Try a course on environmental management and ethics.
In this lecture, I would like to introduce you to ecofeminism.
My name is Steffen Foss Hansen.
I'm associate professor at the Technical University of Denmark,
Department of Environmental Engineering.
So far, we've introduced you to two other kinds of environmental ethics.
First I've introduced you to "Land ethics",
which was developed in 1949 by Aldo Leopold.
And second, we have introduced you to "Deep ecology",
which was developed in the early 70s by the Norwegian philosopher Arne Næss.
Firstly, we would like to introduce you to ecofeminism which originates
also from the 70's, specifically 1974.
So what is ecofeminism?
Ecofeminism is by definition set to be an activist,
an academic movement that sees a critical connection between
the domination of nature as well as the exploitation of women.
So these are the two fundamental components of ecofeminism.
On the one hand, domination of nature.
And on the other hand, domination of women.
And ecofeminism sees a link between the two lines of domination.
Both historically and present.
Ecofeminism originates from the 70's, the 1970's.
It's important to realise that the spirit of the
70's very much transcends into ecofeminism.
At the time, we had a cold war going on between America and Russia.
There was a lot of discussion about nuclear weapons, etcetera.
And there was a beginning of feminism in general.
Along with an increasing environmental consciousness.
There was a lot of debate in the 70's as well about
social and economical principles in general in society.
And in that spirit of the early 70's,
Francoise d'Eaubonne first used the term ecofeminism to
kind of refer to a new social movement that was on the horizon.
The symbolism between women and nature is not
necessarily new but it's very outspoken in ecofeminism.
Very often women are provide a simple little relationship with nature,
and we often speak about Nature and Mother Earth,
and the whole Gaia methodology or methods methodology.
Childbirth is also something that is very often considered
as evidence of the link between women and nature.
And in that sense,
ecofeminism is kind of transcends into that way of thinking about women and nature.
The argument that ecofeminists bring forward is
that historically the domination and oppression of
women is very similar to the way that men have dominated and oppressed the land.
And the argument furthermore is that societies that have oppressed women very often
also have activities that lead to the abuse of the environment in general.
So the purpose of ecofeminism,
or the main principles of ecofeminism,
is to avoid every kind of discrimination and domination.
It emphasizes the importance of the interrelationship between humans,
non-humans and the Earth.
Earth and life forms are considered sacred and must be preserved.
We must live in a balance with nature to ensure the future.
And, technological development should not be
the main driver for the development of new technologies.
It should have a purpose.
So these are some of the principles of ecofeminism.
We don't have that many examples of applied ecofeminisms around the world.
But there are a number of good examples that are of interest to mentioned here.
One of the first examples is the Indian chipko or tree hugging movement.
It's a good example of where women work together to
preserve prestitious forests for their local communities.
They relied on these forest to make a living,
to provide food and shelter, etcetera.
And the government's approach or suggestions to cut the forest was then inspired
them to come together with a men as well to protect and preserve the forest.
And in that sense, one can see that there's a link between
maybe oppression of women and as well as oppression of nature.
Another good example is the Kenyan greenbelt movement where band of especially women.
That ban specially women together to plant millions of trees in
deforestated environments to bind the soil and to store rainwater in the soil.
And similar activities were not just set up
in Kenya but also all over various regions of Africa.
And eventually actually led to the founder of the movement
to receive the Nobel Prize some years ago.
So these are a couple of good examples of what I would call applied ecofeminism.
Where like initiatives to empower women through initiatives that also
eventually aim at protecting or preserving environmental integrity are kind of a bind
together into meeting a common goal which is to
avoid domination of women as well as domination of the environment.
Thank you very much for your attention.
