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Anthropology and the Environment

October 1999

Ed Liebow, Contributing Editor

Our column continues an ongoing overview of environmental issues, this month tracing the arc of recent scholarship in the domain of gender and the environment. We have seen a number of publications emerge, covering the waterfront from philosophy and political ecology to literary criticism and development planning. A presentation earlier this year by Irma McClaurin and Heather McIlvaine-Newsad (U Florida) identified some key concepts and writers, and I invited them to summarize this presentation for the benefit of the Section News readership. Next month, for you compulsive planning types, we will present a detailed roadmap to the annual meeting's environmental content.

Gender and the Environment in the New Millennium
By Irma McClaurin and Heather McIlvaine-Newsad (U Florida)

In the 1970s, the feminist critique of androcentric anthropology laid the foundation for the emergence of scholarship concerned with gender and the environment and subsequently ecofeminism. When Sally Slocum (1975 [1971]) posits that women's gathering is as crucial, if not more critical, to human survival among hunter-gatherers, as hunting, she not only debunks the longstanding myth of anthropology that hunting is the driver behind human evolution (social organization, language, culture). She also plants the seeds for what is to become a feminist methodological framework and a political movement.

Over the next decade, research on subsistence patterns, farming systems and agriculture (Poats, Schmink, and Spring 1994) spawned a generation of scholars (Rocheleau and Ross 1994) concerned with the question: do women have a unique/different relationship to the environment? Answers to this question resulted in an extensive body of literature on gender and the environment concerned with variation in gender roles, the importance of women's contributions to subsistence production, and women's knowledge of natural resource management. This short article is concerned with how the gender and environment movement has addressed these two issues: how variation in gender roles produces differing viewpoints about the environment and how women value and utilize natural resources in ways distinct from men.

Gender and the Environment and Feminist Standpoint Theory

While gender and the environment suggests a concern with both male and female gender roles and how these shape use of the environment, feminists following Sandra Harding's (1998) "standpoint theory" begin with women as the unit of analysis and argue that because women have been excluded from development processes, greater attention needs to be paid to their use of land and water, and to their involvement in natural resource management efforts. While standpoint theory acknowledges the centrality of gender as an integrative system that strongly influences both men and women's roles, in practice, feminist scholarship on gender and the environment, has often exclusively focused on women.

Ecofeminism, Development and the Environment

An offshoot of the women and environment movement is ecofeminism, which emerged as a multifaceted methodological framework and political movement. Ecofeminism, under the auspices of the women and the environment movement, assumes that women have an "innate" and "natural" relationship to the environment, and thus are better suited to lead natural resource management efforts. One fundamental premise of ecofeminism is the belief that those ideologies that justify gender, racial, and socio-economic inequalities are closely related to the beliefs that sanction the exploitation and degradation of the environment. In its most radical form, ecofeminism views environmental degradation as analogous to the degradation and subordination of women (Merchant, cited in Alaimo 1994). Other milder forms include a valorization of women's innate nurturing capacity and the anthropomorphizing of the environment as "Mother Nature" and "Mother Earth."

Contradictions within Ecofeminism

As with all theories and movements, ecofeminism contains many voices and political positions. While emphasizing the relationship between women's unequal status and the destruction of our natural environment, all of these perspectives also contain dissenting and varied viewpoints that make pragmatic application problematic.

For example, many radical ecofeminists posit spirituality as a critical aspect of their theoretical orientation, arguing for recognition of the relationship between the denigration of women and the degradation of the environment (Dodd 1997:77). Formulating a critique of the worship of patriarchal gods, radical ecofeminists participate in goddess (Mother Nature) worship. In doing so, they assert that goddess worship was displaced by father god spirituality, and the result is the domination and devaluation of women on every level, the depredation and destruction of nature, and the emergence of war. Accordingly, the global emergence of male dominated societies (patriarchy) is viewed as responsible for women's subordination, and for categorizing women's knowledge of nature as non-scientific. Subscribers to the goddess movement include not only ecofeminists, but also environmental activists and intellectuals with specialties outside environmental issues.. In the midst of acquiring a substantial following in recent years, goddess/spiritual ecofeminism has been widely challenged by other ecofeminists and non-ecofeminists alike who argue that the evidence to support the claims of a displaced goddess teleology is weak and controversial at best.

Another vulnerable aspect of ecofeminism is its assertion that women maintain a special relationship with nature because of the character of their reproductive and productive work - caring for children, caring for the land. This perspective maintains that because of women's dominant roles in agricultural production, the management of household economies, food processing and preparation, and child care, women can more easily recognize environmental problems and they impact women's work more seriously than men's work (Stuergeon 1997-260).

One problem with this position is that it treats women as an undifferentiated, homogeneous collective of "victims" who are acted upon by nature (Harding 1998; Coumo 1994; Rocheleau and Ross 1995; Leach 1992), rather than a diverse group of women who interact with nature in varied ways and on different levels shaped by "a complex matrix of historical, economic, political and environmental factors" (McIlvaine-Newsad 1998: 4). A typical (and stereotypical) image that emanates from this perspective is that of groups of women walking long distances to gather water and firewood on their heads in order to maintain the daily livelihood of their households. Such images render invisible the larger number of urban women living in developing countries, and unintentionally romanticize the rigors of women's work. On the flip side, some ecofeminists posit women as the "natural" and original "guardians of nature." Such a position fails to acknowledge that it is also women who degrade their immediate natural surroundings to sustain themselves and their families (McIlvaine-Newsad forthcoming; Harding 1998). In privileging women's metaphysical/spiritual relationship to the natural environment over their lived relationship, ecofeminism depoliticizes deforestation, failing to link it to women's lack of social, political, and economic power. It is the reallocation of power and strategic resources that offer women choices that Leach argues is linked to the very survival of the planet (Leach 1992:14).

Vision for the Millennium

Environmental degradation is a global fact. Efforts to stem the tide or reverse the trend must be encouraged and supported. Thus, while ecofeminists have traditionally engaged in more theoretical discussions -unquestionably needed to build an effective political movement - they could learn from the women-of-color movements which have simultaneously developed a theory of praxis (Taylor 1997:69). More attention and research must be given to the practical application of ecofeminism. In addition, models for active political involvement can be found in countries like India, Kenya, Malaysia, and others where women's groups, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), ecological movements, and community groups have successfully organized and mobilized themselves to place women and children at the focus of environmental planning (Shiva 1993: 87-88). These undertakings, while small and diverse, have been quite successful in working out strategies that simultaneously empower women, protect the environment, and are culturally appropriate.

As Salma Nageeb (1994) suggests, a millennium ecofeminism must adopt a strategy of diversity regarding theory and application. It must recognize that the strategies of resistance and change appropriate to white middle-class women in suburbia North America protesting the burial of toxic waste near their homes, polluted drinking water, or the lack of green space and healthy play environments for their children may not be the strategies and issues of choice for low-income women of color in urban areas. Likewise, strategies that have successfully placed women at the center of the environmental movement in India, may not achieve the same degree of success in other countries. Thus, ecofeminism must aim to articulate a theory of praxis that is inclusive and designed to engender a society and environment in which children, men, and women, old and young, of all ethnic groups and cultures, are able to equally partake in social justice, human dignity, and environmental equity and stability.

References Cited

Cuomo, C.J. 1994. Ecofeminism, Deep Ecology and Human Population, in K. Warren, ed., Ecological Feminism. New York: Routledge, pp. 88-105.

Dodd, Elizabeth. 1997. The Mamas and the Papas: Goddess Worship, the Kogi Indians, and Ecofeminism. NWSA Journal 9(3):77-88.

Harding, Sandra. 1998. Is Science Multi-Cultural? Postcolonialisms, Feminisms, and Epistemologies. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Leach, Melissa. 1992 Gender and the Environment: Traps and Opportunities. Development in Practice 2.2:12-22.

McIlvaine-Newsad, Heather. 1998. Applying an Ecofeminist Perspective to Sustainable Development. Unpublished ms.

McIlvaine-Newsad, Heather (Forthcoming). Mapping the Gendered Terrain: A Population's Perception of Food Security and Conservation in the Ecuadorian Tropics.

Merchant, Carolyn. 1990. Ecofeminism and Feminist Theory in Reweaving the World. Cited in Stacy Alaimo, Cyborg and Ecofeminist Interventions. Feminist Studies 20(1):141, 1994.

Nageeb, Salma Ahmed. 1994. The Question of Women and Environment in Sudan: Inquiries into Eco-Feminism and Feminist Environmentalism. Ahfad Journal 11(2):4-15.

Poats, Susan, Marianne Schmink, and Anita Spring, eds. 1988. Gender Issues in Farming Systems Research and Extension. Boulder: Westview Press.

Rocheleau, Dianne and Laurie Ross. 1995. Trees as Tools, Trees as Text: Struggles over Resources in Zambrana-Chaucey, Dominican Republic. Antipode 27.4:407-28.

Shiva, Vandana. 1993. The Impoverishment of the Environment, in M. Mies and S. Vandana, eds. Ecofeminism. London : Zed Books, pp. 70-90.

Slocum, Sally 1975(1971) Woman the Gatherer: Male Bias in Anthropology, in R. Reiter, ed, Toward the Anthropology of Women, New York : Monthly Review Press, pp. 36-50.

Sturgeon, Noël 1997 The Nature of Race, in K. Warren, ed. Ecofeminism: Women, Culture, and Nature. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 260-278.

Taylor, Dorceta E. 1997 Women of Color, Environmental Justice, and Ecofeminism, in Ecofeminism: Women, Culture, and Nature. (Warren, Karen, Ed.) 38-81.

Irma McClaurin (mcclauri@anthro.ufl.edu) is Associate Professor of Anthropology at U Florida. Heather McIlvaine-Newsad (hesi@acceleration.net) is a doctoral candidate in anthropology at U Florida.

Send your Section news items to Ed Liebow (liebow@policycenter.com, tel: 206/675-1002; fax: 206/675-1005). And check the Anthropology/Environment website regularly: http://travel.to/anthenv