However, its principles preexisted d’Eaubonne’s book. The term was first used in the 1970s by French writer Françoise d’Eaubonne in a book titled Le Féminisme ou la mort (which I must say I have not read, but FYI the Kindle version is free). Of course somebody had to make a parallel between feminism and environmentalism!Įcofeminism is a movement (and a philosophy) that draws on the concept of gender to analyse the relationships between humans and the natural world. Our gendered imagery surrounding energy (notably fossil fuels) is built on an opposition between (manly) brute force engaged to forcibly extract Earth’s resources, and good, loving Mother Earth whose job it is to reproduce those resources. Ecofeminism presents us with a dilemma that is fundamentally the dilemma for all feminists.

That’s why I’ll make it the subject of this week’s newsletter. Nevertheless it provides interesting questions. This movement, referred to as “ecofeminism”, is not a movement I fully identify with (even though I am both a feminist and an environmentalist). Barack Obama said The Power was one of his favourite books of 2017 📚 The guy knows a few things about power.Īlso in my ebook I mention the parallel established by some feminists between feminism and environmentalism. The book was a huge best-seller and will be adapted into a TV series (as it should be). The message is that power corrupts, and systems that empower a group of individuals to dominate another will always lead to abuse and tyranny. Interestingly this novel’s feminist message is not that women are inherently better and naturally more gentle than men. Some women don’t hesitate to electrocute whoever bothers them. Men get assaulted more often and women use (abuse) their powers whenever they feel like it. And women decide that God is female (why not?). Men get scared, lobby for single-sex schools to protect their boys from female attacks. In short the central premise of this sci fi novel is that women have developed the ability to release electricity from their fingers (and brains) and are thus in a position to become the dominant gender. In my ebook, I had fun mentioning Naomi Alderman’s novel, The Power (2016), which elaborates on this connection between power and energy, quite literally.

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