Essay from the year 2008 in the subject Gender Studies, grade: A, University of Auckland, course: Political Theory of the Environment, language: English, abstract: Feminism and Environmentalism are both recent phenomens in political theory. They
both challenge mainstream politics as movements and as critical concepts. Thus they
have in common that they are in themselves political and question the establishment.
As concepts they can be applied in political theory to a variation of ideologies and
interrupt the political scene. Andrew Dobson and Robyn Eckersley argue that there is a
rising interest of the mainstream in environmental thoughts as they can contribute to
major political concepts like democracy, justice and others. Herein they see a parallel to
feminist theory which has a major impact on a broad range of aspects in political theory
(Dobson/Eckersley. 2006: 3).
In ecofeminism both concepts merge together. Val Plumwood calls ecofeminism the
'hybrid area' "which aims at developing a feminism that is ecological and an ecology
that is feminist" (Plumwood. 2006: 51). Thus the question is how both concepts merge
within ecofeminism and how they can contribute to each other and have a larger impact
on political theory in general. As part of this essay I will examine the basic arguments of
ecofeminism and its implications for both concepts as well as on political theory in
general.
I will begin with a definition of the major terms: environmentalism/ecologism, feminism
and ecofeminism. [...]