ABSTRACT
Eco-feminism argues that the struggle for ecological survival is intrinsically linked with the project of women’s liberation. Eco-feminism in its various forms, looking back to the Suffragettes, instrumental in the campaign against cruise missiles and nuclear power, is an activist movement committed to social justice. Many eco-feminists would see themselves as would-be revolutionaries in an anarchist or socialist tradition. Capitalism and hierarchy stem from a patriarchal system of male rule. In its more mystical form, eco-feminism celebrates Gaia as a living force and looks back to a period variously situated in the early Bronze Age, the Neolithic or the Palaeolithic, a time when a supposedly matriarchal order existed in harmony with nature. Such an ancient society functioned without war or inequality.
