a discussion of ecofeminism, its devaluation of women's work, female insubordation and complicity...and whatever else

Ecofeminism is dead-on in its alignment of female and environmental insubordination. Ynestra King boils it down like this in The Ecology of Feminism and the Feminism of Ecology:

1. The building of Western industrial civilization in opposition to nature interacts dialectically with and reinforces the subjugation of women, because women are believed to be closer to nature. Therefore, ecofeminists take on the life struggle of all of nature as our own.
2. Life on earth is an interconnected web, not a hierarchy. There is no natural hierarchy; human hierarchy is projected onto nature and then used to justify social domination. Therefore, ecofeminist theory seeks to show the connections between all forms of domination, including the domination of nonhuman nature, and the ecofeminist practice is necessarily anti-hierarchical.
3. A healthy, balanced ecosystem, including human and nonhuman inhabitants, must maintain diversity. Ecologically, environmental simplification is as significant a problem as environmental pollution. Biological simplification, i.e., the wiping out of whole species, corresponds to reducing human diversity into faceless workers, or to the homogenization of taste and culture through mass consumer markets. Social life and natural life are literally simplified to the inorganic for the convenience of market society...

King goes on to say: In this way, nature became "other," something essentially different from the dominant, to be objectified and subordinated. Women, who are identified with nature, have been similarly objectified and subordinated in patriarchal society.

The nature/female dyad is profound, and ecofeminism (which extends far beyond the work of King), deserves socio-political recognition, to say the least. But, like everything else, it has holes.

To say that MAN has conquered nature and exploited/dominated natural resources to fill material needs through industrialization, technology, and capitalism, IS INHERENTLY ANTI-FEMINIST.

I hardly agree that women sit on the sidelines innocently as men devastate the earth for their own purposes. While politically without a voice, it is anti-feminist to devalue the contribution of women throughout history in reproducing the home and replicating social values that serve to perpetuate larger institutions and loci of power.

Just as wives of anti-Semitic Nazis in Germany nurtured the cause, propagated sentiments of hatred, sent their sons to Hitler's youth camps, sewed uniforms and cooked food, organized events and fund raisers, alienated Jewish neighbors, and turned them into Nazi authorities (and by extension, death camps), WOMEN HAVE BEEN COMPLICIT IN THE ENVIRONMENTAL DEVASTATION BY REPRODUCING THE WORKER/CONQUERER AND REPLICATING THE HOME AS A SOCIAL INSTITUTION OF HETERO-NORMATIVE/PATRIARCHAL INDOCTRINATION.

Therefore, while women are aligned with nature, female insubordination is inherently different because women actively participate in their own oppression, and to deny that fact is to devalue the contributions of women in maintaining social order and industrial progress.