Discussion Papers Deeper Than Deep Ecology: The Eco-Feminist Connection
Discussion Papers Deeper Than Deep Ecology: The Eco-Feminist Connection
Discussion Papers Deeper Than Deep Ecology: The Eco-Feminist Connection
I offer a feminist critique of deep ecology as presented in the seminal papers of Naess
and Devall. I outline the fundamental premises involved and analyze their internal
coherence. Not only are there problems on logical grounds, but the tacit methodological
approach of the two papers are inconsistent with the deep ecologists' own substantive
comments. I discuss these shortcomings in terms of a broader feminist critique of
patriarchal culture and point out some practical and theoretical contributions which
eco-feminism can make to a genuinely deep ecology problematic.
. . . beyond that perception of otherness lies the perceptioll of pysche, polity and
cosmos, as metaphors of one another . ...
lohn Rodman I
* P.O. Box 38, Strawbery Hills, New South Wales, Australia 2012. Salleh is an eco-feminist who
teaches sociology at the University of Wollongong. She is currently a visiting fellow at the University
of New South Wales. She has published articles on the philosophy of the social sciences, neo-Marxist
theory, and the implications of social change movements for contemporary politics. These interests
find their synthesis in an M.A. Seminar on Eco-feminism, which she is offering to students this year at
the University of New South Wales, the first such course to be introduced in Australia. This paper was
delivered at the Environmental Ethics and Ecology Conference, held at the Australian National
University, 26 to 28 August 1983.
1 lohn Rodman, "The Liberation of Nature?" Inquiry 20 (1977): 83-145; quoted by Bill Devall in
"The Deep Ecology Movement," Natural Resources Journal 20 (1980): 317.
2 Arne Naess, "The Shallow and the Deep, Long Range Ecology Movement," Inquiry 16 (1973):
95-100; Bill Devall, "The Deep Ecology Movement," pp. 299-322.
339
340 ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS Vol.6
The first feature of the deep ecology paradignl introduced by Naess is replace-
ment of the Man/Nature dualism with a relational total-field image, where man is
not simply "in" his environment, but essentially "of' it. The deep ecologists do not
appear to recognize the primal source of this destructive dualism, however, or the
deeply ingrained motivational complexes which grow out of it. 3 Their formulation
uses the generic term Man in a case where use of a general term is not applicable.
Women' s monthly fertility cycle, the tiring symbiosis of pregnancy, the wrench of
childbirth and the pleasure of suckling an infant, these things already ground
women's consciousness in the knowledge of being coterminous with Nature.
However tacit or unconscious this identity may be for many women, bruised by
derogatory patriarchal attitudes to motherhood, including modern male-identified
feminist ones, it is nevertheless "a fact of life." The deep ecology movement, by
using the generic term Man, sinlultaneously presupposes the difference between
the sexes in an uncritical way, and yet overlooks the significance of this differ-
ence. It overlooks the point that if women's lived experience were recognized as
meaningful and were given legitimation in our culture, it could provide an
immediate "living" social basis for the alternative consciousness which the deep
ecologist is trying to fornlulate and introduce as an abstract ethical construct.
Women already, to borrow Devall's turn of phrase, "flow with the system of
nature."
The second deep ecology premise, according to Naess is a move away from
anthropocentrism, a move toward biological egalitarianism among all living
species. This assumption, however, is already cancelled in part by the implicit
contradiction contained in Naess' first premise. The master-slave role which
marks man's relation with nature is replicated in man's relation with woman. A
self-consistent biological egalitarianism cannot be arrived at unless men become
open to both facets of this same urge to dominate and use. As Naess rightly, though
still somewhat anthropocentrically, points out, the denial of dependence on
Mother/Nature and the compensatory drive to mastery which sterns from it, have
only served to alienate man from his true self. Yet the means by which Naess
would realize this goal of species equality is through artificial limitation of the
human population. Now putting the merits of Naess' "ends" aside for the moment,
as a "means" this kind of intervention in life processes is supremely rationalist and
technicist, and quite at odds with the restoration of life-affirming values that is so
fundamental to the ethic of deep ecology. It is also a solution that interestingly
enough cuts right back into the nub of male dependence on women as mothers and
creators of life-another grab at women' s special potency, inadvertant though it
may be.
3 See Ariel Kay Salleh, "Of Portnoy's Complaint and Feminist Problematics," Australian and New
Zealand Journal ofSociology 17 (1981): 4-13; "Ecology and Ideology," Chain Reaction 31 (1983):
2G-21; "From Feminism to Ecology," Social Alternatives (1984): forthcoming.
Winter 1984 DEEPER THAN DEEP ECOLOGY 341
The third .domain assumption of deep ecology is the principle 0/ diversity and
symbiosis: an attitude of live and let live, a beneficial mutual coexistence among
living forms. For humans the principle favors cultural pluralism, an appreciation
of the rich traditions emerging from Africa, China, the Australian Aboriginal way,
and so on. These departures from anthropocentrism, and from ethnocentrism, are
only partial, however, if the ecologist continues to ignore the cultural inventive-
ness of that other half of the human race, women; or if the ecologist unwittingly
concurs in those practices which impede women' s full participation in his own
culture. The annihilation of seals and whales, the military and commercial geno-
eide of tribaI peoples, are unforgivable human acts, but the annihilation of
women's identity and creativity by patriarchal culture continues as a fact of daily
existence. The ernbrace ofprogressive attitudes toward nature does little in itselfto
change this.
Deep ecology is an anti-class posture; it rejects the exploitation of some by
others, of nature by man, and of man by man, this being destructive to the
realization of human potentials. However, sexual oppression and the social
differentiation that this produces is not mentioned by Naess. Women again appear
to be subsumed by the general category. Obviously the feminist ecological
analysis is not "in principle" incompatible with the anti-class posture of deep
ecology. Its reservation is that in bypassing the parallel between the original
exploitation of nature as object-and-comnl0dity resource and of nurturant woman
as object-and-commodity resource, the ecologist's anti-class stance remains only
superficially descriptive, politically and historically static. It loses its genuinely
deep structural critical edge. On the question of political praxis though, there is
certainly no quarrel between the two positions. Devall's advocacy ofloose activist
networks, his tactics of nonviolent contestation , are cases in point. 4 Deep ecology
and feminism see change as gradual and piecemeal; the violence of revolution
imposed by those who claim "to know" upon those who "do not know" is an
anathema to both.
The fight against pollution and resource depletion is, of course, a fundanlental
environmental concern. And it behooves the careful activist to see that measures
taken to protect resources do not have hidden or long-term environmental costs
which outweigh their usefulness. As Naess observes, such costs nlay increase
class inequalities. In this context he also comments on the "after hours" environ-
nlentalist syndrome frequently exhibited by middle-class professionals. Devall,
too, criticizes what he calls "the bourgeois liberal reformist elements" in the
movement-Odum, Brower, and Lovins, who are the but of this remark. A further
comment that might be made in this conte~t, however, is that wornen, as keepers
of oikos, are in a good position to put a round-the-clock ecological consciousness
4 And on this connection, see Ariel Kay Salleh, "The Growth ofEco-feminism," Chain Reaction 36
(1984): 26-28; also comments in "Whither the Green Machine?" Australian Society 3 (1984): 15-17.
342 ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS Vol.6
into practice. Excluded as many still are from full participation in the social-
occupational structure, they are less often compromised by the material and status
rewards which may silence the activist professional. True, the forces of capitalism
have targeted women at horne as consumer par excellence, but this potential can
just as weIl be tumed against the systematic waste of industrialism. The historical
significance of the domestic labor force in moves to recycle, boycott, and so on,
has been grossly underestimated by ecologists.
At another level of analysis entirely, but again on the issue of pollution, the
objectivist attitude of most ecological writing and the tacit mind-body dualism
which shapes this, means that its comprehension of "pollution" is framed exclu-
sively in external material terms. The feminist consciousness, however, is equally
concerned to eradicate ideological pollution, which centuries of patriarchal con-
ditioning have subjected us all to, women and men. Men, who may derive rather
more ego gratification from the patriarchal status quo than women, are on the
whole less motivated to change this system than women are. But radical women's
consciousness-raising groups are continually engaging in an intensely reflexive
political process; one that works on the psychological contamination produced by
the culture of domination and helps women to build new and confident selves. As a
foundation for social and political change, this work of women is a very thorough
preparation indeed.
The sixth premise of Naess' deep ecology is the complexity, not complication
principle. It favors the preservation of complex interrelations which exist between
parts of the environment, and inevitably, it involves a systems theoretical orienta-
tion. Naess' ideal is a complex economy supported by division, but not fragmenta-
tion of labor; worker alienation to be overcome by opportunities for involvement
in mental and manual, specialized and nonspecialized tasks. There are serious
problems of implementation attached to this vaguely sketched scenario, but
beyond this, the supporting arguments are also weak, not to say very uncritical in
tern1S of the stated aims of the deep ecology movement. The references to "soft
future research," "implementation of policies," "exponential growth of technical
skill and intervention," are highly instrumental statements which collapse back
into the shallow ecology paradigm and its human chauvinist ontology. What
appears to be happening here is this: the masculine sense of self-worth in our
culture has become so entrenched in scientistic habits of thought, that it is very
hard for men to argue persuasively without recourse to terms like these for
validation. Women, on the other hand, socialized as they are for a multiplicity of
contingent tasks and practical labor functions in the horne and out, do not
experience the inhibiting constraints of status validation to the same extent. The
traditional feminine role runs counter to the exploitive technical rationality which
is currently the requisite masculine norm. In place of the distain that the feminine
role receives from all quarters, "the separate reality" of this role could weIl be
taken seriously by ecologists and reexamined as a legitimate source of alternative
Winter 1984 DEEPER THAN DEEP ECOLOGY 343
values. As Snyder suggests, men should try out roles which are not highly valued
in society; and one might add, particularly this one, for herein lies the basis of a
genuinely grounded and nurturant environmentalism. As one eco-feminist has put
it:
If someone has laid the foundations of a house, it would seem sensible to build on
those foundations, rather than import a prefabricated structure with no foundations to
put beside it. 5
capacity ," and the language of science, "data on hunter gatherers," both creep
back in. Again, birth "control programs" are recommended, "zoning," and "pro-
gramming," the language of technocratic managerialism. "Principles" are intro-
duced and the imperative should rides roughshod through the text. The call for a
new epistemology is somehow dissociated in this writing from the old metaphysi-
cal presuppositions which prop up the argument itself.
In arguing for an eco-phenomenology, Devall certainly attempts to bypass this
ideological noose-"Let us think like a mountain," he says-but again, the
analysis here rests on what is called "a gestalt of person-in-nature": a conceptual
effort, a grim intellectual determination "to care"~ "to show reverence" for Earth' s
household and "to let" nature follow "its separate" evolutionary path. The residue
of specular instrumentalism is overpowering~ yet the conviction remains that a
radical transformation of social organization· and values is imminent: achallenge
to the fundamental premises ofthe dominant social paradigm. There is a concerted
effort to rethink Western metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics here, but this
"rethink" remains an idealism closed in on itself because it fails to face up to the
uncomfortable psychosexual origins of our culture and its crisis. Devall points by
turn to White's thesis that the environmental crisis derives from the Judeo-
Christian tradition, to Weisberg's argument that capitalism is the root cause, to
Mumford's case against scientism and technics. But for the eco-fenlinist, these
apparently disparate strands are merely facets of the same motive to control which
runs a continuous thread through the history of patriarchy. So, it has been left to
the women of our generation to do the theoretical housework here-to lift the mat
and sweep under it exposing the deeply entrenched epistemological complexes
which shape not only current attitudes to the natural world, but attitudes to social
and sexual relations as well. 6 The accidental convergence of feminism and
ecology at this point in time is no accident.
Sadly, from the eco-feminist point of view, deep ecology is simply another
self-congratulatory reformist move; the transvaluation of values it claims for itself
is quite peripheral. Even the Eastern spiritual traditions, whose authority deep
ecology so often has recourse to--since these dissolve the repressive hierarchy of
Man/Nature/God---even these philosophies pay no attention to the inherent Man/
Woman hierarchy contained within this metaphysic of the Whole. The supression
of the feminine is truly an all pervasive human universal. It is not just a supression
of real, live, empirical wonlen, but equally the supression of the feminine aspects
of men' s own constitution which is the issue here. Watts, Snyder, Devall, all want
education for the spiritual development of "personhood." This is the self-
estranged male reaching for the original androgynous natural unity within hirnself.
6 Some of this feminist writing is discussed in Ariel Kay Salleh, "Contributions to the Critique of
Political Epistemology," Thesis Eleven 8 (1984): 23-43.
Winter 1984 DEEPER THAN DEEP ECOLOGY 345
The deep ecology movement is very much a spiritual search for people in a barren
secular age~ but how nluch of this quest for self-realization is driven by ego and
will? If, on the one hand, the search seems to be stuck at an abstract cognitive
level, on the other, it may be led full circle and sabotaged by the ancient
compulsion to fabricate perfectability. Men' s ungrounded restless search for the
alienated Other part of themselves has led to a society where not life itself, but
"change," bigger and better, whiter than white, has become the consumptive end.
The dynamic to overcome this alienation takes many forms in the post-capitalist
culture of narcissism-material and psychological consumption like karma-cola,
clown workshops, sensitivity training, bio-energetics, gay lib, and surfside six.
But the deep ecology movenlent will not truly happen until men are brave enough
to rediscover and to love the woman inside themselves. And we women, too, have
to be allowed to love what we are, if we are to make a better world.
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