Ecofeminism: Spiritual or Political by Maria Meyes and Vandana Shiva: Summary

The given paper tries to define ecofeminism and its purposes. It is a general overview of ecofeminism as a whole told from the perspective of the author. The author tried to differentiate ecofeminist universalism from that which emerged after the Enlightenment and through the capitalist patriarchal roots. According to this school of thought, instead of there being basic and higher needs, there is simply needs – one is not greater than the other.

According to Ynestra King, Ecofeminism is a connection between practice and theory. Basically well-being of the earth ensures well-being of all the living creatures. According to ecofeminist theory, the main threat to environment or nature is the capitalist mentality, which exploits the nature for material gain and in the process, harms individuals.

The patriarchy exploits women in the same way it exploits nature. Throughout many historical events, this connection between exploitation of nature and exploitation women have been observed. For example, Bhopal in India; Whyl in South-West Germany, Switzerland and so on. In all of these cases, women were the most active participants who were against this profit-oriented mentality, which overlooked the well-being of the civilians. It is observed that most of these catastrophes were caused by men due to their nature of conquering and disregard for life.

After the Chernobyl disaster in Russia, most of the women became aware of this correlation of exploitation. They realized the gender biasness of science as a whole and came to the conclusion that science as a whole is patriarchal in nature which does not hesitate to exploit others, especially women. 

Ecofeminism is spiritual in the sense that it acknowledges the dependency of humans on nature as opposed to the thought process of Francis Bacon and other pioneering, albeit patriarchal scientists. Previously, the aim of science was to transcendent the dependency of humans on nature because it implied the subordination of men. Such mentality led to the destruction of nature in a similar fashion that exploited women. However, through ecofeminist studies, such subordination is not only to be accepted but expected. It is mentioned that the need for something spiritual stemmed from the spiritual crisis created by the Western capitalist and patriarchal ideas. Ecofeminism is not a separation of material from the spiritual but the emphasis on the interconnection of both, whereas, the aim of capitalist mentality, as well as the Marxist mentality, is to focus only on the material part.