Ecofeminism Continued

The work of Dr. Bina Agarwal helps us understand how women in the Global South are impacted by environmental degradation. While Dr. Agarwal writes primarily from her experiences working and studying in India, she does incorporate information from other non-western parts of the world. Agarwal’s perspective provides students of ecofeminism a perspective separate from that of much ecofeminist thinking in America and Europe.

In her paper The Gender and Environment Debate: Lessons from India, Agarwal uses the work of Vandana Shiva to make the reality of Third World women known. Agarwal wites: “Third World women are dependent on nature ‘for drawing sustenance for themselves, their families, their societies.’ The destruction of nature thus becomes the destruction of women’s sources for ‘staying alive.'” (p.124)

Agarwal goes on to explain that “…poor peasant and tribal women have typically been responsible for fetching fuel and fodder and in hill and tribal communities have also often been the main cultivators. They are thus likely to be affected adversely in quite specific ways by environmental degradation.” (p 126).

In this explanation we can begin to see a distinct difference in ecofeminist thought in the West versus in other parts of the world. Western and non-western ecofeminists share several beliefs. Agarwal offers an explanation when she lists the “…ecofeminist argument(s): (1) There are important connections between the domination and oppression of women and the domination and exploitation of nature. (2) In patriarchal thought, women are identified as being closer to nature and men as being closer to culture. Nature is seen as inferior to culture; hence, women are seen as inferior to men. (3) Because the domination of women and the domination of nature have occurred together, women have a particular stake in ending the domination of nature, “in healing the alienated human and non-human nature.” (4) The feminist movement and the environmental movement both stand for egalitarian, nonhierarchical systems.” (p 120).

Ecofeminist Dr. Laura Hobgood-Oster agrees when she writes “Ecofeminism asserts that all forms of oppression are connected and that structures of oppression must be addressed in their totality. Oppression of the natural world and of women by patriarchal power structures must be examined together or neither can be confronted fully. These
socially constructed oppressions formed out of the power dynamics of patriarchical systems.” (p. 1).

Further shared concerns between geographically different ecofeminism also include the loss of traditional knowledge held by women. Hobgood-Oster tells us “In The Death of Nature Merchant links this hierarchical, mechanistic approach to nature to the oppression of women. She argues that, whereas organic thinking and interdependence shaped European life through the Middle Ages, the “fathers” of the scientific revolution determined to dominate nature.” (p. 7-8)

Agarwal reframes Merchants statement about “organic thinking and interdependence” to explain that “More generally, over the years, there has been a systematic devaluation and marginalization of indigenous knowledge about species varieties, nature’s processes (how forests, soils, and water are formed and sustained interrelatedly), and sustainable
forms of interaction between people and nature.” (p. 135)

However, Agarwal also clearly explains the difference between the perspectives of ecofeminists from different parts of the world. Agarwal begins The Gender and Environment Debate by declaring “The growing literature on ecofeminism in the West, and especially in the United States, conceptualizes the link between gender and the environment primarily in ideological terms. An intensifying struggle for survival in the developing world, however, highlights the material basis for this link and set the background for an alternative formulation to ecofeminism, which I term “feminist environmentalism.”” (p.119).

Plainly stated, Agarwal tells us the primary difference between Western ecofeminism and non-western feminism/feminist environmentalism: Western ecofeminists are focused on the ideology of oppression of women and nature while non-western, feminist environmentalists are focused on the material and economic cost, primarily experienced by women, of the destruction of nature.

As a newcomer to feminist theory and ecofeminism in particular, I’m struck by the clear arguments made by Dr. Agarwal as to how the degradation of  the environment has tangible impacts on the women of rural communities in the developing world. While the theorizing done by Western ecofeminists such as Dr. Hobgood-Oster catches my attention as a human who wants others to succeed, the demonstration of material and economic loss experienced by women in India and other Global South locations is far easier to grasp as to the scope of the issue. When Agarwal provides data about the loss over time of agricultural land, access to drinking water, firewood for heating, and income that women face in India the problem and conversation about potential solutions become less conceptual. For this reason, the feminist environmentalism offered by Agarwal is a more appealing perspective on the intersection between the oppression of women and the domination of nature.

Works Cited:

Agarwal, Bina. “The Gender and Environment Debate: Lessons from India.” Feminist Studies, vol. 18, no. 1, 1992, p. 119, https://doi.org/10.2307/3178217.

Hobgood-Oster, Laura . Ecofeminism: Historic and International Evolution. 18 Aug. 2002, umassd.umassonline.net/webapps/blackboard/execute/content/file?cmd=view&content_id=_2574918_1&course_id=_36339_1. Accessed 12 Feb. 2025.