19 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Do you call yourself a feminist?, September 16, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Ecofeminism (Paperback)
If you call youself a feminist, you need to read this book! It will change the way you think about western feminists and the relationships between nature, women, and capitalism.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ecofeminists for life?, August 27, 2010
This review is from: Ecofeminism (Paperback)
"Ecofeminism" by Maria Mies and Vandana Shiva is a collection of articles dealing with various aspects of ecofeminism, a relatively new and somewhat controversial philosophy. Ecofeminism isn't a simple combination of Green and feminist ideas. Rather, it's a very specific current, which often runs counter to more regular feminism.
The ecofeminists reject the Enlightenment, the bourgeois revolutions and modern individualism. They also attack modern science for its materialism and reductionism. Women are seen as closer to Nature, and ecofeminists therefore see a connection between patriarchal oppression of women and destruction of the environment. In terms of greenness, ecofeminists could be considered "dark greens" or "fundis", since they seem to reject the entire modern civilization in favour of a society based on subsistence agriculture. Strangely for dark greens, however, they don't consider overpopulation to be a problem.
While ecofeminism is regarded as left-wing (no doubt because of its anti-hierarchic perspective), its anti-Enlightenment, anti-science, communitarian and "organismic" perspective does have obvious affinities with a certain kind of conservative philosophies. And while Mies and Shiva nominally defend the right of abortion, they actually seem to vacillate on the issue. It would seem that they really oppose both abortion and modern contraception (including condoms) in favour of coitus interruptus. This is a very extreme position, reminiscent of certain religious groups. Curiously, there is a mostly-religious group in the United States called Feminists for Life (FFL) which explicitly opposes abortion and is neutral on contraception, no doubt in order to recruit Catholics. Unless I'm mistaken, FFL is loosely associated with a Catholic current known as Consistent Life Ethic. Apparently, the most radical supporters of this current are animal rights activists and vegetarians.
There doesn't seem to be anything in particular precluding a fusion of ecofeminism and the anti-abortion "feminists", except perhaps the traditional left-right divide.
I can't say I like it. I'm a feminist. But apparently, not an ecofeminist for life.
(Since the book is a good introduction to ecofeminism, I gave it five stars despite disagreeing with much of the contents.)
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0 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
So. Awful., September 6, 2011
This review is from: Ecofeminism (Paperback)
I had to read this book for a class. In it, it states that birth control causes infertility, which is hardly true with modern birth control. Though with some, there can be a delay after prolonged usage, it is not a large problem. However, they did cite this source! It was cited "survey of five women". That breaks just about every statistical rule I've ever learned. It also at one point made some sort of assumption that most men have never touched a plant. Also, if they had a proofreader s(he) was probably drunk the whole time. There were so many typos in the book!
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