D'Eaubonne Coins the Term Ecofeminism

Date 1974

The term “ecofeminism” was coined to designate the relationship between ecology and feminist theory, a concept built on the critical connections between the patriarchal domination of nature and the exploitation of women. It became an umbrella term covering a variety of positions, including historical, ethical, literary, political, and theoretical considerations of how one treats women and the Earth.

Locale Paris, France

Key Figures

• Françoise d’Eaubonne (1920-2005), French feminist, ecofeminist, Marxist, and author
• Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986), French existential philosopher and writer

Summary of Event

Françoise d’Eaubonne’s father belonged to the Sillon movement, a Catholic workers’ movement that promoted Catholic activism at both a spiritual and social level and was influenced by Karl Marx, Vladimir Ilich Lenin, and Joseph Stalin. D’Eaubonne’s Spanish mother was the daughter of a Carlist revolutionary. Carlism was a political movement in Spain, which played a significant role from 1833 to the demise of Francisco Franco’s regime in 1975. D’Eaubonne grew up in Toulouse, watching her father’s physical decline from the poison gas to which he had been exposed during World War I. Reflecting her roots, she was a member of the French Communist Party for some years, and in 1971, she cofounded the Front Homosexuelle d’Action Révolutionnaire (FHAR), a homosexual revolutionary group. In her later years, she directed a center of ecological feminism in Paris. A prolific writer, d’Eaubonne published more than fifty works, including novels, collections of poetry, science fiction, and many feminist works, including Le Féminisme ou la mort (1974; feminism or death). The term éco-féminisme (ecofeminism) first appeared in the conclusion to Le Féminisme ou la mort.

French feminism has roots that go back at least as far as the 1600’s, but it was not until 1791 that the first “feminist” magazine, Étrennes nationale des dames (women’s national gifts), appeared, based on the idea that “women are equal to men in rights and in pleasure.” This was later followed by a journal that Colette Reynaud started in 1917, La Voix des femmes (the women’s voice), which was considered “feminist, socialist, pacifist, and internationalist.” Perhaps the greatest influence on d’Eaubonne’s thinking, however, was Simone de Beauvoir’s publication of Le Deuxième Sexe (1949; The Second Sex, 1953), a milestone in the discourse on women and feminism that defined the second wave of feminism in the twentieth century.

The Second Sex attacked the institution of patriarchy and described the way the woman in society becomes “the Other” under this system. De Beauvoir did not suggest that the system was biased because it had been devised by men—that argument was to be developed by d’Eaubonne and others after 1969. De Beauvoir argued that the system was biased because women had been left out of it from the beginning of history. One of the goals of the book was to demonstrate the necessity of a totally new system of thought in order to address the status of women. in January, 1999, in Paris, at the conference to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of The Second Sex, d’Eaubonne was present to praise the book as a radical work for its time.

In her 1974 book Le Féminisme ou la mort, d’Eaubonne attacks the institution of patriarchy, finding it responsible for the demographic madness of overpopulation and for the accelerated pollution that accompanies overpopulation. D’Eaubonne specifically mentions the Catholic Church, which, she says, controls and directs not only the sexual relations but also the reproductive lives of ordinary people. She describes overpopulation and the destruction of resources, both integral aspects of the patriarchal system, as the most immediate threats to human survival.

More than ten years later, d’Eaubonne published an article in the academic journal Ethics and the Environment titled “What Could an Ecofeminist Society Be?” She found that the relationship between ecology and women’s liberation was the determination of population growth by women, which has already been brought under control in some of the more highly industrialized countries. Some theses central to her argument were cited in this article: Two main factors in the expansion of patriarchy, exhaustion of resources and global population growth, are the direct causes of ecological catastrophe; the battle between the sexes is the same as the battle between the classes; and capitalism will disappear only with the elimination of dominance, aggressiveness, competitiveness, and absolutism. Positive features of d’Eaubonne’s Ecofeminist Society would be use of alternative sources of energy, reduced and miniaturized industry, reduction of useless production, workers replaced by specialists who provide necessities, and a balanced relationship between consumption and production.

Significance

Ecofeminism grew rapidly during the 1980’s and 1990’s among women from the environmental, antinuclear, and lesbian-feminist movements and spread widely beyond the borders of Europe. The first ecofeminist conference, held at Amherst, Massachusetts, in 1980, inspired the growth of ecofeminist organizations and actions. The University of Southern California hosted a conference titled “Ecofeminist Perspectives: Culture, Nature, Theory” in 1987, which became the model for similar conferences. These meetings led to the publication of important anthologies of ecofeminist perspectives.

Karen J. Warren became perhaps the most widely known American scholar, philosopher, and writer on ecofeminist topics, making hundreds of presentations in such diverse places as Argentina, Sweden, Canada, Australia, Russia, Costa Rica, and the United States. Her beliefs were that despite many differences among ecofeminists, they agreed that important connections could be made between the domination of women and the domination of nature. An understanding of this tenet is crucial to feminism, environmentalism, and environmental philosophy. A primary project of ecofeminism was to make visible these connections between women and nature and to dismantle them where they remained harmful.

The various historical, conceptual, empirical, and symbolic ecofeminist connections indicated a need for new ecofeminist epistemologies. These epistemologies, or ways of knowing, challenge mainstream views of reason, rationality, and knowledge. Val Plumwood, a widely known Australian ecofeminist, has stated that new ways of recognizing humans as part of nature, instead of separate from it, are necessary. For Plumwood, ecofeminist ways of knowing must create ethical selves that do not maintain and promote harmful dualisms, especially between humans and nature. Inherent in this philosophy is the belief that the patriarchal set of basic beliefs, values, and assumptions is oppressive when it explains, justifies, and maintains relationships of domination and subordination.

Internationally, a variety of regional, ethnic, and cultural ecofeminists exist. Vandana Shiva, an Indian ecofeminist, frequently invokes Hindu concepts and goddesses in her writings. If women are most adversely affected by environmental problems, as some believe, it makes them better qualified to be experts on environmental affairs and places them in a privileged position to create new practical solutions.

Ecofeminism is a movement that has grown in size and importance, judging by the surge of publications and university courses on the subject. The more that is discovered about ecological concerns, the more pressing the problems appear. Data from the social sciences suggest that an understanding of women and the environment points to women’s deep knowledge regarding forestry, water collection, farming, and food production. Many ecofeminists regard the movement as an ethical one, believing that the interconnections between the treatment of women, animals, and the rest of nature require a feminist ethical response. D’Eaubonne coined the term to highlight women’s potential for ecological revolution. Ecofeminism is a grassroots political movement driven by pragmatic concerns involving the health of women and the environment; science, development, and technology; the treatment of animals; and peace, antinuclear, and antimilitary activism.

Bibliography

Eaton, Heather, and Lois Ann Lorentzen, eds. Ecofeminism and Globalization: Exploring Culture, Context, and Religion. Lanhan, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003. A collection of essays exploring the ways ecofeminist theory might contribute to many areas of public life in the twenty-first century.

Eaubonne, Françoise d’. “What Could an Ecofeminist Society Be?” Ethics and the Environment 4, no. 2 (1999): 179-184. A model of goals to work toward for the future.

Marks, Elaine, and Isabelle de Courtivron, eds. New French Feminisms: An Anthology. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1980. Contains a historical overview of French feminism as well as core writings of most of the important French feminists, including d’Eaubonne.

Warren, Karen J., ed. Ecological Feminism. New York: Routledge, 1994. Remarkably rich collection of essays illustrates many different ecofeminist viewpoints from important proponents of the field.