Ecofeminism as gendered, ethnicized class struggle: A rejoinder to Stuart Rosewarne

Capitalism, Nature, Socialism

Volumn 17, Issue 4, 2006, Pages 87-95

  Turner, Terisa E ^a   Brownhill, Leigh ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CAPITALISM; CLASS; ECOFEMINISM; ETHNICITY; GENDER ISSUE; LABOR; POLITICAL REFORM; WOMENS STATUS; WORKING CONDITIONS;

EID: 33751198248     PISSN: 10455752     EISSN: 15483290     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/10455750601004574     Document Type: Conference Paper

References (23)

1. See in this issue: Stuart Rosewarne, "Socialist Ecology's Necessary Engagement with Ecofeminism," Capitalism Nature Socialism, Vol. 17, No. 4, 2006, pp. 78-86.
2. The reference is to Terisa E. Turner and Leigh Brownhill, "We Want Our Land Back: Gendered Class Analysis, the Second Contradiction of Capitalism, and Social Movement Theory," Capitalism Nature Socialism, Vol. 15, No. 4, 2004, pp. 21-40. The authors appreciate the contributions of Craig Benjamin and the Midnight Notes collective to the ideas represented here. The research reflected in this response was supported by the International Development Research Center in Ottawa and Canada's Social Science and Humanities Research Council.
3. Claudia von Werlhof, "The Proletarian is Dead: Long Live the Housewife!" in M. Mies, V. Bennholdt-Thomsen, and C. von Werlhof (eds.), Women: The Last Colony (London: Zed Books, 1988), italics added.
4. Midnight Notes Collective, Midnight Oil: Work, Energy, War, 1973-1992, (Brooklyn: Autonomedia, 1992), p. xiii.
5. Terisa E. Turner and Leigh Brownhill, "The Fight for Fertility in Africa: Kenyan Women, the Subsistence Economy and Globalization from Below," in G. Yovanovitch (ed.), The New World Order: Agendas and Creative Spirits (Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 2003).
6. James O'Connor, "A Political Strategy for Ecology Movements," Capitalism Nature Socialism, Vol. 3, No. 1, 1992, p. 3.
7. James O'Connor, "The Second Contradiction of Capitalism," CES/CNS Pamphlet 1, 1990, p. 1.
8. Ibid. p. 4. O'Connor's choice to call this "the second" contradiction rather than "a secondary" contradiction of capital suggests that for O'Connor, this tendency of capital to exhaust the conditions of production is of equal importance to, and to some degree autonomous from, his "first contradiction" of capital, namely the tendency for profits to decline due to the struggles of workers and to contradictions in the organization of production.
9. Midnight Notes Collective, op. cit., pp. xiii-xiv.
10. Nicole Cox and Silvia Federici, Counterplanning From the Kitchen - Wages for Housework: A Perspective on Capital and the Left (Bristol: Falling Wall Press, 1975)
11. and Selma James, Women, The Unions and Work (Bristol: Falling Wall Press, 1976).
12. Claudia von Werlhof, "On the Concept of Nature and Society in Capitalism" in Mies, Bennholdt-Thomsen and von Werlhof, op. cit., pp. 109-110.
13. See also Ivan Illich, Shadow Work (New York: Boyars, 1981), whose term we adapt to underline this hidden, yet ubiquitous, form of labor.
14. Terisa E. Turner, "Rastafari and the New Society" in T. E. Turner (ed.), Arise Ye Mighty People! Gender, Class and Race in Popular Struggles (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1993)
15. Terisa E. Turner and M. Oshare, "Women's Uprisings Against the Nigerian Oil Industry in the 1980s," in ibid.
16. Claudia von Werlhof, "Women's Work: The Blind Spot in the Critique of Political Economy," in Mies, Bennholdt-Thomsen and von Werlhof, op. cit.
17. See also Silvia Federici, Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation (Brooklyn: Autonomedia, 2004).
18. Alexander Wilson, The Culture of Nature: North American Landscape from Disney to Exxon Valdez (Toronto: Between the Lines, 1991).
19. Bina Agarwal, "The Gender and Environment Debate"
20. and Jane Collins, "Women and the Environment: Social Reproduction and Sustainable Development," in ibid.
21. As Joel Kovel affirms, "any path out of capitalism must also be ecofeminist," The Enemy of Nature: The End of Capitalism or the End of the World? (London: Zed Books, 2002), p. 176; and indeed, Stuart Rosewarne shares this understanding.
22. Maria Mies and Vandana Shiva, Ecofeminism (London: Zed Books, 1993)
23. Veronica Bennholdt-Thomsen and Maria Mies, The Subsistence Perspective (London: Zed Books, 1999).