Green Politics and Environmental Movements Department of Environmental Sciences and Policy Viktar Kireyeu What is wrong with ecofeminism? (by Lucy Sargisson )

A Note on Author Lucy Sargisson is a Lecturer in Politics at the University of Nottingham, UK. She works on utopias and is the author of Contemporary Feminist Utopianism (1996) and Utopian Bodies and the Politics of Transgression (2000).

Where to begin? Ecofeminism is essentialist, biologist and it lacks political efficacy Ecofeminism is inconsistent, intellectually regressive and it lacks rigour Ecofeminism is the fluffy face of feminism

OR Ecofeminism is political Ecofeminism is practical Ecofeminism is complex Ecofeminism is ethical science Ecofeminism is the salvation of the world

The author suggests Whats really wrong with ecofeminism is that it denies its full potential. Ecofeminism is utopian in all senses of the term and it fails to acknowledge and exploit this.

Utopianism Utopians are the worlds dreamers Utopias are inspirational Utopias offer imaginative alternatives to real political and social dilemmas Utopias are the creative expressions of political desire

Utopianism Utopians are able to view from an imaginary distance the society whence they originate. In this way they present a particular challenge to the status quo. Utopias present theory as fiction and vise versa. They create a space in which philosophical ideas can be imagined, tested, and explored.

Utopianism Utopias are intellectually challenging Utopians cross disciplinary borderlines Utopians combine fiction with their politics and desire with the exercise of reason

Utopianism Utopianism has a dark side: utopians can be dangerous, utopias can be totalitarian The imposition of a utopian blueprint can produce political exclusion, stagnancy, and negation Utopias in this sense are the death of politics

Ecofeminist Utopianism Ecofeminism is inspirational in a number of ways but absolutely not for its blueprints Ecofeminism adopts a visionary tone Ecofeminists dare to dream Ecofeminists suggest that the Pagan model of time is appropriate to a sustainable politics of social change

Ecofeminist Utopianism From a Pagan perspective, there is no end of time. Time is a cycle, and cycles come around and they go around and come back again. … That, I think, is the kind of model we need for politics. We need to see the process of changing our society as a lifetime challenge and commitment. Transforming consciousness so that we can preserve and sustain the Earth is a long-term project…

Content It is visionary It sees beyond the horizon It demands the impossible It articulates desire When it comes to the analysis of concepts, ecofeminism is a mixed bag It offers sophisticated and imaginative responses

Content Much ecofeminist intellectual energy is invested in identifying source of oppression, which are said to be shared between woman and nature and here analysis tends to be weak. Some of these draw a crude causal connection:

Content Our pain for the death of the forests is simply, and most fundamentally, compassion for the shameless destruction of life… It is no accident that the minister of forests is a man, that the logging company is owned and run by men, that the logging truck is driven by a man. For after all, this is a mans world. Our language says it all, virgin forest is as yet untouched by the hand of man. We know that when we resist the rape of the earth, we are fighting the same mentality that allows the rape of women.

Ecofeminism is necessary to feminism It presents criticism to feminist utopia of a self- determining autonomous woman Feminism is often accused by ecofeminism of a lack of attention to nature, of technophilia, of an inappropriate alliance with male oppressive technology Ecofeminism enables other forms of feminism to be reflective and cautious about their claims

Ecologism might benefit from Ecofeminism Deep ecological environmental ethics fail to engage with feminist critiques of rationalism. Green theory is gender blind and this affects its efficacy in creating alternatives to the paradigms that construct nature as Other. Privileging reason denies an ethic of dependency and constructs its other as unreliable, unreflective, irrational and sometimes uncontrollable force reason must dominate.

Conclusion Most of the content of ecofeminist thought is deeply essentialist: insisting on profound, intractable and significant differences in the nature of men and women It is regressive – pulling us back towards the models of femininity constructed back in 70s. Few ecofeminist publications are of the high quality Ecofeminism has utopian potential