ABSTRACT
In the eco-feminist view, patriarchy – the domination of society and women by men as exemplified in the male as breadwinner and the woman as mother and carer – assigned a place for women in the formula God-Man-Nature-Woman. Patriarchy emphasised the intuitive identification of women with nature, as expressed in their biology, which gave them special insights that men did not possess. The experience of pregnancy, childbirth and breast-feeding in particular made them much closer to nature. Nature was there to be dominated and made to serve the interests of man. Eco-feminists regard the suffering and exploitation inflicted on nature by men as somewhat akin to the suffering and oppression experienced by women. Some eco-feminists would, indeed, argue that women are closer to nature because of their biology, and this means that although men might be able to reason their way to an eco-feminist position they will never be able to feel it. In other words, women have a special insight into nature which men do not possess. Others would fiercely contest this view, for they feel that it plays into the hands of conservatives who wish to keep women out of the male worlds of work and power, instead confining them to home-making, child care and domesticity. Arguments that women are more virtuous than men can cut both ways, for they can be used to deny women access to the worlds of business and politics. This is only one eco-feminist position, however, and there are eco-feminists who link women’s oppression and the exploitation of nature to a structural analysis of power in society. Usually, this is allied with a politics which emphasises that there needs to be a non-dominating and non-instrumental approach to nature. Another eco-feminist perspective comes from women in the poor world who argue that in their countries the culture does assign a high value to traditional female tasks and who defend women-based subsistence economies (Mellor, 1997: Ch. 3).
