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.
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.
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
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-
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
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.
Atwood, Margaret. Handmaid’s Tale. New York: Ran-
Carson Rachel. Silent Spring. New York: Fawcett Crest
Hutner, Heidi. Polluting Mama: Ecofeminism, Mother-
ing, Literature and Film. Forthcoming, 2011.
Kelly, Petra. Fighting for Hope. Cambridge, MA: South
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,
Maathi, Wangari. The Greenbelt Movement. Brooklyn,
Plumwood, Val. Feminism and the Mastery of Nature.
New York: Routledge, 1994.
Shiva, Vandana. Earth Democracy. Cambridge, MA:
Starhawk. The Earth Path. New York: Harper One,
Steingraber, Sandra. Having Faith: An Ecologist’s Jour-
ney to Motherhood. New York: Perseus, 2001.
Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. New York: Harvest,
State University of New York, Stony Brook
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