FEMINIST THOUGHT

242 Chapter 7: Ecofeminism
Critics of deep ecology fault both the theory underlying deep ecology
and some of its tactics. They demand to know what the source of nature’s
intrinsic value is, rejecting the mere fact of nature’s “is-ness” as an inadequate
answer to their question. Just because something exists, they say,
does not make it intrinsically valuable. In an effort to persuade these critics
that nature is indeed intrinsically valuable, Peter Wenz argued there is
something intuitively wrong about destroying an ecosystem when there is
no good reason to do so. He claimed that if the last surviving human being
after a worldwide disaster had a choice between saving or not saving
all the remaining plant and animal life on the earth, it would not be “a
matter of moral indifference” whether the person chose to save these lifeforms.
10 Although critics of deep ecology agree with Wenz that the earth
has value independent of us, they do not agree with the view that the
earth’s interests are equal to or even more important than ours. For example,
critic Luc Ferry vehemently objected to some deep ecologists’ proposal
that if we fail or refuse to control the size of our population
voluntarily, then the government should force us to do so, so that nonhuman
animals have enough food and space. Does this mean, asked Ferry,
that to get the ideal human-nonhuman population ratio, 11 our government
should do nothing to stop the kind of “massive human die backs”
caused by famine, disease, and war? 12 Are we to be handled like an overpopulated
herd of deer?
Ecofeminism:
New Philosophy or Ancient Wisdom?
Ecofeminism is a relatively new variant of ecological ethics. In fact, the term
ecofeminism first appeared in 1974 in Françoise d’Eaubonne’s Le Féminisme
ou la mort. In this work, she expressed the view that there exists a direct link
between the oppression of women and the oppression of nature. She claimed
the liberation of one cannot be effected apart from the liberation of the
other. 13 A decade or so after Eaubonne coined the term, Karen J. Warren further
specified four core assumptions of ecofeminism:
(1) There are important connections between the oppression of women
and the oppression of nature; (2) understanding the nature of these
connections is necessary to any adequate understanding of the oppression
of women and the oppression of nature; (3) feminist theory and
practice must include an ecological perspective; and (4) solutions to
ecological problems must include a feminist perspective. 14