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Ⅱ.The Production of Eco-feminism
The first-wave is called liberal feminism, which refers to women’s suffrage movements of the nineteenth and the early twentieth century, which connects with women’s right to vote. It can be traced back to a book—A Vindication of the Rights of Women, published in 1793 by British female writer Mary Wollstonecraft, who puts forward that women should share the same rights as men in education, employment and political.
In British the suffragettes and, possibly more effective, the suffragists campaigned for the women’s vote, followed by Emmeline Pankhurst the leader of the movement. In 1918, the representation of the People’s Act was passed, which had granted the vote to women over the age of 30 who owned housed. In 1928 this was extended to all women over twenty-one. In the United States, on behalf of the National Woman Suffrage Association, Elizabeth Cady Stanton is the leader of this movement. The NMSA asked for the federal government to permit the female to participate in political vote repeatedly, however, it was rejected. Finally, in the early twentieth century, female got the right to vote, which passed in The Nineteenth Amendment (1920). Although women’s vote right was guaranteed by the law, works allowed women to do was still limited. The traditional concepts about women were still wife, mother and housewife.
From the early 1960s to the late 1980s, the second-wave feminism is dominated by radical feminism, which holds the belief that the economic institution of capitalism is not the only source of patriarchy. Female’s statuses are always inferior to male in all economic systems, no matter in capitalist or socialist society. The feminist activist and author Card Hanisch coined the slogan “The Personal is Political” which becomes synonymous with the second-wave. Second-wave feminists see women’s cultural and political inequalities as inextricably linked and encouraged women to understand aspects of their lives as deeply politicized and as reflecting sexist power structures.
The phrase “Women’s Liberation” was first used in the United States in 1964 and first appeared in print in 1966. By 1968, Women’s Liberation Front was starting to refer to the whole women’s movement, when it firstly appeared in the magazine Ramparte.
Arising as a response to perceived failures of the Second-wave Feminism and also as a recreation to the backlash against initiatives and movements, which was the Third-wave Feminism began in the early 1990s. The production of the Third-wave Feminism relates to two factors. One is that, because the concepts of sexual liberation and feminist in 1960s cause the number of broken family and single mother increasing sharply, the prevalence of problem child and Aids, which makes people rethink is it worth to pay such a heavy price for sexual liberation and feminist? The other factor is that, after 1980s, more and more women take the leading position of government, companies and schools. As a result, the Third-wave Feminism emerges as the time requires. The features of the Third-wave Feminism are represented by an intersection of feminism, post-modernism, post-colonialism and new historicism. In the end, feminism began an essential swift, changing from pursuing identity and concerning difference to tolerant difference, pursing equality, respect and coexistence.
Increasing number of people is aware that ecology crisis has become much more serious, so eco-feminism comes forth. Eco-feminism is an activist and academic movement that sees critical connections between the domination of women and the exploration of nature. The term—eco-feminism, first used by French feminist Francoise d’ Eaubonne in her book—Le Feminisme ou la mort (1974). Eco-feminism connects the exploitation and domination of women with that of the environment, and argues that there is a connection between women and nature. Eco-feminists believe that this connection is illustrated through the traditionally “female” values of reciprocity, nurturing and cooperation, which are present both among women and in nature. Women and nature are also united through their shared history of oppression by a patriarchal in western society. Vandana Shiva claims that women have a special connection to the environment through their daily interactions and this connection has been ignored. She says that “Women in subsistence economies, producing and reproducing wealth in partnership with nature, have been experts in their own right of holistic and ecological knowledge of nature’s process.”(4) However, she makes the point that “These alternative modes of knowing, which are oriented to the social benefits and sustenance needs are not recognized by the capitalist reductionist paradigm, because it fails to perceive the interconnection of nature or the connection of women’s lives, work and knowledge with the creation of wealth.”(Chen 167-168)