Ecogender: Locating Gender in Environmental Social Science

Ecofeminism contends that there are important interconnections between the domination of women and the domination of the environment, a perspective that might be expected to attract the interest of environmental social scientists. However, environmental social scientists have largely ignored ecofeminism, despite feminism's increasing incorporation in general social science. This may be attributed to the common contention that ecofeminism suffers from a tendency to become more an ideological construct than an academic perspective. But despite a recent surge in cross-disciplinary research, especially in critical geography, political ecology, and poststructuralism, questions of gender remain rarely addressed within mainstream environmental social sciences. Given this neglect, we present an alternative conception, what we term “ecogender studies.” “Ecogender studies” draws on those strands of ecofeminism that embrace a relational and dialogic conception of gender and its intersection with other inequalities, and departs from those ecofeminist strands that sacralize an essentialist “nature” and romanticize non-Western traditions.