Ecofeminism: A Brief Introduction

In Ecofeminism (1993), the two authoresses Vandana Shiva and Maria Mies write about difficulties confronting the common ground for liberation. Their premise is hinged on the very idea that modern civilization, a guise for capitalist patriarchy, has, through dualisms and dichotomies, created two structurally opposing forces´-or-parts. The first is superior, while the second is inferior, yet crucial for their collective sustenance. This entails a rejection of human freedom that s relying on the emancipation from nature, and, simultaneously, on the independence from natural processes by the prowess of reason and transcendence. The New World Order, promulgated at the end of the twentieth century, is but the Old World Order in a new fashion. The subservience of the South to the North is not solely ideological but institutional as well. It is maintained by multi-national companies and the World Bank. Decisions and ultimatums concerning economic, political, and ecological power are controlled by donors. The preservation of ecological diversity depends not on capitalistic production processes, but on a reshaping of humans most intrinsic cultures ethea. The new breakthroughs in the fields of biotechnology and bioengineering in the second half of the twentieth century has rendered women aware of the gender-biased orientation of science, and that science s basic methods aims are patriarchal, oblivious hence to the creative capacities of both nature and women. The book castigates notions of escapism and luxury spirituality and surmises that modern culture operates in the sphere of deception and monopoly of knowledge, in a sense that "Western patriarchy s special epistemological tradition of the scientific revolution as reductionist because: 1) it reduced the capacity of humans to know nature both by excluding other knowers and other ways of knowing-;- and 2) by manipulating it as inert and fragmented matter, nature s capacity for creative regeneration and renewal was reduced" (Mies, Shiva 23). Reductionist science, it appears, is behind the ongoing ecological crisis. The pregnant nature like the pregnant woman, is perceived not as a source of human reproduction from which it emerged. It is rather seen as a process in which the Man, the physician´-or-the scientist, is taking a part in the creation of life, "ecological feminism creates the possibility of viewing the world as an active subject, not merely as a resource to be manipulated and appropriated" (Shiva 34). Feminist research has unveiled the ecocide behind natural sciences as the design and end of human progress. The main question of where to draw the line between subject and object. The obvious answer is that humans are subjects and the rest is object. However, history has proven that also humans have been regarded and used as objects for experimentation and hard labor. What ecofeminism tries to unfold is the contradiction´-or-rather the irresponsibility of science. Current science is mainly about technology and military. Social and natural sciences must be based on ethical and methodological principles. "A new science should be never lose sight of the fact that we ourselves are part of Nature, that we have a body, that we are dependent on Mother Earth, that we are born by women, and that we die" (Mies 52).
As has been argued, oppression and exclusion are a necessary factor for capitalist dominion. The problem of development results from the market economy, which entails the unquestionable right to exploit natural resources in the pursuit of commodity production. Women are aligned with nature s processes. Also, the more growth capitalists achieve, the less secured life systems become for women. The third world suffers from a sundry of crises. Food and water scarcity, toxic and nuclear hazards, are examples of hoe the South is fragile. Sustainable development,´-or-justice between generations, is not sufficient without justice between sexes. "From women s perspective, sustainability without environmental justice is impossible, and environmental justice is impossible without justice between sexes and generations" (85). This focus on inequity shows people s unequal access to natural resources and the synonymous pressure they inflict upon the Earth. Survival of species and environmental balance should no longer be left in the hands of scientists, politicians, and economists. It is urgent that we start a reciprocal relation with nature. It is time to control nuclear power and genetic technology. We are at the crossroads, and we must end war against nature-;- against ourselves. Nature is not our enemy, but a living entity of which we make a part.
Mother Earth´-or-motherland has been supplanted by a masculinized nation-state. These states have become multi and trans-national existing largely to serve capitalist interests and nourish a hyper-militarized drive of nationalism. Either way, modern state remains at the behest of the market system, and nationalism as cover for fundamentalism. Hence, Feminine symbolism is lost. Globalization flourishes as capital reaches all the world s resources and markets. Capitalism, therefore, attains its goals and freedom at the expense of the unfreedom of the Other. As Lenin describes the withering away of class struggle in a communist society, the capitalist state can be said to have withered away except as law enforcing system, protecting the interests of TNCs and MNCs. Difference becomes the means through which division and separatism occur. Out of the concept of the white man s burden lies an explicit implication of superiority, and signals of burdens laid on nature, women, and children by the white man and his ideology. It seems plausible that decolonizing the South is proportionate to the decolonization of the North. "The ecological crisis is rooted in the mistaken belief that human beings are not part of the democracy of nature s life, that they stand apart from and above nature" (265). Mother nature is linked to feminine nature, to be yielded and enslaved by a scientific male mind. This transition of thought has been suitable to the development of capitalism. What is being promoted now in third world countries is a paradox of development. Economic development is considered as a source of ecological degradation in the South, while, contrarily, it is molded into a remedy in the form of sustainable development. This latter views natural resource depletion and biodiversity as separate from the economic crisis, and it postulates solutions based on the conditions of market economy. It supports the immediate and vast exploitation of natural resources with higher capital investments. A bettered environment depends on exceeding economic growth. This is because "the South s poverty is generated through the very processes that generate the North s affluence" (271).
Ecofeminism questions the sacredness of science, also the rationality and ethics behind modern sciences. The ongoing biotechnological revolution will only widen the gap between the North and South further. The conflicting relationship between science, technology, and society will further disrupted as one side profits from the biorevolution and the other bears its ecological and economic aftermaths. "Without the creation of institutions of social accountability and social control, the South will become the laboratory, providing the guinea pigs, the dump yards for all the risks that are to come while the benefits flow to the industrialized North. In fact, this has already started to happen-;- it is not a fear of the future, we are facing it already" (273). The white man s burden myth is no longer viable for today s environmental discourse. The most logical step turns out to be that this masculine myth is incompatible with ecological democracy.
It is common knowledge that Europe, the U. S. A, and Japan constitute a paragon of utopian liberalism. These countries have pursued a strict course of evolution in which technological progress has been its core. Under-developing´-or-developing countries have been made dependent on the metropolis. The relation of the center to the periphery is colonial. Nowadays, the same relation characterizes man and nature, and between man and woman. To sustain this relation, violence and hierarchy must be incessantly kept. The colonized have regarded and internalized the culture, values, and life style of the colonizer as an optimum, as a natural status quo.
To understand more clearly this premise, one must consider first the myth of catching-up development. Shiva argues that Western countries live in a state of Orwellian double-think. Although they overtly suffer from the ramifications of environmental degradation, they still endorse most of this knowledge by which their lives are endangered. This notion of sustainability derives from the very thought that natural resources and technological progress are not-limit-ed. This-limit-lessness is in fact mythical. Catching-up development is impossible for the colonies. The very existence of the colonizer essentially relies on the exploitation of the colonies. The consequences of universalizing technological progress is not going to be in favor of the environmental cause. This is impossible while the West consumes three-quarters of the world s energy production (Shiva 60). This model of living and development is predicated on colonial system in which disparity between the two parts is becoming wider.
In the West, the quality of life is beginning to wilt. "There seems to be an inverse relationship between GDP and the quality of life: the more GDP grows, the more the quality of life deteriorates" (61). This system of aporia dictates that the colonizer is always in need of external and internal colonies. it s in constant need of isolated and indifferent people who can never say that s enough. It nourishes on nature, women, and other people. An egalitarian world is impossible to realize while adopting the North s lifestyle. The promises of freedom and self-determination promoted by the West means nothing but the freedom of possession of property and money, determined by the fluctuations of the free market. "Within a world system based on exploitation some are more equal than others (66). Self-interest is, therefore, what governs individual freedom and equality.
The logic of dualism derives from the logic of instrumental reason, which implies the master identity, and is major force behind the logic of the market and the social sphere. The colonized, like Waiting for Godot s Lucky, could not forego the colonizer s dualistic identity, and despite an alleged independence, the former keeps operating within the same framework that sustains the latter. The colonized is, however, capable of forming a new identity in reaction to the old, and of reversive reconstruction without total destruction and cessation. Empowering the colonized does not require perforce a state of contradiction. The resolution of dualism requires rather a recognition of wider complex of conflicting patterns of both continuity and difference. This trades on the subversion and replacement of the concept of phallogocentrism by the widely complex notion of the master identity. To make change plausible, the identity of the master must be unearthed as the basic foundation behind human rationality.

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