Blackwell Reference Online

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In this essay I shall present several influential ecological feminist positions, discuss some common criticisms of ecological feminist views, and situate ecological feminism with respect to some other approaches to environmental philosophy. Although the focus of this volume is on environmental ethics as an academic discipline, a central commitment of ecofeminist theorists, including Noel Sturgeon and Greta Gaard, has been to link theory with political activism. Although ecological feminist scholarship is extremely rich and varied, someone else could have approached this topic very differently. Although what follows is not meant to be comprehensive, I do hope to provide readers with an appreciation for the kinds of concerns and questions commonly taken up in ecological feminist literature.“Ecological feminism,” or “ecofeminism,” refers to a series of theoretical and practical positions bringing feminist insight to environmental philosophy. Feminist theorists began formulating theories explicitly addressing similarities and connections between sexism and abuses of nature in the early 1970s. Anthologies specifically devoted to the topic, such as Healing the Wounds: The Promise of Ecological Feminism (Plant 1989) and Reweaving the World: The Emergence of Ecofeminism (Diamond and Orenstein 1990), began to appear in the late 1980s. Although there is a variety of ecofeminist positions, ... log in or subscribe to read full text