New Woman,New Earth—Setting the Agenda

Abstract

Rosemary Radford Ruether's New Woman New Earth published in 1975 was one of the first ecofeminist texts. This collection of essays identified many of the key issues for future ecofeminists and asserted the core of ecofeminist thinking, that the subordination of women and the degradation of the planet were linked Ruether explores this connection through an analysis of women's history, a critique of the sexism of the ideologies of Christian theology, classical philosophy, and psychoanalysis and a socioeconomic analysis of industrial society. Central to her ideas are the hierarchical dualisms in Western culture that divide a feminized nature from masculine culture and the apparent masculine need to seek transcendence from the bodiliness of human existence. This evaluation explores the continuing relevance of Ruether's ideas and points to some of the contradictions and dilemmas they contain. Among these are the relationship between the experiences of women in contemporary industrial society and women in other social and historical contexts, whether women have a " special" understanding of ecological dynamics, whether the existence of male domination rests on a discernible social base or represents a deeper aspect of the male or masculine psyche, and the motivations for; and mechanisms of achieving, a sustainable and egalitarian society.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Aries, P. (1962). Centuries of childhood. New York: Penguin.

Bookchin, M. (1971). Post-scarcity anachronism. Berkeley: Ramparts.

Caldecott, L. , & Leland, S. (Eds.). (1983). Reclaim the earth. London: Women's Press.

Chodorow, N. (1978). The reproduction of mothering. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Daly, M. (1973). Beyond God the Father. Boston: Beacon.

Davis, E. G. (1972). The first sex. New York: Putnam.

de Beauvoir, S. (1968). The second sex. New York: Random House.

Diner, H. (1973). Mothers and Amazons. New York: Doubleday.

Dinnerstein, D. (1976). The mermaid and the minotaur. New York: Harper & Row.

10.

Engels, F. (1975). The origin of the family, private property, and the state. In K. Marx & F. Engels (Ed.), Collected works (pp. 129-226). New York: International.

11.

Ferber, M. A. , & Nelson, J. A. (1993). Beyond economic man. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

12.

Fox Keller, E. (1985). Reflections on gender and science. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

13.

Friedan, B. (1963). The feminine mystique. New York: Norton.

14.

Gilligan, C. (1982). In a different voice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

15.

Gilman, C. P. (1966). Women and economics. New York: Harper & Row. (Original work published 1898)

16.

Harcourt, W. (Ed.). (1994). Feminist perspectives on sustainable development. London: Zed.

17.

Horney, K. (1967). Feminine psychology. New York: Norton.

18.

Kabeer, N. (1974). Reversed realities. London: Verso.

19.

King, Y. (1983). Toward an ecological feminism and a feminist ecology. In J. Rothschild (Ed.), Machina ex dea (pp. 118-129). Elmsford, NY: Pergamon.

20.

King, Y (1990). Healing the wounds: Feminism, ecology and nature/culture dualism. In I. Diamond & G. F Orenstein (Eds), Reweaving the world (pp. 18-28). San Francisco: Sierra Club Books.

21.

Leiss, W. (1972). The dominion of nature. New York: Braziller.

22.

Mellor, M. (1992a). Breaking the boundaries. London: Virago.

23.

Mellor, M. (1992b). Green politics: Ecofeminist, ecofeminine or ecomasculine? Environmental Politics, 1(2), 229-251.

24.

Mellor, M. (1992c). Ecofeminism and ecosocialism: Dilemmas of essentialism and materialism. Capitalism, Nature, Socialism, 3(2), 43-62.

25.

Mellor, M. (1997a). Women, nature and the social construction of economic man. Ecological Economics, 20, 129-140.

26.

Mellor, M. (1997b). Feminism and Ecology. Cambridge, UK: Polity.

27.

Merchant, C. (1980). The death of nature. New York: Harper & Row.

28.

Mies, M. (1986). Patriarchy and accumulation on a world scale. London: Zed.

29.

Mitchell, J. (1971). Women's estate. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, UK: Penguin.

30.

Plumwood, V. (1993). Feminism and the mastery of nature. London: Routledge.

31.

Rose, H. (1994). Love, power and knowledge. Cambridge, UK: Polity.

32.

Ruether, R. R. (1975). New woman new earth; Sexist ideologies and human liberation. New York: Seabury.

33.

Ruether, R. R. (1989). Toward an ecological-feminist theory of nature. In J. Plant (Ed.), Healing the wounds: The promise of ecofeminism (pp. 145-150). London: Green Print.

34.

Salleh, A. (1994). Nature, woman, labour, capital: Living the deepest contradiction. In M. O'Connor (Ed.), Is capitalism sustainable? (pp. 106-124). New York: Guilford.

35.

Sanday, P. (1981). Female power and male dominance. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

36.

Warren, K. (1994). Ecological feminism. London: Routledge.

37.

Warren, K. (Ed.). (1996). Ecological feminist philosophies. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

38.

Wollstonecraft, M. (1975). A vindication of the rights of women. New York: W. W. Norton.