Ecofeminism

The second chapter that I read was on Ecofeminism. This chapter was a little more 'out there' than the others, but equally interesting. Their main train of thought is that females, like the earth are dominated and essentially ruined by men and male concepts. The parallels that they drew between women and the earth are ones that i had commonly heard but never really understood their signifcance. For example, 'mother earth' and girls being 'naturalized' by calling them 'chicks, cows,' and even bitch is really an animal term. This seems harmless enough but when you think about it women are always compared to or categorized with things in submissive positions. We think of domesticating animals and manipulating the world around us to benefit us.Although obviously 'mother nature' can often completley overpower man in general-this still fits into the feminine characteristic of being unpredictable, explosive, and illogical. Although all ecofeminists can agree that feminism and environmentalism are problems that go hand-in-hand, there are many divisions within the group. For example they disagree about whether it is beneficial or harmful to their cause to highlight the connection between females and the earth. Many say that this comparison automatically place women below men and there will never been equality as long as women are placed in this category. however, others believe that embracing the correlations would empower women more. There is also divisions between the idea of deep and shallow ecology-shallow ecology beleives that it is important to protect the earth because humans need it for their survival. Deep ecology says that we should protect the earth solely because of its intrinsic value and not because of its importance to humans. Overall i took ecofeminism to be a very broad concept with many different variations but their unifying idea of feminism and environmentalism being connected did strike a chord with me. In complete contrast with post-modern feminism, i think ecofeminism is too exclusive. Some of their  views were so extreme that it is unrealistic to try for a wide range of supporters. For example this seemed to be the most intensely man-hating chapter that ive come across. Furthering the division between men and women is exactly what they're against but also exactly what they're promoting. My idea of ecofeminism would be more of a mix between postmodern and eco- in that yes feminism and environmentalism are connected but it should and does pertain to everyone since we do all live on the same planet. Ideally i guess what i was thinking of before i read the chapter was that ecofeminism would promote equality for all things-men, women, plants, animals, rocks , grass--anything on the planet. Obviously thats extremely ideal and at this point i think safe to say impossible, but i was just a little taken aback by the extremeness and tangible anger that seemed to be in many of the spokesperson's veiws.