ABSTRACT
In the United States all three social movements date back to the 1960s, that tumultuous period of change which is described by conservative critics, like Bloom, as the source of many of our current moral and social problems. One of the early debates in environmental ethics was over the relation of traditional ethical views to the environment—especially the views of the Judaeo-Christian tradition. The lowly plankton of the oceans seems insignificant to humans, but it is the beginning of a food chain whose destruction would affect the quantity and quality of life throughout the planet. Early opponents of the women's movement argued that these historical facts showed patriarchy to be inevitable or natural for the human species. The change from dominator to partnership societies is a useful way of explaining the cultural changes that women in the movement seem to be seeking.
