When
outlining Salleh’s ecofeminism, one way of proceeding is clarifying what it is
not. First, it is different from liberal feminism and its focus on equality
between men and women in currently existing social and power relationships. As
Salleh points out, ‘for too many equality feminists, the link between their own
emancipated urban affluence and unequal appropriation of global resources goes
unexamined’ (P.155). While inequality between men and women is criticised by
liberal feminists, they overlook broader dynamics of oppression and
exploitation between, for example, industrialised and developing countries.
Equally, Salleh is critical of poststructural feminism. While she appreciates the contribution of deconstructing dominant discourses, she is sceptical of reducing politics to discourse. ‘Ironically, the pluralism that results from these emancipations becomes neoliberalism by default, because once the moment of destabilisation has passed and discourse effects are exposed, the postmodern exercise has little further to add’ (P.258). Thus, poststructural feminism demobilises. It does not provide the basis for resistance.
Salleh
also clearly distinguishes ecofeminism from Marxist understandings of
exploitation in capitalism. As she points out, ‘Marx’s vision of human dominion
over the natural world spoke a linear notion of progress – an idea reinforced
by his contemporary Darwin’s evolutionary schema’ (P.109). The dualism between
human beings and nature, identified as underpinning the destructive
implications of capitalism for the environment, is also visible in historical
materialist analyses, she argues.
By
contrast, Salleh highlights the distinctive experience of women anchoring
ecofeminism in women’s different sex. ‘What is undeniably given’, she argues,
‘is the fact that women and men do have existentially different relationships
to nature because they have different kinds of body organs’ (P.147). It is on
the basis of this fundamental distinction that Salleh perceives strong commonalities
and ultimately unity of women from around the world regardless of their
ethnicity or class. ‘Sisters North and South have more in common than many
think, and that commonality increases as globalisation expands’ (P.141).
This
is not an essentialist argument in that Salleh does not claim that women’s
outlook and behaviour is automatically different from men due to their
different sex. Rather, the argument is that women’s relationship to nature and
human beings alike is shaped by their bodily capacity of giving birth to new
life and related caring tasks. ‘Biology can inscribe cognitive structures just
as much as discourse does’ (P.147). These capacities and experiences are
fundamentally different from male experiences and, hence, sustain different
activities and ways of approaching crisis. ‘Women are organically and
discursively implicated in life-affirming activities, and they develop
gender-specific knowledges grounded in that material base. The result is that
women across cultures have begun to express insights that are quite removed
from most men’s approaches to global crisis – whether these be corporate
greenwash, ecological ethics or socialism’ (P.240).
A number of authors acknowledge that the appropriation of women’s unpaid labour in the household and the expropriation of natural
resources are both part of capital’s wider social relations in ensuring ongoing
accumulation of surplus value. Jason Moore, for example, points out that capitalism
relies equally on unpaid female labour as well as on securing constantly new
‘cheap natures’ (see Capitalism in theWeb of Life: Jason Moore on the exploitation of nature). Nevertheless,
while he adds up these forms of capitalist exploitation, Salleh’s ecofeminism
is able to understand their inextricable internal relation. ‘Global crisis is
the outcome of a capitalist patriarchal system that treats both women and
nature as “resources”’ (P.209).
Salleh’s
work is highly important in the way it furthers our understanding of how
capitalist accumulation is not only sustained through exploitation and the
extraction of surplus value in the workplace, but equally dependent on the
internally related patriarchal oppression of women and relentless destruction
of nature. My only concern is the difficulty of identifying an agent of
resistance in ecofeminism. She talks about ‘women’s unique agency in an era of
ecological crisis’ (P.20), but does not translate this insight into current
struggles against capitalist exploitation and the wider landscape of social
movements involved in these struggles. Perhaps, we need to understand
ecofeminism more as a way of struggle rather than specific agency?
Interestingly,
in a report on the international conference The Future is
Public: Democratic Ownership of the Economy, organised by the
Transnational Institute in Amsterdam on 4
and 5 December 2019, ecofeminism is specifically referred to as a lense, which
‘recognises the equality and interdependence of human beings and the ecosystems
we inhabit’ (7 Steps to build a
Democratic Economy).
It allows us, the report states, to think about re-orienting our economic
system, including ‘the deprivatisation of care-based services; new training for
public servants that emphasises the quality of relationships rather than market
efficiency; and the reorientation of investment away from socially and
ecologically destructive industries towards forms of caring labour which are
inherently low-carbon, as well as being of immense social use’ (7 Steps to build a
Democratic Economy).
In short, this is a clear example of how ecofeminism as a way of struggle and
way of creating new forms of living is already influencing concrete policy
proposals.
Hence,
ecofeminism has an important role to play in resisting exploitation and
developing paths towards alternative, post-capitalist futures due to the ways
it comprehends the internal relations between different forms of oppression.
‘Ecofeminist politics is a feminism in as much as it offers an uncompromising
critique of capitalist patriarchal culture from a womanist perspective; it is a
socialism because it honours the wretched of the earth; it is an ecology
because it reintegrates humanity with nature; it is a postcolonial discourse
because it focuses on deconstructing Eurocentric domination’ (PP.282-3).
As
scientists point out, it has been capital’s relentless encroachment into nature,
which is ultimately responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic (see Guardian, 27 April
2020).
As the world struggles with the coronavirus crisis and the onset of a major
economic crisis, capitalism is again thrown into turmoil due to its internal
contradictions. Salleh’s powerful volume helps us to understand these dynamics.
I strongly recommend this book for reading to all interested in moving towards
post-capitalist futures!
Andreas.Bieler@nottingham.ac.uk
Andreas Bieler
Professor of Political Economy
University of Nottingham/UK
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