What is "Ecofeminism" and What is "Ecofeminism and Mothering"?

Ecofeminism and Mothering  

by Heidi Hutner

Ecofeminism and mothering are deeply intercon- 

nected in Western ideological constructions of both 

nature and gender. Ecofeminism as a set of princi- 

ples emerged in the 1970s with the increased aware- 

ness of the connections between women and nature. 

Françoise d’Eaubonne established the Ecology-Fem- 

inisme Center in Paris in 1972, and in 1974 she first 

used the term ecofeminisme. D’Eaubonne addressed 

the need for an ecological revolution lead by women, 

which she claimed would establish equality of gen- 

der relations and bring an end to the power of one 

group over another—including the domination of 

humans over nature. D’Eaubonne linked environ- 

mental degradation with patriarchal culture, and 

believed that a social structure based on feminisme 

would prevent the destruction of human beings and 

the planet. D’Eaubonne’s feminisme was based upon 

the principles of complete equality and the absence 

of all oppression; in effect, no one gender group or 

species would have power over the other. 

Woman and Mother Exploited 

Ecofeminism, as it has developed further through 

the work of such theorists as Carolyn Merchant, 

Karen J. Warren, Charlene Spretnak, Ynestra King, 

Judith Plant, and Val Plumwood, among others, 

locates the domination of women and the domina- 

tion of nature as interrelated and overlapping. As 

posited in Merchant’s The Death of Nature, women 

and nature both suffer under patriarchal domina- 

tion, as they historically have been treated as objects 

to be exploited, consumed, controlled, subdued and 

tamed. The Earth is depicted (both currently and 

historically) in feminized terms, and this descriptive 

language is complex and fraught with ambivalence: 

nature is portrayed as fertile, nurturing, and pro- 

tective (stereotypically maternal); sexualized and 

seductive (as observed and possessed by men); and 

wild, dark, and dangerous (needing to be tamed 

and civilized). According to ecofeminist theory, this 

complex representation of female nature as simul- 

taneously alluring, nurturing, and dangerous justi- 

fied the patriarchal domination and exploitation 

of nature throughout history—particularly with 

the advent of new science, colonization, and the 

industrial revolution in European cultures. Within 

this mechanistic and masculinist discourse, nature- 

woman is constructed as needing and deserving of 

being possessed, penetrated, and domesticated by the 

more rational and civilized white male. 

According to ecofeminist theorists, this system of 

patriarchal domination negatively impacts all liv- 

ing beings—including nature, women, indigenous 

people, and the poor. In this sense, ecofeminism 

overlaps with environmental justice theory, which 

argues that the racial, social, and economic under- 

classes are most negatively impacted by environ- 

mental degradation because they lack 

the economic and political power to protect their 

communities. Ecofeminist and environmental jus- 

tice theorists argue that the exploitation of nature, 

women, and people of color takes place because the 

rights of the individual (man) come before those 

of the community (all living things). A solution 

offered by ecofeminists is the ”partnership ethic” 

advocated by Merchant in Reinventing Eden. In 

this work and elsewhere, Merchant promotes a 

“moral ethic of care,” similar to the belief system 

of many Native American tribes, in which human 

beings live in a balanced and equitable relationship 

with all living things. In what Merchant calls a partnership
community, no group or species holds power over
the other, and interdependence replaces individualism. 

Expanding Field of Study

Ecofeminism is an expansive field of study with 

numerous branches: liberal, social, socialist, and 

cultural. It also has multiple applications, including 

scientific, philosophical, historical, literary/artistic, 

psychological, and spiritual. A significant aspect of 

ecofeminism is political activism; ecofeminist writers, 

academics, and scientists work to protect and pre- 

serve environmental rights. The so-called “mother” 

of American environmentalist movement was Rachel 

Carson, author of the acclaimed Silent Spring, which 

exposed the dangers of dichlorodiphenyltrichloro- 

ethane (DDT); Carson’s research demonstrated the 

deeply negative impact of toxics and chemicals on 

the environment, animals, and humans. 

In Africa, Wangari Maathi founded The Green 

Belt Movement to help restore denuded land in 

her country, enlisting poor African women to help 

plant millions of trees to stop the soil erosion and 

improve soil quality, food production, water quality, 

and economic prosperity. In India, Vandana Shiva 

founded Navdanya, an organization that works to 

preserve the biodiversity of seed and food, as well 

as what she calls the “democracy” and “sovereig- 

nity” of water. Winona LaDuke, a Native Ameri- 

can author and environmental activist and founder 

of the Indigenous Women’s Network, White Earth 

Land Recovery Project, and cofounder (with The 

Indigo Girls) of Honor the Earth, fights to protect 

the environmental rights and land of Native Ameri- 

can communities throughout North America. Petra 

Kelly cofounded the Green Party Movement in Ger- 

many and fought against the use and creation of 

weapons of mass destruction. In her work and writ- 

ing she claimed connections between sexism, war, 

and environmental degradation. 

Nature and Earth as Mother 

In her forthcoming, Polluting Mama: Ecofeminism, 

Literature, and Film, Heidi Hutner argues that the 

relationship between mothering and nature is cru- 

cial to ecofeminist theory and ecofeminist activism 

on linguistic, spiritual, political, and ideological lev- 

els. Hutner claims that the very way in which nature 

is constructed in language is inextricably bound 

with culturally constructed concepts of mother- 

hood, such as the expressions “mother nature” and 

“mother Earth.” These terms are embedded so deeply 

in Western culture that it would be impossible to 

detach them. Hutner suggests that there are deeply 

complex ideological, feminist, and ecological rami- 

fications inherent in this linguistic construction of 

mother-as-nature-as-Earth. 

Spiritual Branches 

Some spiritual branches of ecofeminism are tied 

to mothering through the belief in Earth-goddess 

worship. Starhawk, for example, holds that a 

human return to the goddess “Mother 

Earth, who sustains all growing things” will 

heal the deep ideological rifts between men and 

women, humans and nature, God and the human 

world. For spiritual ecofeminists, the Earth mother
goddess is the center of all spiritual life. 

Alice Walker, a self-proclaimed paganist (and 

womanist) follows a similar spiritual path in her 

work and discussions about The Color Purple. In 

her poem, “The Earth Is Our Mother,” Walker 

articulates a distinctly ecofeminist spiritual con- 

nection to the mother Earth—linking the nature 

body of the Earth with a human mother’s body— 

and this mother Earth connects all living things in 

her loving “embrace.” 

Female Reproductive Biology and Ecofeminism 

There is a historical relationship between mother- 

ing and environmental and peace activism; accord- 

ing to Hutner, many women have felt the “call” to 

fight against environmental degradation to protect 

their families from environmental toxins, pollution, 

nuclear waste, and disaster.

The impact of toxics and pollution on female 

reproductive biology plays an important part in the 

connections between mothering and ecofeminism, 

according to Hutner. In Having Faith, Sandra Stein- 

graber examines the delicate relationship between 

the mother’s body with the developing fetus and 

young nursing child, and points to the effect of 

environmental pollution on the placenta and breast 

milk. Embryos, fetuses, infants, and children are 

especially sensitive to environmental damage in 

their early stages of neurological and hormonal 

development. As mother’s bodies transfer poisons 

and unwittingly and adversely impact their young, 

they may be rendered infertile as a result of envi- 

ronmental pollution. 

Ecofeminist theory allows for an analysis of the 

highly charged and complex concepts of the moth- 

er’s womb—which can be made toxic through 

pollutants—as a sacred and protected space. Hut- 

ner argues that in an environmentally degraded 

world, mothers are "set up" as being at fault
for polluting their own children (or for being infertile),
and they are viewed as beingresponsible for
cleaning up the world. 

A novel such as Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s 

Tale warns of the potential impact of such reason- 

ing. In the fictional nation of Gilead, a land so pol- 

luted that human reproduction has diminished sig- 

nificantly, women are forced to procreate for the 

“good of the nation,” are blamed for their inabil- 

ity to conceive, and are punished when they give 

birth to “monsters.” 

Critics of Ecofeminism

Some critics argue that ecofeminism goes too far 

in embracing the woman and nature connection--  

which idealizes the female-as-natural and reifies the 

position that women are not capable of function- 

ing as rational thinkers. Ecofeminism has also been 

charged with setting men up as inherently outside 

of any real connection with the natural world. In 

other words, by idealizing the female-nature con- 

nection, some ecofeminists may be accused of rec- 

reating the very dualities it seeks to erase. Despite 

these claims, ecofeminists claim to move out of 

these binaries and include men, women, children, 

the elderly, and people of all races, cultures and 

classes in their theories. 

Bibliography 

Atwood, Margaret. Handmaid’s Tale. New York: Ran- 

dom House, 1998. 

Carson Rachel. Silent Spring. New York: Fawcett Crest 

Books, 1964. 

Hutner, Heidi. Polluting Mama: Ecofeminism, Mother- 

ing, Literature and Film. Forthcoming, 2011. 

Kelly, Petra. Fighting for Hope. Cambridge, MA: South 

End Press, 1999. 

King, Ynestra. “The Ecology of Feminism and the Femi- 

nism of Ecology.” In Healing the Wounds. Gabriola 

Island, BC: New Society, 1989. 

LaDuke, Winona. All Our Relations: Native Struggles 

for Land and Life. Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 

1999. 

Maathi, Wangari. The Greenbelt Movement. Brooklyn, 

NY: Lantern Books, 2003. 

Plumwood, Val. Feminism and the Mastery of Nature. 

New York: Routledge, 1994. 

Shiva, Vandana. Earth Democracy. Cambridge, MA: 

South End Press, 2005. 

Starhawk. The Earth Path. New York: Harper One, 

2005. 

Steingraber, Sandra. Having Faith: An Ecologist’s Jour- 

ney to Motherhood. New York: Perseus, 2001. 

Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. New York: Harvest, 

2003. 

Heidi Hutner 

State University of New York, Stony Brook 

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