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1NC EcoFem

Motherhood-Essentialism Kritik
Your association of the feminine with environmental care makes patriarchal
domination inevitableessentialismthis ev assumes your arg that
environmental care is social and not biological
Johns-Putra 14 (Adeline, Reader in English @ the U of Surrey, Care, Gender, and the ClimateChanged Future: Maggie Gees The Ice People, in Green Planets: Ecology and Science Fiction,
by Kim Stanley Robinson, Wesleyan University Press, April 2014)//mm
The idea of a woman-nature affinity is deeply problematic , and its problems must be
considered in any evaluation of ecomaternalist care as both the ground and the manifestation
of this affinity. For one thing, the idea reiterates a centuries-old version of the link between
women and nature as a stereotype of the female as less-than-human .22 In a not entirely
straightforward tactic of reappropriation, ecofeminism attempts to combat what it sees as the
blanket domination of women and nature with the very logic of that domination . For another
thing, the insistence on an unmediated woman-nature link has opened ecofeminism up to the
dreaded charge of essentialism , orto use Cuomos more accurate phrasefalse
universalization, that is, a simplistically unified construction of femaleness and female
experience.23 Certainly, it is easy to poke holes in the spiritual ecofeminist version of the
woman-nature affinity, given that this relationship is never rigorously analyzed. Yet even the
more stringent standpoint arguments of ecofeminism display a relatively unnuanced
identity politics . Where an informed or learned understanding of the environment is seen as
a fundamental part of the female standpoint, this can in turn be troped as an empathetic trait
automatically shared by all women . Ariel Salleh, for example, posits that the actuality of
caring for the concrete needs of others gives rise to a morality of relatedness among ordinary
women, and this sense of kinship seems to extend to the natural world. Although Salleh insists
that her brand of ecofeminism does not set up a static ontological prioritization of woman,
she presents a vision of womens exploitation, womens oppression, and womens lives,
all monolithically conceptualized . In other words, political ecofeminism does not always
evade the risk of falsely universalizing female experience as environmental care. One might
say that sociological, rather than biological, essentialism is essentialism nonetheless. 24

The 1acs indecision is the link they made sure to tell you This is not to say
that women are more connected to nature through biology or whatever else
their Shiva ev contrasts that characterization
Shiva 88 (Vandana Shiva. Indian environmental activist and anti-globalization author. Staying
Alive: Women, Ecology and Survival in India 1-4)
'Development' was to have been a post-colonial project, a choice for accepting a model of progress in which the entire world remade itself on the model of the colonising modem west, without having to
undergo the subjugation and exploitation that colonialism entailed . The assumption was that western style progress was possible for all. Development, as the improved well-being of all, was thus equated with
the westernisation of economic categories - of needs, of Productivity, of growth. Concepts and categories about economic development and natural resource utilisation that had emerged in the specific
context of industrialisation and capitalist growth in a centre of colonial power, were raised to the level of universal assumptions and applicability in the entirely different context of basic needs satisfaction for
the people of the newly independent Third World countries. Yet, as Rosa Luxemberg has pointed out, early industrial development in western Europe necessitated the permanent occupation of the colonies by the colonial
powers and the destruction of the local 'natural economy'.1According to her, colonialism is a constant necessary condition for capitalist growth: without colonies, capital accumulation would grind to a halt.
'Development' as capital accumulation and the commercialisation of the economy for the generation of 'surplus' and profits thus involved the reproduction not merely-of a particular form of creation of
wealth, but also of the associated creation of poverty and dispossession. A replication of economic development based on commercialisation of resource use for commodity production in the newly
independent countries created the internal colonies.2 Development was thus reduced to a continuation of the process of colonisation; it became an extension of the project of wealth creation in modern
western patriarchy's economic vision, which was based on the exploitation or exclusion of women (of the west and non-west), on the exploitation and degradation of nature, and on the exploitation and erosion of other
cultures. 'Development' could not but entail destruction for women, nature and subjugated cultures, which is why, throughout the Third World, women, peasants and tribals are struggling for liberation from
development just as they earlier struggled for liberation from colonisation. The UN Decade for Women was based on the assumption that the improvement of women's economic position would

automatically flow from an expansion and diffusion of the development process. Yet, by the end of the Decade, it was becoming clear that development itself was the problem. Insufficient and inadequate ,
participation in 'development' was not the cause for women's increasing under-development; it was rather, their enforced but asymmetric participation in it, by which they bore the costs but were excluded
from the benefits, that was responsible. Development exclusivity and dispossession aggravated and deepened the colonial processes of ecological degradation and the loss of political control over nature's
sustenance base. Economic growth was a new colonialism, draining resources away from those who needed them most . The discontinuity lay in the fact that it was now new national elites, not colonial powers, that
masterminded the exploitation on grounds of 'national interest' and growing GNPs, and it was accomplished with more powerful technologies of appropriation and destruction. Ester Boserup3 has documented how women's
impoverishment increased during colonial rule; those rulers who had spent a few centuries in subjugating and crippling their own women into de-skilled, de- intellectualised appendages, disfavoured the
women of the colonies on matters of access to land, technology and employment . The economic and political processes of colonial under- development bore the clear mark of modern western patriarchy, and
while large numbers of women and men were impoverished by these processes, women tended to lose more . The privatisation of land for revenue generation displaced women more critically, eroding their
traditional land use rights. The expansion of cash crops undermined food production, and women were often left with meagre resources to feed and care for children, the aged and the infirm, when men
migrated or were conscripted into forced labour by the colonisers . As a collective document by women activists, organisers and researchers stated at the end of the UN Decade for Women, 'The almost uniform conclusion of the Decade's research is that with a
few exceptions, women's relative access to economic resources, incomes and employment has worsened, their burden of work has increased, and their relative and even absolute health, nutritional and
educational status has declined.4 The displacement of women from productive activity by the expansion of development was rooted largely in the manner in which development projects appropriated or
destroyed the natural resource base for the production of sustenance and survival. It destroyed women's productivity both by removing land, water and forests from their management and control, as well as
through the ecological destruction of soil, water and vegetation systems so that nature's productivity and renewability were impaired. While gender subordination and patriarchy are the oldest oppressions,
they have taken on new and more violent forms through the project of development. Patriarchal categories which understand destruction as 'production' and regeneration of life as passivity have generated a
crisis of survival. Passivity, as an assumed category of the 'nature' of nature and of women, denies the activity of nature and life. Fragmentation and uniformity as assumed categories of progress and
development destroy the living forces which arise from relationships within the 'web of life' and the diversity in the elements and patterns of these relationships. The economic biases and values against
nature, women and indigenous peoples are captured in this typical analysis of the 'unproductiveness' of traditional natural societies: Production is achieved through human and animal, rather than
mechanical, power. Most agriculture is unproductive; human or animal manure may be used but chemical fertilisers and pesticides are unknown ... For the masses, these conditions mean poverty.5 The assumptions
are evident: nature is unproductive; organic agriculture based on nature's cycles of renewability spells poverty; women and tribal and peasant societies embedded in nature are similarly unproductive, not because
it has been demonstrated that in cooperation they produce less goods and services for needs, but because it is assumed that 'production' takes place only when mediated by technologies for commodity

Women,
sharing the river as a commons to satisfy the water needs of their families and society are not
involved in productive labour: when substituted by the engineering man, water management
and water use become productive activities. Natural forests remain unproductive till they are developed into
monoculture plantations of commercial species. Development thus, is equivalent to maldevelopment, a
development bereft of the feminine, the conservation, the ecological principle. The neglect of
nature's work in renewing herself, and women's work in producing sustenance in the form of
basic, vital needs is an essential part of the paradigm of maldevelopment, which sees all work
that does not produce profits and capital as non or unproductive work. As Maria Mies6 has pointed out,
this concept of surplus has a patriarchal bias because, from the point of view of nature and
women, it is not based on material surplus produced over and above the requirements of the
community: it is stolen and appropriated through violent modes from nature (who needs a share of
her produce to reproduce herself) and from women (who need a share of nature's produce to produce sustenance and
ensure survival). From the perspective of Third World women, productivity is a measure of
producing life and sustenance; that this kind of productivity has been rendered invisible does
not reduce its centrality to survival - it merely reflects the domination of modern patriarchal
economic categories which see only profits, not life.
production, even when such technologies destroy life. A stable and clean river is not a productive resource in this view: it needs to be 'developed' with dams in order to become so.

Shiva continues later in the 1ac


Shiva 88 (Vandana Shiva. Indian environmental activist and anti-globalization
author. Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Survival in India 37-41)
As an embodiment and manifestation of the feminine principle it is characterised by (a)
creativity, activity, productivity; (b) diversity in form and aspect; (c) connectedness and interrelationship of all beings, including man; (d) continuity between the human and natural; and
(e) sanctity of life in nature

Its not a question of their intentions but of how outsiders perceive the aff
care ethics confine their movement while making political change impossible
MacGregor 4 (Sherilyn, Senior lecturer in politics @ Keele U, From Care to Citizenship: Calling
Ecofeminism Back to Politics, Ethics & the Environment, vol 9.1, spring 2004, pgs 56-84)//mm
Questioning the morality of gender inequality that in large part is re- sponsible for womens
greater tendency to perform caring activities and to feel responsible for the welfare of others is
an important project for femi- nist moral philosophers. It is signicant that few of the
ecofeminists to whom I have been referring, on the other hand, are interested in challeng- ing
the feminization of care or acknowledging the negative consequences of womens sense of
ethical responsibility for caring. I think they could learn from the arguments of feminists who
have looked at caring through sceptical (as opposed to rosy) glasses (Card 1989). For example,

an impor- tant criticism of care ethics emerges through a theoretical examination of why and
how women care. Feminist philosopher Marilyn Friedman sug- gests that we recognize a
gender division of moral labor that is largely responsible for the moralization of gender
wherein specic, different moral commitments and behaviours are expected of men and
women. She writes: Our very conceptions of femininity and masculinity, female and male,
incorporate norms about appropriate behaviour, characteristic vir- tues, and typical vices
(1995, 64). These norms develop under conditions of sexual inequality and persist through
stereotypes constructed through dominant institutions of mass culture. Even if the myth fails to
live up to the reality, our perceptions are ltered through these stereotypes : mas- culine
thinking is believed to be abstract and concerned with justice, and feminine thinking is seen as
more caring and seless. Normative feminin- ity is imposed on women through the disciplinary
practices of the domi- nant culture and that this is disempowering for women so disciplined.
Thus we may reasonably suspect that what appears as care (with all its qualities of
selessness and compassion) is actually an unjust and one- sided relational exploitation (68).
At any rate, we simply do not know what feminine morality would be under conditions of
equity and free- dom and we should not confuse actions shaped under socially oppressive
conditions for natural ones (Card 1989; see also Frye 1983). Peta Bowden contends that it is
necessary for feminists to acknowl- edge negative aspects to caring as well as positive ones. She
calls them dark sides and light sides of caring: the tendency to see the perspectives and
concerns arising from mater- nal and other practices of caring simply in a positive light glosses
the dark side of these practices: the frustrating, demeaning, and isolating dimensions of their
routines. Care has a lengthy history in the (En- glish-speaking) west as a burden, a bed of
trouble, anxiety, suffering and pain; care ethicists ignore this history, and the dismal actuality
of many contemporary practices of caring, at great risk. (1997, 9) Highlighting the relevance of
this insight for ecofeminism, Chris Cuomo (1998, 129) writes: put simply, caring can be
damaging to the carer if she neglects other responsibilities, including those she has to herself,
by caring for another.5 Certainly self-sacrice, exploitation, and loss of autonomy and leisure
time are among the more negative aspects of womens caring. So is the inability to withhold
care or to say no that comes with an internalized duty to maintain relationships. It is
important to look at why women tend to have little choice but to be caring.6 Feminist critiques
of violence against women often include the claim that women need to de- velop a greater
sense of autonomy and separation. (Intimacy and abuse sometimes go hand in hand.) Such
negative aspects provide reasons to treat with greater scepticism any desire to focus solely on
the lighter side of womens caring and life-afrming values. In recognition of this point, perhaps it is necessary to consider striking a balance between an ethic of care and an ethic of
justice.7 Even when it is useful to value and afrm womens caring, we ought not to limit our
interest in womens moral lives, or their moral possibili- ties, to care. Bowden laments that
celebrations of caring reduce and sim- plify the range of womens moral possibilities to those
displayed in practices of care (1997, 8). Ecofeminist texts are open to this very criticism when
they fail to consider, or when they downplay, other sources of womens concern for
environmental well-being besides their maternal feelings of protection for their children.
While it is important not to dismiss these feelings as invalid, there is value in exploring other
forms of and motiva- tions for environmental and community engagement that do not fall into a
stereotypically or exclusively feminine orientation. Few of these, such as religious belief,
academic training, scientic and philosophical curiosity, national and regional forms of
identity, attachment to places or landscapes, and so on, have been given much play in
ecofeminist scholarship.8 Have ecofeminists explored the emotions beyond caring ones, such as

anger, outrage, and perhaps even selshness that are at play in many womens engagement
with environmental disputes? Is it all about care and co-op- eration or are more complex and
multi-layered interpretations possible? It seems that womens capacity for abstract and
principled thought about moral issues and ethical decision making has been eclipsed by a focus
on material practices and lived experiences that are presented as more grounded than theory
can ever be. A focus on women acting on survival or subsistence imperatives erases
moral choice and practices of making principled decisions to act, or not to act, in particular
ways. Many ecofeminists want to celebrate the view from below: the moral insight that
comes out of allegedly unmediated experiences of survival. There is a naturalistic
presupposition in this celebration that plays into stereotypical representations of womens
caring as instinctual activities that require no special knowledge, no training, no education
(Code 1995, 107). This presupposition is especially apparent in ecofeminist literature where
the claim is made, implicitly or explicitly, that grassroots women (especially peasant women)
are more authentic knowers than feminist women and that their putatively untheorized
knowledge is more valuable than feminist theory. Not only is this view patronizing and unfair to
wom- en who may actually make a conscious political choice to care, but it also denies the
political signicance of care. Problematic also is an apparent lack of acknowledgement that
many of the women who ecofeminists claim exhibit a subsistence perspective or barefoot
epistemology do so in conditions that are not of their own choosing. It is unfair to romanticize
values that emerge from a subsistence way of life because the alternative picture (i.e.,
selshness in an afuent lifestyle) is problematic . Perhaps it is worth questioning the
assumptions being made about the way lifestyle determines human morality. For ex- ample,
I nd the assumptions being made in this statement highly ques- tionable: . . . the Bangladeshi
women teach us that the realisation of the subsis- tence perspective depends primarily not on
money, education, status, and prestige but on control over means of subsistence: a cow, some
chickens, children, land, also some independent money income. (Mies and Bennholdt-Thomsen
2000, 5) The ecofeminist writers who celebrate womens ethic of earthcare forget to look
behind their observations (or rather, their interpretations) of womens life-sustaining labor to
understand their complexities, contexts, and con- ditions. I would suggest that ecofeminists
who focus only on the positive aspects of this way of knowing/being (positive in that it helps
others and perhaps bolsters the viability of fragile ecosystems even if the lives of the carers
remain the same) are neglecting a feminist desire for social and political change towards
equality. In so doing they give the appearance of giving up on the idea that all those whose
privilege serves to excuse them from caring activities might develop a greater capacity for caring
and com- passion and that care should be seen as central to any vision of a sustain- able and
equitable society.9 Worse perhaps is the possibility that a change in the unequal gender
relations that contribute to womens sense of moral responsibility for life would be
incompatible with an ecofeminist alterna- tive. As Victoria Davion (1994) has argued, this
position is inconsistent with feminist aims. There are ecofeminist scholars, it is important to
point out, who use this line of questioning and who are sceptical about an association be- tween
ecofeminism and an ethics of care. Chris Cuomo, for example, presents one of the most
thorough interrogations to date of the ecofeminist adoption of the care ethic position in her
book Feminism and Ecological Communities. After a clearly articulated defence of ecofeminism
against its anti-essentialist critics, she concludes that asserting that woman = mother, woman
= feminine, mother = nature, feminine = caring is not a good idea theoretically and

practically (1998, 126). Karen J. Warren also raises doubts about the place of feminized
notions of care in environmen- tal ethics. Although she does not name recent ecofeminist
arguments in her critique, Warren expresses her view that efforts to capture the moral
signicance of care by defending a separate ethic of care, one that is more basic than and in
competition with traditional canonical ethics . . . is . . . the wrong way to proceed (1999, 138).
To this I would add an argument, premised on the insight of Joan Tronto (1993, 89), that the
espousal of an ethic of care has resulted in the containment of ecofeminist arguments:
insofar as they attach themselves to womens specic practices and efforts to survive, they
seem irrelevant to the moral life of the powerful.

The 1acs equation of motherhood with activism is backwardstheir


metaphors are an incorrect reading of history that silences feminist movements
that arent explicitly premised on Earth-care
Cuomo 1 (Chris, Associate Prof of Philosophy and Women's Studies @ the U of Cincinnati, Still
Fooling with Mother Nature, Hypatia vol 16.3, 2001, pgs 149-156)//mm
But when I encountered the photo of Maralinka on the cover of a book with the word
Ecofeminism emblazoned on the cover, my response was dif- ferent, cautious. I worried that
the decontextualized art, alongside the much- misunderstood title ecofeminism, was
reduced to a simple message: Ecofeminism = Mothers Protecting Children . While
ecofeminists include mothers and ecofeminist values include protecting those who are
dependent on us, to identify ecofeminism with mothering is to perpetuate the view that
ecofeminism is a limited, limiting perspective that leaves unquestioned traditional
conceptions of gender . My intention is not to pick on Sallehs choice of art for her book cover.
Rather, the central point of disagreement between Salleh and Sandilands is their different
responses to what I perceived as the discomforting message conveyed by the photo on the
cover of the bookthat ecofeminism is a motherhood environmentalism built on prefeminist
conceptions of gender and human agency. Unfortunately, Sallehs text is as reactionary as the
simplistic interpretation of Onus sculpture. In what lies beneath the cover of her volume,
Sallehs conception of ecofeminism considers womens closeness to nature (supposedly a
result of biology and social practices) the source of womens position as a uniquely
revolutionary class. It is discouraging to know that when so many ecofeminist theorists and
activists (including Catriona Sandilands) are struggling to wrest ecofeminism from its Mother
Nature reputation, Salleh has published a book that aims to Reclaim the Feminine, in the most
clichd and shallow sense of that phrase . My most basic quarrel with Salleh concerns her de
nition of ecofeminism. Salleh considers any perspective or action that is propagated by women
and that can be described as somehow environmental to be an example of eco- feminism,
even when the relevant political actors hold no evident feminist, environmentalist, or
ecofeminist intention or self-conception. In fact, there is a pervasive equivocation throughout
the text between women, feminists, and ecofeminists. Thus, ecofeminism (and
feminism) is equated with the identity woman, and any critical substance that might be
provided by feminist politics, however de ned, drops out completely . The feminism in
ecofeminism is described as a womanism, de ned by Salleh as a transvaluation of feminine

experiences and, in particular, the relational sensibility often gained in mother- ing labours
(1997, 104). This position is defensible, Salleh believes, because in a historical moment
characterized by widespread social and ecological injustice and devastation, most women
already live in alternative relation to nature, one that activists engaged in reframing our history
and renewing our politics might look to, and women therefore constitute the revolutionary
class (1997, 3). Taking as given a picture of the world in which there are two genders, and some
self-evident and universal difference between them, Salleh argues for an ecofeminism that
begins with gender difference and that is based in what she sees as the radical potential in
traditional feminine caretaking behavior. While she repeatedly states that her view is neither
essentialist nor biologically determinist, in the end she believes that so far as political action
is concerned, it does not matter whether sexed differences are ontological fact or historical
accident. The case for women as historical actors in a time of environmental crisis rests not on
universal essences but on how the majority of women actu- ally work and think now, and that
women as an economic underclass are astonishingly well placed to bring about the social
changes requisite for social revolution (6). While Salleh momentarily acknowledges that
received modern Western gender dualisms are not universal, she argues that because those
dualisms shape the Eurocentric development paradigm which now invades all sovereign states,
this is what needs attention from environmentalists (47). Indeed, it seems that almost any
feminist-identi ed environmentalist would agree that those dual- isms need attention. The
crucial question, however, is what sort of theoreti- cal and practical attention is needed. Should
they be evaluated? Criticized? Rejected? No, none of the above, says Salleh. She is among a
dwindling number of feminists who believe that gender dualisms are ontologically accurate, and
that the trouble with gender is simply the devaluation of the feminine sex. The result is a
politics that finds its sole source of inspiration and insight in practices and attitudes identied
with a universalizing conception of femininity , and that reduces the category female to
another category, mother. Salleh glori es a limited, romantic conception of motherhood, and so she
writes: The almost adolescent character of much Second Wave feminist poli- tics became apparent as early as the
1970s in discussions between black and white women. If white students massed on the streets of Sydney demanding
abortion rights, Koori sisters living in car bodies on the outskirts or country towns wanted the right to keep their
children alive (104). What does this passage imply? That white womens failure to address their own racism and
interests of Koori women is immature? That abortion rights for all women are less important than economic wellbeing for all children? That Koori women didnt want to have abortions, and there are no poor white women and
children in Sydney? Throughout Ecofeminism as Politics, Salleh describes feminist rejec- tions of

traditional conceptions of femaleness, femininity, and mothering to be elitist and immature,


and she clings to the hope that feminisms ideologi- cal immaturity will be remedied as this
generation of career women take up mothering themselves, and draw that learning into
ecofeminist thought (105). Alongside other interpretations, these passages make apparent
the fact that Salleh is articulating not politics motivated by a desire to nd the connections
between issues like reproductive freedom, economic oppression, racism, and the oppression
of children, but politics born from a romantic view that equates the interests of all women
with the interests that patriarchal traditions tell women they must have . Interestingly, when
we look at history, it is obvious that childrearinga practice that requires tremendous
amounts of physical and psychological energy and attention does not itself tend to produce
feminism! Taking feminism to be minimally public and political (and not referring to idiosyncratic insight), Gerda
Lerner shows that The development of feminist consciousness depended on a variety of factors . . . : the ability of a
sizable group of women to live outside of marriage in economic independence; the demographic and medical changes
which enabled larger groups of women to forgo reproductive activity or to limit the number of their children;
womens access to equal education and last, the possibility of creating womens spaces (Lerner 1994, 232). In The

Creation of Feminist Consciousness: From the Middle Ages to Eighteen-Seventy (1994), Lerner does not make an
absolute claim about the logic of feminism (or the logic of mothering). Rather, she traces patterns that in Western
societies enabled women to think critically about their own situations. In relation to this history, any scholar

attempting to argue that feminist consciousness might spring from mothering practices must
provide a thorough, empirical analysis that shows the politics in question to be feministto
improve the lives of women and to counter patriarchal (racist, bourgeois) conceptions of what
it means to be a woman.

Vote neg to reject the 1acs use of motherhood and Earth-care metaphors and
to save feminism from the 1ac. Reinforces patriarchy and holds back political
gains
MacGregor 4 (Sherilyn, Senior lecturer in politics @ Keele U, From Care to Citizenship: Calling
Ecofeminism Back to Politics, Ethics & the Environment, vol 9.1, spring 2004, pgs 56-84)//mm
While there are important aspects to ecofeminist valuations of womens caringparticularly in
light of the way non-feminist ecopolitical discourse ignores the work of careI argue that there
are also political risks in celebrating womens association with caring (both as an ethic and a
practice) and in reducing womens ethico-political life to care. In view of these risks, to be
discussed herein, I think a degree of skepticism is in order. I question whether care is a wise
choice of metaphor around which to create a femi- nist political project for social and ecological
change. How can societal expectations that women be caring or the exploitation of womens
unpaid caring labor under capitalism be challenged at the same time that the specicity of
womens caring stance towards the environment is held up as an answer to the ecological
crisis? What does it mean, moreover, for women to enter the realm of the political through a
window of care and maternal virtue? How is this feminist? And how, if at all, is it political? It
is my position that ecofeminists should see caring through less-than- rosy-glasses, as a
paradoxical set of practices, feelings, and moral orienta- tions that are embedded in particular
relations and contexts and socially constructed as both feminine and private. Revaluing care in
the way many ecofeminists seem to do results in an afrmation of gender roles that are
rooted in the patriarchal dualisms that all feminisms , on my denition at least, must aim
persistently to resist and disrupt . I support my position by drawing on the work of some of the
feminist philosophers, political econo- mists, and political theorists who have argued that the
positive identication of women with caring ought to be treated cautiously for it obscures some
of the negative implications of feminized care and narrows our understand- ing of women as
political actors. In the rst part of the discussion, I cast doubt on ecofeminist ideas about the
feminine principle by highlighting some of the critiques of care ethics made by feminist moral
philosophers. I then subject ecofeminist celebrations of caring labor to questions raised by
feminist political economists about its exploitation in globalizing capital- ist societies. I also
question whether claims that women are empowered through their care-inspired eco-activism
have been accompanied by a sufcient consideration of feminist political transformation. That
discus- sion leads into the nal part of the paper where I look to feminist theorists of citizenship
to develop the argument that ecofeminists would be better served by using the language of
citizenship instead of the language of care to understand and theorize womens engagement in
ecopolitics. OF QUESTIONABLE VIRTUE: RETHINKING CARE ETHICS Care has a very particular
meaning in the ecofeminist literature to which I am responding in this paper. The best way to
explain it is to draw a distinction between caring as a set of material practices (i.e., to take
care of something or someone as a form of labor) and caring as a disposition (values or ethics).2

For many ecofeminists (e.g., Mies and Shiva 1993; Merchant 1996; Salleh 1997; Mellor 1997),
the two are closely interrelated. Because it is women (as mothers)3 who do the caring,
nurturing, and subsistence work that sustains human life, women care about (assume a sense
of compassion, responsibility, and connection towards) their environments which in turn leads
them to take action to preserve and repair them. This relationship is to be celebrated, they argue, because
caring for people and environments produces special insights about the interrelated processes of life that are different from the
individualistic and exploitative (read: masculine) approach to these processes that has led to environmen- tal degradation. Men may
care about their children and environments but may not be required sociallyor socializedto do much work to care for them; this
is the key gender difference (cf. Salleh 1997). Maria Mies (1993, 304) suggests that most men probably do not care very much at all
when she says that women are more concerned about a survival subsistence perspective than are men, most of whom continue . . .
to put money and power above life. Therefore, for

these ecofeminists, women are seen to hold the key to


an ethical approach to socio-ecological relationships that can solve the ecological crisis. This
way of joining everyday caring practices and caring values is vari- ously described as the
subsistence perspective (Mies and Bennholdt- Thomsen 2000), the female principle (Mies
and Shiva 1993), and a barefoot epistemology (Salleh 1997). To illustrate further, I quote Ariel
Salleh at length: Womens relations to nature, and therefore to labour and to capital, is
qualitatively different from mens in at least four ways. The rst such difference involves
experiences mediated by female body organs in the hard but sensuous interplay of birthing
and suckling labours. The sec- ond set of differences are [sic] historically assigned caring and
mainte- nance chores which serve to bridge men and nature. A third involves womens
manual work in making goods as farmers, weavers, herbal- ists, potters. A fourth set of
experiences involves creating symbolic representations of feminine relations to naturein
poetry, paint- ing, philosophy, and everyday talk. Through this constellation of labours, women
are organically and discursively implicated in life- afrming activities, and they develop genderspecic knowledges grounded in that material base. The result is that women across cul- tures
have begun to express insights that are quite removed from most mens approaches to global
crisis . . . (1997, 161; my emphasis) Now I will admit that it makes sense for ecofeminists to
avoid what is often identied as masculinized ethics and politics (i.e., the kind of think- ing that may
have led to the twin problems of ecological destruction and gender inequality) and to be drawn to some kind of feminized
alternative. Like many feminist scholars, ecofeminists have sought to unearth the foun- dations of gender bias in Western
philosophical traditions: privileging rea- son over emotion, objectivity over context-dependency, and justice over carein short,
devaluation of the feelings and emotions associated with women, racialized people, nature, and the private sphere. Ecofeminists
have been critical of liberalism, utilitarianism, and other political and philo- sophical traditions on the added grounds that they
ignore human embodi- ment and human-nature interconnections. Ecofeminists categorically reject the assumption of an
independent (male) subject that obfuscates the fragility of the body, its dependence on natural or biophysical processes, and its
need for care. On

this view it stands to reason that a key plank in the ecofeminist platform has
been to make the invisible more visible and to envision a new perspective that revalues traits
and experiences that support life on earth that have thus far been left out of politics. Yet a
leap is frequently made from recognition and validation to arguments for moral superiority .
Ecofeminists such as Ariel Salleh, Maria Mies, and Mary Mellor (echoing feminist theorists like
Elshtain 1981; Noddings 1984; and Ruddick 1989) see womens experiences as nurturers or
mothers as essential ingredients of an antidote to masculine thinking and mothering as the
foundation of an alternative politics of compassion that could improve the political sphere. As
Anne Philips observes of such a position, women are seen to bring to politics a kind of
morality and civic virtue that can displace the selsh materialism that dominates today (1993,
82). Signicantly, many eco- feminist arguments about care rest on epistemological grounds: the asso- ciation of care with womens
ways of knowing is highly relevant to building an alternative environmental ethicsalternative here mean- ing different from
those now on offer, but also one that is claimed to be superior. For example, Carolyn Merchant (1996) identies the application of
maternal and caring values to environmental problems as a form of earth- care, a term she uses to describe the activities of
women involved in toxic waste protests, the appropriate technology movement, and the ght to ban herbicides, pesticides, and
nuclear technology. She advocates a partner- ship ethic of earthcare that draws on womens experiences of and histori- cal
connections to the environment and stands in marked opposition to homocentric and egocentric ethics of dominant institutions.4

The key to developing this ethic of earthcare, for Merchant, is to recognize and learn from
womens experiences. I take this as evidence of a shift from ontology to epistemology in
ecofeminist ethicsor from assertions about womens nature to assertions about what
women know and, very often, what they feel: Feminist biology, as proposed by Evelyn Fox
Keller and practiced by Barbara McClintock, is based on a feeling for nature as a self-generating, complex, and resourceful process, not nature as a passive, simple, useful resource. The
former set of assumptions also character- izes ecology, the scientic study of the earths
household, as pursued by Rachel Carson. Thus feminist science and ecology are not only
philosophically compatible, they need each other. Moreover, they can be combined with an
ethic of care, such as that proposed by Nel Noddings, that is grounded in receptivity,
relatedness, and responsive- ness, rather than the abstract principles of rights and justice. When
these ideas and approaches are synthesized and applied to concrete situations, such as saving
Australias ancient forests, an ecofeminist ethic of earthcare results. (Merchant 1996, 206, my
emphases) Although this approach to epistemological politics makes me uneasy, I believe that it is in
its rethinking of hegemonic understandings of ethico- politics and its injection of hitherto private concerns into the political
domain that ecofeminism has much to offer. Ecofeminist arguments about embodiment and the failure of masculinist
environmentalisms to address the gendering of experience and responsibility in the domestic sphere are among ecofeminisms most
valuable contributions. It is one that I think deserves greater analytic and theoretical attention in both ecofeminism and green

there are important questions to be raised about the implications of care


metaphors and, specically, care ethics for ecofeminist politics. The rst is whether invoking
an inevitably and/ or intentionally feminized ethic of care is an advisable strategy for problematizing eco-political and social relationships. Can it lead to a destabili- zation of gender
codes? What are the risks in an approach that celebrates womens caring as a public virtue? In
response to these questions, it is instructive to take note of a current in feminist philosophy that
has combined arguments for valuing the ca- pacity to care with arguments that problematize
and politicize womens caring, to show that caring is not an unqualied good. Some feminist
philosophers maintain that care ethics is a double-edged sword for feminism. While some
believe that an ethics of care can offer a way to assert a posi- tive face of feminism (perhaps one
more inspirational than a feminism which dwells upon womens exploitation under patriarchy),
an uncritical emphasis on womens care-related morality can also afrm harmful aspolitical theory. However,

sumptions about gender and reify exclusionary notions about the nature of care and , indeed,
of carers . Peta Bowden explains the tension nicely: Condemnation of caring runs the danger
of silencing all those who rec- ognize its ethical possibilities, and risks capitulating to dominant
modes of ethics that characteristically exclude consideration of womens ethical lives. On the
other hand, romantic idealization is also a danger (1997, 1819) Since the 1980s, when care
ethics was in its heyday, questions have been asked about the validity and implications of care
perspectives for feminism. There is resistance in feminist philosophy to the strategy of
reversal that has been deployed by cultural feminists who choose to see womens ways of
knowing, maternal thinking or feminine ethics as superior to mens ways of knowing
and masculine ethics and as an ethic that can transform the world. Lorraine Code points out,
for example, that it is by no means clear that a new monolith, drawn from hitherto devalued
practices, can or should be erected in the place of one that is crumbling (1995, 111). An
important lesson for ecofeminists here is that listening to and validating womens voices and
those of other marginalized subjects is important but does not inevitably lead to epistemic
privilege (Davion 1994). Not only is the idea that women may have greater access to the
truth questionable on empirical grounds, it is also too risky a position to put forth in the
context of a masculinist and misogynist culture that both creates and exploits womens

capacity to care. Thinking about this point in the context of ecofeminist rhetoric Code writes:
Women may indeed have the capacity to save the world, in conse- quence, perhaps, of their
cultural-historical relegation to a domain closer to nature than men, whatever that means. Yet
claims that such a capacity is uniquely, essentially theirs have consistently served as premises
of arguments to show that women should be the moral guard- ians both of humanity and of
nature. Such injunctions assign wom- en responsibilities that are fundamentally oppressive,
while excluding them from recognition as cognitive agents and creators of social meaning ,
precisely because of their alleged closeness to nature. An eco- feminism developed in this
direction would be morally-politically unacceptable. (1991, 274)

USFG Pic
Text: The USFG should allow ecofeminist grassroots movements to increase
development of the Earths oceans through a feminist environmentalism based
on a notion of nature as Prakriti
Top-down government policies fail at creating environmental policies
bureaucratic regulations impede effective reform
The Independent Institute 05
The Independent Institute, 11 July 2005, New Book Examines Maze of Failed Environmental Policies Proposes New Green
Alternatives to Environmental Bureaucracy , http://www.independent.org/newsroom/news_detail.asp?newsID=55
Environmental

policy in the United States is not entirely without success stories, but for the most part has
been unexpectedly costly, corrosive to Americas liberal political and legal traditions, and not
very effective in enhancing environmental quality, write Robert Higgs and Carl Close, editors of a new book, ReThinking Green: Alternatives to Environmental Bureaucracy (The Independent Institute/August 2005). These failures are
rooted in the bureaucratic, top-down approach that has characterized environmental policy.
In Re-Thinking Green twenty-two economists, political scientists, and philosophers show how environmental quality can be
enhanced more effectively by relying less on government agencies that are increasingly politicized, bureaucratized and
unaccountable and more on environmental entrepreneurship and the strict enforcement of private-property rights. The

maze
of government regulations and environment laws enacted since the 1970s has created more
waste and failure than innovation and success, say the books contributors. They point out that many
current environmental policies fly in the face of American liberal legal and political traditions.
Unless we are mindful of the incentives and constraints of the political processand reform our public policies accordinglythe
problem of government failure in environmental policy will continue, they claim. Re-Thinking Green examines some of todays most
hotly debated environmental issues including oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, population growth, global warming,
endangered species, land use, coastal waters, air quality, urban planning, and transportation. These essays

point to the
limitations of a one-size-fits-all regulatory process that has crowded out potentially far more
effective approaches to dealing with environmental problems.

The aff cant generate results in the macro sphere grassroots movements are
key to solve
Manion No Date
H. K. Manion, No Date, Ecofeminism within Gender and Development, http://richardtwine.com/ecofem/manion.pdf [Social Work Research Assistant, University of East London]
Ecofeminism has also been criticised for failing to embrace diversity amongst women. It would be a fallacy to assume that all women are working together towards a final

few of the authors in ecofeminism have


integrated a capacity for class, geographical, ethnic or racial divisions and have thus created
further divisions between the north and the south. Chris Coumo, in separating herself from
ecofeminism and aligning herself with ecological feminism said that this was one of the main
problems with ecofeminism (Cuomo, 1998). Finally, ecofeminism, in its attempt to academicidise itself, seems
to have become stuck in the clouds of theoretical debate. Although there have been pockets
of activism by women for the environment, it is doubtful how much effect the development of
ecofeminism has yet had on both women in the north and the south. It has remained thus far,
within the constraints of academic and philosophical (spiritual) debate. The literature review for this
essay failed to uncover common sense notions relating to women and their environment. Women are
uniquely placed, particularly in the south, to effect change and protect their environment on a grass roots level. Ecofeminism attempts to make
change at a macro level, but it may possibly be more effective at a grassroots initiative , as was
seen in the three examples given. Despite these criticisms, ecofeminism has a strong basis in egalitarian
development and it is beyond debate that environmental issues have become paramount. Drengson (2001) tells us that our ecological footprint (the land measure of
objective, and as such it would also be false to assume the same amongst ecofeminists. Further,

A debate that includes both gender


oppression and ecological domination is one that can inform us on various levels, ethically,
politically, environmentally, socially and hopefully practically. It could be argues that WED, like WID, WAD and GAD have
our impact on the natural world) is 50 times greater in industrial nations than in non-industrial nations.

done a deal to inform us of alternative issues in development and have highlighted the need to include gender in development issues.

Case
Basing politics on gender categories is essentialist and requires that no
identities exist outside of the rigid framework.
Butler 93 (Butler, Judith Butler teaches composition and rhetoric at U.C. Berkeley, 93 Judith, Bodies That Matter: On the
Discursive Limits of Sex
In theories such as Catharine MacKinnon's, sexual

relations of subordination are understood to establish


differential gender categories, such that "men" are those defined in a sexually dominating
social position and "women" are those defined in subordination. Her highly deterministic account leaves no
room for relations of sexuality to be theorized apart from the rigid framework of gender
difference or for kinds of sexual regulation that do not take gender as their primary objects (i.e.,
the prohibition of sodomy, public sex, consensual homosexuality). Hence, Gayle Rubin's influential distinction
between the domains of sexuality and gender in "Thinking Sex" and Sedgwick's reformulation of
that position have constituted important theoretical opposition to MacKinnon's deterministic form of
structuralism. My sense is that now this very opposition needs to be rethought in order to muddle the
lines between queer theory and feminism.2' For surely it is as unacceptable to insist that
relations of sexual subordination determine gender position as it is to separate radically forms
of sexuality from the workings of gender norms. The relation between sexual practice and gender is
surely not a structurally determined one, but the destabilizing of the heterosexual
presumption of that very structuralism still requires a way to think the two in a dynamic
relation to one another.

This normalization turns case it structures marginalization through the


regulation of sexual norms
Yep 03, Gust A, Prof of Sexuality Studies @ San Francisco State, The Violence of
Heteronormativity in Communication Studies: Notes on Injury, Healing, and Queer WorldMaking,
In this passage, Simmons vividly describes the devastating pervasiveness of hatred and violence in her daily life based on being

This process of othering creates individuals, groups, and


communities that are deemed to be less important, less worthwhile, less consequential, less
authorized, and less human based on historically situated markers of social formation such as
race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, and nationality . Othering and marginalization are results
of an invisible center (Ferguson, 1990, p. 3). The authority, position, and power of such a
center are attained through normalization in an ongoing circular movement. Normalization is the
seen, perceived, labeled, and treated as an Other.

process of constructing, establishing, producing, and reproducing a taken-for-granted and all-encompassing standard used to
measure goodness, desirability, morality, rationality, superiority, and a host of other dominant cultural values. As

such,
normalization becomes one of the primary instruments of power in modern society (Foucault,
1978/1990). Normalization is a symbolically, discursively, psychically, psychologically, and
materially violent form of social regulation and control, or as Warner (1993) more simply puts
it, normalization is the site of violence (p. xxvi). Perhaps one of the most powerful forms of
normalization in Western social systems is heteronormativity. Through heteronormative
discourses, abject and abominable bodies, souls, persons, and life forms are created,
examined, and disciplined through current regimes of knowledge and power (Foucault,
1978/1990). Heteronormativity, as the invisible center and the presumed bedrock of society,

is the quintessential force creating, sustaining, and perpetuating the erasure,


marginalization, disempowerment, and oppression of sexual others.

Vandana Shivas conception of prakriti ignores the cultural and social aspects of
gender relations. Shivas essentialism reaffirms a womans natural role as the
feminine and domestic sphere
Dechamma 09 (SOWMYA DECHAMMA, 2009, Eco-feminism and Its Discontents: The Indian Context,
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:00ALc6dkjUAJ:https://tidsskrift.dk/index.php/KKF/article/d
ownload/44315/84094+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us [Sowmya Dechamma C. C. has an M.A. in English, M. Phil. in
Translation Studies and Ph.D. in English, all from the University of Hyderabad]

Eco-feminism assertively asks for rediscovering interconnectedness among all existing beings.
India and the third world in such analyses becomes an undifferentiated space and there is
hardly any discussion on how such interconnectedness is possible in an undifferentiated space. In
Vandana Shivas and Maria Mies2 analysis in Ecofeminism or Staying Alive men are largely invisible except as the other side of the
dichotomy. Rural mens ecological work, knowledge and so on are subsumed under a genderless peasant/rural or tribal
categorization, while the malefemale, destroyerprotector dichotomy is maintained by an allusion to the dominance of women by
the western industrial man (Leach and Green 1997:351). Not

only are men invisible from Shivas analysis, her


critique of patriarchy is also mostly manifest in her critique of capitalist patriarchy, whose
origins she locates in the west. Hindu patriarchy never becomes an issue in her work. The
feminism in ecofeminism is limited to criticizing western patriarchy. Because she sees prakriti (the feminine
principle) and purusha (the masculine principle)3 as equals without actually looking at the
complex gender relations that are inseparable from the caste structure, her ideas seem so
dominantly Hindu.4 Eco-feminisms connection between nature and women that are based on biology, spirituality, and
nurture, love and care that are claimed to be characteristics common to women and nature tends to be very essentialist. Most
ecofeminists see this connection as a positive aspect. Therefore, for

many ecofeminists, liberation does not


require women to sever themselves from their sexual and reproductive biology or from
nature. In an already gendered society where gender roles are specific and prominently used
to justify subjugation of women to a domestic, natural sphere, such essential connections are
no way liberating. As Devika points out, the qualities of nurturing and caring that ecofeminism upholds *+ are tied to the
need to institute non-coercive, sentimental forms of social disciplining typical of middle class power. Affirmation of these values can
also lead to the fact that apart from protecting nature, socializing not only the young but also the wayward husband will be
entrusted to women, claiming precisely, a natural inclination supposedly ingrained in women stemming from their natural
capacities (Devika 2002:273). Such possibilities

of domesticising women by the very same values they


assert do not come under the consideration of Shiva and Mies who actually valorize
domesticity and fail to see that it is born out of a patriarchal structure that limits choices for
women. Problematising the nature-women connection as made by ecofeminism, Bina Agarwal notes that Shivas analysis
essentializes the third world and its women. She feels the need to critically question such ideological constructs to which
ecofeminism falls prey: It is critical to examine the underlying basis of womens relationship with the non-human world at levels
other than ideology (such as the work women and men do and the gender division of property and power) to address how the
material realities in which women of different classes, castes, races are rooted might affect their responses to environmental
degradation (Agarwal 1999:101). Not

only does Vandana Shivas brand of eco-feminism generalizes a


concept to a whole set of diverse people and practices, it also attributes livelihood issues to a
principle that is basically spiritual. And, not all women who are differentiated by class, caste,
religion and sexualities would conceptualize their connection to nature through the idea of
feminine principle. Moreover, Chipko and other initiatives by women related to nature issues can also be viewed from a
completely different perspective, not as evidence of womens closeness to nature, but as a struggle for natural resources in the
context of gender ascribed natural resource dependence. And, of course, the limited choices that women have to migrate outside
the rural-natural context also force women to be more in touch with nature or their immediate environment; while men go out in
search of better jobs, women are left behind to look after the kids and whatever little land that belong to them (Leach and Green

Ecofeminism as a means of development empirically silences minority women


and only serves as a mechanism to further exploit gender inequalities
Leach 07
Melissa Leach, 1 January 2007, Earth Mother Myths and Other Ecofeminist Fables: How a Strategic Notion Rose and Fell,
http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=af41dac4-cc46-478b-8122fdf3d240fba3%40sessionmgr4001&vid=2&hid=4209 [Melissa Leach is the Director of the Institute of Development Studies. Between
2006 and 2014 Melissa directed the ESRC STEPS (Social, Technological and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability) Centre. She
originally trained as a geographer (MA Cambridge) and social anthropologist (PhD London).]

When translated into development practice, these womenenvironment links tended to come
to mean one of two things: acknowledging womens environmental roles so that they could be brought into broader project
activities such as tree planting, soil conservation and so on, mobilizing the extra resources of womens labour,
skill and knowledge; or justifying environmental interventions which targeted women
exclusively, usually through womens groups. Many, many examples of both were spawned in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
To take just one example, donor agencies in The Gambia relied principally on womens labour
to promote fruit tree agroforestry for environmental stabilization. In justifying this, a UNDP official
commented that women are the sole conservators of the land ... the willingness of women to
participate in natural resource management is greater than that of men. Women are always willing to
work in groups and these groups can be formed for conservation purposes. The promotional literature of an NGO involved in tree
planting echoed this perspective: In the Gambia, our primary focus has been on women ... In the implementation of an
environmental programme in the country, they could be deemed our most precious and vital local resource (both cited in
Schroeder, 1999: 109). Such projects and programme approaches have had a variety of effects. As

those who went on to


question the assumptions have pointed out (see Green et al., 1998; Jackson, 1993; Leach, 1994), in practice,
many have proved counterproductive for women or have failed to conserve the environment,
or sometimes both. Project success has often been secured at womens expense, by
appropriating womens labour, unremunerated , in activities which prove not to meet their needs or whose
benefits they do not control. New environment chores have sometimes been added to womens already long list of caring roles. At
the same time, the

focus on womens groups as if all women had homogeneous interests

has often marginalized the interests and concerns of certain women not well represented in
such organizations. Fundamentally, it came to be argued, the assumption of womens natural
link with the environment obscured any issues concerning property and power. This meant that
programmes ran the risk of giving women responsibility for saving the environment without addressing whether they actually had
the resources and capacity to do so.

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