT) and the Coordinadora Nacional de Mujeres Indi?genas (National Coordinator of Indigneous Women) (CONAMI). Both organisations have been active in coordinating efforts throughout Mexico to vinculate and find convergences among the different groups of indigenous women in Mexico. Also, considering that the defense of the land and women rights are not a separate issue, the RENAMITT recognizes the different experiences of indigenous and non-indigenous women in Mexico and how their oppression is also linked to dispossession and a system of opression . These civil organisations are not the only ones working towards the defense of territory and women’s rights in Mexico. These type of organisations, such as RENAMITT and CONAMI, are ones that can form alliances among different groups of women and have the potentiality to build a larger community of activists and scholars that from ‘from below’ with this, and along the work of feminist scholars in Mexico, it has been in recent years to raise awareness about the connection of dispossession, gender and self- determination. Solves DiseaseEcofeminism solves disease- prevents extinctionAnnie Hewitt 12-20-2020, (interview with Vandana Shiva) Neither extinction nor escape — Vandana Shiva on ecofeminism’s way out of our global crisis," Metta Center for Nonviolence, me, in this period where it’s made to look like a little virus – tiny little virus — is taking over the world, it is good to remember that the earth is full of diverse species, diverse microbes, that she is Mother Earth, and that women have been the original healers and knowers of health. All my work on ecofeminism should mean that the panic when the patriarchal power was rising in Europe, the panic that led to the witch hunts — a lot of the women who were burnt at the stakes were actually health experts.If that was the tradition of healing: A.) we wouldn’t be having new super viruses and B.) we wouldn’t have panicked. So, both the fear and the panic and the creation of new diseases is very much a result of the way of understanding this beautiful planet — which is living. That’s why it’s been called Gaia, which is the name of the Greek goddess of the earth. She is self-organized. It was a NASA scientist who realized that the earth maintains her climate, her temperature, and creates the conditions for life to evolve.Two hundred thousand years ago she created the condition for our species to evolve. Four billion years ago she created the conditions for the first life to evolve on this earth. And yet a lot of work is being done on how to get away from her to Mars these days. I’m going to share with you some quotations. It’s quite interesting that brilliant people are saying there are only two options before humanity – either extinction or escape to other planets.The ecofeminist option is a third option. Neither extinction nor escape. We stay here on this earth and protect her. That is the work we’ve done. That’s the work that we are called to do, and that’s the revolutionary work of our times. We know the earth is living and all ancient cultures recognized Mother Earth.AT UtopianEcofeminist utopianism is necessary to construct a better futureCansu ?zge ?zmen, 21 - C . (2021). CULTURAL ECOFEMINISM IN CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN’S FEMINIST UTOPIAN VISION AND ITS LIMITATIONS. HOMEROS , Cansu ?zge ?zmen , 4 (1) , 21-28 . DOI: 10.33390/homeros.4.1.03Clearly, feminists cannot wait for "the revolution" (in the Marxist sense) to liberate them from their oppression as women. The ecofeminist notion of revolution is necessarily utopian. It is a vision of something we have no definite historical model for but that we must construct and strive to achieve. It is imperative that we do something to better our present situation. Patrocinio Schweickart (1983), in her article on "Science and Technology in Feminist Utopias," says this of "the all too real threat of violence and war, and of ecological depletion and pollution":These impending catastrophes are traced not only to science and technology or to the misguided overconfidence in reason but, ultimately, to the domination of women in patriarchal society. Against this critique of our own world, utopia is offered as a possible alternative; not something that is bound to happen, but something attainable only by dint of conscious and prodigious effort. Utopia is necessary, not because it is logically or historically necessary, but because we need it (199).Should strive toward ecofeminist alternatives even if utopianCansu ?zge ?zmen, 21 - C . (2021). CULTURAL ECOFEMINISM IN CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN’S FEMINIST UTOPIAN VISION AND ITS LIMITATIONS. HOMEROS , Cansu ?zge ?zmen , 4 (1) , 21-28 . DOI: 10.33390/homeros.4.1.03Schweickart implies that the notion of historical determinism is inadequate for revolutionary politics in the face of these "all too real threats." Her statement that utopia is necessary “b e c a u s e w en e e d i t " is a good summary of the ecofeminist position on utopia. We are in such a bad situation that without envisioning a better world we will not be able to make one for ourselves. Ecofeminism, ith its analyses of all forms of domination, sees all too clearly how far we are from where we need to be in order for people and nature to be free from exploitation. A world without oppression, where severed relationships among classes of humans and between human and nonhuman nature are repaired, is certainly a utopia, but that does not mean that we should not strive toward it, that it should not be a guiding vision for our revolutionary politics. "Guiding vision" in this context does not refer to a static, fixed goal which must be achieved, but to a dynamic, flexible vision which is everchanging and growing as we change and grow and which is probably never "accomplished" in the final sense of that word. In refuting Marx, we could use Schweickart's closing words: "utopia is not alien to human nature but only the expression of the best in us, the authentic realization of our nature: 'true journey is return'" (1983, 210).Marx's groundedness in reality and loyalty to the actual conditions of economic life are a helpful and important part of revolutionary philosophy that ecofeminism does not share. Certainly this lack on the part of ecofeminism is a shortcoming when talking in practical terms; it would be ludicrous to Marx. But from an ecofeminist perspective, a greater shortcoming is that of M arx in not exploring the real, deep questions of domination and hierarchy. These questions must be tackled at their roots if we are to effectively work for true liberation.Alt- Interconnection- extThe alternative forges connections and forms non-binaristic worldviewsTaylor, 2020 (Affrica Taylor, associate professor in?Faculty of Education, Science, Technology and Mathematics?at the University of Canberra, Australia and a founding member of the?Common Worlds Research Collective, an international network of childhood and feminist scholars and educators. “Downstream River Dialogues: An Educational Journey Toward a Planetary-Scaled Ecological Imagination” , March 29, 2020)//klzIn line with this special issue, one thing we can do is to establish dialogues across different philosophical traditions that either disrupt the dualistic premises of the modern Western paradigm from within or engage with nonbinary worldviews that lie beyond it. Such conversations affirm that there are diverse ways of knowing, being, and learning that exceed the privileged binary modes perpetuated by Western-style modern education systems. These non-binary philosophical INCLUDEPICTURE "/var/folders/2v/_kz9xhsx30x4lptp5rbdjrrc0000gn/T/com.microsoft.Word/WebArchiveCopyPasteTempFiles/page3image66939584" \* MERGEFORMATINET traditions can support educational researchers to forge connections instead of rehearsing divisions (see, for instance, Auld & Rappleye, in press; Sevilla, 2015; Takayama, in press; Takayama et al., 2017; Zhao, 2016). Another binary-breaking move we can make, one which simultaneously supplements and enriches our conversations with each other and expands our research imagina- tions, is to cross the subject/object divide between humans and the rest by entering into a dialogue with the world around us. This is the more-than-human move that I am making in this article (see also Silova, 2020). To illustrate this move, I draw upon a climate action field trip I undertook with colleagues from the Common Worlds Research Collective in April 2019,1 in which we dialogued with the upstream and downstream places we visited along the Athabasca River in Alberta, Canada. For those of us who took part, these river dialogues were an embodied, emplaced, and interactive mode of thinking and learning with the river, not just about it. They were also highly affective encounters that incited our ecological imaginations. I have a few motivations for recounting these river dialogues in this article. Firstly, I want to provoke our research imaginations about the possibilities for relational more-than-human methods and pedagogies that exceed a singular human-centric notion of agency. Secondly, I want to step beyond an exclusively human con- versation about the state of the world. And thirdly, I want to spark the kind of planetary-scale ecological imaginations we all need to cultivate, if humankind is to survive the precarious times ahead. Recognizing the interconnectedness of human-environmental dualisms allows for mindful awareness that is key to environmental actionTrone, 2018 (Cynthia D. Trone - MA @ Lesley University. “A Buddhist Perspective on the Global Environmental Crisis: Poetics of the Wild”, pg. 15-19, Mindfulness Studies Theses, 2018, \\ethan.jxtai)Interdependence In the modern world where we are increasingly and instantaneously connected, we may benefit from a deeper understanding of interdependence, with a Buddhist view of the nature of reality. “Nothing in the universe exists in a purely autonomous way” (Ricard, “The future doesn’t hurt…yet,” 2009); while this concept of being interdependent may at first seem like a tremendous bonus for finding solutions to climate change, from a Buddhist perspective, it may be exactly what is adding to the global dilemna. The Buddhist teachings of interdependence describe an unfolding, ongoing, fluid creation of causes and conditions. There is universal complicity in continuing the excessive consumption and waste that have created environmental destruction. Dogen, in his Shobogenzo essay “Space,” wrote of the interconnectedness of all existence, “This nonseparability of space seems in accord with Buddhist views…in which seemingly distant elements of space are actually one totality” (Leighton, 2007, p. 119). Interdependence of all sentient beings, including the living earth, places universal connectedness in line with the urgent need for mindful, sustainable behavior. Thich Nhat Hanh writes of the intimate, interdependent relationship that we have with the earth, and how this potential shift in consciousness to embrace the sanctity of nature is what can bring about positive change: “The Earth is not just the environment. The Earth is us. Everything depends on whether we have this insight or not” (2013, p. 27). To be deeply aware of this constant interconnection with all living beings and the planet, requires open-minded awareness and mindfulness. As we consider the human condition today, the rigor with which we need to understand the conditions that have gotten us here, and the collective changes in causes moving forward, will require expanded and awakened consciousness around the globe. Understanding the concept of interdependence, with the intention of harmony and survival in this time of global crisis, is a timeless and profound message. In the introduction to the watershed volume of essays in the book A Buddhist Response to The Climate Emergency, the Dalai Lama shared his concern as he “calls upon people to make continued efforts to reverse and remedy the degradation of our environment” (2009, p. 25). The following stanza was originally composed in 1989, nearly 30 years ago, when ecological responsibility was a relatively new message; the Dalai Lama shared this around the world: Being attentive to the nature Of interdependence of all creatures, Both animate and inanimate, We should never slacken in our efforts To preserve and conserve the harmony of nature. (2009, p. 31) The planet is our only home, and the Buddhist response to global warming is filled with compassion, along with a rising up together to relieve the earth and all sentient beings from suffering. Interdependence, compassion, and mindfulness are all threads of the Dharma that are at the heart of the Buddhist response, and evoke a call to action for the planet. It is the letting go of greed and clinging to material consumption, and a deep understanding of the connection to nature, that leads to pro-environmental behavior (Barbaro & Pickett, 2015). In looking for a new path of global development that is socially just and environmentally sustainable, while recognizing the interdependent nature of the global crisis (de Witt, 2014), some research shows the potential for change within an interdependent, collaborative society. Annick Hedlund-de Witt, a Dutch scholar and change-maker in the field of cultural and inner transformation for global sustainability, emphasizes the consideration of different worldviews in the discussion of sustainable growth and quality of life. The ability to see the crisis of climate change from different worldviews, while respecting the cultural, social and spiritual philosophies of others, plays an important role in environmental stewardship. David Loy emphasizes the Buddhist perspective in creating a new, evolving worldview in this time of crisis: It is very unlikely that we’ll be able to address the other crises successfully unless we also realize what is dysfunctional about the worldview that predominates today — and challenge it with a better one. (2015, p. 66) Policy making and communication based in mindful awareness positively affects decisions for development (Barbaro & Pickett, 2015). Sustainable and healthy life depends on this careful and respectful approach to growth and cultural survival. Environmental planning and management, as they come from a place of connectedness to nature, was explored by researchers in Malta. They noted that “a focus on interconnectedness and dependence with the environment may result in enduring and committed conservation action” (Restall & Conrad, 2015, p. 273). The idea of interdependence, as a fluid and collaborative cultural wave of action, brings an ancient Buddhist idea into the modern context of social change. Connecting personal education to the planet in crisis is another key to our survival. Kenneth Tobin writes of connecting science education to personal lifestyle changes with attention to global warming, focusing on the links between emotions, wellness, mindfulness and the environment. His research includes identifying interventions to reharmonize the body when it is not in balance, and exploring how science education must change to address sustainable lifestyles (p. 7). The integration of Buddhist tenets come from his respect for the collaborative studies done with meditation and mindfulness, breaking down the barriers of science and spirituality. This ability to be open to collaboration with other fields of study, and to learn from others while incorporating new opportunities, has helped to move mindfulness into new arenas of science and environmental research. Embracing interdependence as a call to moral responsibility for the environment is also an important, and relevant, theme in Aldo Leopold’s work. A pioneer in the philosophy of conservation, ecological restoration, and education focusing on humanity’s relationship with the natural environment, Leopold wrote, “When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect” (1949, p. xviii). He wrote of a land ethic that is rooted in collective and simple care for each other, the land, and the relationships within community. The motivation for caring comes from a deep sense of ecological consciousness and responsibility, with all beings and the earth benefiting. His work, written over 50 years ago, paved the way for an enlightened connection to the earth, with a shared love for the wonders of the outdoors. Eco-Buddhist teachings use Leopold’s work to illustrate the ethics of the environment, and our complex interdependence with the earth (Edelglass, 2017). Arne Naess, a Norwegian philosopher and mountaineer, created the term deep ecology in the early 1960’s, and wrote: One of the great challenges today is to save the planet from further ecological devastation, which violates both the enlightened self-interest of humans and the self-interest of nonhumans and decreases the potential of joyful existence for all. (2008, p. 82)Alt- Ethic of CareAn ecofeminist ethic of care approach that emphasizes attentiveness and responsiveness to nature and rejects the modern voice can transcend the current oppressive systemCross 18 – Crain L. Cross, Department of Jurisprudence, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria. “Ecofeminism and an ethic of care: Developing an eco-jurisprudence,” Acta Academica: Critical views on society, culture and politics: Vol. 50 No. 1 (2018) /niki.a“masculinist thought is engulfed in the concept of conquest and this is why a dualistic relationship will never manifest as mutual affirmation of both parties because of the masculinist need to conquer the foreign subject” – perm warrantThe hyper-separation between humankind and nature has contributed to the view that humans are separate from and controllers of nature when actually the truth of the matter is that humans are part of, bound by and intertwined with the laws of nature (Plumwood 1991: 10). Ecofeminism aims to promote healthy relationships with nature rooted in the value of care to remove the patriarchal legacy of domination (Adams & Gruen 2014: 1). The dualistic relationship endorses the oppression of nature though its inherently hierarchical nature by contrasting the dominant ‘man’ versus inferior ‘other’. Feminist care tradition plays an important role in challenging dualistic thinking by addressing not only the human/nature dualism but also the reason/emotion dualistic relationship by focusing on affective connections of empathy and caring, showing how these connections have a cognitive ‘feminine’ rational component (Adams & Gruen 2014: 3). Ecofeminism provides us with the tools to challenge a dualistic world view because it considers how to develop a responsive relationship with nature which allows the voice of animals and plants to be heard. It is my aim to show that it is imperative that the relationship we have with nature changes, from one rooted within a dualistic paradigm, seeing humanity and nature as separate and as opposites, to one based on the realisation that we are not separate from but actually interconnected with the laws of nature. A new relationship must take on a human within nature identity. Ecofeminist literature looks at inter alia sexism, heteronormativity, racism, colonialism and the relationships they have with speciesism and how all these elements intersect to endorse a speciest society (Adams & Gruen 2014: 1). It identifies that one of the biggest problems in environmental discourses is the othering of women and of animals and how this has contributed to the destruction of the environment as a whole (Adams & Gruen 2014: 1). It exposes the intersectionality between these oppressive practices and thus in turn how damaging it is to separate these issues from each other (Adams & Gruen 2014: 1). Adams shows that speciesism is gendered, this is why I look to ecofeminism and an ethic of care to transcend the oppressive patriarchal hierarchies, institutions and cultures which are promoted by a masculinist view of rationality, and which result in the destruction of nature (Adams 2007: 202). Rosemary Ruether says that domination of women and of nature are made on two interconnecting levels; on the one hand a cultural-symbolic level and on the other a socio-economic one (Adams & Gruen 2014: 11). The cultural-symbolic level defines the woman as closer to nature by assimilating the body and sexuality of women with the earth as being weak and “sin-prone” in direct comparison to the masculine identity assimilated to sovereign power (Adams & Gruen 2014: 11). The socio-economic level explores masculine domination and exploitation of the female body and female labour directly interconnected with the utilisation of nature through the exploitation of water, animals and land (Adams & Gruen 2014: 11). Revealing this shows how both women and nature have been inferiorised and as a result, have functioned as the sub-structure on which the continuation of the domination of women and nature is justified (Adams & Gruen 2014: 11). This domination appears to be natural and inevitable but has actually only come about through the unfettered exploitation of women and nature resulting in a constant cycle of the inferiorisation of women and of non-human nature in order to continue to exploit them (Adams & Gruen 2014: 12). Josephine Donovan says that masculinist thought is engulfed in the concept of conquest and this is why a dualistic relationship will never manifest as mutual affirmation of both parties because of the masculinist need to conquer the foreign subject (Donovan 1990: 369). Donovan quotes Ruether, who says, “the project of human life must cease to be seen as one of domination of nature, rather we have to find a new language of ecological responsiveness, a reciprocity between consciousness and the world systems in which we live and move and have our being” (Donovan 1990: 369). In addressing the ‘masculine’ culture of domination, Donovan suggests the development of the relationship from one which is dualistic to an ecologically responsive relationship, in order to discourage the patriarchal view of nature and women as a disobedient ‘other’ in need of control (Donovan 1990: 369). The fragmented and dualistic character of the human/nature relationship has greatly contributed to the degradation of the environment. An ethic of care approach can assist in changing the relationship from one rooted in a culture of separation to one that recognises that humanity is interconnected to nature and that we therefore need a relationship based on an ecological responsiveness. An ethic of care approach can transcend the current oppressive system because it aims to recreate our relationship with nature. Adams and Gruen start their edited collection on ecofeminism with a quote from Kheel who says: Re-specting nature literally involves ‘looking again’. We cannot attend to the quality of relations that we engage in unless we know the details that surround our actions and relations. If ecofeminists are sincere in their desire to live in a world of peace and nonviolence for all living beings, we must help each other through the painstaking process of piecing together the fragmented world view that we have inherited. But the pieces cannot simply be patched together. What is needed is a reweaving of all the old stories and narratives into a multifaceted tapestry.(Adams & Gruen 2014: 1). In her book In a Different Voice, Gilligan speaks about what an ethic of care means (Gilligan 1982: 63). She says that an ethic of care is grounded in the development of relationships which understand the importance of everyone having a voice, beings listened to carefully and heard with care and respect (Gilligan 1982: 63). This voice must be allowed to speak in its own way and in its own right. It highlights the need for a responsive relationship. An ethic of care takes nature into consideration in the mists of an anthropocentric society, ultimately trying to abolish a patriarchal system. This theory goes into the root of caring for nature in the way that a mother (human and animal) cares for her child, which involves listening to nature, paying emotional attention to it and caring about what the plants, soil, water and animals have to say (as a horizontal relationship, not a vertical one) (Donovan 1990: 375). It involves a shift from theorising about it to directly listening to nature (Donovan 1990: 375). This ethic of care approach requires humanity to move away from thinking about our relationship with nature as an unequal power relationship towards thinking of it as an ecologically responsive one (Donovan 1990: 375). It speaks to the re- understanding of rationality as encompassing of feminine values, a contextual value, transcending its use as a tool to endorse dualistic relationships. Gilligan’s ethic of care is rooted in a “mode of thinking that is contextual and narrative rather than formal and abstract” (Donovan 1990: 374). An ethic of care identifies morality as a physiological response to how we experience ourselves in relation to others (Donovan 1990: 374). The origin of morality lies in the relationships we have with others. This emphasises the need for attentiveness and responsiveness in our relationship with nature. One cannot have morality without first having sympathy, the attentiveness to know when someone needs help, says Donovan (Donovan 2007: 199). Plumwood suggests that when developing a solution to the current global ecological crisis we need not look to further technology and science to create new more sustainable solutions, rather the solution lies at a cognitive level (Plumwood 2002: 3). We have to develop an environmental culture (Plumwood specifically uses the word ‘culture’ to emphasise how complex the challenge is and how deeply the challenge to the dualistic relationships has to go) that recognises the full value of humanity within the entire biosphere so that we can make informed decisions (Plumwood 2002: 3). This new environmental culture must replace the current understanding of reason as a masculine tool of domination, which laid the foundation for the human/nature and reason/ emotion dualism to exist, to an understanding of reason as encompassing of feminine values (Plumwood 2002: 4). Domination of nature must cease in favour of a new ecological consciousness, taking the organic nature of the natural environment into consideration (Donovan 1990: 369). This means that one must be aware of the fact that nature is not mechanical (as endorsed by the Cartesian dualistic objectivism) but is a living being which has a life energy that is host to a whole community of life forms (Donovan 1990: 369). An ethic of care is grounded in relationships built on responsiveness, care and respect which will contribute to a feminist reconstruction of the current relationship that humans have with the natural world (Donovan 1990: 375). Consciousness should never be seen as bequeathed solely on humans but rather as part of the “biomorphic spirit” inherent in all beings of the earth (Donovan 1990: 369). Paula Gunn Allen writes that nature is not blind and mechanical but rather is organic, alive and aware, it is a “seamless web” connecting all life on earth (Donovan 1990: 370). Gunn Allen proposes that we have to move away from the dualistic relationships which are linear and hierarchical relationships to a more relational one (Donovan 1990: 370). A feminine model of ecological responsiveness is focused on the preservation of life, which is contingent on understanding that all beings are interconnected. Donovan proposes an environmental ethic which demands the respect for all earthly beings, an ethic which listens to, and has respect for the diversity of all “environmental voices” (Donovan 1990: 374). This environmental ethic may be criticised for being too vague to be effective but the point is not to lay out an exact step-by-step guide but rather to develop a new epistemology (Donovan 1990: 374). Donovan suggests developing an ethic of care relationship through a direct dialogue with nature (Donovan 2007: 362). How do we achieve this? Adams suggests that we start by allowing nature’s stories to be part of the narrative (Donovan 2007: 362). This can be achieved through improved practices of attentiveness which will include a development of the skills which accompany care (Donovan 2007: 363). Alison Jaggar says that these skills include “openness, receptivity, empathy, sensitivity and imagination” (Donovan 2007: 364). This can only be achieved through the rejection of the modern scientific voice which “speaks with general and abstract authority” (Donovan 2007: 365). Donovan says that the only way that the relationship with nature can be repaired is if humanity no longer imposes its voice on to nature (Donovan 2007: 365). The relationship must cease to be one of conquest of the other, but rather what Ruether calls “the conversation of two subjects” (Donovan 2007: 365). This involves the recognition that nature has its own voice, which both needs to be heard and with which we encourage all to enter into conversation. The alternative is to engage in m/other love, to engage in unselfish care for others through embodied feminine writings to disrupt binary thinking and challenge phallocentric modes of divisionPhillips, 14 (Mary Phillips, researcher and author specializing in ecofeminism, maternalism, and embodied care at the University of Bristol. “Re-Writing Corporate Environmentalism: Ecofeminism, Corporeality, and the Language of Feeling.” Gender, Work, and Organization, Vol. 21 No. 5 September 2014. doi:10.1111/gwao.12047 ) SFWe can see that Cixous’s philosophy shares much ground with ecofeminism and in particular with regard to the continuity between the human and the natural and human dependency on nature. In a world dominated by rationality, a recognition that we are embodied and made of matter is fearful because the body reminds us of our material existence as organic beings who will inevitably die. For the corporate body politic, this is unthinkable. But we are not required to deny nature’s otherness or separateness — it is more that we should strive to make space within ourselves for that otherness, to put ourselves second at least sometimes (Cixous and Calle-Gruber, 1997).To disrupt binary thinking and explode phallocentrism, Cixous celebrates writing that engages with matter and with bodies. As with many ecofeminist thinkers, Cixous calls for other modes of exchange and representation rather than simple reversals of power relations so it is not a matter of privileging the feminine over the masculine, but of pursuing and celebrating differences. For Cixous, feminine writing has the capacity to circumvent reason as it is written from the body. This is in contrast to the language we have been taught:that speaks from above, from afar, that listens to itself, that has ears only for itself, the dead language of deafening that speaks to us in advance. We have been taught a language that translates every- thing in itself, understands nothing except in translation; speaks only in its language, listens only to its grammar, and we separated from the things under its order. (Cited in Conley, 1997, p. 126)Thus writing from a bodily immediacy that is in touch with the world around us should challenge the discourses of corporate environmentalism and the imaginaries upon which they draw, which she conceives of as a sort of translation which separates and excludes us, immobilizes us, interrupts flows of giving and receiving and kills life. We ‘receive what happens to us with “received feelings”. We do not profit from it in any way’ (Cixous and Calle-Gruber, 1997, p. 12) — we do not feel it properly, or know how to suffer or enjoy experience. We should instead be attuned to the language of feeling that precedes translation and thus come to experience in our bodies the more-than-rational, the excessive, the emotion that could re-connect and re-embody us within nature. Cixous argues that such feeling requires that we are open to the continuing impact of the body and of our environment on the body. Language, either spoken or written, is a bodily function — ‘It speaks through the body. Each time we translate what we are in the process of thinking, it necessarily passes through our bodies’ (Cixous, 1988, pp. 151–2), which involves nerve impulses, chemical messages and muscle movements together with continuing bodily functions such as breathing or pulse. Women’s bodies, however, have been appropriated and imaged by men, as has nature. She urges women to break free from these restrictive appropriations and to express their ‘newly born’ awakening in writing.I have shown how the imaginaries of ecological crises do not move us to recognize our own implications in their making, and how corporations appropriate the ‘Mother’ and ‘Mother Nature’ in the interests of the market and economic growth. Cixous proposes an alternative focusing on the maternal potential of the female body that challenges such imaginaries. This is not an essentialist view that reduces women to maternality as a natural condition, but is rather a revaluation of the maternal body as a model for a capacity to love/give to the other in a radically different relation to that of the masculine economy, with its focus on ‘self-absorbed, masculine narcissism, make sure of its image, of being seen, of seeing itself, of assembling its glories’ (Cixous, 1975 [1997], p. 166). Instead, m/other love is an economy of love which involves the unselfish displacement of the self to enable the other rather than appropriating the other’s difference and thus murdering the other to construct and glorify the self. Cixous does not argue that such a relation is only open to women, indeed she believes that it would liberate men who are currently consumed by the fear of castration — of being a woman — and who are reduced to a ‘single idol with clay balls’, the man collapsed into the penis (Cixous, 1975 [1997], p. 157). The feminine text which writes of and from the body is thus subversive and volcanic, exploding through the crust of the masculine economy. Such writing does not contain or restrict, it is not a possession of the other but acknowledges the self as relational, infinitely extended, in a fleeting embrace with the other.Cixous therefore argues for a writing to produce texts that ‘work on the difference’, which strive to undermine phallocentric culture and split asunder the closure of binarism. She takes oppositions and re-writes them into differences, working in the inbetween of two (nationalities, individuals, genders, sexualities, subject and object, human and more-than-human). At the same time, it is a matter of recognizing and respecting the boundaries where one ends and the other begins in a process of encounter and transformation:The origin of the material in writing can only be myself. I is not I, of course, because it is I with the others, coming from the others, putting me in the other’s place, giving me the other’s eyes ... (Cixous and Calle-Gruber, 1997, p. 87)This writing therefore does not envisage the obliteration of the self which would merely reverse the binary, the dialectic between self and other. It requires respect for the other and self-knowledge of one’s own desires, prejudices, fears and questions. Difference is thus a range of possibilities that opens up multiplicity rather than an opposition of mutually exclusive alternatives. She sets out not to efface or correct those binaries but to revel in the shifting space between the two: ‘What is intoxicating, what can be disturbing, difficult — in that it is not the third term, it is not a block between two blocks; it is exchange itself’ (Cixous and Calle-Gruber, 1997, p. 53). This is in contrast to the ‘language that speaks from above’ where meaning is constructed through the binaries referred to earlier, such that the dominant masculine term wields logic as a weapon and a means to classify, systematize and hierarchize and thus master the unknown. In so doing, it appropriates or destroys the other, such as women, the feminine and nature.The alternative is to engage in Feminine writing as a method of abandoning the discourses of rationality to embrace multiplicity and emotion in relation to the corporeal worldPhillips, 14 (Mary Phillips, researcher and author specializing in ecofeminism, maternalism, and embodied care at the University of Bristol. “Re-Writing Corporate Environmentalism: Ecofeminism, Corporeality, and the Language of Feeling.” Gender, Work, and Organization, Vol. 21 No. 5 September 2014. doi:10.1111/gwao.12047 ) SFFeminine writing can defy the masculine and bring about new relations between subject and other by refusing to engage in masculine self-defensive appropriation of the other’s difference under a logic of rationality. In studies of organization, the potential of Cixous’s work as a means of subverting and disrupting current dominant discourses has been noted in relation to academia (Fotaki, 2011), accounting practice and discourse (Cooper, 1992) and the writing of research in organizations (Phillips et al., 2013). Cixous believes that the forms of writing she espouses will inevitably bring about wider social and political changes. This is so because while she focuses on writing, her wider project is to induce us to re-think our connection to the world. It is exactly this reconnection that is called for by the ecofeminist project and some of those critiquing current corporate approaches.So this leads me to consider what this might mean for the discourses and practices of sustainability and the environment in corporations which need to be moved and twisted to engage with nature and the other of the more-than-human differently, to articulate differently and transform our relationship with nature. For corporations, this would mean turning away from a largely exclusive focus on instrumental rationality to embrace multiplicity, emotion and corporeal responses to the worlds in which we live. Poetry offers a means to do this — and as Cixous argues here, poetry can be transformative in ways that are different but complementary to activism:The poet ... knows very well that the influence of a text is always postponed: but it does exist. The text is active, but later, and in a different way to action. Poetic gestures transform other aspects of both the soul and of human life beyond those which are modified by political action. (Cixous, 2008, p. 89)To experience how poetic writing can have a visceral impact, consider the following poem by Susan Richardson, a leading eco-poet:The Ice is Wearing PurpleBeing cold was once a thrill, but now I’m old I’ve lost the will to aspire to a record minus.I’m so old I remember when penguins could flyand swallow the stars, like the sky swarmed with krill.My skin has wrinkles big enough For entire expeditions to fall into.I’ve had my fill of fighting the sun, of his summers of abuses — each part of me that meetsthe sea’s been bitten ragged. I’m also tired of getting blamed for the deaths of the menwhose footprints scar my face — my being white, it seems, give people leave to colourme in with their own mistakesand failings. So now, as I approach my finalmelting, I’ve no urge to think of quenchingthe thirst of the world. Instead, I dream of sinkingevery nation, hearing History splutter as it goes under, sweeping all the years of myth and bluster away. (Richardson, 2007, p. 88)There is a palpable sense of loss in this poem; the imagery of the sky swarming with krill contrasting with the edge of the ice ‘bitten ragged’ by the warming sea. The reader feels the bodily weariness of ice tired of fighting, tired of humanity’s vainglory, aware of its impending demise, but finally vengeful against the men who have caused it. A sense of the felt rhythms of nature at the beginning of the poem is heightened by the use of internal rhyme (‘thrill’, ‘fill’, ‘krill’, ‘will’) and by the sentence form of the first three stanzas. The rhyme and rhythm disappear as the ice grows angry approaching its ‘final melting’, mirroring the disappearance of the ice itself and the destruction of the harmony of the Arctic. We can see here that the poet (and, vicariously, the reader) is working in the shifting space between self and other, the ice sheet. This is writing that opens self to other and puts self ‘in the other’s place’ (Cixous and Calle-Gruber, 1997, p. 87). The world is seen and felt differently from the putative perspective of the ice.For Val Plumwood, creatively writing nature in this way opens ‘readers to ways of challenging the experiential framework of dead and silent matter entrenched by the sado-dispassionate rationality of scientific reductionism’ (Plumwood, 2007, pp. 17–18). Such writing enables us to feel our embodied connections to the natural world and to respond with emotion; to open ourselves to care. Creative work thus makes ‘visible new possibilities for radically open and non-reductive ways to experience the world’ (Plumwood, 2007, p. 17). Susan Richardson (personal communication) recounts how she has read her poetry to some very challenging audiences who have been moved by her work to at least see the necessity for change and begin to consider how it might be achieved. For her, ‘poetry by-passes the intellect and gets to the heart’. In Cixous’s terms, poetry such as The Ice is Wearing Purple challenges the ‘dead language’ of translation such that we re-connect with our feelings and with the world of which our bodies are a part.A call for corporations to engage in more creative responses to ecological crises is not as far- fetched as it possibly appears. Richardson has been funded by environmental non-government organizations and a community-owned power generation company (so admittedly not corporations) to run poetry-writing workshops addressing ecological challenges with a range of stakeholders. The rationale is that reading, writing and listening to poetry engages the emotions, makes the abstract concrete and infuses passion into the pursuit of a sustainable future. It reaches out and fosters commitment and draws people into a cause. The Arts and Humanities Research Council in the UK has funded arts-led initiatives to meet environmental sustainability challenges in a variety of com- munities. Organizations such as Tipping Point are a collaboration of scientists and artists in a variety of media such that ‘artists can play a vital role in exploring and pointing the way towards the cultural, societal and behavioural shifts needed in a world subject to a rapidly changing climate.’ Similar collaborations are being developed by academic communities such as the Cabot Institute, which funds an artist-in-residence, and which increasingly recognize that the language of science alone cannot change hearts and minds. Case for Optimism and the Dark Mountain Project are other examples of initiatives that, through writing and art, seek to challenge the dominant myths of Western civilization and create emotional tools to help us come to terms with the loss of the future for which we had hoped, and to build a different future in its place.I am not claiming that the creation of poetry within or sponsored by organizations will on its own dispel the sense of apathy and inertia that seems to characterize corporate responses to the growing environmental crisis with which humanity is faced (Wittneben et al., 2012). However, we need what Bullis and Glaser (1992) have described as guerrilla tactics to intervene in and re-texture organizational discourses and practices, tactics that will expand ways of knowing that include cor- poreal, visceral and emotional responses. Such tactics could articulate and frame corporate atti- tudes to nature differently. They could begin to open a conversation that resists patriarchal logic’s claim to universality and instead is open to and respects differences to explore new possibilities that include a re-enchantment with nature and a revaluation and reorientation of humanity’s place within it. As researchers and writers committed to raising awareness of and sparking action to counter the interrelated subordination of nature, women and other disadvantaged groups in the discourse and practice of corporations, we could seek to re-orientate our research practice into environmentalism. Working with poets and artists could help us challenge and subvert current corporate norms by inviting embodied responses to nature that prompt us to engage with new imaginaries of the interconnections between bodies and the natural world. We could embrace dif- ference by incorporating some of that into our own writing (see also Phillips et al., 2013, on writing differently).I give as an example a fragment of an eco-poem written to show how a sustainability report could be presented and which certainly challenges our expectations of the usual genre. The poem articulates the many voices of an organization so it incorporates multiplicity; an assemblage of bodies and voices that come together to articulate organizational attitudes to sustainability in a different kind of way:AT Ethic of Care BadCritiques of an ethic of care are misled and reproduce the dualisms ecofeminists critiqueVarner 16, Tess Varner is Director, Women's and Gender Studies; Assistant Professor, Philosophy at Concordia College, “Contemporary Perspectives on Ecofeminism”, Routledge explorations in environmental studies, //JKClosely linked to the debates on dualisms and overlapping oppressions are ecofeminist contributions to our understanding of human relations with non-human animals. In early works, some claimed that women’s social practices of care mean they are more likely than men to oppose practices of harm against animals (Salamone 1982); or that women may empathize with the sufferings of animals as they have some common experiences. For example, female domestic animals are most likely to be ‘oppressed’ via control of their sexuality and reproductive powers (Benny 1983: 142). Joan Dunayer (1995) has examined the speciesism of linguistic practices and the links between this and our gendered and racialized use of language, while Carol Adams (1990, 2003) argues that social practices such as meat eating are gendered and sexualized, and that popular culture is saturated with interpolations of gendered nature, and natured gender. There have been disputes, however. For example, Plumwood (2004) has critiqued the ‘ontological veganism’ of Adams (1990), which advocates individual abstention from all use of animals, as universalist and ethnocentric. Plumwood also argues that ontological veganism confirms the view that, unlike other species, humans can place themselves outside or above nature in avoiding the use of animals that is part of the human condition as ecologically embedded beings. As an alternative, she proposes ‘ecological animalism’, wherein a critique of the human exploitation of animals is combined with respect for different cultural meanings of certain practices (such as the hunting and eating of animals). Whilst in some ways ecological animism can be seen as more reflective of intersectionalized understandings of the world, Plumwood unfortunately reproduces the naturalization of behaviour (in this case the use of animals) and the dualism between human and animal that has been the subject of ecofeminist critique.Feminist influence is particularly evident in the wealth of ecofeminist writing on gender roles, an ‘ethic of care’ and concern for non-human spe- cies. A key theme here is the reproduction of gendered values through socialization and a different placement in the public and private division of labour. In ecofeminist writings of the 1980s, this involved some claims that female socialization inculcates characteristics of nurturance, sympathy, empathy and ‘feeling the life of the other’ (Plant 1989: 1). This understanding has been strongly criticized from socialist feminist perspectives (Segal 1987), and from within ecofeminism. For Mary Mellor, the patriarchal division of the human Western world into feminized private and masculinized public spheres involves ‘placing on women the major responsibility for nurturing and caring values and activities’ (1992: 251). This is an ‘imposed altruism’ and does not foster a particular relationship to the environment, or other animals by extension of empathy beyond family members. While the public face of capitalist production takes as its premise an autonomous individual, the nurturing private world ‘which has its material base in women’s time and work’ remains invisible (Mellor 1997: 174). Women’s imposed altruism means that they are not quite so embedded, compared with most men, within advanced capitalist time, ‘a sphere of false freedom that ignores bio- logical and ecological parameters’ (1997: 173). Rather, in their closer links to reproductive labour, women are influenced by biological time.Josephine Donovan (2006) suggests that such critics have misunderstood ecofeminist care theory. Discussing the case of non-human animals as subjects of feminist concern, Donovan argues that it is not a matter of caring for animals as mothers (human and non-human) care for their infants as it is one of listening to animals, paying emotional attention, taking seriously – caring about – what they are telling us. (Donovan 2006: 305)This need to pay attention to the being and lifeways of other species has strong similarities to Marc Bekoff’s (2002) notion of ‘minding animals’, wherein non-human species are understood to be ‘minded’ (creatures with interests, thoughts, feelings and views about the world) and deserving of treatment respectful of this and of animal lifeways. For Donovan, however, understanding the ‘qualitative heterogeneity of life forms’ implies dialogical reasoning and the articulation of a non-human standpoint by feminist animal advocates (2006: 306–7). Whereas utilitarianism and animal rights theory has often scorned empathy and compassion as ethically irrelevant (Singer 1990), or as an unstable basis for ethical claims (Garner 2005), Donovan is skeptical of the deployment of enlightenment rationalism in the development of a universal ethics for the human treatment of non-human animals. Rather, it is via our attentive observation and our compassion, even for creatures that might appear alien to us, that we might enter into ‘dialogue’. Donovan makes clear that attention and empathy must be accompanied by political engagement through an analysis rooted in intersectional understandings of power, and through advocacy which resists the objectification of animals and asserts their likely ‘point of view’. This critical engagement and position of advocacy has latterly impacted on the politics of animal liberation.Alt- Ethic of Care = dedevAn ethic of care dismantles neoliberalism and causes degrowthRuder and Sanniti, 2019 (They’re back! Modern ecofeminist analysts from the School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability University of Waterloo in Canada. Sarah-Louise Ruder and Sophia Rose Sanniti, 3-11-2019, "Transcending the Learned Ignorance of Predatory Ontologies: A Research Agenda for an Ecofeminist-Informed Ecological Economics," MDPI, .) /benchenThe historical, theoretical, symbolic, material, and experiential insights brought forth by ecofeminist perspectives underscore the urgent need to challenge and dismantle the destructive nature-culture dichotomies perpetuated by the patriarchal emancipation drive. Acknowledging the ecological and social dimensions of the reproductive sphere as critical to the maintenance of the human economy, an ecofeminist-informed ecological economics must insist these capacities “be cared for and sustained according to principles which fundamentally differ from the existing economic principles. Neglect of the realm of economic maintenance and care also means neglect of the principles by which this realm is governed and shaped” [49] (p. 110). Indeed, Cox observes that current resistance or “inability to recognize our dependence upon each other is reflected in an inability to acknowledge the extent of human dependence on the Earth and in attempts to seek tyranny over it” [172] (p. 127). Through a fascinating exploration of the political potential of an ethic of care, Cox declares that the “recognition of caring relations and of interdependency is intertwined with care for the Earth as whole. If we accept that we are dependent on others we are better able to acknowledge our collective dependence on the Earth, we are able to undercut ideologies of competitive caring and unsympathetic disregard for others” [172] (p. 127–128). The labour conducted in the reproductive realm is necessarily embodied, embedded, and takes place within discrete timescales and geographies that completely contradict the time, speed, and distancing of profit exchange [15,34,51,170,173,174]. Moreover, the interdependent nature of reproductive processes fosters “a disposition towards care [that] could undermine the competitiveness and individualizing processes of neoliberalism and draw attention to the interdependence that shapes all our lives” [172] (p. 116). Ancheta concurs, asserting that a care ethic stands to be “the logical nemesis against the exploitative and degenerative directions of humanity’s economic and industrial programs that constantly bombard the biosphere and humans themselves” [39] (p. 22). Ecofeminism brings the reproductive processes essential to the vitality and maintenance of human society to the forefront. The moral dimensions and distinctively relational properties of caring make the labour of reproduction “qualitatively different from market work” [34] (p. 25; see also [175]), limiting the potential for substitution by way of technological innovation [122]. Reorienting the concern of economics to more “concrete issues of provisioning related to the actual social and natural environment” [176] (p. 131 our emphasis) confronts the strenuous demands placed upon human communities by extreme shifts in global temperature that are expected to bring about changes in food, water, fuel and energy availability, public infrastructure reliability and shifts in community identity [177] (p. 205). Floro elaborates: A new economic thinking requires re-framing economic questions or inquiry in terms of provisioning for human life and environmental sustainability. It involves developing a framework for reallocation of resources and provisioning of socialized support for care, as well as the equal sharing of responsibilities between women and men. It also requires the integration of the costs for raising the next generation along with the costs of maintaining the resilience and carrying capacity of the environment in economic theories, models, and methodologies. It demands economic reasoning and development of analytical tools that provide a deeper understanding of the gendered, distributional, and ecological dimensions of economic options, choices and decisions including economic policies. Such a framework requires a better understanding of decision making processes where a more collective rather than individualistic perspective is taken. [34] (p. 28) In this regard, an ecofeminist ethic cultivates caring relations through the processes of economic provisioning, which sit at the heart of the reproductive sphere. Furthermore, the symbiotic (though undertheorized) potential between the degrowth imperative of ecological economics and the care imperative of ecofeminist ethics offers much promise in cultivating a radically alternative normative paradigm in the face of cataclysmic global crises [17,178,179]. Degrowth proposals for reduced economic production and environmental impact necessarily demand greater attention to the feminist concern regarding the distribution of care work. By privileging simplicity and conviviality, “[t]he imaginaries of a degrowth society thus lend themselves to a revaluation of care work that is necessary to achieve a greater equality in the distribution of paid and unpaid work among genders” [17] (p. 14). Likewise, D’Alisa, Deriu and Demaria assert that “re-centring a society around care would pave the way to degrowth” [178] (p. 64). Ecological economics has the potential to address both environmental and gender injustices critical to ecofeminist analysis but restricting these approaches to employment opportunities in the productive sphere such as work hours does not necessitate transformational change. Indeed, Prieto and Dominguez-Serrano argue that “theoretical elaborations and practices of degrowth are still lacking a deeply critical vision of the macro-dynamics of the present capitalist system, which would allow it to tackle the complexity and contradictions of everyday life and to seriously analyse the ‘seizure’ of women’s time and work which is at the basis of this society” [179] (p. 237). It is essential for ecological economics to investigate the gendered, predatory ontologies that shape perspectives of value and responsibility for both paid and unpaid care work and “help to overcome the antagonism of the monetized economy versus care and the environment” [17] (p. 19). Our ecofeminist lens offers direction for methodological pluralism in ecological economics. In the first volume of Ecological Economics published in 1989, Norgaard advocates for “conscious maintenance of methodological diversity and cultural adaptation to working with a range of answers,” arguing that “ecological economics will more likely evolve into a useful discipline if it maintains the breadth of the methodological base of economics and ecology and reaches out to the methodologies of other disciplines as well” [24] (pp. 38, 53). In our research agenda, we call for a return to Norgaard’s forward-thinking proclamation that methodological pluralism helps to sustain biological, cultural and epistemic diversity, as ways of thinking affect behaviour and decision-making [24,27,102,173]. Much like the diversity in the conceptual frameworks and theoretical perspectives of ecofeminism, there is no single ecofeminist method. Ecofeminism encourages reflexive consideration of the power and implications of methods and is especially critical of disciplines and methodologies that reproduce the status quo and mask power relations (i.e., ignorance of ongoing structures of settler colonialism, assumptions that humans justly eat animals, etc.) [28,31,37,55]. The search for methodological pluralism is connected to the duty to diversify the membership and traditions of a particular discipline. Ecofeminism highlights social and cultural dimensions of knowing, advocating for new perspectives on qualitative and quantitative observation through the inclusion of marginalized voices [21,28,64,85]. Norgaard writes, “methodological pluralism promotes participation and decentralization” [24]. The origins and development of ecofeminism demonstrate decades of integrating diverse voices, making space for marginalized groups, considering the rights and wellbeing of nonhuman life, and building partnerships outside of the academy [21,27,28,64]. Ecological economics can learn from the traditions of ecofeminism to legitimize community-based and alternative ways of knowing. An ecofeminist ethic of care “expands the scope of moral considerability to include the nonhuman but also reminds us of the collective responsibilities and duties of reciprocation that come with being a citizen of a shared planet” [80] (p. 75). Some ecological economists have theorized such moral inclusion, like Herrmann-Pillath’s “agents as ontologically diverse assemblages (such as plants and humans)” [180] (p. 222). This returns to the moral imperative at the foundation of ecological economics and demands the question: ‘who and what is ecological economics designed to serve, and what limits exist for what ecological economics can/should include? ’Rather than dismiss and bury the social constructions of knowledge through the guise of objectivity, ecological economists can accept that the economy is not culture- or value-free; however, ecological economics, as a discipline, continues to struggle with methodological diversity and addressing the aforementioned ‘empirical turn’ [23,24,26]. As outlined above, not only are the repredatory implications of prioritizing ‘hard’ methods, but it is also misguided. In harmony with science and technology studies and some ecological economists, ecofeminists demonstrate how science and quantitative methods cannot be objective because of the social dimensions of knowledge creation [32,181–183]. While there is power in quantitative empirical evidence, conceptual framing will ascribe meaning to the observations and measurements because ‘data does not speak for itself. ’Some feminist theorists react to the shift toward ‘hard’ research with a rejection of quantitative methods, claiming that such methods are contrary to feminist aims [184]. While we support a gender analysis of methods and ways of knowing, we caution against the urge to dichotomize qualitative and quantitative research methods. Ecofeminist methodologies assert that there is no purely objective perspective, rejecting the notion that there is one right way and welcoming rhetoric, normative theory, and community-based research. Still, methods can be suitable for inquires. We anticipate that there will be discomfort and resistance toward our propositions for open and flexible methods within the ecological economics discipline (among other disciplines). Such critiques reaffirm the primacy and dominance of ‘hard’ methods in ecological economics, as well as the related dualisms of reason-emotion, masculine-feminine. For example, Spash’s argument for realism over pluralism might perpetuate harmful dominance of hard approaches at the expense of what ‘soft’ approaches have to offer, despite intentions to provide important research directions and useful nuance in ontology, epistemology, and methodology [185]. Certainly, more inquiry and debate are needed in the theoretical and epistemological foundations of ecological economics, as well as ecofeminism; however, the ecofeminism’s comfort in the uncertain and uncomfortable might offer useful new ways of approaching research and action in ecological economics. Lockwood addresses the “illusion of incoherence” in ecofeminist communities: The truth or rightness of an ecofeminist position is evident not in its logical consistency or adherence to female perspectives. Rather, the acid test is the world: Does the ecofeminist account lead to actions which result in less suffering or greater justice? [...] Seen this way, ecofeminism’s incoherence among conceptual formulations is non-problematic because the field is held together by the empirical diminishment of suffering and the enhancement of justice within humankind (e.g., the fair distribution of natural resources and industrial waste) and among humans and nonhumans (e.g., the fair allocation of space for living a full life).[95] (p. 167) The necessary paradigm shifts demand new approaches to research, embedded in the material realities of their objects of study and ‘soft’ ways of knowing. Ecological economics and ecofeminism already share some epistemological frameworks, including systems thinking and complexity theory [85]. While not all ecofeminists would identify with these frameworks, there are important ecofeminist connections with the language and epistemologies of systems thinking and complexity theory [21,102,103]. For instance, the intersectional foundations of ecofeminism demonstrate the understanding of complex systems through the interconnected structures of power (e.g., racism, classism, sexism, anthropocentrism, etc.), the interplay of oppression and privilege (i.e., someone could be oppressed by their gender and privileged by their race), and the emergence of power dimensions in social relations (i.e., social location is more than the sum of its parts) [21,60,102].We, along with other ecofeminists, argue that the problematic dualisms with which ecofeminists take issue—such as masculine-feminine, reason-emotion, economy-ecology—can be overcome with an application of systems thinking [21,31,85,102,103]. Yet, critical systems thinking literature has largely ignored feminist or gender analysis, and the applications to ecological or environmental problems remains underexplored [102,103]. We join the commentary within ecological economics that the socio-political dimensions of low-carbon transformations thus far do not adequately address the complexities of concurrent crises or the limits of the systems in which they are embedded [179,186]. Ecofeminism can assist ecological economics in reuniting with complexity theory. Furthermore, ecological economics can learn from the practice of ‘methodological caution’ and ‘methodological humility’ in ecofeminism: knowing that one’s perspective is necessarily limited, especially as an outsider from the group being studied and to accept that academic methods could miss important information without discrediting the experience and knowledges of insiders [187]. With an appreciation of complex systems, the transformations and leverage points for change are proposed with caution and humility. Ecofeminism can guide ecological economics in practices of embracing uncertainty and unknown, as well as the limits of knowledges and ways of knowing [94]. The ecofeminist theory of ‘embodied materialism’ outlines an acceptance of the limits of human knowledge and the accountability of embedded awareness, as opposed to learned ignorance anthropocentrism [21,31,36,51]. Given the stakes, transitions and transformations for more just and sustainable futures must be approached with caution and humility. As such, solidarity with ecofeminism is the ideal solution for ecological economics because “ecofeminism is an explicit antidote to the implicit poison of hubris” [95] (p. 159). Acknowledging the distribution of power, ability, and responsibility in post-growth transitions will be critical to their success, particularly in the face of unprecedented socio-economic and environmental stressors. Indeed, though household financial management remains a gender-neutral chore in times of relative stability [188], this crucial task is often thrust upon women in times of financial strain such as economic downturns, “as the woman is viewed to be more financially responsible and better at micromanaging scarce resources” [189] (p. 7; see also [190–192]). Yet men typically maintain final decision-making power regarding whether or not to file for bankruptcy despite their relative discomfort with the general management of household debt in times of crisis [189,193]. Though distributive justice remains a core pillar of the ecological economics framework and a pivotal component to the successful implementation of large-scale socio-economic transformation, discussions of justice remain marginal and superficial in most ecological economic discourse. Financial, temporal, material and social privileges necessarily enable ecological modes of living. Understanding and explicitly problematizing processes of unequal power relations can transform ecological economics from a tool of institutionalized oppression into a promising tool for liberation from the oppressive institutions of capitalist-patriarchy. Reiterating the critical account put forth by Spencer et al., ecological economics must acknowledge the “crucial roles of distribution and power for meeting the goals of scale, distribution and allocation. Approaches to theory, policy and governance should address ways of countering concentrations of power, recognizing the value of collectivities and interpersonal relationships over a long-time horizon” [22] (p. 196). Returning to the emergent hierarchies in the provisioning of caring work, Tronto points to the ‘privileged irresponsibility’ that results from privatized forms of care [167]. For example, childcare provided by public institutions in communal facilities is more frequently replaced by private care in an employer’s home, usually provided by migrant or otherwise disadvantaged workers (in terms of race/ethnicity, class, gender). The power dynamics within “exacerbate inequalities, distribute care unequally between people with different resources and different statuses and allow the most privileged. . .[to] do least and the most disadvantaged do most” [172] (pp. 119–126). Cox argues that the resulting privileged irresponsibilities for such duties are “both a cause and effect of the marginalization of care work” [172] (p.126). Cox elaborates: it is not just that we need to understand the full range of sites and types of care that take place but also that we need to elucidate the very different resources available to different people to carry out care and the implications of these differences. . .inequalities in access to care produce measurable outcomes that affect people throughout their lives, maintaining the privilege of those with the greatest resources available to them. [172] (p. 126) This curious notion of privileged irresponsibility applies to the larger scholarly efforts of the ecological economics community, in relation to conceptions of and implications for distributive justice. Western scholars are predominantly located in affluent regions of the world that are “incurring ecological and care debts, giving rise to a real conflict between capital and life” [179] (p. 229). Post-growth proposals drafted by individuals in the overdeveloped world fail to recognize the disproportionate burden of risk, responsibility, and work hours related to enacting ecological economies that are necessarily placed on marginalized groups. The effectively invisible sphere of social reproduction in ecological economic accounts further elucidates the negligent approach of the discipline to questions of power dynamics implicit in the processes of resource access, allocation, and distribution. In this sense, ecological economics implicitly privileges the market as the primary location of community networks and exchange. Intriguingly, however, the assumed vulnerabilities and adaptive capacities of communities and regions must come under scrutiny in the face of complex non-linearities innate in global climate change. Scholarship on adaptation has a frustrating tendency to frame environmental, social or financial shocks as an ‘exogenous stimulus’ to society, “isolate[ing] climate change impacts and adaptation from the ‘messiness’ of other societal spheres in order to retain. . .conceptual clarity and analytical purity” [20](p. 525). The complex nature of adaptive capacities is most effectively elucidated in recent research with socio-poor households. Migrants and ethnic minorities have been recognized as particularly adept at engaging in environmentally responsible practices, such as saving water and energy or using public transport, at above-average rates [177,194,195]. Due to pre-migration experiences of scarcity and disruption, existing skills and practices related to cooking, laundering, and water capture were found to be particularly advantageous during periods of prolonged drought in Australia [194]. Thus, as Toole contends, “[h]ouseholds with strong internal and external social relations, frugal practices and high levels of pedestrian mobility may ultimately prove less vulnerable to a range of more-than-climate impacts than isolated but wealthy households, whose everyday lives are dependent on energy-intensive and less flexible modes of operation” [177] (p. 207). The socio-political complexities innate in transformational change must be recognized and understood in order to build and implement effective post-growth proposals.6. Concluding Remarks in the face of unprecedented biophysical and socio-economic predicaments, scholarship in the heterodox school of ecological economics must articulate feasible pathways to transformational societal change that adapt “not only to new hazards and changing resources but also to new regimes of knowledge, as well as to changes in access to and control over resources” [20] (p. 523).However, these pathways are empirically and practically inhibited by the limited theoretical frame of ecological economics, as an epistemologically androcentric discipline that continues to neglect and thus perpetuate power differentials. Without addressing these critiques, if indeed this is possible, ecological economics will continue to advance implicitly gendered assumptions that normalize and perpetuate oppressive institutions. Our ecofeminist analysis demonstrates how the logics of extractives capitalism that justify gender biased and anti-ecological structures of power in the dominant growth-oriented economic paradigm also directly inform the theoretical basis of ecological economics and its subsequent post-growth proposals. We acknowledge that there are limitations to our analysis and we anticipate that there will be much discomfort from ecological economists receiving our criticism, not only because of the criticisms, but also in the balance of writing a piece that connects a diversity of disciplines and ideologies (i.e., we compromise the accessibility of the analysis to be true to both disciplines). Nonetheless, in the face of unquantifiable uncertainties and unknowable vulnerabilities, Nelson calls upon economic researchers of all stripes to take an ethical stand on climate change [4]. The way forward is unpredictable and the stakes are high, but the magnitude of the wicked socio-economic and ecological problems demand radical theory and practice. Dethroning the predatory ontologies innate in conventional and ecological approaches to economics might be the only way to achieve the transformations that ecological economists and ecofeminists desire, though the feasibility of such a shift remains uncertain. While there are streams in the field of ecological economics that account for interconnected systems of oppression and structures of power highlighted by ecofeminism [22,24,26,48,174,196], these efforts are explicitly relegated to the margins of the field and the central narratives of the overarching paradigm remain unchanged. This suggests that the predatory ontologies outlined in our paper are so deeply rooted in ecological economics that they marginalize and invalidate dissent. The analysis presented in this paper further warrants an investigation of the limits to the notion of ecological ‘economies’ itself. Moving beyond problematizing predatory ontologies in contemporary market logics, an ecofeminist frame might reveal deeper roots of the problem. Notions of ‘economy’ area direct product of the capitalist-patriarchy; institutionalized systems of appropriation under the guise of economy have been critical tools of socio-ecological devastation. Indeed, what may be required is the problematizing of all approaches that “[accept] the structuring of economic life by the market” [197] (p. 233). Instead, returning to modes of provisioning, subsistence and communing presents promising potential [16,21,47,94,124,196,198,199]. As Snyder remarks: The commons is a curious and elegant social institution within which human beings once lived free political lives while weaving through natural systems. The commons is a level of organization of human society that includes the nonhuman. The level above the local commons is the bioregion. Understanding the commons and its role within the larger regional culture is one more step toward integrating ecology with economy. [200] (p. 40) The care ethics implicit in ecofeminist theory and practice offer tools that not only dismantle the dominating dualisms of predatory ontologies, but also fundamentally foster interconnection, dependence, and kinship in relations between humans, humans and nonhuman life, and humans and nature. Indeed, the care ethic “reminds us of the collective responsibilities and duties of reciprocation that come with being a citizen of a shared planet” [80] (p. 75). The ethic of care is the way of establishing mutually-enhancing ways of being (the opposite of predatory ontologies). Only this ethical orientation and the ecofeminist frame can conceptualize and hold the connections: ‘economy’ is provisioning is reproduction is labour is caring. Dismantling the predatory ontologies at the heart of the growth paradigm (read: capitalist-patriarchy in its most present and globalized manifestation) is the most urgent and fundamental task for any radical thought or action to stimulate socio-economic transformation. Our research agenda proposes potential synergies and solidarities between ecological economics and ecofeminism that liberate current heterodox approaches to ‘economy’ from pervasive predatory ontologies. Table 1 below offers a series of questions resulting from our analysis, which we invite scholars within and beyond the realm of both ecological feminisms and economies to address imminently. In an era of cataclysmic crises, an ecofeminist ethic of care can nurture the neglected soil of social-ecological reproduction into an organic growth of mutually-enhancing Earth-human relationships.Alt--Ecological SpiritualityThe alt is an ecological spirituality that acknowledges human and nonhuman interdependenceGaard, 2001 (Greta Gaard - Western Washington University and Fairhaven College. “WOMEN, WATER, ENERGY - An Ecofeminist Approach”, Organization and Environment, Vol. 14, No. 2, pg. 167-169 June 2001, \\ethan.jxtai)WATER, POWER, AND HUMAN RELATIONS These examples of environmental sexism, environmental racism, and environmental classism reveal something about Western culture’s attitude toward nature. They reveal how as inhabitants of Western culture we are conditioned to think about water and how we are conditioned to think about power. And our conception of power and energy, as well as our relationship to water, is based on a linear model that is now showing itself to be not only inaccurate, but life threatening. This linear model is based on the assumption that energy can be continuously extracted from nature—from water, from poor people, from people of color, from women—without giving back anything of sustenance. In the linear model of power production, energy is extracted, distributed, consumed, and in the process, wastes are produced: noise, electromagnetic radiation, flooding, pollution. In nature’s energy model, production and consumption form a continuous flow; there is no waste (Mies & Shiva, 1993). A fundamental insight of feminism has been its understanding of power and power relationships. From a feminist perspective, power in itself is a neutral entity that can be used in different ways. Domination of others—whether in the form of rape, slavery, animal experimentation, colonialism, clear-cutting, or damming— has been called “power over” and is part of the violent and oppressive framework that feminists reject. In contrast, teaching or supporting others in using their own inner strength, deriving strength from their relationships, or working in coalition with other groups for the good of life on this earth has been called empowerment, or “power with.” It is this peaceful use of power that feminists advocate; its implications for social justice, for environmental justice, and for sustainable energy production can be denied only at the risk of human and ecological health. Many scientists, environmentalists, and politicians alike are now predicting that The wars of the 21st century will be over water. By the year 2025, it is predicted, one out of three people will live in countries that are short of water (Postel, 1997). Worldwide, about 80% of water use goes for agriculture, and demand is increasing (“Study: Water Crisis Looms,” 1998). In view of these facts, it is clear that we must make changes in our lifestyles and consumption habits. Although we rarely think about water when we see an automobile, we need to realize that producing a typical U.S. car requires more than 50 times its weight in water; a kilogram of hamburger or steak produced by a typical California beef cattle operation uses about 20,500 liters of water (Postel, 1997, p. 190). As long as the purchase price of material goods fails to account for the social and environmental costs, shifting our purchases away from such water-intensive products will be an important strategy for achieving water sustainability. But the purchasing choices of individual consumers (green consumerism) pale in comparison to the institutional choices made by industry and government. We need to change the socioeconomic infrastructure that mediates Western culture’s relationship with water, and to do this we need three types of change to occur simultaneously— changes in the practice of democracy and in the areas of economic accounting and cultural beliefs. As the experiences of citizens from Cross Lake, Manitoba, to Wausau, Wisconsin, and Sumas, Washington, make clear, government is being heavily influenced by corporations and is not responding to citizen input. Voting more regularly or lobbying our elected officials does not seem to be influencing the political system when this system is too closely tied to corporate economics. To restore the genuine practice of democracy, corporations need to be brought under the control of the government, and the government must be brought back to serving the people for whom it stands. Shifting our cultural views from anthropocentrism to an interconnected worldview that includes “all our relations” (LaDuke, 1999), we need a political system that recognizes the citizenship of mountains and lakes as well as the citizenship of humans of all races; we need an ecological democracy (Gaard, 1998; Plumwood, 1995; Sandilands, 1995). Second, the life-sustaining value of pure water needs to be reflected through a form of economic accounting, that is, accounting that counts both the environmental costs of overconsumption and pollution as well as the value of free-flowing rivers and pure, widely available drinking water. As the indigenous people of North America have advised, we need to account for both the material as well as the spiritual and psychological value of environmental health for all residents of the land. To safeguard against situations that allow corporations to place undue pressure on poor communities, urging them to accept polluting industries and toxic wastes, we need an economic system that pays a living wage to every worker, one that does not require workers to risk their health for their jobs, one that values the work that women do, and one that respects the value of indigenous peoples and indigenous homelands. We need an ecological economics (Gaard, 1998; Mellor, 1997; Plumwood, At the same time that we reclaim our democracy and adjust our economic accounting, we need to transform our inherited cultural beliefs, for a democracy is capable only of representing the beliefs of the people who participate in it. Democracies are not inherently ecological, feminist, or antiracist unless the people within them make them so. Currently, the democracies of North America do not give full citizenship to people of nondominant races and genders, and this exclusion is antidemocratic; moreover, they rely on a separation between the public citizen and the private individual, thereby separating the functions of production and consumption. To remedy these errors, we need to “close the loop,” in effect, to restore the connections between public and private, between culture and nature, between reason and the erotic, between energy and emotion, between the mind and the body; we need to recognize and nourish the interdependence of White and non-White citizens and people of all genders. We need a partnership culture, one that acknowledges our human identities as fundamentally interdependent with human and nonhuman others. Ecological spirituality is part of this cultural shift and is needed as well. One spiritual path known for its ecological commitments, Buddhism suggests that the impediments to our spiritual unfolding are the same as our problems with social and environmental injustice and can be traced to three root forces—greed, hatred, and delusion (Payutto, 2000). These forces are also at the root of Western culture’s troubled relationship with water. Greed is at the root of this culture’s failure to account for the environmental costs of water pollution; rather, we profit by polluting. Hatred contaminates our relationship with nature, with racialized others, with our bodies as nature. Delusion, or wrong view, comes into play when we think we can treat water any way we want and get away with it, that this earth is not a closed system, and that the consequences of our polluting behaviors will not come back to us. Today, we can no longer flush and forget. An ecological spirituality recognizes the immanence of the sacred here and now, in the interdependence of all life, and in each glass of water. Power can be shared in ways that honor our various relations with each other and with the land. The choice is up to us 1995; Waring, 1988).Alt -- Grassroots ecofemGrassroots women’s organizations are catalysts for positive socio-economic changeHanson 15 – Anne-Marie Hanson, (Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Illinois Springfield, PhD in Geography), “Shoes in the seaweed and bottles on the beach – Global garbage and women’s oral histories of socio-environmental change in coastal Yucatan,” A Political Ecology of Women, Water, and Global Environmental Change (Edited by Stephanie Buechler – Assistant Research Professor of Environmental Policy at the University of Arizona - and Anne-Marie Hanson – Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Illinois Springfield), 3/1/2015, /niki.aAs John Scanlan argues, “garbage is everywhere but, curiously, is mostly overlooked in what we take to be valuable from our lived experiences, and crucially, in the ways we organize the world” (2005: 9). As the urban population and tourism industry grow in coastal Yucata?n, plastics consumption has increased without land or local government infrastructure to dispose of waste materials in controlled sites. As a result, “small cities on the coast often face the cumulative burden of decline and deterioration of coastal resources, while also experiencing infectious diseases and urban infrastructure problems directly related to overflow of garbage in these areas” (Hanson forthcoming). In focusing on the ways that women’s organizations deal with the overlooked problem of too much trash on the coast and in coastal waterways, this chapter puts at the forefront women’s motivations for collective organizing in a way that positions them as catalysts for positive socio-environmental change. Rather than position women’s words as subaltern testimonials that further normalize patriarchal and neoliberal state projects (Curiel 2007), women’s histories reject the assumption that poor women organize solely for survival or that environmental analysis reveals women’s subordination. Instead, the inclusion of women’s exact words reframes grassroots women organizers as “dynamic, albeit under-valued, activists” (Jenkins 2008: 156). I draw from feminist conceptualizations of scale to stress the interconnections of globalized conservation and consumption processes that abruptly intersect in the lives of grassroots women and waste- management activists in coastal Yucata?n. The women’s ecological oral histories show how the mobilization of grassroots women’s organizations is based on local, embodied experience, but also have direct regional influence for addressing garbage problems linked to globalization, increased consumerism, and global environmental change. In focusing on women’s narratives of change, I am not letting state or private organizations “off the hook” for their roles in normalizing specific conservation and development practices and policies that exclude women, namely by financing men’s work in fishing and eco-tourism activities. At this point in time, while plastics consumption and waste are increasing from local residents and tourism, urban services continue to be neglected by many levels of government. Women have thus taken into their own hands the responsibility to maintain clean and healthy living spaces (Figure 9.3). The women’s histories express their motivations for participating in urban sustainability work that was not being done otherwise in a region so highly focused on global concerns for tropical coastal conservation. The histories “further establish women’s continued and important roles in producing creative spaces for the negotiation of meanings, practices, and politics within urban environmental governance and vulnerable coastal areas” in the context of global environmental change (Hanson forthcoming). As one member of Las Costeras told me, we all should remember the analogism of Jose? Narosky (1975: 14): “while there exists the person who throws broken glass on the beach, there is also the person who bends down to pick it up” (translation mine). Grassroots ecofeminism empowers women and natureCitrenbaum, 2020 (Brett Rapkin-Citrenbaum - PoliSci & IR @ Goucher College. “Wading Upstream: The Case for Ecofeminism as a Solution-Oriented, Critical Theory Approach”, pg. 55-62, Goucher College, May 2020, \\ ethan.jxtai)Ecofeminism and Community-Based Solution Ecofeminism has a long history of supporting grassroots organizations in their efforts to combat climate change. Ecofeminist scholars articulate that grassroots, community-oriented organizations are distinctive because they put women and children "at the center of concern, and work out strategies that simultaneously empower women and protect nature."142 Many of ecofeminism’s central arguments point to community-based organizations as a viable and principled Clearly, ecofeminist firmly believe that to be most representative, movements must start on the ground. Central to ecofeminism is the belief that environmental action must be rooted in the needs of the most disenfranchised peoples who are impacted by climate change. Therefore, it is within the guidelines of ecofeminism to utilize a bottom-up system to combat climate change. By starting “at the grassroots to popularize the movement,” efforts are more sure to center the voices that have previously been ignored.146 SDCEA Programming: Working Towards Both Long and Short Term Solutions The South Durban Community Environmental Alliance (SDCEA) is a non-profit organization based in the heart of Wentworth, Durban. SDCEA was founded in 1995 with the goal of being “a vocal and vigilant group active in lobbying, reporting and researching industrial incidents and accidents…” as well as being a leader in the struggle “for clean air, water and soil and for the alleviation of environmental racism and poverty.”147 SDCEA is independent from the government, receiving almost all of its funding from outside of South Africa. The organization utilizes educational outreach, peaceful organizing, town hall meetings, commenting on environmental impact assessments, bringing legal cases to court regarding environmental and health rights, and performing research to keep updated statistics as the means through which they can achieve their goals. Ecofeminists have long articulated that issues of climate injustices cannot be dealt with in a vacuum. Quick fixes and Band-Aid solutions will not target the larger issue of global climate change; however, these immediate solutions are necessary. SDCEA has a long track record of working to change laws and structures to end climate injustice through actions such as strategic community mobilization and negotiating with government officials. SDCEA understands these changes will not in South Durban. They meet with government representatives to ensure that South Durban’s voice is represented in any conversation about the development of the community. SDCEA regularly provides memorandums and other forms of written recommendations to the local government in an attempt to enact total, top down change. They keep the media in the loop about any and all oil spills, fires, or dramatic health implications so as to put continued pressure on the government to take action.149 These actions represent ecofeminist ideals that emphasize an acknowledgement at a systems level, for SDCEA is working to change the very structures that have led to South Durban’s oppression. At the same time, they also engage in the everyday work of protecting people from environmental pollution. SDCEA recognizes that the work of changing the system is crucial to protecting those in South Durban, however laws can take a long time to be passed and even longer to be implemented. Because of this, SDCEA also works to aid those already suffering from the environmental impacts of the oil refineries in the area. SDCEA attempts to keep an updated database of cancer and asthma statistics for those people living within the proximity around the oil refineries. Their goal is to produce enough evidence to advocate for the municipality to fund a free clinic to assist those suffering from cancer, leukemia, asthma, and other health issues relating to the oil refinery. They host regular town hall events so as to provide a platform for those who may otherwise not be able to tell their story. SDCEA and their allies work on the ground in a community-based fashion to achieve their mission through both engaging in systemic change, as well as the everyday work of protecting lives and livelihoods. Here, SDCEA demonstrates the other side of the ecofeminist coin: they are working hard to protect people already bearing the brunt of climate change. SDCEA is able to connect the grand, systemic issues to those in immediate need and provide aid. pollutants at particularly high rates. Safripol failed to inform the neighborhood, but did manage to evacuate their own staff.154 SDCEA responded to this situation by ensuring both immediate action was taken and by encouraging the state and the company to act more responsibly so as to create long term, systemic changes. SDCEA workers did not hesitate to attempt to interject in the situation as quickly as possible. Immediately after smelling the chemical fumes, SDCEA staff attempted to call the municipality air pollution offices to file a report and receive aid, though their calls were ignored. SDCEA also used their connections with city officials to amplify the situation’s importance. Furthermore, SDCEA used their power in the community to organize citizens to stand up and protest the action, ensuring that Safripol was held accountable. Desmond D’Sa, the founder and office coordinator of SDCEA, negotiated with the general manager of the plant in front of a large crowd of South Durban residents. He emphasized the importance of an emergency evacuation plan, and stated that “the quicker [Safripol] comes back to us with something in writing,” in response to the demands, “the quicker we will meet and decide that the plant can open,” demonstrating the power and importance of community.155 After the incident, the Safripol senior management took twelve hours to attend to the community. SDCEA helped the community put pressure on Safripol to take responsibility for their actions, which they were initially avoiding. Safripol agreed to provide an occupational clinic with a medical doctor and nurse, as well as two ambulances in South Durban so as to accommodate those peoples that were impacted but unable to receive immediate medical attention.156 Throughout the process, SDCEA assisted in getting the word out to citizens, informing them where the toxins had come from and what resources were available to the people, and what was being done to ensure this never happened again. Obviously, this incident is not the sole instance of unacceptable chemical leaks in South Durban, and SDCEA understands that this repetition is no coincidence. They continue to do work to advocate for the safety of citizens and enact legally binding regulations to hold polluters accountable. Long before this disaster happened, SDCEA has had a track record of “warning city officials that an emergency plan is urgently recruited in South Durban.”157 SDCEA advocated for health officials to use their mandate to encourage a safer community, to take air samples and keep records of the pollution in the area. SDCEA regularly updates their medical information on the community to demonstrate the immediate need for a more local clinic. SDCEA preforms air quality tests throughout South Durban to provide non-bias, regular, and accurate results about the toxins in the air. The results of these test are posted on their website for anyone to see. SDCEA’s education of the community, efforts to build a clinic in South Durban, and their continued negotiations with both corporate and state demonstrates the long term goals of the organization. Their work aims to create laws and systemic practices that will prevent further instances of environmental racism and health concerns. SDCEA works to protect the absolute rights of those living in South Durban. Their efforts include analyzing energy and climate change, acting as a watchdog while infrastructure and development continue to negatively impact residents, track pollutants and their impacts on residents’ health, and search for alternatives to oil and gas exploration in South Africa. Energy in South Africa is an extremely sensitive area.Ecofeminist movements contributes to protecting the environment – empirics provesThe Indian Express 18 (“What is the Chipko movement,” The Indian Express, 2018) Chipko movement was a non-violent agitation in 1973 that was aimed at protection and conservation of trees, but, perhaps, it is best remembered for the collective mobilisation of women for the cause of preserving forests, which also brought about a change in attitude regarding their own status in society. The uprising against the felling of trees and maintaining the ecological balance originated in Uttar Pradesh’s Chamoli district (now Uttarakhand) in 1973 and in no time spilled onto other states in north India. The name of the movement ‘chipko’ comes from the word ’embrace’, as the villagers hugged the trees and encirled them to prevent being hacked.However, not many people know that the original Chipko andolan dates back to the 18th century and was started by Rajasthan’s Bishnoi community. The incident has been etched in the annals of history for the sacrifice of a group of villagers, who led by a lady named Amrita Devi, laid down their lives while protecting trees from being felled on the orders of then King of Jodhpur. After this incident, the king, in a royal decree, banned cutting of trees in all Bishnoi villages.The trigger for the modern Chipko movement was the growth in development that Uttar Pradesh witnessed following the 1963 China border conflict. The need for infrastructural development attracted many foreign logging companies, who were eyeing the state’s vast forest resources. However, the forests were the lifeblood of the villagers and they relied on it for both food and fuel. In 1970, widespread floods inundated the area and was attributed to the mismanagement due to commercial logging.The other reason that angered the villagers was the government’s policy that did not allow local agriculturists and herders to cut the trees for fuel wood or for fodder and for certain other purposes. However, a sports manufacturing company was given the permission to fell trees and use them to make equipment, which proved to be the final provocation and a people’s movement wasborn. It was then that environmentalist and Gandhian social activist Chandi Prasad Bhatt, founder of the cooperative organisation Dasholi Gram Swarajya Sangh, led the first Chipko movement near the village of Mandal in 1973.When their appeals were denied, Bhatt led a group of villagers into the forest and embraced the trees to prevent logging. After many days of agitation, the government canceled the company’s logging permit. The Chipko movement can essentially be called a women’s movement. Women, being solely in charge of cultivation, livestock and children, suffered the most due to floods and landslides, caused due to rise in deforestation in the face of urbanisation.The message of the Chipko workers made a direct appeal to them. They were able to perceive the link between their victimization and the denuding of mountain slopes by commercial interests. Thus, sheer survival made women support the movement. On its doodle blog in commemorating the 45th anniversary of the movement, Google wrote, “The Chipko Andolan also stands out as an eco-feminist movement. Women formed the nucleus of the movement, as the group most directly affected by the lack of firewood and drinking water caused by deforestation. The power of protest is an invaluable and powerful agent of social change.”The Chipko Movement gained traction under Sunderlal Bahuguna, an eco activist, who spent his life persuading and educating the villagers to protest against the destruction of the forests and Himalayan mountains. It was his endeavor that saw then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi banning the cutting of tress. Bahuguna is best remembered for the slogan “ecology is the permanent economy”.The Chipko Movement proves ecofeminist movement successfulShiva and Bandyopadhyay 1986 (Vandana Shiva, Indian scholar and J. Bandyopadhyay, Indian Institute of Management, “The Evolution, Structure, and Impact of the Chipko Movement,” Mountain Research and Development, Vol. 6, No. 2, pp. 133-142, 1986, ) The Chipko Movement has been successful in forcing a fifteen-year ban on commercial green felling in the hills of Uttar Pradesh, in stopping clear-felling in the Western Ghats and the Vindhyas, and in generating pressure for a national forest policy which is more sensitive to the people's needs and to the ecological requirements of the country. Unfortunately, the Chipko Movement has often been naively presented by vested interests as a reflection of a conflict between "development" and "ecological con- cern", implying that "development" relates to material and objective bases of life while "ecology" is concerned with non- material and subjective factors, such as scenic beauty. The deliberate introduction of this false and dangerous dichot- omy between "development" and "ecology" disguises the real dichotomy between ecologically sound development and unsustainable and ecologically destructive economic growth. The latter is always achieved through destruction of life-support systems and material deprivation of mar- ginal communities. Genuine development can only be based on ecological stability which ensures sustainable sup- plies of vital resources. Gandhi and later his disciples, Mira Behn and Sarala Behn, clearly described how and why de- velopment is not necessarily contradictory to ecological sta- bility. Conflict between exploitative economic growth and ecological development implies that, by questioning the destructive process of growth, ecological movements like Chipko are never an obstacle to the process of development. On the contrary, by constantly keeping ecological stability in focus, they provide the best guarantee for ensuring a stable material basis for life.Ecofeminism offers a basis for responsible action based on grassroots organizing and reconstructive projects Lahar 91 – Stephanie Lahar (director of the counseling/human relations program at Woodbury College, professor for the Environmental Program at the University of Vermont, served on the Commission on the Status of Women, writer/activist, founding member of the Burlington, Vermont Conservation Board), “Ecofeminist Theory and Grassroots Politics,” Hypatia, Spring, 1991, Vol.6, No. 1, Ecological Feminism, pg 34-36, , /niki.abuilt in perm answers in some of the warrants (4 points of focus)Ecofeminist theory aspires to an integrated and intersubjective view of human life and society in/as part of nature. Ultimately, this is an encompassing natural philosophy that we should think of not as a blueprint to be developed by one or two utopian thinkers but as a cultural revolution. In the face of various claims about key concepts and themes for ecofeminism, can and should we try to establish a set of general principles? What purposes would this serve? My assertion is that we need to define guiding parameters for our theory that can continually be refined but that provide recognizable directives and contexts for the development of ecofeminist analyses and social projects. These are important for many reasons, but among them is the historical demonstration that some philosophies lend themselves to contemplation and inaction- for example, the largely mental politic of postmodernist deconstruction in its academic and literary forms, or the inward mysticism of metaphysicians such as Heidegger, touted by ecological theorists such as Are Naess who advise us to think like a mountain.4 Other philosophies lend themselves to action, the expression of will, and political participation; for example, the political analyses of Emma Goldman, foremother of direct action as protest. Ecofeminist theory has in the past developed in close dialogue with political praxis. In ecofeminist dialogue in the past several years, however, particularly in debates about environmental ethics and the relation of ecofeminism to feminist spirituality, reference to political praxis has decreased relative to earlier discus- sions.5 Ecofeminism is highly critical of most current social and political institutions and thereby serves a deconstructive or dissembling function that supports political resistance. To fulfill this deconstructive potential, its criticisms must continue to be acted upon by the expression of resistance through direct action on life-threatening issues (militarism, violence against women, the nuclear industry, pollution and toxics, environmental destruction). Ecofeminism also aspires to a creative and reconstructive function in society, as King's "practice of hope." To fulfill a reconstructive potential, a social philosophy must extend a social critique and utopian vision into imperatives for action. This means that life-preserving values and policies must be promoted and carried out beyond circles of personal affinity and academic philosophy and brought into public arenas. Reconstructive projects that ecofeminist theory and activism has contributed to include, for example, community forums on social or environmental issues and those at intersections such as biotechnology; state legislation supporting the civil rights and safety of groups that historically have had little political power; the reallocation of private and public resources and funds to socially responsible uses; alternative housing and land-use arrangements; and local alternative economic systems.6 Unlike the largely mental politics of postmodem, poststructuralist social critiques in the academy as well as some systems of environmental ethics, ecofeminism's popular and political base in grassroots organizing and direct action has fanned the will to personal and collective action from its inception. Maintaining a balance of critical and creative directions is crucial to the continued political potency of ecofeminism. Can we afford not to have an action-oriented philosophy at a crisis point in social and natural history, when we are literally threatened on a global scale by annihilation by nuclear war or ecological destruction? Ecofeminism's promise is that it provides not only an orientation and worldview but also a basis for responsible action. In order for the movement to fulfill this promise, I believe that it is necessary to establish broad parameters that diverse ideas and actions can be referred to, and to maintain critical and vitalizing links between theory and praxis. I offer the following four points of focus to help create and maintain a firm ground for social and ecological responsibility and political participation. These are that we (1) treat ecofeminism as a moral theory, (2) engage in the project of working out an integrated philosophy of humanity and nonhuman nature, (3) view this theory as a living process inseparable from the individuals and groups who think and practice it, and (4) maintain an active political and participatory emphasis that is both deconstructive (reactive to current injus- tices) and reconstructive (proactive in creating new forms of thinking and doing). Ecofeminism historically tied to grassroots and community activism based on resistance to institutionalized power and nonviolent/open communicationLahar 91 – Stephanie Lahar (director of the counseling/human relations program at Woodbury College, professor for the Environmental Program at the University of Vermont, served on the Commission on the Status of Women, writer/activist, founding member of the Burlington, Vermont Conservation Board), “Ecofeminist Theory and Grassroots Politics,” Hypatia, Spring, 1991, Vol.6, No. 1, Ecological Feminism, pg 30-31, , /niki.aIn the New England town of Brattleboro, Vermont, a handful of women and men from an ecofeminist affinity group gathered on Mother's Day in 1987. On a dewy hillside surrounded by woods and marsh, they looked over a prototypical scene: a developer from another state had cleared much of the land in an area that had rapidly been losing open space and valuable wetlands. Eighty-six condominiums were to be built, second and third homes far beyond the means of most area residents. A long strip had been bulldozed near the condos right through the marsh. A member of the group describes their action: Eight of us went out early in the morning, with plants and gardening tools, and began to plant the strip. A great colorful, wonderful garden emerged-it didn't feel as though we were working on it, it just happened. The people who lived neighboring the development started to come out, and they brought flowers to plant and seeds. We claimed the strip as a community garden.1 In the afternoon the developer arrived, and the group blocked his way until he agreed to talk with them about their concerns. Several hours later, the protesters gave him "permission" to plow under the community garden. A week later the neighbors, who had not previously organized, went to a selectmen's meeting to object to the developer's plan to close the road for a week to blast to lay pipes-and they won. The victory was small but important. The Mother's Day Garden, like many ecofeminist actions, accomplished several goals. It was a direct protest as well as an invitation to the developer to consider community and environmental impacts. It also empowered people who were not initially involved to take responsibility for the community and area in which they lived. The largest identifiably ecofeminist actions that have taken place in the history of the movement were the Women’s Pentagon Actions in November of 1980 and November of 1981, which were organized by participants in the "Women and Life on Earth: Ecofeminism in the 1980’s” conference in Amherst, Massachusetts. In these nonviolent direct actions, women surrounded the Pentagon, issuing a Unity Statement that called for social, economic, and reproductive rights as well as an end to the arms race and exploitation of resources, people, and the environment. In the 1980s ecofeminism became a presence and, in some cases, an organizing principle in decentralized movements on the American and international left. Initiatives that ecofeminism has both drawn from and contributed to include the peace movement, the direct action movement, and Green party politics. Ecofeminism shares overlapping goals with these other loosely organized movements including equitable and peaceful social relations, and sustainable and nonexploitative economic systems and life-styles. It also shares a spirit of resistance to institutionalized power structures and is committed to nonviolence and open processes of communication. As has been the case in other activist movements, ecofeminists have attempted to implement these ideas among each other and outwardly. They have encountered through debates and differences a struggle to find ground between two poles: on the one hand a prematurely unified theory and political praxis that obscures and suppresses differences, and on the other an indiscriminate pluralism that results in vague thinking, passivity, and political inertia.Grassroots activities such as affinity groups help solve for significant environmental issuesLahar 91 – Stephanie Lahar (director of the counseling/human relations program at Woodbury College, professor for the Environmental Program at the University of Vermont, served on the Commission on the Status of Women, writer/activist, founding member of the Burlington, Vermont Conservation Board), “Ecofeminist Theory and Grassroots Politics,”?Hypatia, Spring, 1991, Vol.6, No. 1, Ecological Feminism, pg 40,?, /niki.aThe struggle to develop an organic and discriminating view of nature and society, which also includes an understanding of gender and other human differences, is the futuristic edge of ecofeminist theory. But if ecofeminist theory is to remain accountable and connected to the people who have developed it in the past and who carry it now, imperatives for change must also be translatable into political action at the grassroots level. Clearly there are global issues that ecofeminism can and has already helped us analyze and organize around. But situations also rise up in our personal lives and in our communities each day that demand our comprehension, assessment, and action. Amelie Rorty cautions us to test the viability of theory with actual political situations: "a moral theory that recommends political and psychological reforms must also pay attention to the ways in which its proposed redirections can effectively and successfully be brought about, given actual conditions" (1988, 15). Grace Paley, one of the organizers of the "Women and Life on Earth: Ecofeminism in the 1980s" conference, formed an affinity group with women in her rural Vermont town in 1977. She describes the value of a core group in which members can share ideas and experiences but remain connected to the community as a wholeYou do find people come from our affinity groups and are working in the towns very seriously, and with other people. It's not an inward group, it's a group that goes outward. There are women that I've worked with who are doing marvelous things- agricultural conservation, and town work on recycling and energy. [One woman] does extraordinary work in schools ... [she] has girls talk to their grandmothers and collect oral histories.7 Paley and others from her group have also been part of demonstrations at the Seabrook, New Hampshire nuclear power plant for almost twenty years, as part of a larger umbrella network of antinuclear activists in New England, the Clamshell Alliance. Like many of us, she has found her political and community work informed and generated by many different sources, including ecofeminism. So how do we reconcile different alliances? Are there particular benefits in linking diverse actions and projects with ecofeminism? Does this mean that ties to other movements or theories must be broken? Are there reasons not to link activist projects with ecofeminism? Alt -- Decenter the human/traitorThe alternative is an ethic of ‘de-centering’ the humanPlumwood, 2001 (Val Plumwood. “Environmental Culture - The Ecological Crisis of Reason”, pg. 167-170, Routledge, December 20 2001, ISBN 9780415178785 \\ethan.jxtai)Decentring human-centred ethics The logic of Othering suggests that it is not the primitiveness and unworthiness of the Other but our own species’ arrogance that is the main barrier to forming ethical and responsive relationships with earth others. To defeat this logic, we must adopt a counter-hegemonic program to restore planetary balance and establish dialogical and carefully negotiated relationships with our planetary partners of the sort that could enable us to survive in the long-term. As the decline of the Other we are beginning to induce gathers momentum, this project becomes more urgent. One implication is a re-orientation of focus and methodology in and around interspecies ethics, but a counter-hegemonic program also has implications for focus and methodology in a number of other disciplinary areas and in science. An important corollary for knowledge gathering orientation is that the rationality of Othering our planetary partners must be countered by an alternative self-critical rationality of ‘studying up’ to find the source of our problems and difficulties with nature. Environmental philosophy has produced many examples of anthropocentric and hegemonic forms: they include especially the extensionist positions we have already met which allocate moral consideration to nonhuman beings entirely on the basis of their similarity to the human. Such claims are hegemonic for non-humans in the same way that assimilationist frameworks that allocate worth to individuals of another culture, for example an indigenous culture, just on the basis of their similarity to the dominant (white) colonising culture are hegemonic. Such a schema based on sameness to the human treats earth others as of value just to the extent that they resemble the human as hegemonic centre, rather than as an independent centre with potential needs, excellences and claims to flourish of their own.1 Similarly centric is the demand that assessments of the other’s worth be based exclusively on either similarity or difference to the human; this is a sure sign of a centric treatment of otherness, in which all comparisons and judgements turn on deviation from the centre. In a less hegemonic scenario for judgements of moral worth, both continuity and difference from self would be in play, and criteria independent of both considerations would be regularly invoked. Many projects in environmental philosophy are anthropocentric in this way, either explicitly stating similarity to the human as the basis for moral worth, or implicitly appealing to this through selecting ‘independent’ criteria normally taken to define or characterise the human, such as rationality, mentality, or consciousness, and then evaluating non-human beings along this single axis to arrive at a species meritocracy with humans (by no means accidentally) emerging at the top. The account of human/nature dualism and anthropocentrism presented in Chapter 5 provides a basis for an alternative strategy to such human extensionism as a guide for environmental ethics. This involves adopting a counter-hegemonic methodology and program in ethics that aims to decentre the human and break down human/nature dualism on the ethical front, rather than to expand the category of privilege to take in a few of the more human-like non-humans. Applying such a counter-hegemonic program would not only reject entrenched human-centred ways of framing environmental ethics but would revolutionise its entire conception. Human-centred conceptions of environmental ethics interpret it in terms of ‘studying down’, as a quest to discover which parts of nature are sufficiently ‘well qualified’, usually by being proved to be enough like we humans, to deserve some sort of extension (the leftovers) of our own ample feast of self-regard. On an alternative approach that frames the problem in terms of ‘studying up’, it is not so much a question of whether earth others are good enough for ethically rich relationships, but of whether we (western) humans are.2 A crucial part of environmental ethics is scrutinising the anthropocentric prejudices and otherising stances we hold that are obstacles to interspecies justice and which prevent us from relating to earth others as fully and ethically as we might otherwise do. We need to adopt specific programs to counter these. I have already discussed moral dualism, but some of its further elements might include: ? Denaturalising and making available for critical reflection and choice framework and methodological assumptions that Otherise the nonhuman. ? Dealing with ethical hyper-separation, the highly influential legacy of hierarchical, exclusionist and rationalist modes of thinking in accounts of ethics, mind and communication, for example concepts of human superiority in a Great Chain of Being and the myth of non-human mindlessness. ? Avoiding unnecessary species-ranking, otherising behaviours and reductive stances and establishing the framework for an interspecies egalitarian ethic. ? Dealing with obstacles to interspecies justice in our ways of framing the other, and adopting methodologies and stances of openness rather than methodologies of closure. This is an important preliminary to interspecies justice and communication. ? Opening up ethics, for example by making the human/other species distinction less central to our ethical thinking, and decentering the human and the human-like in vocabularies and conceptions of ethics. ? Developing conceptions of the human self and human virtue that can prioritise caring for the planet. When we do these things, I suggest, we find a rich variety of contextually specific ethics that are applicable to interspecies relationships. These include many of the context-specific ethical frameworks we apply to other humans, plus a further range that are specifically concerned with issues of justice and fairness between species I discussed in Chapter 5. Philosophers have mostly been standing outside the city gates arguing amongst themselves about the applicability to non-humans of highly abstract ethical concepts like intrinsic value and moral considerability, without ever getting up the courage to actually go through the gateway, enter the city and investigate or establish specific ethical relationships. But the concepts of intrinsic value and moral considerability that have concerned philosophy so much are no more than gateway concepts for environmental ethics, abstract preliminary concepts that speak of our stances of preparedness to enter into ethical relationships with earth others rather than shedding light on the ethics of specific kinds of relationships. Such debates are empty to the extent that they evade the real moral task of developing an adequate ethical response to the non-human world, which they do not address in any specific, rich or useful way. These responses include for example developing narrative and communicative ethics and responses to the other, developing care and guardianship ethics, developing alternative conceptions of human virtue that include care for the nonhuman world, and developing dialogical ethical ontologies that make available richer and less reductive ways to individuate, configure and describe the world that ‘make the most’ of the non-human other. They include developing the stances of openness and attention that are preliminary to dialogical and communicative relationships of sensitivity, negotiation and mutual adaptation of the sort we need in the context of the environmental crisis.Be a traitor to the “human identity” - that allows for political solidarity with the non-human world Mallory, 2009 (Chaone Mallory - associate professor @ Villanova, PhD in environmental science @ Univ. of Oregon. “Val Plumwood and Ecofeminist Political Solidarity Standing With The Natural Other”, Ethics and the Environment, 14(2), pg. 3-21, 2009, \\ethan.jxtai)Political solidarity for Plumwood is a relation in which one (or, as is more suitable for our purposes, the collective) does not claim an identification with the other—political solidarity describes a relation in which beings are motivated to act on behalf of others with whom one admits one does not (necessarily) share experiences, interests, worldviews, or subjectivity. However, those standing in solidarity become joined both with the object of solidarity and others involved in struggling for change through the shared recognition of injustice and oppression and through acting to change it. Rather than adhering to a “politics of unity” in which the solidaristic relation is grounded in claims to ‘know what the other is going through’ or bonds with others in a similar plight as oneself (these expressions of solidarity describe what Scholz, to whom I shall turn shortly, calls “social solidarity”), political solidarity with the more-than-human world is a relation in which one can imaginatively draw parallels between, for example, systems of slavery, women’s oppression, and animal oppression (all phenomena Plumwood cites), and the way in which in some cultures— most notably those of the ‘Western’ world—humans are positioned as oppressors of the more-than-human world. The bases for “critical solidarity” according to Plumwood are located not in “an unanalyzed and capricious emotion of empathy or sympathy” (or unity), but in the ability to apprehend “a concept of solidarity that is based on an intellectual and emotional grasp of the parallels in the logic of the One and the Other” and in the “recognition that we are positioned multiply as oppressors or colonisers, just as we are positioned multiply as oppressed and colonised” (2002, 205). Successfully doing this entails that we become ‘traitors’ to the kind of human identity that understands itself to be the rightful possessor and exploiter of the more-than-human world. Plumwood elaborates: Traitorous kinds of human identity involve a revised conception of the self and its relation to the non-human other, opposition to oppressive practices, and the abandonment and critique of cultural allegiances to the dominance of the human species and its bonding against non-humans, in the same way that male feminism requires abandonment and critique of male bonding as the kind of male solidarity that defines itself in opposition to the feminine or to women and to the ideology of male supremacy. These ‘traitorous identities’ that enable some men to be male feminists in active opposition to androcentric culture, some whites to be actively in opposition to white supremacism and ethnocentric culture, also enable some humans to be critical of ‘human supremacism’ and in active opposition to anthropocentric culture. (2002, 205) This recognition of the necessity of this sort of traitorousness or repudiation of one’s privilege and position of dominance is connected to the project of political solidarity with the more-than-human world by showing that it is not in our sameness or identity that we stand in (political) solidarity, but through the generation of a collective critical (self) consciousness that organizes into political action against oppression.7 What is clear from Plumwood’s account of solidarity is that the kind of work she intends it to do is to navigate the fluid boundary between sameness and difference. If some accounts of deep ecology serve to erase differences between the human self and the non-human other in ways that privilege the “incorporative [human] self” (Plumwood 2002, 204), then Plumwood’s advocacy of political solidarity with nature serves to counter deep ecology’s potentially hegemonic and totalizing tendencies by articulating a kind of relation in which political affinity and conviviality is founded not in unity or identification, but in recognition that the human is ecosocially positioned as superior, and that one must ‘betray’ one’s own kind, become a ‘traitor’ to a certain narrative of the human, in order to allow the more than human world to flourish on its own terms, not on the terms we impose on it or because we declare it to ‘really’ be like ourselves. As Plumwood eloquently states, “We need a concept of the other as interconnected with self, but as also a separate being in their own right, accepting the ‘uncontrollable, tenacious otherness’ of the world as a condition offreedom and identity for both self and other” (2002, 201).Traitor politics enables a re-understanding of the human’s social relation to the nonhuman through counter-hegemonic values that checks oppressive ideologies and narrativesPlumwood, 2001 (Val Plumwood. “Environmental Culture - The Ecological Crisis of Reason”, pg. 205-206, Routledge, December 20 2001, ISBN 9780415178785 \\ethan.jxtai)What makes such traitorous identities possible is precisely the fact that the relationship between the oppressed and the ‘traitor’ is not one of identity, that the traitor is critical of his or her own ‘oppressor’ group as someone from within that group who has some knowledge of its workings and its effects on the life of the oppressed group. It depends on the traitor being someone with a view from both sides, able to adopt multiple perspectives and locations that enable an understanding how he or she is situated in the relationship with the other from the perspective of both kinds of lives, the life of the One and the life of the Other.13 Being a human who takes responsibility for their interspecies location in this way requires avoiding both the arrogance of reading in your own location and perspective as that of the other, and the arrogance of assuming that you can ‘read as the Other’, know their lives as they do, and in that sense speak or see as the other. Such a concept of solidarity as involving multiple positioning and perspectives can exploit the logic of the gap between contradictory positions and narratives standpoint theory appeals to.14 The traitorous identity implies a certain kind of ethics of support relations which is quite distinct from the ethics involved in claiming unity. It stresses a number of counter-hegemonic virtues, ethical stances which can help to minimise the influence of the oppressive ideologies of domination and self-imposition that have formed our conceptions of both the other and ourselves. As we have seen, important among these virtues are listening and attentiveness to the other, a stance which can help to counter the backgrounding which obscures and denies what the non-human other contributes to our lives and collaborative ventures. They also include philosophical strategies and methodologies that maximise our sensitivity to other members of our ecological communities and openness to them as ethically considerable beings in their own right, rather than ones that minimise ethical recognition or that adopt a dualistic stance of ethical closure that insists on sharp moral boundaries and denies the continuity of planetary life. Openness and attentiveness are among the communicative virtues we have already discussed; more specifically, they mean giving the other’s needs and agency attention, being open to unanticipated possibilities and aspects of the other, reconceiving and re-encountering the other as a potentially communicative and agentic being, as well as ‘an independent centre of value, and an originator of projects that demand my respect’15 A closely allied stance, as Anthony Weston points out, is that of invitation, which risks an offering of relationship to the other in a more or less open-ended way16 There is a considerable convergence here between the counter-hegemonic virtues of solidarity and mutuality and the kinds of virtues of openness Naess’s form of deep ecology has itself recommended. Deep ecology however has tended to stress recognising value rather than agency: valuing nature is somewhat the stance of someone looking on at nature, whereas the stance of recognising agency is important for all collaborative, communicative and mutualistic projects. Although the term ‘virtue’ would probably not be acceptable to deep ecologists who have followed Arne Naess in treating ethics as unnecessary, authoritarian and passe?, it is, as I have argued17, clear that the theory of deep ecology has not succeeded in eliminating ethics, but rather in disguising its ethical assumptions as psychological assumptions. The ethics of solidarity provides an alternative basis for many deep ecological insights which avoids the implicit positivism of the ‘no-ethics’ approach, enables the development of stronger connections to human liberation movements, and avoids the many difficulties of the unity interpretation.Alt- feminist environmental justiceAlt – a queer, feminist, posthumanist approach to environmental climate justice solves Gaard, 2015 (Greta Gaard, ecofeminist activist and published author widely cited by scholars and a cofounder of the Green Party. “Ecofeminism and Climate Change” , February 24, 2015)//klzImplementing the Bali Principles with their queer feminist posthumanist augmentations requires transformative strate- gies that are both top-down and bottom-up; the responsibil- ities are both systemic, requiring changes in national and corporate policies, and personal, requiring changes on the part of citizens and consumers (Cuomo, 2011). Some techno- science solutions to climate change can help to mitigate the outcomes of First-World nations' and corporations' unjust and anti-ecological practices, and transform our energy reliance to more sustainable sources, but a queer feminist climate justice approach goes to the roots and calls for equity and sustainabil- ity at every level, from citizen to corporation, and it begins with economics. As feminist economist Marilyn Waring observed in her classic work, If Women Counted: A New Feminist Economics (Waring, 1988), the United Nations System of National Accounts (UNSNA) has no method of accounting for nature's own production or destruction until the products of nature enter the cash economy, nor does this system account for the majority of work done by women. A clean lake that offers women fresh water supplies for cooking and crops has no economic value until it is polluted; then companies must pay to clean it up, and the clean-up activity is performed by men and recorded as generating income. Similarly, living forests which supply women with food, fuel, and fodder have no recorded value in the UNSNA until they are logged and their products can be manufactured into commodities for sale—then all related industry and manufacture, usually seen as men's work, is recorded as income generating. In The Price of Motherhood, Ann Crittendon (2001) addresses the shadow economy of women's unpaid labor in reproduction and caregiving, linking the gendered economy with ecological economics. As she explains, In economics, a ‘free rider’ is someone who benefits from a good without contributing to its provision: in other words, someone who gets something for nothing. By that defini- tion, both the family and the global economy are classic examples of free riding. Both are dependent on female caregivers who offer their labor in return for little or no compensation. (Crittendon 9) In short, we need a feminist ecological accounting system, capable of tracking and promoting climate justice economic practices at every level, from local to global. Replacing economic globalization (which in practice has meant global corporatization and indigenous as well as ecological colonialism) with global economic justice offers a frontal assault on climate change. Industrialized nations must pay our climate debts both to communities and to ecosystems, as called for in the Bali Principles, and develop economic accounting practices that do not externalize the costs of a just transition onto the environment and communities facing the outcomes of climate change. An economic transition from excessive takings (i.e. “profits”) from women, indigenous communities, the Two-Thirds World, animals, and ecosystems to a green economy requires sustainable jobs of the kind advocated by Van Jones' organization, Green for All. These jobs will include sustainable energy systems, sustainable transit systems, and urban planning guided by environmental justice. The foundations for food justice have been growing for decades in the food cooperative movement which began in the 19th century, and was more recently resurrected in the 1970s. Today's food justice movement includes Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs), the advent of rooftop and community gardens exemplified by groups such as Will Allen's Growing Power in Milwaukee, queer food justice farmers and gardeners from Vermont to California, and Natasha Bowens' “Brown Girl Farming” efforts to map food justice so that the food movement is not seen as the domain of affluent consumers but is shaped by the self-determination of women and communities of color (Bowens, 2013). With a posthumanist food justice movement reconceived to include other animal species and to consider their lives in terms of reproductive justice, the animal sanctuary movement—a corrective response of entangled empathy, interrupting the practices of industrialized animal agriculture— may face a new opportunity: freeing up the excessive land space now used by industrialized animal agriculture, small- scale farming and community gardens alike will have more land for farming and for freed animals. This transition away from industrial animal agriculture begins by ceasing the artificial insemination of female animals on factory farms, and possibly returning freed animals to live out their lives adjacent to community gardens and small farms, where they can provide cropping services and fertilizer, giving humans a chance to repay our interspecies debt. Overlapping with food justice, the Transition Town move- ment, named in 1998 and formally launched by 2005, has spread from its origins in the United Kingdom to countries on every continent, with communities responding to peak oil by building local food security through community gardens and local energy security through renewables. Some groups build on the movement for local currencies based on barter: one hour of anyone's time is equal to another's. As Bill McKibben wrote in his Rolling Stone article, “Do the Math” (McKibben, 2012), social and environmental move- ments of the kind needed now are often inspired by having an enemy. Pinpointing the globalized fossil fuel industry, McKibben launched 's strategy of divestment, modeled on the successful divestment strategies that prompted South Africa to end apartheid. Withdrawing financial support from systems destructive of global eco-justice is another necessary but not sufficient method of resistance. While crucial to a just transition, economic boycotts and micro-level community infrastructures providing an alternative to global capitalism through local economics, energy, food, and governance can still be overridden by global-level trade agreements, multinational investments, and other forms of economic or militarized pressure. Withdrawing economic support from these global institutions of ecological domination, investing in systems based on social/environmental/climate justice, and pressuring for equitable representation within the international institu- tions of governance, are equally crucial strategies.11 The macro-level discussions at the UNFCC must be gender balanced, as was suggested over twenty years ago by the Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) in their 1991 Preparatory Conference for the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, 1992. There, many of the most salient issues of climate change were both addressed and ignored in these two pivotal conferences (Bru? Bistuer & Cabo, 2004). What feminist climate justice scholars also note, albeit as an afterthought, is that these discussions of “gender and climate” have tended to focus only on women. More research is needed on the ways that men around the world have variously benefitted from or been affected by climate change discussions, problems, and out- comes. More research is needed on the gender roles of masculinities in diverse cultures, and the ways these social constructions promote overconsumption, sexual violence and exploitation, the abandonment of family members during climate change crises, and rationalize the de facto exclusion of women from decision-making bodies at the local, national, and global levels. Much has been written confirming the anti- ecological construction of masculinity (Kheel, 2008). It is time to envision and to recuperate culturally-specific, ecological masculinities that will companion this transition to climate justice (Gaard, 2014), and in this regard, posthumanist genderqueer activists will have much to offer.12 Toward an ecofeminist climate justice Feminist scholars have invoked the concept of intersec- tionality (Collins, 1990; Crenshaw, 1991) in order to describe the “intra-actions” (Barad, 2007) of race, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, age, ability and other forms of human difference, using this analysis to develop more nuanced understandings of power, privilege, and oppression. But fewer scholars have critiqued the humanism of intersectionality (Lykke, 2009), or proposed examining the exclusions of species and ecosystems from intersectional identities, addressing the ways that even the most marginalized of humans may participate in the Master Model process of instrumentalization when it comes to nonhuman nature and earth others (Plumwood's term, anticipating Cosmopolitics and Critical Plant Studies alike).13 As an ecological identity and eco- political standpoint resisting the Master Model, ecofeminists once proposed the self-identity of “political animal” for First World eco-citizens (Gaard, 1998; Sandilands, 1994, 1999); this view resituates humans within ecosystems and faces us toward assessing ecosystem flows and equilibrium, while simulta- neously attending to the well-being of our transcorporeality (Alaimo, 2008).14 Joining a philosophical reconception of human identity with an ecopolitical exploration of economic globalization and its role in producing climate change, a queer posthumanist and “feminist ecological citizenship” (MacGregor, 2014) could send a critical challenge to the techno-science discourse about “mitigation and adaptation” (rather than reduction and prevention) currently dominating responses to climate change (i.e., geo-engineering). How much more time do we have to lose? The alt is reproductive justice that’s inclusive of LGBTQ+ and female voices to combat domination in the system Gaard, 2015 (Greta Gaard, ecofeminist activist and published author widely cited by scholars and a cofounder of the Green Party. “Ecofeminism and Climate Change” , February 24, 2015)//klzWhile these three strategies may seem globally relevant, they also seem to target populations in developing countries, as evidenced by the WorldWatch Report's cover photo of two women and three children, captioned “A family on their parched land in Niger.” The report offers no interviews with the women targeted for family planning to discover whether this strategy is one they desire or would be able to implement, showing a “Father Knows Best” approach to population and climate science. Approximately 80% of the world's population (the global South) has generated a mere 20% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions: in other words, the other 20% (the global North) is responsible for 80% of the accumulated GHG emissions in our atmosphere (Egero?, 2013; Hartmann, 2009). Despite the clarity of this logic, population reappeared in publications leading up to the 2009 UN Climate Change COP in Copenhagen, with proponents arguing for family planning among poor communities as a cost-effective method of reducing carbon emissions (Egero?, 2013). Not to be outdone, the UK Population Matters has launched a “population offset” system similar to carbon offsets purchasable by jet-setting first- world consumers (MacGregor, 2010). On their website, the organization claims that “PopOffsets is the world's first project that offers to offset carbon dioxide emissions through the most cost-effective and environmentally beneficial means — family planning” (see ). None of these strategies suggests reducing the North/First World's alarming overconsumption of the planet's resources, or seriously restricting its 80% contribution of greenhouse gases. Reducing third world population becomes increasingly important when first-world overconsumers realize that the severe climate change outcomes already heading for the world's most marginalized communities will create a refugee crisis and urgent migrations of poor people. Since the growing populations of the Two-Thirds World will be hardest hit by climate change effects and will seek asylum in One-Thirds nations—a migration perceived as a threat to the dispropor- tionate wealth (i.e. “security”) of the North—the specter of climate refugees has inspired arguments for increased militarization as a protection against migration (Egero?, 2013; MacGregor, 2010). Noting the ways that women are blamed for climate crises which in fact impact women the hardest, both during climate disasters and in the frequency of gender-based violence and material hardships following these disasters, Rojas-Cheatham et al. (2009) have urged “looking both ways” to recognize the intersections between climate justice and reproductive justice. For all these reasons, feminists have strongly resisted arguments for population as the root cause of environmental degradations, including climate change (Gaard, 2010; Hartmann, 1987; Silliman, Fried, Ross & Guttierez, 2004). Claims about overpopulation in climate change analyses function as an elitist rhetorical distraction from the more fundamental and intersecting problems of gender, sexuality, and interspecies justice. To date, even feminist discussions about these issues have remained limited by the perspective of humanism. As feminist science studies scholars affirm, the best analysis of the problem of oppression will be the most inclusive —excluding data is not conducive to good research, good argumentation, or good feminism. On this foundation, it is imperative that feminist approaches to climate justice take a material and posthumanist approach by considering the larger environments in which these ethico-political problems of climate change are embedded: our interspecies and ecological transcorporeality, manifested in our practices of global food production and consumption. Two branches of feminist inquiry support recuperating these “backgrounded” (in Val Plumwood's terms, an operation of the Master Model that supports domination) elements of climate change. Material feminism (Alaimo & Hekman, 2008) advances the concept of transcorporeality, the physical fact of our co-constituted embodiment with other flows of life, matter, and energy. This recent articulation of feminist theory rests on four decades of feminist science studies and ecofeminist perspectives on the human-environment connection, develop- ing knowledge in the study of gender, race, class, age, and public health. In the 1970s, feminist health advocates began challenging dominant perspectives in science by noting the research focused on male-only samples, and then generalized the results to women and children. These feminists raised questions about women's and children's health by exploring the influence of environment on human health, and exposing environmental links to breast cancer, asthma, lead poisoning, reproductive disorders, and other types of cancers. National women's groups such as Silent Spring Institute and Breast Cancer Action have worked to bring a feminist environmental perspective to all aspects of breast cancer research and prevention, from corporate profits to environmental contam- inants, pharmaceuticals, “pink”-washing,6 and individual breast cancer sufferers and survivors. Building on Carson (1962) uncovering the links between environmental chemicals and their impact on birds, other animal species, and ecosys- tems, feminist environmentalists exposed the links between synthetic chemicals and the endocrine systems of human and nonhuman animals. From pesticides and plastics to paint and pajamas, synthetic chemicals are linked to the feminization of male reproductive systems in frogs and other wildlife (Aviv, 2014) and associated with breast cancer in women. Lois Gibbs' work on dioxin (Gibbs, 1995), Liane Clorfene-Casten's work on breast cancer (Clorfene-Casten, 2002; 1996), Theo Colborn's expose? of synthetic chemicals (Colborn's, 1996), and Steingraber's (1997, 2001) eloquent studies of agricultural chemicals, environmental health, children's health, and human cancers are all landmark contributions to our understanding of the interconnections among environmental health, public health, and social justice. This feminist health and environ- mental science research has contributed to the scientific and epidemiological foundations of the environmental justice movement, and provides longstanding environmental feminist foundations for material feminist theorizing. A second branch of feminist theory, feminist animal studies has explored the links between the production, transport, consumption and waste of animals used in industrial food systems, and that industry's many assaults on human and environmental health. Today's industrialized production of animal bodies for human consumption emerges from a constellation of oppressive practices. Building on earlier feminist research into the exploitation of female reproduction (Corea, 1985), and the development of reproductive technol- ogies via experimentation on non-human females first, femi- nist animal studies scholars have emphasized how western systems of industrial animal production (“factory farming”) rely specifically on the exploitation of the female (Adams & Donovan, 1995; Donovan & Adams, 2007), harming the health of both nonhuman females and the human females who consume their bodies and their reproductive “products.” As Carol Adams (2003) points out, “to control fertility one must have absolute access to the female of the species” (147). The control of female fertility for food production and human reproduction alike uses invasive technologies to manipulate female bodies across the species (Adams, 2003; Corea, 1985; Diamond, 2004): Battery chickens are crowded into tiny cages, de-beaked, and inoculated with numerous antibiotics to maximize control of their reproductive output, eggs (Davis, 1995). Male chicks are routinely discarded because they are of no use to the battery hen industry, while female chicks are bred to deformity with excessively large breasts and tiny feet, growing up to live a radically shortened lifetime of captivity, unable to perform any of their natural functions (i.e., dustbathing, nesting, flying). Pregnant sows are confined to gestation crates and after they give birth they are allowed to suckle their offspring only through metal bars. Dairy cows are forcibly inseminated, and their male calves are taken from them 24–48 h after birth and confined in crates, where they will be fed an iron-deprived diet until they are slaughtered for veal.7 Cows separated from their calves bellow and appear to grieve for days afterwards, sometimes ramming themselves against their stalls in an attempt to reunite with their calves. News articles report the “amazing” feats of cows returning across miles of countryside in order to nurse calves from whom they were forcibly separated. We understand the frenzy of a human mother separated from her new infant, yet our understanding and empathy seems to halt at the species boundary, since this involuntary weaning and the attendant suffering for cow and calf continues to be the norm for dairy production: the milk that would have fed the cows' offspring is taken for human consumption, and manipulated into overproduction through the use of growth hormones.8 Bridging affect theory and feminist animal studies, Lori Gruen (2012) proposes the concept of “entangled empathy” as a strategy for reminding humans of our intra-actions across species and food production systems. Entangled empathy is an affect co-arising with our recognition of the affective states of other beings; its energetic and embodied awareness motivates action to eliminate suffering. Describing animals used in these industrial food systems as “workers” (Haraway, 2003) is reprehensible for the ways that it obscures the institutionalized oppression of reproductive labor and human responsibility, as Weisberg (2009) explains, for who would choose a “job” requiring a lifetime of imprisonment, separation from one's family, the murder of one's offspring, along with crowding, biological manipulation to the point of crippling, all culminating in execution? In her work “bringing together environmental, climate and reproductive justice,” DiChiro (2009) defines reproductive justice as involving not just “bodily self-determination and the right to safe contracep- tion” but also “the right to have children and to be able to raise them in nurturing, healthy, and safe environments” that requires an availability of “good jobs and economic security, freedom from domestic violence and forced sterilization, affordable healthcare, educational opportunities, decent hous- ing, and access to clean and healthy neighborhoods” (2). Linking the exploitation of sexuality and reproduction across species as a feature of the colonialist and techno-science worldview, feminist animal studies scholars have described industrial animal food production as a failure of reproductive and environmental justice. It's also a matter of climate justice, as the UN Food and Agricultural Organization Report “Livestock's Long Shadow” (2006) confirms. The report defines “livestock” as all animal foods, including cattle, buffalo, small ruminants, camels, horses, pigs, and poultry; livestock products include meats, eggs, milk and dairy. The “factory farming” first introduced in the U.S. has been exported globally, to the detriment of the planet. Increasing areas of cropland are being used to feed cattle and other food animals; forests are being replaced with rangeland; vast quantities of water are used to irrigate crops for food animals and given to food animals for drinking. The wastes of industrial animal food production—which include pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, hormones and antibiotics, manure, and the wastes from slaughterhouses—contaminate wetlands and wildlands, and have produced the hypoxic (“dead zone”) area at the Mississippi River's outflow in the Gulf of Mexico. Methane produced by flatulence, carbon dioxide produced through respiration and transport, nitrous oxide and ammonia are all greenhouse gases multiplied through industrial animal agriculture. Livestock production not only exponentially in- creases our planet's greenhouse gas emissions, it also reduces the greenhouse gas-absorbing areas of forests, the “carbon sinks” whereby the planet might restore a balance. Human health is also variously affected. Meat production is associated with prosperity, good health, social status, and the affluent lifestyle of the western industrialized countries. As more and more nations seek to emulate the meat consumption levels of the industrialized world, their rates of cancer, heart disease, obesity, and other animal food-related illnesses increase (Campbell & Campbell, 2006). Statistics comparing the growing obesity of first world overconsumers and two-thirds world persons suffering from hunger and malnourishment can be correlated with the rates of animal food consumption, and with the gendered character of hunger. In developing coun- tries, women account for 43% of the agricultural labor force, although their yields are 20–30% lower than men's because women are barred from farming the best soils, and denied access to seeds, fertilizers, and equipment (WFP, 2013). Around the world, it is women who are responsible for cooking and serving food, and it is men who eat the first and most nutritious foods, leaving children to eat afterwards, and women to eat last. When there is insufficient food, women deny themselves food so that children can eat: while an estimated 146 million children in developing countries are underweight due to acute or chronic malnutrition, 60% of the world's hungriest are women (WFP, 2013). According to the World Food Program, if women farmers had the same access to resources as the men do, the number of hungry people in the world could be reduced by up to 150 million (WFP, 2013). Industrial animal food production has been described as “a protein factory in reverse” (Robbins, 1987), largely because eating high on the food chain requires more “inputs” of grain, water, and grazing land. The ecological and human toll of industrialized animal agriculture is no longer debated, for the facts are well known: It takes 13 lb of grain and 2400 gal of water to produce one pound of meat, and eleven times as many fossil fuels to produce one calorie of animal protein vs. plant protein. Raising animals for food requires 30% of the earth's surface. There is currently enough food in the world to feed approximately 12 billion people, yet over 900 million are hungry (UNFAO, 2006; WFP, 2013). As food and development scholars have argued for decades, hunger is not a problem of overpopulation but rather one of distribution, and elite control of the world's food supply (George, 1976, 1984; Hartmann & Boyce, 1979; Lappe? & Collins, 1998). Moreover, debt repayment programs (called “structural adjustment”) require developing countries to produce cash crops for export rather than food crops for subsistence as a way to pay off debt; biotechnology corpora- tions promote high-yield seeds which require expensive inputs of fertilizer and monocropping techniques that displace subsistence foods, destroy biodiversity, and lower water quality, producing both debt and hunger. These facts notwith- standing, the worldwide production of meat and dairy is projected to more than double by 2050 (UNFAO, 2006). Industrialized animal food production is simultaneously a problem of species justice, environmental justice, reproductive justice and food justice. For too long, “food justice” has been defined solely in terms of justice across human diversities, but authentic food justice cannot be practiced while simultaneously excluding those who count as “food.” Food justice requires interspecies justice, which intersects with reproductive justice and queer justice alike. Queer food justice grows out of today's budding eco-queer movement, which Sbicca (2012) defines as a “loose-knit, often decentralized set of political and social activists” who challenge the dominant discourses of sexuality, gender, and nature as a means for deconstructing hegemonic knowledge systems (33– 34). Reviewing the herstory of queer eco-activism in building lesbian eco-communities and music festivals, and in challenging the heteronormativity of urban parks through gay cruising and public sex (Mortimer-Sandilands & Erickson, 2010), Sbicca focuses particularly on the queer food justice movement being shaped by queer farmers and gardeners who may not feel comfortable in the alternative food movement, whose most visible U.S. representatives—Michael Pollan, Eric Schlosser, Joel Salatin, Barbara Kingsolver—are largely white, heteromale, and middle class. The grassroots food justice movement is far from this stereotype, and reaches back to European women's gardens of the eighteenth century (Norwood, 1993), Black women rural gardeners in the post- Reconstruction South (Walker, 1983), and women rooftop gardeners in Harlem. Formed in 2007, San Francisco's Queer Food For Love (QFFL) seems like a queer update of Food Not Bombs with their desire to provide food, community, and a safe space against prejudice. Similarly, San Francisco's Rainbow Chard Alliance, formed in 2008, bridges the organic farming movement and the queer movement, creating community for like-minded “eco-homos” in the Bay Area and California (Sbicca, 2012). Not confined to California, the queer food justice movement is articulated through groups ranging from Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut to Tennessee, Ala- bama, Arkansas, Kansas, and Washington. Concerned about the intersections between environment, sexuality, and gender, these queer groups use food to build community, fight oppression, and take care of planetary and human bodies, though it's not clear whether these groups make connections between sexuality and species oppressions, and thus enact vegan food justice as well. With these facts of world hunger, food production, gender, sexuality and species restored to an analysis of climate change, charging human overpopulation as a root cause of climate change seems misguided at best: instead, climate change may be described as white industrial-capitalist heteromale supremacy on steroids, boosted by widespread injustices of gender and race, sexuality and species. Eating high on the food chain must be seen as tilting the planet's plate of food into the mouths of the world's most affluent, at a cost of between 870 million people—almost half of them children under the age of five— who suffer from chronic undernourishment (FAO, 2013). Population control and industrialized animal food production are no substitute for reproductive justice, interspecies justice, gender justice and climate justice. What do we want? A more inclusive climate justice The 27 Bali Principles of Climate Justice (2002) redefine climate change from an environmental justice standpoint, using as a template the original 17 Principles of Environmental Justice (1991) created at the First National People of Color Environmental Summit. The Bali Principles address the cate- gories of gender, indigeneity, age, ability, wealth and health; they provide mandates for sustainability in energy and food production, democratic decision-making, ecological economics, gender justice, and economic reparations to include support for adaptation and mitigation of climate change impacts on the world's most vulnerable populations. These principles restore many of the missing components of climate science's “truncat- ed narrative” (Kheel, 1993), connecting the unsustainable consumption and production practices of the industrialized North/First World (and the elites of the South/Two-Thirds world) with the environmental impacts felt most harshly by those in the South and the impoverished areas of the North. Yet, despite their introductory Principle 1 “affirming the sacredness of Mother Earth, ecological unity and the interde- pendence of all species,” the Bali Principles are not informed by a posthumanist perspective. Just as “Climate Justice affirms the need for solutions that address women's rights” (Principle 22), climate justice also needs to affirm solutions that address queer rights; just as “Climate Justice ... is opposed to the commod- ification of nature and its resources” (Principle 18), climate justice also needs to oppose the commodification of animal bodies and female bodies across species. To be inclusive, the Bali Principles need to be augmented with a queer, feminist, and posthumanist justice perspective. On November 12, 2013, an unprecedented workshop on gender balance and gender equality was held at the UNFCCC's 19th Council of the Parties (COP19) in Warsaw, Poland, where for three hours, speaker after speaker disclosed facts confirming women's marginalization from climate change decision-making: “the number of all women participating as delegates in UNFCCC processes, or as members of constituted bodies still falls below 35%, and as low as 11–13% in the case of some constituted bodies” (GGCA, 2013). A list of eight solutions proposed by the panelists included basic affirmative action strategies complete with quotas, sanctions, and a monitoring body to keep track of gender balance; funding for participation and training; and tools and methodology to guide research and practices promoting “systematic inclusion of women and gender-sensitive climate policy” (GGCA, 2013). These changes enacting gender equity provide a necessary first step toward a more transformative feminist analysis and response to climate change. That it has taken more than two decades since WEDO's “Agenda 21” for this workshop to occur offers visible confir- mation of the masculinist character of climate change analyses —and the dedicated persistence of women drawing on liberal and cultural feminist strategies. But, does bringing women more fully into the United Nations' discussions on climate change promise to bring forward a feminist perspective? Scholars have investigated whether women's representation in decision-making bodies affects environmental outcomes (Ergas & York, 2012), whether a higher participation of women leads to better climate policy (Alber & Roehr, 2006), and whether there is any verifiable gender difference in climate change knowledge and concern (Alaimo, 2009; McCright, 2010).9 Summarized in Fig. 3, the data suggest that women would act differently than men in decision-making positions about climate change problems and solutions. Yet at least one source (Rohr, 2012) cites an exception in the Commissioner on Climate Action, Connie Hedegaard, who was “not in favour of addressing gender in European climate policy, because she deemed it relevant only for developing countries” and didn't want to be “overloaded” by integrating gender aspects (2). Thus, while gender balance at all levels of climate change decision-making is necessary, it “does not automatical- ly guarantee gender responsive climate policy” (Rohr, 2012, 2). A wider transformation is needed, involving “progressive men [and genderqueer others] who are prepared to question their masculinity and gender roles,” and work together to uncover “the embedded gender [sexuality] and power relations in climate change policy and mitigation strategies” (Rohr, 2012, 2). From these studies, it appears that structural gender inequality, and more specifically the underrepresentation of women in decision-making bodies on climate change, is actually inhibiting national and global action in addressing climate change. Given the correlation and mutual reinforcement of sexism and homophobia (Pharr, 1988), it should be no surprise that the standpoints on climate change for women and LGBTQ populations are comparable. Yet in United Nations discourse to date, when LGBTQ people seek an entry point into the ongoing climate change conversations, the primary entry point is one of illness, addressing only HIV and AIDS (McMichael, Butler & Weaver, 2008). Very few studies have recognized a queer ecological perspective (Gaard, 2004 (1997); Mortimer- Sandilands & Erickson, 2010), much less brought that perspec- tive to climate change research and data collection. Nonethe- less, these few studies confirm that the link between climate change and various LGBT individuals and communities stems from “the fundamentalist desires to dominate and control other people's environment, resources, contexts and desires” (Somera, 2009). According to a U.S. poll conducted by Harris Interactive, “LGBT Americans Think, Act, Vote More Green than Others” (2009), a conclusion based on answers to several key questions about whether it is important to support environ- mental causes, whether climate change is actually happening right now, whether the respondent would self-identify as an environmentalist, and whether it is important to consider environmental issues when voting for a candidate, buying goods and services, or choosing a job (see Fig. 4).10 Most significant in the Harris Poll—given that heterosexuals are more likely to have children—was the LGBT response expressed for what kind of planet we are leaving for future generations, a question which concerned LGBT respondents at 51% as compared with 42% of heterosexual respondents. Exploring the ways that “non-white reproduction and same-sex eroti- cism” are constructed as “queer acts against nature” in both environmentalist and homophobic discourses, Gosine (2010) sees both as “threatening to the white nation-building projects engendered through the process of colonization” (150). Discourses on the ecological dangers of overpopulation and queer sexualities are alike, Gosine argues, in that both deny the erotic (cf. Lorde, 1984). The toxic environments of climate change and homophobia are linked in the reason/erotic dualism of the Master Model (Plumwood, 1993), and cohere with other linked dualisms of white/non-white, wealthy/poor, intellectual/reproductive, a linkage that has been called erotophobia (Gaard, 2004 (1997)) and ecophobia (Estok, 2009). Alt-- deep social justiceThe alternative is deep social justice—rejecting dualism and alarmism for a holistic, integrated approach to social workKlemmer and McNamara, 2019 (Cary L. Klemmer and Kathleen A. McNamara, Klemmer has a PhD in social work from the University of Southern California. McNamara is a clinical social worker and has a PhD in social work from USC. “Deep Ecology and Ecofeminism” , December 2019)//klzDeep social justice, on the other hand, is conscious of both social and environmental justice. It moves “professional thinking away from the preeminence of individualism and dualism, and the unquestioned acceptance of progress and uncontrolled growth that make it difficult for social workers to fulfill their role as agents of social and environmental justice” (Gray & Coates, 2013, p. 356; Jones, 2010). To question societal structures such as economic models, values, and ways of life is critical as we embark into deeper social justice (Rambaree, Powers, & Smith, 2019). This con- sciousness is essential if social workers hope to make lasting social change, especially in the face of an environmental crisis that promises to be a challenge to all things on the planet, human and nonhuman.Conclusion: The Natural Ecology and the Science of Social WorkSooner rather than later, issues related to the environmental crisis will move from the periphery of social concern to the issue of social concern (Jones, 2010; Kemp et al., 2018). In order for human- kind to survive this challenge, the symbiosis between the ecology of human societies and the natural physical environment will become an essential component of social work and all related professions’ theorizing and interventions (Alston, 2013; Jones, 2010). Current responses to environmental crisis based primarily in climate science are deficient in addressing complex and intersecting social problems emerging in climate-affected spaces (Alston, 2013). Furthermore, the alarmist tone with which climate change is discussed, while justified, may further serve to situate humanity and nature in an adversarial relationship. With deep social justice as a guide, however, natural ecological theorizing can facilitate a rapprochement between humankind, the nonhuman natural world, and a changing climate. Thus, deep social justice can spur social work interventions that fulfill the objectives of the grand challenge to address the human impacts of the climate crisis in a meaningful and lasting way.The science of social work and its corresponding American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare have been created to lay claim to academic capital and to systematize the professional conduct of the social work profession through the scientific method (Barth et al., 2014). Eco- spiritual theorizing can ensure that these endeavors of scholarly thinking will be holistic and non- anthropocentric (Gray & Coates, 2013). Eco-spiritual thought tells that the natural environment is more than raw resources and that natural ecology possesses sacred and intrinsic value outside of its utility to humankind. In sum, nature, as both the physical environment and the natural communion in human interaction, is at risk (Besthorn & McMillen, 2002); if integrated into a science of social work, ecofeminist and deep ecological guidance will ensure that the quest for progress and growth does not occur in a way that is harmful and detached from nature. Without such a consciousness, the science of social work will perpetuate Western society’s domination over nature and limit our opportunities to develop a sustainable relationship with the earth. Human and nonhumankind have everything to lose.Social work guided by ecofeminism combats human domination over the earthKlemmer and McNamara, 2019 (Cary L. Klemmer and Kathleen A. McNamara, Klemmer has a PhD in social work from the University of Southern California. McNamara is a clinical social worker and has a PhD in social work from USC. “Deep Ecology and Ecofeminism” , December 2019)//klzThere is emerging global agreement that environmental change is one of the greatest threats to ecosystems, culture, health, and economies of humankind. In response to these environmental changes and the expected human vulnerability they will continue to produce, the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare has highlighted intervention to address the human impacts of the changing climate as one of the profession’s grand challenges. This article troubles the often anthropocentric worldview from which such responses emerge and proposes a framework informed by the wisdom of deep ecology and ecofeminism. Born from critical methodologies that question the rigid bifurcation and valuation of male/female and human/nonhuman, these perspectives invite social workers to think in novel ways about environmental challenges. We argue that the social work profession, which has historically sought to disturb power dynamics and reprioritize society’s needs, is uniquely situated to think holistically about responding to this crisis. By honoring the interrelated nature of human and nonhumankind, social workers can more mindfully lead the social planning and advocacy efforts necessary to meet this grand challenge.Keywords: climate change, deep ecology, ecofeminism, feminist theories, social work practiceClimate change has led to an increase in ever more severe hurricanes, wildfires, flooding, sea level rise, and drought that have caused large-scale human catastrophe and social dislocation (Alston, 2013; Drolet, 2012; Kemp & Palinkas, 2015). Communities with the least capital and resources suffer the worst effects from climate change, and social workers will have to address the severe impact of these developments on human health and well-being (Kemp & Palinkas, 2015; Mason & Rigg, 2018). While the social work field’s response to climate change typically focuses on topics such as disaster risk reduction, environmentally displaced populations, and community adaptation and resilience to environmental change (Kemp, Palinkas, & Mason, 2018), a broader perspective is possible (Bhuyan, Wahab, & Park, 2019). We begin by providing a historical overview, key con- cepts, and explicit examples of the theories of deep ecology and ecofeminism in social work practice. Then, we discuss the social work grand challenges and call for greater use of ecofeminist and deep ecological modes of practice such that we can earnestly address this crisis. Ultimately, this article argues that social work’s current parochial responses to the climate crisis further the proble- matic domination of humans over the earth and that a paradigm allowing for the pursuit of deep social and ecological justice is possible.Deep Ecology and Ecofeminism: The Historical OriginsOrigins of Ecological ThinkingThe term “ecology” was first used by naturalist Ernst Haeckel in 1866 to refer to interdependencies among organisms in the natural world (Haeckel, 1866). Ecology has come to be understood as “the interdisciplinary scientific study of the living conditions of organisms in interaction with each other and with the surroundings, organic as well as inorganic” (Naess, 1989, p. 36). The earliest iterations of ecological theory in social work however have not held true to this definition, and the theoretical conceptualization of the environment in social work has not held the same connotations as in the natural sciences.Traditional ecological theory, and psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) associated ecolo- gical model, purport that individual and community problems emerge from an inadequate fit between the individual and/or community with their social environment (Alston, 2013; Besthorn & McMillen, 2002; Ungar, 2002). Termed person-in-environment, this perspective veered from the prevailing psychodynamic framework, which was unable to account for systemic and structural factors leading to individuals’ problems (Besthorn & McMillen, 2002; Germain, 1987; Germain, 1994).Systems theory. In social work, the adaptation and goodness of fit of individuals to their surrounding ecological systems have predominately been regarded as social address and interaction and not in relation to natural physical place (Alston, 2013; Ungar, 2002). Ecological theory gained more prominence in the profession in the 1970s with the integration of systems theory such as that of family therapist Salvador Minuchin (1974). Systems theory allowed for a more in-depth understand- ing of the interactions of various systems. As stated by Gitterman and Germain (1976): “Within the ecological perspective, human beings are conceived as evolving and adapting through transactions with all elements of their environments . . . they reciprocally shape each other” (p. 602). While these systems were originally applied to the interactional nature of families alone, the application of systems theory ideas to the ecological realm allowed for development of Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological systems theory and his corresponding model so important to the social work profession (Ungar, 2002).Ecofeminism and Deep EcologyMany scholars of postmodern, critical, and feminist movements have deemed Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological theory inadequate. The transactions among different levels of systems and indi- viduals in ecological theory and the ecological model of social work have not historically been subject to large-scale critical analysis of the implicit influence of power and privilege. Instead, it is limited to individuals, groups, and organizations and emphasizes simple transactions between them, while excluding the natural environment and the spiritual/sacred connection between the two. Ecofeminist thinking arose from movements that critique modernity using historical and sociopolitical theory (Besthorn & McMillen, 2002). Ecofeminism was first identified by fem- inist thinker Francoise d’Eaubonne (1974) and has since been discussed by numerous feminist theorists (Besthorn & McMillen, 2002; Mies & Shiva, 2014; Stephens et al., 2009). The historical origin of ecofeminist thinking can be partially traced to constructionist theorists such as Michel Foucault (1965, 1969, 1970, 1980), Martin Heidegger (1961, 1966, 1971), and other postmodernists. These theoreticians produced the tools of deconstruction, which feminists have used to critically analyze dominating social discourses around power, privilege, modernity, and accepted notions of authority and knowledge. Major progenitors of ecofeminist thinking also include Marxist thinkers, especially that of the Frankfurt school, that offered a critical neo-Marxian perspective (Besthorn & McMillen, 2002). Ecofeminism ultimately came into being mainly through deconstruction of grand narratives of oppression seen as rooted in market economies with the combination of natural ecological theory: “a feminist/ecological dominance theory rooted in the destructive ethos of patri- archy” (Besthorn & McMillen, 2002, p. 224).Alt -- Buddhist EcofeminismAnger alone fails to produce emancipatory change - Buddhist ecofeminism is key to channel negative emotions into energy that can be translated into transformative environmental actionCan be a link to anger AFFsKaza, 1993 (Stephanie Kaza - Professor Emeritus @ Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Vermont. BA in Biology @ Oberlin, MA in Education @ Stanford, PhD in Biology @ UC Santa Cruz. “Buddhism, Feminism, and the Environmental Crisis: Acting with Compassion”, Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, 1(1), pg. 58-59, March 2 1996, \\ethan.jxtai)Emotional Energy as Source of Healing The Buddhist practice of investigating conditioned body, speech, and mind includes detailed observation of the nature of emotions. In the Sutra on the Four Establishments of Mindfulness, for example, the meditator is instructed to practice awareness of pleasant, painful, and neutral feelings as they arise in the mind and body. ln Thich Nhat Hanh's modern-day commentary on this Sutra, he suggests exercises for identifying and acknowledging feelings and seeing the physical, physiological, or psychological roots of particular feelings (Nhat Hanh 1990b). By becoming fully familiar with the nature of anger, grief, fear, desire, denial, or the blocking of these feelings, a practitioner gains confidence in living through the sweep of emotional responses that naturally arise from moment to moment. The first step of healing from the suffering of difficult emotions is to recognize and fully claim the rich information and energy response of the body/ mind. In the investigation and mindfulness practice itself, energy is released and becomes available for healing through attention and understanding. Rather than suppressing deep emotions, Buddhist practice can help a person develop the capacity to consciously use this energy to relieve suffering. Much of the response to the current environmental crisis is an emotional response, filled with grief, fear, and anger at the loss and destruction of plants, animals, forests, and watersheds. The depth of response may be so overwhelming that people become immobilized and unable to act. Buddhist practices to validate and move through these waves of emotion can be extremely helpful in freeing up energy/ to take action on behalf of the environment (see Nhat Hanh 1990a; Macy 1983, 1s8-61). Western feminists also recognize the importance of emotional response in the process of awakening to oppression. Most Western white women have been conditioned not to express anger overtly. Strong displays of empassioned emotion have been marginalized and viewed as unacceptable by the ruling patriarchy and its male model of "cool" and reserved emotions. Anger at sexual and environmental abuse qualifies as an "outlaw emotion," invalidated by those who wish to avoid hearing other experiences (Jaggar 1985). Feminists, however, are well aware that powerful social and gender conditioning can only be overthrown by a strong surge of energy and desire for change. Anger is very effective in marshaling the energy necessary to dismantle the structure that perpetrates violence against women and the environment. If one begins with the fundamental truth of one's own experience, recognizing that perception and conception are intimately related, it becomes necessary to know how we feel in order to act morally. As feminist theologian Beverly Harrison asserts, "The failure to live deeply in 'our bodies, ourselves' destroys the possibility for moral relations between us" (Harrison 1985, 13). For Harrison, anger is a "feeling-signal that all is not well in our relation to others or the world around us" (Harrison 1985, 14). Powerful emotion is a sip of resistance to the unsatisfactory moral quality of our social and environmental relationships. This signal is the wake-up call to look more deeply into the situation at hand. Harrison argues that the power to respond is the power to create a world of moral relations. This is the work of spiritual and religious practice, the transformative work that can serve to slow environmental destruction and heal the wounded biosphere. The combination of Buddhist mindfulness practice and feminist moral response is a powerful antidote to widespread despair and depression over the possibility of nuclear annihilation, environmental catastrophe, or out-of-control corporate greed. This practice does not remove the threats or mitigate the devastating consequences of irresponsible actions, but it does help to generate the tremendous energy needed to address the complexities of the global environmental situation (see Macy 1983). Anger, despair, or other strong emotions alone are not enough to stop environmental tragedy' because they cause polarization and defensive reactions that block communication. Environmental activists already have a history and bad name in some circles for misusing emotions in the service of battle strategy. Habitual unexamined anger can harden into ideology that further erodes opportunities for working together. By cultivating a deeper, more fully informed emotional response, one cultivates greater possibilities for healing transformation of relationships between human being and the environment.The alternative is an affirmation of Paticca-samuppada, or interconnectedness. This allows for mutual becoming, the process of liberation from western individualism, which is key to environmental consciousnessPaticca-samuppada (Pali), or Pratītyasamutpāda (Sanskrit) is the Law of Dependent Co-Arising, a Buddhist doctrineKaza, 1993 (Stephanie Kaza - Professor Emeritus @ Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Vermont. BA in Biology @ Oberlin, MA in Education @ Stanford, PhD in Biology @ UC Santa Cruz. “Buddhism, Feminism, and the Environmental Crisis: Acting with Compassion”, Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, 1(1), pg. 57-58, March 2 1996, \\ethan.jxtai)The Truth of Interrelatedness The fundamental law in Buddhism is the Law of Dependent Co Arising: that all events and beings are interdependent and interrelated. The universe is described as a mutually causal web of relationship, each action and individual contributing to the nature of many others (Kalupahana L987,26), The Pali word for this law, Paticca-samuppada, explains the truth in its literal meaning. Paticca means "grounded on or on account of'; sam is "together," and uppada means "arising." Thus the whole phrase can be translated "the being-on-account-of-arising-together." Or in the text, This being that becomes;from the arising of this, that arises; this not being that becomes not; from the ceasing of this, that ceases.2 An image for this cosmology is the Jewel Net of Indra, from the Mahayana Buddhist tradition (Cook 1989, 213-30). The multidimensional net stretches through all space and time, connecting an infinite number of jewels in the universe. Each jewel is infinitely multifaceted and reflects every other jewel in the net. There is nothing outside the Net and nothing which does not reverberate its presence throughout the web of relationships. This law is one of the most obvious connections between Buddhism and the environment. As ecologists point out in example after example, ecological systems are connected through water, air, and soil pathways. Impacts of chemical pesticides on agricultural lands carry to adjacent wetlands; industrial carbon emissions affect global atmospheric climate patterns. Interdependence and interrelationship are central starting points for ecological research of food webs, nutrient cycles, and forest succession. Indra's Net, however, contains more than the ecological sum of biosphere, atmosphere, and lithosphere. The Buddhist principle of interdependence includes human thought, perception, and values, and their impacts on the ecological-evolutionary conversation. This critical difference is what makes it possible and necessary for people in the Net to act ethically out of regard for the other beings in the Net. In the context of human relationship, feminist ethicist Mary Grey describes the metaphysic of connectedness as "revelatory paradigm" and "moral imperative." She suggests the ethics of care and responsibility naturally develop from a person's experience "trying to be faithful to relation or connection" (Grey 1991, 13). A number of feminist ethicists and writers point to mutuality and solidarity as key values for the feminist movement (see Farley 1986; Daly 1989). These values spring from the need for sister bonding as a source of strength in facing the internalized pain of the victim of sexism and in organizing for institutional and social change. Full mutuality or interdependence is not possible for one dominated by the absolutizing, individualist "I." Thus to experience the richness of full mutuality, one must transcend or break through the limitations of the thought habit of individualism reinforced as the dominant ideology in the Western world. For the woman who has suffered physical, economic, psychological, or spiritual oppression, freedom from the rigidity of the fixed "I"/self and release into the web of relationships means the choice of many more nourishing options for growth and development. Because this maturation occurs in a shared context with others also suffering isolation, the feminist experience of interrelatedness is a process of mutual becoming, born out of mutual vulnerability. The joy and satisfaction of this experience may then be a foundation for "passionate caring for the entirety of the relational nexus" (Grey 1991' 13). A woman who uncovers her own capacity for mutuality can then (and often does) extend her efforts and empathy to the many other women in different cultures and places who also suffer from lack of freedom of choice. For both Buddhism and feminism, the core truth of interrelationship or mutual becoming is central to individual liberation or freedom from false reification of an independent "I." Feminist Buddhists who understand this path of liberation can be extremely effective and compassionate participants in the struggle for environmental consciousness. Acting from deep-rooted experience in the freedom to choose options other than oppression, they can work creatively and skillfully to open up environmental conversations that have been frozen by loss of relationality.Aff AnswersPermPerm do Both- SciencePerm do both—ecofeminism can be applied to scientific appraochesKlemmer and McNamara, 2019 (Cary L. Klemmer and Kathleen A. McNamara, Klemmer has a PhD in social work from the University of Southern California. McNamara is a clinical social worker and has a PhD in social work from USC. “Deep Ecology and Ecofeminism” , December 2019)//klzThus, it may seem that ecofeminist and deep ecological practice is an uneasy fit with current trends to operationalize social work based in scientific evidence. However, ecofeminist and deep ecological tenants and practices can be aligned with traditional paradigms to broaden the impact of scientific inquiry and to develop evidence-based practices attentive to social and ecological justice. For example, scholar Deboleena Roy (2008) offers a “feminist practice of research agenda choice” (p. 154, emphasis in original) which does not seek to dismantle typical scientific inquiry “but rather to provide the feminist scientist with the necessary tools to produce interruptions or positive dis- ruptions in the processes of scientific knowledge making” (p. 154). Thus, through centering ecofe- minist ethics as a starting point in social work research and intervention, the ecological spiritual movement and its ideas can be applied to existing modalities of professional rm Practice: A Deeper Social JusticeA “deeper social justice” is one that inextricably connects and equally prioritizes social and ecolo- gical well-being. Traditionally, the social work profession has defined social justice as a system that ensures equitable distribution of goods and resources to all. According to deep ecological thinkers, this is an inherently flawed idea rooted in market economies and the unquestioned desire for consumption and growth. This is a shallow social justice that is egocentric (individual focused) and homocentric (human society focused; Besthorn, 2012). In striving for such shallow justice, social workers may do harm to future generations and nonhumans.For some time, social workers as a whole have not reflected on the difference between doing good for some and being agents of social change for all (Gray & Coates, 2013; Ungar, 2002). Deep ecology and ecofeminism provide an expanded framework and critical dialectic for social workers to more thoroughly question our roles in ways that will allow us to be truly transformational not only for those we serve but also for the broader social and natural environments as well (Jones, 2010; Peeters, 2012). Eco-spiritual proponents believe that there is a responsibility of all made aware of the principles of deep ecology to advocate for proliferation and social political manifestation of the principles: “These eight principles of practice are meant to challenge earlier conceptualizations of ecological practice that produced little change in the business-as-usual approaches found among service providers mandated to change people’s behavior” (Ungar, 2002, p. 487). Deep ecological and ecofeminist theory inform a deep social justice that rejects this insufficient, business-as-usual approach within the social work profession.Perm- Environmental PragmatismEnvironmental theory and pragmatism work togetherSamuelsson, 2010 (Lars Samuelsson, a professor in environmental philosophy at Ume? University. “Environmental Pragmatism and Environmental Philosophy: A Bad Marriage!” , Winter 2010)//klzWhen Light and Katz take the overriding aim to be “finding workable solutions to environmental problems now,” this is certainly a praiseworthy initiative, and in one respect this aim is indeed an overriding aim, but it should not be the overriding aim of environmental philosophy per se (although it may, of course, be the overriding aim of particular environmental philosophers). The question of whether or not, and in what sense, nature has intrinsic value does not stand in contrast to questions of finding workable solutions to environmental problems. To the contrary, such questions can often go hand in hand. Debates about intrinsic value in nature take place within environmental ethics, while finding workable solutions to environmental problems is a question for the entire environmental movement (indeed, for everyone). The whole field of environmental ethics (as well as the wider field of environmental philosophy) can be seen as a part of this larger environmental movement, within which it has its specific role. While the aim of this larger movement is indeed to find workable solutions to environmental problems, the role of environmental eth- ics is (among other things) to provide theoretical foundations for these solutions. Environmental ethics interacts with other parts of the environmental movement in various ways, and a lively internal debate within environmental ethics should be seen as a sign of health for the environmental movement at large, indicating both self-criticism and the absence of dogmatism.27Ecofeminism WrongNo domination of natureNon-living nature lacks sentient values that would have no trouble if dominated. Eileen A. O'Shea, 18 - O'Shea, Eileen A., "Distinguishing Harms to Derive Commitments: Karen Warren and Aldo Leopold on Ecofeminism and Domination" (2018). Standard Theses. 166. /pg.14Turning away from the “necessity” argument, one may begin to the address the question of wronging, and therein the potential justification behind the domination of nature: the difference between the rational, sentient, and teleological organization of woman and the argued absence of rationality, sentience, and teleological organization of nature. It is here where I argue that Warren’s depiction of Ecofeminism fails. If the indictment of domination in the context of the human is dependent upon wronging due to the humanity’s rational and sentient nature, or due to their perfectionist value, then if nature, (again plants and rocks), has none of these qualities, it seems less troublesome, if at all, as a subject of domination. If a geologist smashes a rock with a rock hammer, but the rock cannot feel or even perceive the hammer’s blow, it seems acceptable to say that the geologist is not wronging the rock. Further, if there is not an intrinsic aim or end that exists within all rocks, a “teleological function,” then there is no perfectionist value to be affected as the geologist smashes the rock. The rock is neither sentient nor rational, and similarly,it is difficult to argue for either of these qualities as existing in plants. Thus, this formulation of nature posits it as a permissible particular kind of “thing” to dominate.EssentialismPortraying women as closer to nature or feminizing nature itself reproduces the oppression of women and domination of nature.Grace Y. Kao,?2010, "THE UNIVERSAL VERSUS THE PARTICULAR IN ECOFEMINIST ETHICS", The Journal of Religious Ethics,? the characterization of women as healing life-sustainers is intended or received in a socially constructed as opposed to an essentialist fashion, such rhetoric carries with it notable risks. Critics of the field of “care ethics” as pioneered by Carol Gilligan, Nel Noddings, and Sara Ruddick have repeatedly warned that the social practice and ethical ideal of feminine nurturing can be problematic in patriarchal contexts when attempting to move women out of subordinate positions.11For not only has the tremendous responsibility of providing care traditionally fallen to women in many societies, but also the demand for such care is being intensified today by the increasing privatization of social services through cuts in governmental spending, so as to require civil society and families (largely women) to make up the difference (MacGregor 2006, 68). In short, the worry is that the naturalization of women’s practices of care would work to impede society’s perception of women’s abilities by reifying persistent beliefs that they are better suited for the “private” realm of home and hearth and not the “public” realm of society, industry, and civic engagement. The flipside of ecomaternalist discourse, the “feminization” of nature, could also prove damaging in unintended ways. To illustrate, the popular simile of “earth as mother” could easily backfire in contexts where the ideal of the endlessly self-sacrificial mother and the assumption about nature’s endless bounty already represent ways of thinking that need to be overcome. Consider Shel Silverstein’s popular children’s book, The Giving Tree(1964), where the feminized tree gives of herself entirely—first out of her abundance (shade, fruit) and then self-sacrificially (in allowing herself to be cut down)—so as to satisfy the needs and whims of what I regard to be a selfish and spoiled boy who shows few signs of moral progress as he ages into an old man. The popular understanding of this book as a delightful story about altruism, unconditional love, and ideal motherhood, rather than a cautionary tale about co-dependency, exploitation, and man’s predatory relationship with (the rest of) nature, reveals just how deeply entrenched those beliefs are even today.1Reducing feminist activism solely to an ethic of care is essentializing – it ignores historical complexities and reduces feminine political and moral autonomyMacGregor 04 (Sherilyn MacGregor – environmental politics reader at the University of Manchester, writer for Environmental Politics journal, PhD Environmental Studies from York University. “From Care to Citizenship: Calling Ecofeminism Back to Politics.” Ethics and the Environment, 2004-03, Vol. 9, p 56-84. ProQuest Central, accessed through Georgetown.)sfPeta Bowden contends that it is necessary for feminists to acknowledge negative aspects to caring as well as positive ones. She calls them dark sides and light sides of caring:the tendency to see the perspectives and concerns arising from maternal and other practices of caring simply in a positive light glosses the dark side of these practices: the frustrating, demeaning, and isolating dimensions of their routines. 'Care' has a lengthy history in the (English-speaking) west as a burden, a bed of trouble, anxiety, suffering and pain; care ethicists ignore this history, and the dismal actuality of many contemporary practices of caring, at great risk. (1997, 9)Highlighting the relevance of this insight for ecofeminism, Chris Cuomo (1998,129) writes: "put simply, caring can be damaging to the carer if she neglects other responsibilities, including those she has to herself, by caring for another."5 Certainly self-sacrifice, exploitation, and loss of autonomy and leisure time are among the more negative aspects of women's caring. So is the inability to withhold care or to say "no" that comes with an internalized duty to maintain relationships. It is important to look at why women tend to have little choice but to be caring.6 Feminist critiques of violence against women often include the claim that women need to develop a greater sense of autonomy and separation. (Intimacy and abuse sometimes go hand in hand.) Such negative aspects provide reasons to treat with greater scepticism any desire to focus solely on the lighter side of women's caring and life-affirming values. In recognition of this point, perhaps it is necessary to consider striking a balance between an ethic of care and an ethic of justice.7Even when it is useful to value and affirm women's caring, we ought not to limit our interest in women's moral lives, or their moral possibilities, to care. Bowden laments that "celebrations of caring reduce and simplify the range of women's moral possibilities to those displayed in practices of care" (1997, 8). Ecofeminist texts are open to this very criticism when they fail to consider, or when they downplay, other sources of women's concern for environmental well-being besides their maternal feelings of protection for their children. While it is important not to dismiss these feelings as invalid, there is value in exploring other forms of and motivations for environmental and community engagement that do not fall into a stereotypically or exclusively feminine orientation. Few of these, such as religious belief, academic training, scientific and philosophical curiosity, national and regional forms of identity, attachment to places or landscapes, and so on, have been given much play in ecofemiiiist scholarship.8 Have ecofeminists explored the emotions beyond caring ones, such as anger, outrage, and perhaps even selfishness that are at play in many women's engagement with environmental disputes? Is it all about care and co-operation or are more complex and multi-layered interpretations possible?It seems that women's capacity for abstract and principled thought about moral issues and ethical decision making has been eclipsed by a focus on material practices and lived experiences that are presented as more "grounded" than theory can ever be. A focus on women acting on "survival" or "subsistence" imperatives erases moral choice and practices of making principled decisions to act, or not to act, in particular ways. Many ecofeminists want to celebrate "the view from below": the moral insight that comes out of allegedly unmediated experiences of survival. There is a naturalistic presupposition in this celebration that plays into stereotypical representations of women's caring "as instinctual activities that require no special knowledge, no training, no education" (Code 1995, 107). This presupposition is especially apparent in ecofeminist literature where the claim is made, implicitly or explicitly, that grassroots women (especially peasant women) are more authentic knowers than feminist women and that their putatively untheorized knowledge is more valuable than feminist theory. Not only is this view patronizing and unfair to women who may actually make a conscious political choice to care, but it also denies the political significance of care.Problematic also is an apparent lack of acknowledgement that many of the women who ecofeminists claim exhibit a "subsistence perspective" or "barefoot epistemology" do so in conditions that are not of their own choosing. It is unfair to romanticize values that emerge from a subsistence way of life because the alternative picture (i.e., selfishness in an affluent lifestyle) is problematic. Perhaps it is worth questioning the assumptions being made about the way "lifestyle" determines human morality. For example, I find the assumptions being made in this statement highly questionable:. . . the Bangladeshi women teach us that the realisation of the subsistence perspective depends primarily not on money, education, status, and prestige but on control over means of subsistence: a cow, some chickens, children, land, also some independent money income. (Mies and Bennholdt-Thomsen 2000, 5)The ecofeminist writers who celebrate women's ethic of earthcare forget to look behind their observations (or rather, their interpretations) of women's life-sustaining labor to understand their complexities, contexts, and conditions. I would suggest that ecofeminists who focus only on the positive aspects of this way of knowing/being (positive in that it helps others and perhaps bolsters the viability of fragile ecosystems even if the lives of the carers remain the same) are neglecting a feminist desire for social and political change towards equality. In so doing they give the appearance of giving up on the idea that all those whose privilege serves to excuse them from caring activities might develop a greater capacity for caring and compassion and that care should be seen as central to any vision of a sustainable and equitable society.9 Worse perhaps is the possibility that a change in the unequal gender relations that contribute to women's sense of moral responsibility for life would be incompatible with an ecofeminist alternative. As Victoria Davion (1994) has argued, this position is inconsistent with feminist aims.Feminist mediums unintentionally reinforce traditional values by emphasizing women’s biological essentialism.Nicole Cooke, 19 - Cooke, Nicole. "Feminist Dystopias and Ecofeminist Representation: Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and Naomi Alderman's “The Power.” (Bachelor of Arts, University of Toledo, English.) Electronic Thesis or Dissertation. University of Toledo, 2019. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. 15 Jul 2021.The progressive work done within the feminist dystopian genre attempts to disassociate women with characteristics such as weak, politics, and nurturing. At the same time, however, this constant on women's fertility as being connected to the state of the environment ultimately reinforces the relationship between women and nature, insisting that women are a part of larger, "natural" rhythms and cycles. The persistent representation of women as connected to nature creates an internal tension between the overt politics of the genre, which promotes resistance to the idea that women's bodies can be controlled, and a more traditional vision of what it means to be female that is dependent on biological essentialism. In other words, the insistence that women and nature are related reinforces an ideology in which women's identity is contingent on their capability to reproduce. Within this traditional scope of womanhood, women are expected to present maternal characteristics which would further support women's inherent roles as mothers. The feminist dystopian genre, which argues that women are not inherent mothers, often unintentionally enforces a type of biological essentialism through its descriptions of women and nature. This tension becomes apparent particularly when such novels are readthrough an ecofeminist lens. In this paper, I argue that the genre of feminist dystopian fiction, which has grown and evolved rapidly as a response to women's anger, and which often aims to critique patriarchal attempts to control female reproductmn, often unintentmnally reinforces a kind of biological essentialism that hnks women inherently tonaturema tendency that has been largely overlooked by literary critics. This paper willutilize an ecofeminist lens while analyzing women's relationship to nature within twofeminist dystoplan novels: Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, a canon within thegenre, and Naomi Alderman's The Power, a recent novel within the genre. Within ThePower, women gain the ability to deliver an electric shock. The novel accurately illustratesthe anger and terror women currently face, but then twists the narrative so that women abuse the power they have been given. Alderman's novel makes obvious statements about the link between ultimate power and corruption, but also rejects biological essentialism by creating female characters who are capable of corruption and manipulation. Alderman humanizes her characters by challenging the women/nature relationship which only allows women to be nurturing mothers. I will explore these ideas by analyzing the language used to compare Offred's thoughts to nature w?thm The Handmaid's Tale, and by examining how the characters within The Power work to dismantle the patriarchal relationship between women and nature.Ecofeminist understandings of environmental degradation are based on a essentialist view of women as inherently closer to nature and instinctive carersJackson 98 (Cecile Jackson – Professor of Development Studies, Gender and Developments, University of East Anglia. “Gender, Irrigation, and Environment: Arguing for Agency.” Agriculture and Human Values, 1998-12, Vol.15 (4), p.313-324, SpringerLink journals, accessed through Georgetown)Ecofeminist understandings of the causes, consequences, and meanings of environmental degradation are distinctive and based on an essentialist view of women as a transcultural and transhistorical category of humanity with an inherent closeness to nature and sharing with nature a violation by patriarchy and capitalism.2 Environmental degradation is linked to patriarchy. Thus ecofeminists see water scarcity as caused by “man,” both in the broader sense of anthropogenic causation and in the narrower sense of patriarchal social relations. Vandana Shiva writes, “The drying up of India, like that of Africa, is a man-made rather than a natural disaster” (1989: 179) and Dankelman and Davidson write that “more and more evidence . . . suggests that these [droughts] are not entirely natural” (1989: 30), emphasizing anthropogenic causes instead. Irrigation is attacked for the volume of global water it consumes, and its poor efficiency such that 70–80% of water drawn from rivers for irrigation never reaches the crops (World Resources, 1986), for the salinisation and water logging that results from poor management, and groundwater depletion from irrigation is seen to desiccate and impoverish thousands of villages in Asia. Shiva claims that “the number of villages facing water famine is in direct proportion to the number of ‘schemes’ implemented by government agencies to ‘develop’ water” (1989: 179). She argues that these water development programs are “anti-nature and antiwomen” (1989: 182), urges us to think like a river, to refuse thinking about water as a resource, and to reject the damming and diversion of water, energized pumping and tube-wells, in favor of human and animal powered water lifting devices. For Shiva, dams, tubewells, water-intensive cultivation, and technology intensive solutions to the drinking water crisis are “destroying the feminine principle and sustaining power of water, and destroying women’s knowledge and productivity in providing sustenance” (1989: 184). Canal irrigation is particularly reviled as a “favorite masculinist project” (1989: 192), as are dams. She claims that the practice of female infanticide amongst Kallars of Tamil Nadu was caused by a dam and irrigation scheme; with prosperity came the devaluation of women and dowry practices, and then infanticide, such that “[T]he devaluation of the work of the river is associated with the devaluation of the work of women, and both arise from the commoditisation of the economy, which forces violence on nature and women” (1989: 194). Women are portrayed in ecofeminism as the sole water collectors and managers who, over centuries, have acquired extensive knowledge of water.3 Their gender interests are always seen as compatible with environmental conservation, and they are identified as the primary environmental managers and carers, with instinctive understandings of nature. Ecofeminist positions on water resource development are overwhelmingly negative about dams, irrigation, and domestic water development, other than very small scale activities based on human energy and local knowledge that they see as beneficial to women and to natureGendered labor divisions in environmental work are predicated on the societal burden borne by women Jackson 98 (Cecile Jackson – Professor of Development Studies, Gender and Developments, University of East Anglia. “Gender, Irrigation, and Environment: Arguing for Agency.” Agriculture and Human Values, 1998-12, Vol.15 (4), p.313-324. March 25, 1998. SpringerLink journals, accessed through Georgetown) Thinking about water, environment, and irrigation technologies as an embodied female subject raises fresh interest in how women and men experience small-scale irrigation. It has been argued that the case of treadle pumps in Bangladesh, which are operated by manual treadling, and which have been promoted as environmentally sound, pro-poor technology originally for home garden use but increasingly for rice production, suggests that human energy powered technologies can be damaging to women, who report exhaustion, injury, and pain after using them for some time, and particular problems when menstruating or pregnant. Despite the labor abundance in rural Bangladesh, which is taken to vindicate labor intensive technologies, it has been argued that labor has to be understood as an embodied experience, rather than simply as a time allocation, in which the gender distribution of the physical burden of work, the work intensity, of this technology suggests that for poor rural women this may be a very inappropriate technology (Palmer-Jones and Jackson, 1997). The most damaging effects were experienced by particularly poor women who treadled pumps as hired labor for low wages, and the least damaging effects were felt by those who treadled for relatively short periods in own-account vegetable production. The physical experience of work, in this case of effort and burden, enters into intrahousehold bargaining over labor in complex ways. The aversion to pain, and the discomfort of heavy labor, on the one hand is a powerful incentive towards negotiating oneself out of such labor. On the other hand the remarks made by women about this were revealing: one said that they “do not like to admit to tiredness and pain,” another that “people do difficult things for their families” and another that “it is tiring and painful but what is to be done?,” whilst a fourth exclaimed that “men try to use women like slaves for working!” (Palmer-Jones and Jackson, 1997: 47). These comments suggest an unwillingness to be seen to “fail” at tasks expected of women, a sense of shared sacrifices, a lack of alternatives, and an anger at explicitly recognized inequity in gender divisions of labor. They indicate some of the individual experience of burden, the simultaneously shared as well as separate interests of spouses, both willing acceptance and angry resistance. Whether the experience of burden translates into silent selfexploitation or articulated objections at the extremes, or forms of subtle refusal and obstruction in between, depends on many factors. This much is clear, the quality of work is experienced bodily (as well as through social valuation); these experiences have meaning and affect action; and women justify the work they do with diverse narratives that draw on gender ideologies and personal loyalties as well as socially legitimated refusals.So WhiteEcofeminism is a White woman’s movement- not accepted in environmental justiceIoana Serita, 17 - She Loves the River”:Women Environmental Activists for Bay Area Watersheds, Ioana Seritan, Spring 2017 justice activism is similar to ecofeminism, but many supporters of environmental justice are uncomfortable with calling themselves ecofeminists. Both ecofeminism and environmental justice movements connect environmental problems to systems of domination. Both also deal with the impact of environmental problems on reproductive rights (Zimmerman and Miao 2009). However, many ecofeminists challenge only domination of women by men, whereas women of color also challenge domination of people of color by white people. Women of color are oppressed not only by white men, but also by white women, and by men of color. Ecofeminism fails to sufficiently tackle racial and class inequalities, making it largely a white woman’s movement.Environmental justice also overlaps with ideas of activist motherhood. Many women struggle with participating in activism because it is seen as outside of traditional ideas of women. Women in EJ movements created a new rhetoric in which being a “good mother” included standing up to racial, class, and gender inequalities, for the sake of their families and communities (Peeples and DeLuca 2006). Both white mothers and mothers of color empower themselves to participate in activism by transforming what it means to be a mother.Blocks policyPerpetuating feminine relations to nature removes momentum for political change. Nicole Cooke, 19 - Cooke, Nicole. "Feminist Dystopias and Ecofeminist Representation: Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and Naomi Alderman's The Power." Electronic Thesis or Dissertation. University of Toledo, 2019. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. 15 Jul 2021.Overall, Cultural Ecofeminism fails to recognize how patriarchal systems of power created and continue to perpetuate concepts establishing women as being closer to nature because it upholds systems of domination already set in place. Its continued attempts to" romanticize women's culturally conditioned 'closeness' to nature" lose the ability to create any power or political change because it is based in myth (Guttman 42). The continuation of these myths only works to reestablish a false connection between women and nature. When the Cultural Ecofeminist myth is affirmed by literature, its female characters lose any ability create sizeable action or power and they, ultimately, continue to fit into the characterized notions of womanhood as defined by the patriarchal society. Alt AnswersAlt fails - Too much disagreement Alt fails – the diversity of ecofeminism creates tension that ecofeminists hideVarner 16, Tess Varner is Director, Women's and Gender Studies; Assistant Professor, Philosophy at Concordia College, “Contemporary Perspectives on Ecofeminism”, Routledge explorations in environmental studies, //JK (Diamond and Orenstein 1990a: vii, emphasis added) In her foreword to Healing the Wounds, Petra Kelly wrote: This is a book about global ecological sisterhood! ... This is not a time for complacency. It is a time for continuing to link arms as sisters – like the women in the Chipko movement in India; like the women at Greenham Common, in England, who are not giving up the struggle against militarization; like the women of the Western Shoshone Indian Nation in Nevada who opposed nuclear testing by encircling the test grounds; like the women in the Pacific struggling for a nuclear-free future to prevent babies being damaged through French atomic bomb tests; like the women in the Krim Region of the Soviet Union demonstrating courageously against a new nuclear power plant. (Plant 1989a: ix–x) Frequently, eco/feminism was made manifest through listing places or organi- zations where it was understood to be emerging. Introducing eco/feminism by providing a list of global grassroots activisms was common in the late 1980s and early 1990s (see, for example: Mellor 1992: 50; Merchant 1992: 184; Baker 1993: 2; and Gaard and Gruen 1993: 1). The diversity of locations in which the activism took place was as significant as the activism itself. Eco/feminists liked to say that the movement emerged at the same time in many parts of the world: Salleh (1997: 17) wrote of ‘the word “ecofeminism” turning up spontaneously across several continents during the 1970s’. Thus eco/feminists lauded women’s grassroots activism around the world, but particularly in the Global South. Eco/feminist genealogies 25 Perhaps following Lahar’s observation that the diversity of eco/feminism seemed to produce confusion, holding on to diversity became too challenging, with the result that one instance – the Chipko Movement – emerged as iconic. Chipko was a movement of Indian women in the Garwhal Himalayas who publicly hugged trees to protest commercial logging. It was brought to prominence for eco/feminists by scholar and activist Vandana Shiva, through her book, Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Development (1989), and also through her numerous presentations at international policy and activist conferences. The turn to typologizing, the concomitant reification of Chipko, and the reduction of eco/feminism to the Chipko Movement might then be under- stood as responses to the challenges posed by its diversity. Yet all these accounts – of diversity, of simultaneous emergence around the world, and of Chipko as exemplary – exist in tension with another account, one that is often visible only in the footnotes of eco/feminist texts. In the late 1990s, when Sturgeon (1997: 167–96), Cuomo (1998) and Gaard (1998: 12–15) echoed each other in asking ‘What’s in a name?’, they were referring to the various names that were being created to describe typologies of feminism and environmentalism. The coining of the term ‘ecofeminism’ by French feminist Franc?oise d’Eaubonne also received significant attention; however, this attention was often relegated to footnotes Alt failsEcofeminism requires more research to become effectiveKlemmer and McNamara, 2019 (Cary L. Klemmer and Kathleen A. McNamara, Klemmer has a PhD in social work from the University of Southern California. McNamara is a clinical social worker and has a PhD in social work from USC. “Deep Ecology and Ecofeminism” , December 2019)//klzDeep Ecology, Ecofeminism, and the Social Work Grand ChallengesDeep ecological and ecofeminist theory and associated interventions described above provide a critical and thorough voice; however, they are limited as they are not “evidence-based.” Alston (2013), after elaborating on the value of ecofeminist theorizing to provide guidance on gender- sensitive social work in an era of environmental crisis concedes, “we require multiple and layered practice theories and interventions based on sound research in order to be critical players and advocates in the environmental and climate disaster policy and practice space” (p. 219). Deep ecology has been widely criticized for its celebration of the spiritual, which comes, for some, at the expense of the practical (Ungar, 2002). It can be argued that deep ecology and ecofeminism are ways of thinking, not ways of doing, which invite social workers to question the dominant paradigms with which they have been socialized, not only in the profession but also in the society as well. Having been steeped in an anthropocentric worldview, social workers understandably focus their skills on addressing existential crises facing their clients, patients, and community members. Simi- larly, when faced with environmental crises, we understandably tend to situate our responses from an anthropocentric stance.The American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare hopes to foster, highlight, and proliferate the social work profession through advancements in science-informed programming, and to estblish the social work profession as an integrative scientific profession (Barth, Gilmore, Flynn, Fraser, & Brekke, 2014; Brekke, 2014). To what extent can the eco-spiritual frameworks make claim that they are indeed scientifically based and thus be centered in this movement? At this point, literature on the deep ecological and ecofeminist movements in social work is indeed theore- tical, conceptual, and, at times, strongly anti-positivist (Besthorn & McMillen, 2002). The deep ecological and ecofeminist movement has made explicit a disdain for a reliance on existing methods of scientific inquiry, which are in part believed to be the cause of current environmental crisis.Alt fails- Ethic of CareEthics of care fails – reinforces normative moralization of gender that positions feminine morality as unjust and relational exploitationMacGregor 04 (Sherilyn MacGregor – environmental politics reader at the University of Manchester, writer for Environmental Politics journal, PhD Environmental Studies from York University. “From Care to Citizenship: Calling Ecofeminism Back to Politics.” Ethics and the Environment, 2004-03, Vol. 9, p 56-84. ProQuest Central, accessed through Georgetown.)sfSince the 1980s, when care ethics was in its heyday, questions have been asked about the validity and implications of care perspectives for feminism. There is resistance in feminist philosophy to the "strategy of reversal" that has been deployed by cultural feminists who choose to see "women's ways of knowing," "maternal thinking" or "feminine ethics" as superior to men's ways of knowing and masculine ethics and as an ethic that can transform the world. Lorraine Code points out, for example, that "it is by no means clear that a new monolith, drawn from hitherto devalued practices, can or should be erected in the place of one that is crumbling" (1995, 111). An important lesson for ecofeminists here is that listening to and validating women's voices and those of other marginalized subjects is important but does not inevitably lead to epistemic privilege (Davion 1994). Not only is the idea that women may have greater access to "the truth" questionable on empirical grounds, it is also too risky a position to put forth in the context of a masculinist and misogynist culture that both creates and exploits women's capacity to care. Thinking about this point in the context of ecofeminist rhetoric Code writes:Women may indeed in have the capacity to save the world, consequence, perhaps, of their cultural-historical relegation to a domain 'closer to nature' than men, whatever that means. Yet claims that such a capacity is uniquely, essentially theirs have consistently served as premises of arguments to show that women should be the moral guardians both of 'humanity' and of nature. Such injunctions assign women responsibilities that are fundamentally oppressive, while excluding them from recognition as cognitive agents and creators of social meaning, precisely because of their alleged closeness to nature. An ecofeminism developed in this direction would be morally-politically unacceptable. (1991,274)Questioning the morality of gender inequality that in large part is responsible for women's greater tendency to perform caring activities and to feel responsible for the welfare of others is an important project for feminist moral philosophers. It is significant that few of the ecofeminists to whom I have been referring, on the other hand, are interested in challenging the feminization of care or acknowledging the negative consequences of women's sense of ethical responsibility for caring. I think they could learn from the arguments of feminists who have looked at caring through sceptical (as opposed to rosy) glasses (Card 1989). For example, an important criticism of care ethics emerges through a theoretical examination of why and how women care. Feminist philosopher Marilyn Friedman suggests that we recognize a "gender division of moral labor" that is largely responsible for the "moralization of gender" wherein specific, different moral commitments and behaviours are expected of men and women. She writes: "Our very conceptions of femininity and masculinity, female and male, incorporate norms about appropriate behaviour, characteristic virtues, and typical vices" (1995, 64). These norms develop under conditions of sexual inequality and persist through stereotypes constructed through dominant institutions of mass culture. Even if the myth fails to live up to the "reality," our perceptions are filtered through these stereotypes: masculine thinking is believed to be abstract and concerned with justice, and feminine thinking is seen as more caring and selfless. Normative femininity is imposed on women through the disciplinary practices of the dominant culture and that this is disempowering for women so disciplined. Thus we may reasonably suspect that what appears as "care" (with all its qualities of selflessness and compassion) is actually an unjust and "onesided relational exploitation" (68). At any rate, we simply do not know what "feminine morality" would be under conditions of equity and freedom and we should not confuse actions shaped under socially oppressive conditions for "natural" ones (Card 1989; see also Frye 1983).Care metaphors fail – fail to account for the exploitation and feminization of unpaid care labor and the unsustainable burden of care work borne by the feminineMacGregor 04 (Sherilyn MacGregor – environmental politics reader at the University of Manchester, writer for Environmental Politics journal, PhD Environmental Studies from York University. “From Care to Citizenship: Calling Ecofeminism Back to Politics.” Ethics and the Environment, 2004-03, Vol. 9, p 56-84. ProQuest Central, accessed through Georgetown.)sfJust as it is instructive to consider the "dark side" of women's moral responsibility to care, it is also important to consider the problems that arise for women who perform caring work in societies that assume yet deny an exploitative gender division of necessary labor. In this context, it seems to me that an ecofeminist theory of women's environmental activism ought to foreground ways in which care-giving responsibilities and political engagement can, and often do, clash. There are stories that combine an acknowledgement of women's political contributions with insights into the costs they incur in the process. Harriet Rosenberg has found, for example, that women involved in local anti-toxics struggles report an increased level of tension and conflict in their families: "Preserving familist ideology, in theory, often results, in practice, in long absences from the home, unprepared meals, undone laundry, and kitchens turned into offices. When women become active publicly, their husbands may resent their new confidence and skills" (1995, 200). Although Joni Seager (1993) may inadvertently endorse the kind of ecomaternalist rhetoric that I find problematic, she seems well aware of the dilemmas it poses for women, not least because they are criticized for not living up to cultural expectations of what mothers ought to be like. They find themselves ridiculed as hysterical and naive by officials, harassed by men in their families for shirking domestic duties, guilt-tripped by lonely children who expect more of their mother's time.What I make of this is that ecofeminist discussions of women's activism ought not only to recognize tensions between mothering and politics but also to engage in a critical political economic analysis of women's unpaid labor. Viewed in light of feminist critiques of the feminization of caring in capitalist societies and of the current hegemony of new right ideology, it is dangerous for ecofeminists to uncritically celebrate women's roles as earth carers. It is dangerous if it affirms rather than challenges the feminization and privatization of caring work. Feminist political economists, on the other hand, have tracked the changes in unpaid work over time and have analyzed the gender implications of a capitalist system that depends on the externalization of reproductive labor (cf. Folbre 1993). This tracking is done not to celebrate the fact that women do this work but to show how women's caring work is deeply implicated in the dominant political and economic agendas. Scholars have argued that care and care-related practices are devalued in liberal-capitalist societies precisely because they are associated with femininity-that is, they are seen as women's work (cf. McDowell 1992). Moreover, their theoretical interpretations of empirical data (such as those gathered in time budget studies) suggest that caring is a deeply gendered, that is, feminized activity in Western (and probably many other) cultures and that the unequal division of unpaid care work between men and women has not changed dramatically in the past thirty years (cf. Eichler 1997; Armstrong and Armstrong 1994).As feminist political economists have observed, not only is women's load of caring labor not being shared equally by men, it is also being progressively intensified by a privatization agenda of right-wing governments that seek to cut spending by downloading the work of caring to civil society and individual families (Brodie 1996; Abbott and Wallace 1992). Since the early 1980s, governments in the West have gradually privatized public services (in such fields as health care) and have moved to contracting them out to private companies (Medjuck, O'Brien, and Tozer 1992; Giles and Arat-Koc 1994). These changes are part of a quest for more efficient and cost-effective strategies that meet corporate and state concerns for competitiveness in the global economy. Feminists have argued that this strategy is also deeply gendered in that it relies on the cheap, even free, labor of women.Given this intensification of women's caring labor under present national and global economic conditions, it is unsatisfactory that so little ecofeminist research is aimed at showing the costs to women of maintaining a gender division of labor that ensures their growing burden of unpaid and undervalued work. How do women juggle their various caring roles, take on new kinds of caring responsibilities, and still manage to live fulfilling and meaningful lives? What are the ecological implications of this juggling act? Ecofeminists have little to say about the role of public and collectivized services (or the welfare state) in the performance of socially necessary work. Perhaps the risks associated with care metaphors would be lessened if accompanied by arguments against the exploitation of unpaid caring labor as a privatized and feminized activity, and in favor of including methods of fairly distributing necessary labor in any vision of a just and ecologically sustainable society. It is interesting that several feminist political economists have applied the concept of "sustainability" to women's place in the capitalist economic system, arguing that women bear an unsustainable burden of responsibility for care work. For example, as Nancy Folbre asserts, "the current organization of social reproduction is unfair, inefficient, and probably unsustainable" (1993, 254). I would suggest that this line of argumentation vis-a-vis the gender division of labor is an important one, and one that ought to accompany any discussion of women's environmental activism.CAFOs aff ansEnding animal consumption is an act of resistance and a prerequisite to ending patriarchy. Adams 90 Carol J. Adams, "The Sexual Politics of Meat", 1990, 20th Anniversary Edition, Pg. 241-242Eating animals acts as mirror and representation of patriarchal values. Meat eating is the re-inscription of male power at every meal. The patriarchal gaze sees not the fragmented flesh of dead animals but appetizing food. If our appetites re-inscribe patriarchy, our actions regarding eating animals will either reify or challenge this received culture. If meat is a symbol of male dominance, then the presence of meat proclaims the dis-empowering of women. Many cultural commentators have observed that the rituals that attend the consumption of animals in nontechnological societies occur because meat eating represents patricide. What is consumed is the father. Th e men are said to resolve their hostility toward their father through the killing of animals.1 Th e dead animal represents the father whose power has been usurped by the sons, yet, who, as ancestor forgives them. In this typology, the worst fears of a patriarchy— fathers being deposed by sons—are displaced through ritual and the killing of animals. Meat becomes a metaphor for the resolution of the tension between father and son for power; meat is viewed as male. Th e questions arises: do we ritually enact primal patricide whenever we sit down to a meal of meat?2 Though we are eating “father-food” we are not consuming the father. How can that which we eat be father when we rarely eat normal, adult male animals? The metaphor that whatever is killed becomes father screens the reality behind the metaphor. The reality is the structure of the absent referent. We are continuously eating mothers. The fact is that we proclaim and reinforce the triumph of male dominance by eating female-identified pieces of meat. Kate Millet remarked that “every avenue of power” is male dominated. This includes the “power” we think we absorb from dead victims who are still bleeding. Meat is a “power-structured relationship” in which power is thought to transfer to the consumer.3 The concept that meat gives physical strength derives from this symbolic power. Meat reflects back male power every time it is consumed. From symbolically defeated females flows the imagined power that is assimilated by the victor. Th us meat is both animalized and masculinized. A reconceptualization of power has occurred. Power, mana, was imagined to exist in dead animals. Power would be absorbed through the consumption of the animal, and since fathers had power, the power being absorbed was considered to be the power of the father. We have been convinced to surrender part of our concept of power to the consumable, dead animal. We then think we absorb this power as we consume the dead. We are giving back to ourselves the power we think was in the victim. How do we overthrow patriarchal power while eating its symbol? Autonomous, antipatriarchal being is clearly vegetarian. To destabilize patriarchal consumption we must interrupt patriarchal meals of meatPatriarchy is key element in human consumption of meatHunnicut 20 - Professor of Sociology at UNCG Gwen Hunnicut, "Gender Violence in Ecofeminist Perspective", 2020, Chapter 2: Foregrounding patriarchy in a larger field of domination of nature. Page 39 Patriarchy is one form of hierarchy, among many. In this chapter, I first give attention to patriarchy as its own apparatus and explore some of the features, critiques, and variations in patriarchal manifestations and their link to gender violence. I then go on to explore two key pillars of all hierarchical systems (including patriarchy): dominance and dualisms. I then move on to more firmly situate patriarchy within a larger field of human domination over nature by exploring “the hunt”. The hunting of nonhuman animals fused a number of key elements: masculinized normalization of violence and a subjugation of the “Other” which is bound to the aggressive mastery and subjugation of nature. I continue to explore how these elements of domination that originated with “man the hunter and eventually warrior” produce familiar sexist scripts that can be linked to gender violence in a variety of ways. Ever mindful of the temptation to simplify power relations, I conclude with a section that considers the power relations explored here as more of a labyrinth than a ladder. In complicating these matrices of domination, I dismiss the possibility that achieving “gender equality” would remedy the problem of gender violence given the existence of other modes of domination, including human domination of natureAnimal Captivation and the eating of them are examples of the oppression of women correlated with the domination of nature by man. Instead, adopt that animals are ends in themselves and not deserving of exploitation. Adams 93 Adams, Carol J. , feminist-vegan advocate, activist, and independent scholar and the author of numerous books, “Ecofeminism and the Eating of Animals.”?Hypatia, vol. 6, no. 1, 1991, pp. 125–145.?JSTOR, stable/3810037. Accessed 14 July 2021.Interviews with members of the Cambridge-Boston women's community reveal a prototypical ecofeminism that locates animals within its analysis. As one feminist said: "Animals and the earth and women have all been objectified and treated in the same way." Another explained she was "beginning to bond with the earth as a sister and with animals as subjects not to be objectified." At a conceptual level, this feminist-vegetarian connection can be seen as arising within an ecofeminist framework. To apprehend this, consider Karen Warren's (1987) four minimal conditions of ecofeminism. Appeal to them indicates a vegetarian application articulated by these activist ecofeminists in 1976 and still viable in the 1990s. Ecofeminism argues that there is an important connection between the domination of women and the domination of nature. The women I interviewed perceived animals to be a part of that dominated nature and saw a similarity in the status of women and animals as subject to the authority or control of another, i.e., as subordinate: Look at the way women have been treated. We've been completely controlled, raped, not given any credibility, not taken seriously. It's the same thing with animals. We've completely mutilated them, domesticated them. Their cycles, their entire beings are conformed to humans's needs. That's what men have done to women and the earth. Since ecofeminism is distinguished by whether it arises from socialist feminism, radical feminism, or spiritual feminism, many of the ecofeminists of 1976 identified themselves within these classifications as they extended themto include animals. Socialist feminists linked meat eating with capitalist forms of production and the classist nature of meat consumption; spiritual feminists emphasized the association of goddess worship, a belief in a matriarchy, harmony with the environment, and gentleness toward animals; radical feminists associated women's oppression and animals' oppression, and some held the position of "nature feminists" who see women as naturally more sensitive to animals. The second of Warren's conditions of ecofeminism is that we must understand the connections between the oppression of women and the oppression of nature. To do so we must critique "the sort of thinking which sanctions the oppression" (Warren 1987, 6), what Warren identifies as patriarchal thinking allegedly justified by a "logic of domination" according to which "superiority justifies subordination" (Warren 1987; 1990). The women I interviewed rejected a "logic of domination" that justifies killing animals: "A truly gynocentric way of being is being in harmony with the earth, and in harmony with your body, and obviously it doesn't include killing animals." The testimonies of the women I interviewed offer an opportunity to develop a radical feminist epistemology by which the intuitive and experiential provide an important source of knowledge that serves to challenge the distortions of patriarchal ideology. Many women discussed trusting their body and learning from their body. They saw vegetarianism as "another extension of looking in and finding out who I really am and what I like." From this a process of identification with animals arose. Identification means that relationships with animals are redefined; they are no longer instruments, means to our ends, but beings who deserve to live and toward whom we act respectfully if not out of friendship. Feminists realize what it's like to be exploited. Women as sex objects, animals as food. Women turned into patriarchal mothers, cows turned to milk machines. It's the same thing. I think that innately women aren't cannibals. I don't eat flesh for the same reason that I don't eat steel. It's not in my consciousness anymore that it could be eaten. For the same reason that when I'm hungry I don't start chomping on my own hand. Another described the process of identification this way: The objectifying of women, the metaphors of women as pieces of meat, here's this object to be exploited in a way. I resent that. I identify it with ways that especially beef and chickens also are really exploited. The way they stuff them and ruin their bodies all so that they can sell them on the capitalist market. That is disturbing to me in the same way that I feel that I am exploited. From this process of identification with animals' experiences as instruments arises an ecofeminist argument on behalf of animals: it is not simply that we participate in a value hierarchy in which we place humans over animals and that we must now accede rights to animals, but that we have failed to understand what it means to be a "being"-the insight that propelled Alice Walker some years later to describe her recognition of a nonhuman animal's beingness (see note 4). Becoming a vegetarian after recognizing and identifying with the beingness of animals is a common occurrence described by this woman in 1976: When I thought that this was an animal who lived and walked and met the day, and had water come into his eyes, and could make attachments and had affections and had dislikes, it disgusted me to think of slaughtering that animal and cooking it and eating it. As women described animals, they recognized them as ends in themselves rather than simply as means to others' ends. The third ecofeminist claim Warren identifies is that feminist theory and practice must include an ecological perspective. Ecofeminism reflects a praxisbased ethics: one's actions reveal one's beliefs. If you believe women are subordinated you will work for our liberation; if you believe that nature, among other things, is dominated you will judge personal behavior according to its potential exploitation of nature. In this regard, Frances Moore Lappe's powerful book Dietfor a Small Planet had had a profound effect on numerous feminists I interviewed because it provided an understanding of the environmental costs of eating animals. One stated: "When I was doing my paper on ecology and feminism, the idea of women as earth, that men have exploited the earth just like they've exploited women and by eating meat you are exploiting earth and to be a feminist means to not accept the ethics of exploitation." What she recognizes is that ecofeminists must address the fact that our meat-advocating culture has successfully separated the consequences of eating animals from the experience of eating animals ................
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