The Dangers of Ecofeminism

Last week, those registered on the Water and Development in Africa course at UCL took part in a role playing seminar. Here, we took on the roles of many different groups affected by the Komadugu-Yobe River Basin. Those acting as the Association of Kano River Irrigation Project (KRIP) Farmers mentioned the work of Jackson in relation to ideas of female empowerment.

Having read the paper ‘Doing What Comes Naturally? Women and Environment in Development’ (Jackson, 1993), I have been forced to consider the idea of female empowerment in relation to ecofeminism and the damaging assumptions that can be made. Though this paper is quite dated now, it does demonstrate the issues associated with assuming women are natural conservationists. I myself have stated in previous posts that women face a greater number of issues relating to water and water management in Africa, but it is important to remember that this does not necessarily mean that women therefore have a greater interest in protecting the environment. Ultimately, the relationship between women and the environment cannot be thought of as in isolation from men’s relationship with the environment as women do not have a particular instinctive closeness to their environment (Jackson, 1993: 1959).

Another problem with the assumptions that ‘Ecofeminist’ and ‘Women, Development and Environment’ literatures can make is that women are somehow homogenous in their attitudes towards the environment across the world. Actually, it is necessary ‘to locate environmental attitudes within particular economies’ (Jackson, 1993: 1949). In fact, Jackson cites two studies that actually demonstrate that women cannot be characterised as inherently environmentally friendly. One study in Kenya (Gould, 1992) describes an area of high male emigration and suggests women can then be successful environmental managers as they are able to impart their knowledge. However, a study in Tanzania (Eele et al., 1992) found male farmers were more likely to make a ‘conservation investment’ than female farmers. Not only do women not experience environmental degradation in a uniform manner, but their attitudes are also not the same across the globe (Jackson, 1993: 1949).

In a more recent paper ‘Environmental Ethics’ by Palmer (2014), the section on ecofeminism further highlights this criticism of the link between women and nature. Palmer suggests that interpretations of ecofeminism have had to be expanded to include oppressions of class and race as previous ideas of ecofeminism were too limiting. This critique also demonstrates this idea that women cannot be assumed to be natural protectors of the environment and that actually, these sorts of discourses, expressed by bodies such as NGOs, can be just as damaging.

Therefore, though women in Africa face a great number of problems in relation to water issues which are no doubt caused by inherent inequalities, we cannot then assume that they will be the natural constituency for conservation activities as actually, women too can be agents of environmental degradation (Jackson, 1993: 1952). In a later blog post, I will discuss the importance of female empowerment in creating successful water management schemes. Therefore, this post has been a preface to my later post to draw attention to the fact that though I believe female empowerment to be necessary for successful water management schemes to be achieved, I am not assuming that female empowerment will automatically lead to environmental solutions because women are somehow natural protectors, but rather that their experiences and knowledge can only aid water management schemes as more views are considered and more stakeholders are represented.

References

Eele, G., et al. (1992). Environmental change and the response by small-holder famers: some evidence from Tanzania. Paper given at the Annual Conference of the British Society for Population Studies, Exeter College (Oxford, September 9-11).

Gould, B. (1992). Population growth, environmental stability and migration in Western Province, Kenya. Paper given at the Annual Conference of the British Society for Population Studies, Exeter College (Oxford: September 9-11).

Jackson, C. (1993). Doing what comes naturally? Women and environment in development. World Development, 21(12), 1947-1963.

Palmer, C., McShane, K., & Sandler, R. (2014). Environmental Ethics. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 39, 419-442.