Eco-feminist Critique

EARTHKEEPING NEWS
A NEWSLETTER OF THE NORTH AMERICAN COALITION FOR CHRISTIANITY AND ECOLOGY

Volume Seven, Number Four
May/June 1998

An Eco-feminist Critiques Stewardship Ethics

Appeals to the notion of stewardship -- of humans as good stewards, custodians, bailiffs or shepherds of creation, charged by God with responsibility for its care -- have figured prominently in environmental history, particularly in theological accounts of the nature of human responsibility to the nonhuman natural world.

A stewardship ethic properly understood urges humans to change our attitude toward nonhuman animals and environment from that of conquerors to plain citizens and co-members of the ecological community, albeit as stewards or shepherds of that community.

Ecofeminine spiritualities focus on alternative ways to address the nature of what it is to be human and to have a moral responsibility toward the natural, but which do not employ any stewardship metaphor. Stewardship ethics are problematic largely because of the absence of explicit attention to the institutional, systemic, structural nature of domination which characterizes androcentric and anthropocentric models of human-nonhuman relationships.

Properly understood, ecofeminist spiritualities do, or could, play an important role in the twofold ecofeminist project of making visible and dismant-ling patriarchy; and in developing in its place non-dominating and life affirming attitudes, values and relationships among humans and toward nonhuman nature - in ways that stewardship ethics as currently developed, do not.

Patriarchal conceptual frameworks which justify domination of women also justify the domination of nonhuman nature by conceiving women and nature in terms which feminize nature, naturalize women, and position both women and nature as inferior to male-gender identified culture.

Much of the current unmanageability of contemporary life in patriarchal cultures is a consequence of a preoccupation with activities, events and experiences that reflect historically male-gender identified beliefs, values, attitudes and assumptions: obsession with national defense and nuclear proliferation; exploitation and degradation of the non-human earth and animals; homophobic laws and policies; feminization of poverty; child abuse, sexual abuse, violence against women, rape. When patriarchy is understood as a dysfunctional social system this unmanageability can be seen as a predictable consequence of patriarchy.

Ecofeminist spiritualities challenge patriarchy at its core, its belief system. Stewardship ethics also do this to an extent -- challenging the belief that humans are rightful dominators of the earth.

They differ from ecofeminist spiritual accounts in that they do not unpack the nature and influence of sexism, racism, classism and other isms of domination -- the structural framework within which these beliefs, values, and attitudes are exercised.

To the extent that contemporary stewardship ethics do not address the issues of patriarchal domination of women and nature, they do not now provide an adequate analysis of and guide to action in the patriarchal present.