Events and Impacts
Ecofeminism was a movement by the people, for the people, and because of this, there were many events and creative outpourings that came from and assisted in the ecofeminist movement. Ecofeminim spread in many different ways. Some found ecofeminist thought, and created art to represent it, while others absorbed the ideas and started their own movements. Society found that there were many different ways to be involved.
One incredibly important event prior to the ecofeminist movement was Earth Day. The very first Earth Day ever was on April 22, 1970, roughly four years before the movement took off. In the decades before Earth Day, America was becoming more and more polluted, and increasingly oblivious. Americans had no idea what was happening to the planet, and so those companies that polluted the skies or the land or the water continued on, safe to do so. People continued to use unsafe and destructive materials and vehicles. However, with Rachel Carson’s book, Silent Spring, the general public became aware of what exactly was going on in their country. A particular senator, Gaylord Nelson, from Wisconsin wanted to bring the energy of student anti-war protestors and his concern for the deteriorating environment together, and created a day to teach college campuses about environmental issues. His idea spread across America, and they changed the name of the day to Earth Day [1]. On the first one in 1970, twenty million Americans went outside to demonstrate and protest. Individual groups against oil spills, the loss of wildlife, and pesticides, all united. Without this massive environmental push, and the new awareness Americans found, the ecofeminist movement would not have had such a strong backbone.
Although protests and rallies were massively impactful and instrumental in change, ecofeminism was not solely found in written activists, but also in art communities. The ecofeminist concepts of breaking down the patriarchy and rediscovering the ancient emphasis on the feminine inspired and astonished artists. Women like Agnes Denes, a member of the Ad Hoc Women Artists’ Committee, pressured museums to show more art by women, and Mierle Ukeles, who presented a new green model for political, economic, and social systems based on the “practice of ‘maintenance,’” something commonly viewed as feminine, used ecofeminism to change the art world [2]. Barbara Kruger is one of the more famous feminist artists of this time, and she created images that represented the fight of women against the patriarchy. One image, “We won’t play our nature to your culture,” presented a view into ecofeminism. In an analysis, it seems to say that women won’t pit nature against the male-dominated culture. It also separates the sides into “us”—the feminists—and “them”—society or the man.
As ecofeminism gained power, the farther it spread. Activism occurred in other countries, including India. India was facing an environmental crisis, in the form of deforestation. Big companies like Symonds, a sports company, were allowed by the forest department to cut down 300 ash trees, while the people of Gopeshwar were not permitted to cut down twelve for small businesses. After witnessing the injustice, a group of villagers, mostly women, hugged the trees, halting the removal, and by doing so, created the Chipko movement. “Chipko,” meaning “embrace,” was the perfect name for tree-hugging, a type of protesting and protection, which became common when the forest was in distress, and so strengthened the movement. In 1974, a group of women, led by Gaura Devi, hugged the trees and refused to move. This was one of the most important environmental protective movements for India, as it spread across the country to other villages. This movement was ecofeminist it its true connection, as the women of the village called the forest their “Mayka,” meaning “mother’s home” [3]. This emotional bond to the forest only gave them more defiance and power to defend their “home.” Protective protesting occurred on a large scale in 1979 and in 1981, when, after a village went on a hunger strike, the Indira Gandhi government banned cutting down trees for fifteen years. The villagers, particularly the women, felt a very close relationship with the forest, and thought of it as feminine. In their protests and protections, they represented the core of ecofeminism: defending a woman's connection with the Earth, and halting the abuse from the patriarchy.
References
[1] “The History of Earth Day.” Earth Day, April 18, 2020. https://www.earthday.org/history/.
[2] Heartney, Eleanor. “How the Ecological Art Practices of Today Were Born in 1970s Feminism.” ARTnews.com, May 27, 2020. https://www.artnews.com/art-in-america/features/ecofeminism-women-in-environmental-art-1202688298/.
[3] Singh, Malvika & Mishra, Kaveri. “Eco-Feminism and Folk Media: A Case Study of the Chipko Movement.” International Journal of Scientific & Technology Research 8, no. 11 (November 2019). http://www.ijstr.org/final-print/nov2019/Eco-feminism-And-Folk-Media-A-Case-Study-Of-The-Chipko-Movement.pdf.