Ecofeminism: Essentialism, Shared Experience or Quintessential Environmentalism?

Abstract

[Abstract] Ecofeminism originated in political activism in the late 70s and 80s and only found its way into literary criticism in the 90s. Throughout human history, nature has constantly been feminized and women naturalized, particularly due to aspects of fertility and natural cycles. While some feminists reject this association of women and nature, others embraced the relationship between women and nature, based on the shared experience of oppression and domination. Ecofeminists highlight the conceptual connection between the domination of women and the domination of nature as being located in an oppressive and patriarchal conceptual framework characterized by a logic of domination. This round table pretends to analyze both ecofeminist literary theory and representative literary works. The panelists will discuss writers such as Ana Castillo, Alicia Gaspar de Alba and Octavia Butler. We will also show several photographs from the campaigns of the PETA organization and analyze them from an ecofeminist approach.