Feminism and Environmental Ethics: A Materialist Perspective 221women/the female, most do not see men as a lost cause. The problem arises with
patriarchal structures which ‘emerge’ as cultural forms. When these structures are
confronted and defeated, men and women can adopt a suitably earth-centred
approach. For social constructionist ecofeminists, the most important structures
that have created and/or sustained the hierarchical dualism of male–female are
Western cultural and/or socioeconomic structures. This hierarchical dualism is
symbolized by the emergence of a dominant public world based on a conception
of rationality that seems to exclude women as participants (Lloyd, 1993) and the
natural world as an entity worthy of moral concern (Plumwood, 1993; Warren,
1994). Although Plumwood and Warren would tend to see the cultural/philo-
sophical framework of western society as fundamental, from a materialist ecofem-
inist perspective I would argue for an approach starting from sex/gender dualism
as a relation of (re)production. This reflects a material necessity rather than a cul-
tural/philosophical construction. In all human societies the need exists to con-
struct the social within the constraints of the agency of the natural. This is
exacerbated by the dualist and sexist structures of western society.
The dilemma of human embodiment exists as a fundamental feature of the
human condition but it becomes most destructive in the divided societies of capi-
talist patriarchy where domination and transcendence of the natural world is cen-
tral. With Ariel Salleh (1994) and Ynestra King (1990), I would argue that the sex/
gender division of labour around human embodiment is the crucial factor. Women
are materially associated with, and largely responsible for, human embodiment
whether as paid or unpaid work. Although feminists have traditionally opposed
women’s association with the ‘natural’ work of mothering, nurturing, and caring,
ecofeminists have followed cultural feminists in revaluing women’s work. Material-
ist ecofeminism analyses the material relations of sex/gender in terms of the
demands of human physical embodiment and ecological embeddedness. Unlike
earlier traditions in feminism which sought to join male-dominated society in its
seeming transcendence of natural conditions and the constraints of domestic life,
ecofeminists have embraced immanence rather than transcendence. Immanence
has been described by an ecofeminist exponent of the pagan tradition of witchcraft
as the embracement of hu(man)ity within the alive-ness of the natural world
(Starhawk, 1990). I would agree but would prefer to express these ideas in physical
rather than magical terms. Alive nature may be, but it is not supernatural.
The dilemma for ecofeminism is that its two elements are in contradiction to
each other. Although feminism has historically sought to explain and overcome
women’s association with the natural, ecology is attempting to re-embed hu(man)
ity in its natural framework. Ecofeminism generally is incompatible with ‘equal
opportunities’, liberal/equality/humanist feminism, and there are obvious dangers
for the equalities that (some) women have achieved in going back to an association
of women with nature whether it is on an affinity, social constructionist or mate-
rialist basis. From a deep materialist analysis it is not possible to see sex/gender
relations as entirely socially constructed. It is no accident that women were associ-
ated with nature, it was not a mistake or some historical legacy as Ulrich Beck