Basic Tenets:
1. Important experiential, theoretical, and linguistic parallels exist between the oppression and subordination of women and nature in Western cultural tradition. Patriarchal systems have been responsible for the environmental catastrophe and the systems of oppression and exploitation of women, the poor, the ‘other’ through systems of institutionalized violence and injustice.
2. The historical linking of the Feminine with Nature entails a connection between ways women and nature have been dominated and oppressed. This has taken the form of culturally constructed conceptual binaries and ideological hierarchies that allow a systematic justification of domination “power-over” the ‘Other’ e.g. rich over poor, man over woman, culture over nature.
3. Ecofeminists also explore the relationship between sexism, the domination of nature, racism, speciesism, and other aspects of social inequality. Ecofeminists argue that the capitalist and patriarchal systems that predominate throughout the world reveal a triple domination – of the people who live in the Third World, women, and nature.
4. Finding “shared power” and replacing hierarchical ‘power-over’ relationships with empowerment, healing feelings of helplessness and alienation from the social and natural environment.
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