Ecological Feminism

Internationally significant Australian work in ecological philosophy can be traced to at least as early as 1973 with Val and Richard Routley’s (later Val Plumwood and Richard Sylvan) Fight for the Forests. By the 1990s, Australian ecological and ecological feminist philosophy was at the forefront of international work in this area. As the 1990s came to a close, this was joined by the first major international research in ecological hermeneutics in biblical studies, The Earth Bible Project, situated in Adelaide, South Australia, under the chief editorship of Norman Habel. The Project was in conversation with feminists, ecologists and a number of indigenous peoples from Australia and overseas, as the team developed first their six ecojustice principles and then three further ecological hermeneutics. A contributor to the project, Queensland biblical scholar Elaine Wainwright, until 2014 Professor of Theology and Head of School at the University of Auckland, had previously (in 1991) published an article: ‘A Metaphorical Work through Scripture in an Ecological Age’. From early work in feminist hermeneutics, Wainwright has developed a multi-dimensional hermeneutic, bringing together feminist, ecological and postcolonial concerns, most recently around the notion of habitat.This paper traces ways in which Wainwright’s multidisciplinary approach has developed from her feminist work, and explores how her notion of habitat intersects with the new materialism. The paper points toward ways in which the notion of habitat can be developed for a twenty-first-century feminist ecological hermeneutics responsive to the complex situation of ecological destruction and (post)colonial relations to Country in Australia.

Eco-feminism is a branch of feminism that deals with the relationship between women and their environment. Mother Nature is essentially feminine since it gives life and nurtures it, just like a mother. This term was coined by French author and feminist, Francoise d'Eaubonne. Eco-feminists draw parallels between the oppression of women by men, and the

disciplinary practice she engages with the poetics of space and materiality of mediums to examine contemporary issues, layering concepts, abstraction, metaphor. From a feminist paradigm, she researches the materiality of bodily experience, and its potentially transformative effect on these issues. Kay investigates fractures and dislocations of the time/space continuum and the fragile and ephemeral nature of life. She has exhibited in Performance drawing is the quintessential feminist art activity, enabling the embedding of feminist narratives simply by virtue of using a female body, while addressing diverse issues such as ecology, identity, and ethnicity. Depiction of a body that reads as female introduces physical, social, and cultural metaphors that provide a particular set of aesthetic, political, and embodied conditions and characteristics. This paper discusses three interdisciplinary artists whose performance drawings use the body as a tool for understanding our place in the world.

Rita D Sherma, PhD, GTU, Berkeley, USA
The task of creating a sense of belonging among newer communities of color involves the fostering of a spirituality of terrain. Cultivating belonging through ecopraxis involves creating a sense of communion, not only with the land, but with those who have experienced it before us, particularly Native peoples and Black Americans. The dominant culture of environmentalism does not always recognize their place in the human ecology of the land. Leading change through ecopraxis is a matter of remembering the gifts of ecospirituality brought by minority religions and cultures; it is to weave a new American tapestry. And, it is to ask the question: “If we acted from the truth of interrelationality, what would our shared vision look like?” This article presents the argument that human civilization’s malrelationship with the other-than-human world echoes through people’s broken relations with each other. It suggests the need to lead change through an integrative ecospirituality of terrain that weaves a new ecovision with forgotten and unacknowledged strands of the American experience.

As a branch of feminism, ecological feminism is concerned with social and environmental issues. This feminist environmental philosophy on ecology focuses on a gender perspective which tackles the relationship between the natural world and humanity. It has been widely suggested that the Western patriarchal society and culture has brought systematic degradation to the world and the human/nature relationships.
Likewise, it implies the existence of a relationship between the oppression and exploitation of socially and culturally considered groups (such as women) and the violence exerted over nature and all its living beings. Ecofeminism has been fuelled from different trends that made it evolve: on the one hand, a cultural, essentialist, biology-related point of view. On the other hand, a modern, academic, intersectional and activist view that fights social injustice and seeks equilibrium and equality. The marginalisation, submission, stereotyping and oppression of women takes place in many areas and negatively influences their self (re)presentation, while it contributes to a growing job inequality and impoverishment. The aspect of female work oppression is very common in Family Guy, a sitcom that continuously depicts female characters in a very biased way from male-dominated (and targeted) view. The study of the series from a gender and ecofeminist perspective will serve to bring powerful insights on the unequal representation of women and their relationship to the world.

God created women in the incarnation of himself how flowers are soft and tender women’s attitude
also springy and gentle. In every bud beautiful flowers hiding themselves like in every woman their powerful
attitude towards nature are camouflaged, their potentiality will prim out automatically in a needy situation
and they shine beautifully like full bloomed flowers in their looming. Women are like grey, white moths in the
earlier phase without maturity, they may act childishly. But through their full prime of life and progress, they
turned into the spectacular multihued butterfly and they burnish glowing in their society and family life.
That’s the attitude of Clarissa,who behaved has a moth in early stage, thenmatured as a full blown
fantabulous butterfly by giving the party. The novel “Mrs. Dalloway” starts and ends on the same day by
narrating how human beings are close with nature and how they preserve and conserve our environment..

Author: Cristina S. Richie
Publisher: CBE International

Naming God as “Sophia” critically aligns the Divine with a specifically female concept, while also expanding the theological understanding of the character and attributes of God-Sophia.