Part VI: 1985-1995

In "The Ecology of Feminism and the Feminism of Ecology" Ynestra King writes "...in patriarchal thought, women are believed to be closer to nature than men. this gives women a particular stake in ending the domination of nature--in healing the alienation between human and nonhuman nature" (470).

While I can see why the idea that women are closer to nature could be demeaning to some, I personally feel that I because I am human I have a connection to nature and the world around me, and because I am a woman and a feminist this relationship is stronger than it would be given a different set of descriptive characteristics.

I'm an Environmental and Women's Studies double major, so clearly I have come to see the correlations between the two fields and this background helps me to understand and place my relationship with the natural world around me.

Growing into this field of study I have read things like Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, the Brundtland Commission Report (which was headed by a woman, Gro Harlem Brundtland), Wangari Mathaai's memoir Unbowed and Vandana Shiva's Soil Not Oil. All of these women would probably testify to the closeness to nature they--as women--feel. Is this just because they are women? No, probably not. And dissecting our human experiences to fit within certain labels isn't what feminism is about, either. Furthermore, there are plenty of environmental scientists who are men (and feminists), and probaby plenty of environmental scientists that are women but don't identify as feminists. Take for instance Robert Engelman, author of More: Population, Nature and What Women Want. Clearly Engelman isn't a woman, but he is an environmentalist, a writer, and perhaps a feminist.

I guess what I'm saying is that it isn't just because I'm a woman or a feminist that I have an affinity for environmental justice. It's because of who I am that I have this affinity. Yet who I am--my very essence--cannot be peeled away from the fact that my gender is female and I identify socially as a woman.

And, while nature and culture are pitted against one another in just one of many socially constructed binary systems, I think advances for both the feminist and the environmental movement could be made by deconstructing this binary. When we start seeing nature (woman) and culture (man) as intricately linked to one another and promote a symbiotic relationship between the two (instead of the current parasitic relationship) that will be great progress.

Wangari Maathai "Taking Root":




Vandana Shiva press conference: