ABSTRACT
In recent times, movements for gender and sexual emancipation have removed social oppressions. But they have done little to date to challenge the consumerist model of the ‘good life’ that is responsible for global warming, and have even reinforced its hold in certain respects. Freedom from domesticity and the patriarchal division of labour has not led – as many feminists had hoped it would – to greener and fairer ways of thinking about human prosperity, but has gone together with increased commodification and the expansion of the ‘shopping mall’ culture. This chapter reflects on these tensions and reviews the aims and achievements of gender and environmental politics in the light of them. But it also argues that Western societies are now entering a cultural moment characterised by a more troubled relationship to unchecked consumption. The upshot is the emergence of consumption as a site of new forms of political engagement, ethical consideration and aesthetic representation. The ‘alternative hedonism’ implicit in these forms of consumer ambivalence is presented in this context as the impulse behind a new ‘political imaginary’ that could help to promote a fairer, environmentally sustainable and more enjoyable future – and thus fulfil some of the more radical aspirations that have been associated with the movements for gender and sexual emancipation.
