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Added by: Simon FoktAbstract:
Synopsis generated from the paper: Ruether defines ecofeminism as the meeting of deep ecology and feminism. Deep ecology asks how symbolic, psychological, and ethical patterns of human–nature relation became destructive, while feminism, at its cultural level, charts how domination of women is linked to male monopolies of resources and power. She traces that link through Mediterranean and Western European culture. Early identification of women with nature and men with culture rests on women’s reproductive and maintenance labor, and is hardened by plow agriculture, property, and slavery, which treat women, slaves, animals, and land as linked forms of male property. In Near Eastern myth, the mother goddess is killed and made into the stuff of the cosmos; Hebrew scripture casts God as patriarchal lord and nature as under divine, then male, stewardship; Greek philosophy ties mother to matter and ranks male mind above female and animal bodies; Christian asceticism and medieval ambivalence deepen the repudiation of sexuality, women, and mortal nature. Calvinism strips nature of sacramental presence while keeping a demonic universe, and the Scientific Revolution secularizes nature into dead matter obedient to male scientific control, alongside colonial expropriation of land and labor. That industrial–colonial system now produces ecological crisis, poverty, and militarization. An ecofeminist ethic must replace hierarchical dualism with mutual interdependency: reintegrate human production into ecological patterns, reconceive God as the immanent life-source of the planetary community, convert men to equal share in nurture and household work, and accept mortality and the life cycle instead of fleeing them. Symbolic change must be matched by new social practice and solidarity with the victims of the present order.
Comment: This text offers an introduction to ecofeminism. It discusses the history of associating maleness with culture and femaleness with nature and identifies some of the issues which led to the current ecological crisis. The text has the potential to challenge received views and inspire a lively discussion, and as such it is best used as an introductory text in classes on environmental ethics and on feminist ethics.
Radford Ruether, Rosemary. Symbolic and Social Connections of the Oppression of Women and the Domination of Nature
1999, in Adams, C. J. (eds), Ecofeminism and the sacred, New York: Continuum.
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