ECOLOGY OF EVERYDAY LIFE
64
beyond individualistic and romantic tendencies within the wider ecology
movement. Overall, ecofeminism has consistently offered a politicized and
collective expression of a social, rather than individual, desire for political and
ecological integrity. Striving to make connections between women’s everyday
lives
and ecological
degradation within
the
context of hierarchy and
oppression, ecofeminism has continued to push the radical ecology movement
forward by raising awareness of the ongoing need to examine issues of gender,
culture, race, class, and power.
As we look toward the next decade, we may begin to consider how to
continue to elaborate upon ecofeminist theory and action by building upon
and transcending the possibilities and problems presented by its origins. By
integrating new areas of ecofeminist scholarship with the best of what its
‘originating traditions’ have to offer, we may begin to explore the potentialities
for creating an increasingly social ‘desire for nature’ that can take U.S.
passionately and thoughtfully into the next century.
Notes
1. Anne Koedt, "Women in the Radical Movement," in Radical Feminism, eds. Anne Koedt,
Ellen Levine, and Anita Rapone (New York: New York Times Books Co., 1973), p. 318.
2. The term 'cultural feminism' emerged during the '70s as a way to point to essentialist
notions of sexual difference that surfaced within feminist discussions of sexuality, gender, and
culture; notions that were embedded in new reconstructions of women's cultural practices
including women’s music festivals, newspapers, and medical clinics. For an indepth look at
one of the earlier critiques of cultural feminism, written during the thick of the feminist
sexuality debates, see Alice Echols, "The New Feminism of Yin and Yang," in Poivers of
Desire: The Politics of Sexuality eds. Ann Snitow, et al. (New York: Monthly Review Press,
1983), pp. 439-460. For a more comprehensive discussion also see Echols, Daring to be Bad:
Radical Feminism in America 1967-75, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Pi-ess, 1989).
3. Audre Lorde, "An Open Letter to Mary Daly," in Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by
Audre Lorde (New York: The Crossing Press, 1984), p. 67.
4. See Gloria Anzaldua and Cherrie Moraga, Second Edition, This Bridge Called My Back (New
York: Kitchen Table Press, 1983).
5. bell hooks, "Rethinking the Nature of Work," in Feminist Theoiy: from margin to center,
(Boston: South End Press, 1984) p. 98.
6. Lorde, Sistei" Outsider, p. 70.
7. Audre Lorde, The Cancer Journals (San Francisco: Spinster's Ink., 1980).
8. “WITCH statement", in Sisterhood is Powerful cd. Robin Morgan (New York: Vintage Books,
1970), p. 539.
9. Ibid., p. 539.
10. Susan Griffin, Woman and Nature: The Roaring Inside Her (New York: Harper and Row,
1978).
11. Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Womerz, Ecology and the Scientific Revolution (San
Francisco: Harper and Row, 1980).
12. Griffin, Woman and Nature, p. xv.
13. However, it is vital to note that the emergence of an ecological sensibility within the
feminist body politics of the New Left did not negate or even necessarily inform radical
feminism itself. Today, strains of radical feminism continue to evolve independent of an
ecological focus or analysis. An ecological orientation was not endorsed by radical feminists