Lecture 8

Question 1

Ecofeminism

Answer 1

• Ecofeminism interrogates the traditional cultural-conceptual association of woman and nature.
  o E.g., “Mother Nature”.
• Ecofeminism observes that both woman and nature have traditionally been treated as objects of subjugation and control and studies their mutual domination.
  o E.g., both woman and nature seen as necessary for but also threats to civilization.
• Ecofeminism asks how can the domination of woman and nature be overcome? How can woman and nature be liberated?

Question 2

Overcoming domination: answer 1

Answer 2

• Solution to domination is to accept and celebrate woman-nature association.
• Proposed by earlier ecofeminisms and the ‘feminism of uncritical reversal’.
• Woman-nature understood in opposition to man-culture.
• If man-culture is traditionally prioritized and valued more than woman-nature, leading to domination, woman-nature can be liberated by reversing this hierarchy.
• Woman-nature’s shared, special talents for reproduction, cultivation, and care shouldn’t be denigrated as lesser than man-culture but instead esteemed and revered more than it.

Question 3

• Uncritically accepting woman-nature link may be essentializing and reductive. - critique answer 1

Answer 3

• Uncritically accepting woman-nature link may be essentializing and reductive.
  o Women can be more than nurturers and cultivators.
  o Woman-nature association isn’t evidence of any innate link between the two, but the long history of their socially constructed connection.

Question 4

• Liberatory possibilities made available by answer one may be limited and shallow. - critique answer 1

Answer 4

o Naturalizes a narrow, traditional vision of who and what women are.
o E.g., may naturalize contention that “a woman’s place is in the home,” and in so doing ironically reinforce instead of overcome oppression.

Question 5

Dualisms and domination - Plumwood’s intervention

Answer 5

• Dualisms always incite domination because they define a primary/dominant concept in terms of its nonidentity to a secondary/subordinate concept.
  o E.g., man is dualistically defined by not being woman; culture is dualistically defined by not being nature; human is dualistically defined by not being animal; self is dualistically defined by not being other.

Question 6

Dualisms are often stacked - Plumwood’s intervention

Answer 6

• Dualisms are often stacked.
  o E.g., man-culture-human-self vs. woman-nature-animal-other.

Question 7

Dualisms are problematic - Plumwood’s intervention

Answer 7

• Dualisms are problematic because they operate through hierarchical exclusion (i.e., they assert a radical difference between two things, valuing one because it allegedly bears no resemblance to the other).
  o But this is distorting and misrepresentative.
  o E.g., man and woman may be different, but they also have similarities.

Question 8

Plumwood’s critique of answer 1

Answer 8

Plumwood’s critique of answer 1
- By maintaining dualism, “feminism of uncritical reversal” maintains domination.
o But swapping roles of dominator and dominated isn’t genuine liberation.
- By maintaining dualism, “feminism of uncritical reversal” maintains distortion.
o But insisting that woman and man, or nature and culture, are entirely different isn’t accurate.
- For Plumwood, overcoming domination of woman and nature requires overcoming dualism (i.e., dismantling dualistic binaries, like woman-nature-animal-other vs. man-culture-human-self).

Question 9

Overcoming domination: answer 2

Answer 9

• Proposed by liberal feminism and “feminism of uncritical equality”.
• Solution to woman’s domination is to equate woman and man under the category human.
• If man-culture-human-self has dominated woman-nature-animal-other, then woman can be liberated by moving her over to the first set of terms and replacing man and woman with human.
• Suggests, then, an edited dualism to free woman: human-culture-self v. animal-nature-other.

Question 10

Plumwood’s critique of answer 2

Answer 10

• By maintaining dualism, “feminism of uncritical equality” also maintains domination and distortion.
• Nature remains subordinate, now dominated not just by man but woman and man together (i.e., human-culture-self vs. animal-nature-other).
• Freeing woman while continuing to dominate nature isn’t genuine liberation.

Question 11

Plumwood’s 3rd answer

Answer 11

• Anti-dualist, “critical ecological feminism” or “critical ecofeminism” that reimagines the human.
• Answers 1 and 2 accept the idea that humanity is separate from nature.
  o Uncritical equality approach asserts woman is human, abandons nature to domination.
  o Uncritical reversal approach accepts woman isn’t fully human, abandons her to inhumanity.
• Plumwood argues that humanity must be reimagined as CONTINUOUS with nature.
• Nature and humanity are conceptualized on a spectrum or blurred line of continuity.

Question 12

Advantage one - Plumwood’s 3rd answer

Answer 12

• Advantage one.
  o Doesn’t distort either human or nature by claiming that they’re opposites.

Question 13

Advantage 2 - Plumwood’s 3rd answer

Answer 13

• Advantage two.
  o Breaks down hierarchy between human and nature.
  o I.e., if we’re continuous with nature we can’t also be its master.
  o This non-hierarchy is essential to environmental repair.

Question 14

Advantage 3 - Plumwoods 3rd answer

Answer 14

o Proximity to nature no longer means distance from humanity.
Woman but also man can be close to nature and still fully human.
Or, extending Plumwood’s logic, all genders can be close to nature and still fully human.