Amazon Grace: Re-Calling the Courage to Sin Big

Book Description

Mary Dalys latest groundbreaking book champions women as the saviors of the planet and provides the essential strategies needed to combat destructive patriarchal forces. In her revolutionary style, Daly weaves quantum theory with radical feminism and challenges women to see themselves as Life-Savers and Life-Enhancers. Discussing hot button issues such as nanotechnology, the eugenics movement, and the strength of women around the world, Daly offers her fans yet another unique, fascinating, and confrontational view of the world we live in.

Thinking Green!: Essays on Environmentalism, Feminism, and Nonviolence

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Wake-up Call

Thinking Green!: Essays on Environmentalism, Feminism, and Nonviolence
Petra K. Kelly
Manufacturer: Parallax Press
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Binding: Hardcover

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Fighting for Hope

ASIN: 0938077627

Customer Reviews:

Wake-up Call.......2000-11-03

I first encountered this book after college graduation. I was living in Ireland at the time, and the Green Party is huge there. This book challenged every preconception I held about my home country of the US as well as the true meaning of "feminism". It also renewed my faith in the power of people to innovate and change. I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in Green ideology or in daring to take an honest look at ourselves as Americans.

Feminism and Ecological Communities: An Ethic of Flourishing

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Feminism and Ecological Communities: An Ethic of Flourishing
Christine Cuomo
Manufacturer: Routledge
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Binding: Paperback

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Animal Liberation

ASIN: 0415158060

Book Description

If some of our values have contributed to the creation of a toxic and damaged planet, and to the maintenance of systems of oppression based on gender, race and other types of differences, any attempts to foster alternative values requires attention to social and as well as ecological concerns. Feminism and Ecological Communities presents a bold and passionate rethinking of the ecofeminist movement. It is one of the first books to acknowledge the importance of postmodern feminist arguments against ecofeminism while persuasively supporting a strong new case for ecofeminism.

Chris J. Cuomo explores the dualisms of nature/culture and masculine/feminine that defend many contemporary ecofeminist positions and questions traditional feminist analyses of gender and caring. Cuomo addresses these key issues by drawing on recent work in feminist ethics as well as the work of diverse figures including Aristotle, John Dewey and Donna Haraway.

Ecological Feminism (Environmental Philosophies)

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Ecological Feminism (Environmental Philosophies)
Karen Warren
Manufacturer: Routledge
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0415072980

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This ground-breaking collection is the first to focus on the exclusively philosophical aspects of ecological feminism. It addresses basic questions about the conceptual underpinnings of "women-nature connections" and emphasizes the importance of seeing sexism and the exploitation of the environment as parallel forms of domination.

The book addresses basic questions of conceptual analysis and justification concerning ecofeminism and its philosophical underpinnings. The essays discuss: whether all ecofeminist positions can be considered feminist; what obstacles must be overcome for the serious maturing of ecofeminist philosophy; how ecofeminist philosophy is distinctive among feminisms, environmental philosophies and environmental activism; and what ecofeminist philosophy adds to the field of environmental philosophy. The book includes contributors who are both supportive and critical of ecofeminist positions.

Contributors: Douglas J. Buege, Jim Cheney, Christine J. Cuomo, Victoria Davion, Lori Gruen, David K. Johnson, Phillip Payne, Val Plumwood, Deborah Slicer, Karen J. Warren.

Ecological Feminist Philosophies (A Hypatia Book)

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Ecological Feminist Philosophies (A Hypatia Book)

Manufacturer: Indiana University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Integrating Ecofeminism, Globalization, and World Religions (Nature's Meanings)

ASIN: 0253210291

Beyond Mothering Earth: Ecological Citizenship and the Politics of Care

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Beyond Mothering Earth: Ecological Citizenship and the Politics of Care
Sherilyn MacGregor
Manufacturer: UBC Press
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ASIN: 0774812028

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Women's environmental activism is often described in maternalistic terhms, as if motherhood and caring for the environment go hand in hand. While feminists celebrate this connection, all those who care for people and environments are facing increasing burdens and decreasing time for civic engagement as governments download life-sustaining work to the voluntary sector. In Beyond Mothering Earth, Sherilyn MacGregor argues that celebrations of "earth care" as women's unique contribution to the search for sustainability often neglect to consider the importance of politics and citizenship in women's lives. Drawing on interviews with women who juggle private caring with civic engagement in qulity-of-life concerns, she proposes an alternative: a project of feminist ecological citizenship that affirms the practice of citizenship as an intrinsically valuable activity while recognizing the foundational aspects of caring labor and natural processes that allow its specificty to flourish. Her interdisciplinary analysis not only breaks through hierarchical ways of conceptualizing gender, nature, and civic virtue, but also breaks new ground for reconceptualizing the category "citizen." Beyond Mothering Earth provides an original and empirically grounded understanding of women's involvement in quality-of-life activism and an analysis of citizenship that makes an important contribution to contemporary discussions of green politics, globalization, neoliberalism, and democratic justice.

Biopolitics: A Feminist and Ecological Reader on Biotechnology

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Biopolitics: A Feminist and Ecological Reader on Biotechnology

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Binding: Hardcover

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Book Description

Biotechnology is the single most powerful bundle of new technologies currently under development. It is also the most intrusive and determinative technology relating to nature generally and the human body specifically. This Reader brings together some of the most important work from feminists and environmentalists critical of the headlong rush into what is likely to prove a technological minefield. As such it will be essential reading for students, scholars and activists in social studies of science, women's studies, development and environmental studies.

Ecofeminist Natures: Race, Gender, Feminist Theory and Political Action

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Theoretically astute and scrupulously fair--a page-turner!
Very informative book with a rather disappointing conclusion

Ecofeminist Natures: Race, Gender, Feminist Theory and Political Action
Noel Sturgeon
Manufacturer: Routledge
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Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0415912490

Book Description

Ecofeminist Natures is the first book-length historical treatment of ecofeminism as a US social movement. Examining the development of ecofeminism from the 1980s antimilitarist movement to an internationalist ecofeminism in the 1990s. Sturgeon explores the ecofeminist notions of gender, race, and nature. She moves from detailed historical investigations of important manifestations of US ecofeminism to a broad analysis of international environmental politics.

Using original research on ecofeminist actions and organizations, Ecofeminist Natures ranges from images of the "Moral Mother" in ecofeminist antimilitarism, to the idea of "indigenous women" as "ultimate ecofeminists," to the deployment of a white Goddess, to the attempt to construct a "women's voice" at the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development. It is a nuanced and critical evaluation of an important social movement.

Customer Reviews:

Theoretically astute and scrupulously fair--a page-turner!.......1999-03-12

Noel Sturgeon's Ecofeminist Natures is a very welcome addition to the growing body of work on ecofeminism. As both a cultural critic and an activist in the women's peace movement, Sturgeon is ideally positioned to provide a thorough, informative history of ecofeminist theory and practice while also critically examining both the problems and potential of different strands within the many-faced, oppositional movement known as ecofeminism.

In particular, she is concerned with the current "political stalemate between the tropes of essentialism and anti-essentialism within feminism" (11), a stalemate she sees as unnecessarily and unfortunately dividing ecofeminist theory from practice and ecofeminism from feminism. While Sturgeon makes the necessary point that critics have exaggerated ecofeminist tendencies toward essentialism, she makes an even more valuable contribution by insisting that the essentialist tendencies which exist "must be explained as well as resisted" (59). She takes up this task by examining ecofeminist theory and activism within its historical and political contexts, both in the US and internationally.

Sturgeon emphasizes that when ecofeminism is viewed as a political intervention into male-dominated discourses such as deep ecology or United Nations discussions of environment and development, certain seemingly essentialist symbols and language can be seen as products of an urgent need for political alliances among women of profoundly different racial, class, and national backgrounds; these "essentialist moments" help create a shifting, strategic relationship between "women" and "nature" for political purposes (11). Sturgeon also critiques certain essentialist constructions of racial difference within ecofeminist practice (the WomanEarth Feminist Peace Institute) and theory (the discourse of "indigenous women" as the "ultimate ecofeminists"), while also acknowledging them as real efforts to confront the implications of race for ecofeminism. Finally, Sturgeon examines numerous recent academic texts in which feminists create typologies that charge ecofeminists with essentialism, or in which ecofeminists use typologies to resist such charges. She compares these texts, which often ignore the efforts of feminists of color and tend to oppose feminist theory and activism, to other, less diverse typologies and perspectives, including the work of Donna Haraway. Ultimately, she concludes that "the most vital radical political theories develop in tandem with radical movement practice" (195).

Much recent work on ecofeminism touches on the importance of attending to the movement's shifting, multiple nature and to the ways race affects women's relationships to nature and ecofeminism. Sturgeon's book is notable not only for providing a new perspective on the much-traversed terrain of essentialism, but also for making these concerns central to its content and method. And, because Sturgeon so expertly contextualizes more commonly known ecofeminist theoretical and philosophical issues within their history and politics, this book is something of a page-turner. While always necessary, theoretically astute, and scrupulously fair, Sturgeon's discussions--such as her account of the problems and successes of WomanEarth Institute or the Women's Environment and Development Organization--are also fascinating case studies of the difficult yet vital work of achieving more equitable relations among people and with the earth.

Very informative book with a rather disappointing conclusion.......1998-10-23

Essential problems with Ecofeminism

Noël Sturgeon. Ecofeminist Natures; Race, Gender, Feminist Theory and Political Action. New York: Routledge, 1997. 260 pages.

In her book, Ecofeminist Natures, Noël Sturgeon deals with the highly problematical branch of feminism: ecofeminism. She defines ecofeminism as "... a feminist rebellion within male-dominated radical environmentalism" (25) and in the introduction she says: "The ecofeminist movement I examine, and in some ways construct throughout this book, is a fractured, contested, discontinuous entity..." (3). This latter description illustrates the problematicality of the movement and in the book, Sturgeon addresses the various problems with respect to five different aspects of ecofeminism: history, ethnography, sociology, politics and theory. The major part of the introduction is devoted to explaining essentialist theory which will come back time and again throughout the book as ecofeminism's ally, but also its biggest enemy. The most prominent and seemingly inescapable problem that plagues ecofeminism, which effects all the aspects that Sturgeon is examining, is the opposition between constructionism and essentialism. The dualism of ideas is illustrated by Sturgeon giving both the constructionist and essentialist answer to the question why women are connected to the environment. Sturgeon explains how this dualism came into the movement: "... the theoretical inconsistencies found in these various ecofeminist positions is a result of the strategic and dynamic qualities of the formation of ecofeminism as a political location within specific historical and political contexts." (58). Despite the presence of many constructionist ideas within ecofeminism, the movement's use of essentialist rhetoric leads to an enormous amount of critique from feminists outside the ecofeminist movement, which in turn leads to lack of critique within the movement creating a stalemate where neither side is willing to change their position. Feminists who concern themselves with issues involving women and nature do not want to be labelled as ecofeminists because of the 'useless' essentialist rhetoric it sometimes employs. Sturgeon illustrates the extent of criticism from "established feminism" (167) by mentioning that 'mainstream' feminists are trying to give ecofeminism as little publicity as possible. There are, for instance, hardly any articles dealing with ecofeminism in renowned feminist journals and if there is one it focuses on the 'bad' aspects of ecofeminism, like essentialism, which then seem to represent the whole ecofeminist movement. These facts make reading the book very interesting and exciting because the reader has the feeling they are being let into previously unexplored and unknown terrain for people outside the (eco)feminist movement. Although Sturgeon points to the fact that essentialist rhetoric might sometimes be useful in certain contexts (strategic essentialism), she acknowledges that the essentialist ideas that the movement adheres to can create barriers within the movement and cause a sense of exclusion for certain groups or individuals. She identifies one of the larger problems within the movement to be the race issue. Historically, ecofeminism, although it claims to be an antiracist movement, has been predominantly white. That, combined with the essentialist idea that all women are inherently the same which does not allow for racial differences to be acknowledged, has created barriers between white and coloured women within the movement and has kept more coloured women from joining. Moreover, efforts from within ecofeminism to get rid of the reputation of being racist have actually worked against the movement. At one point, ecofeminism took on the standpoint that indigenous women were even more close to nature because of their culture than western women, creating another binarism which can be perceived as being racist. Moreover, it contains the racial essentialist implication that indigenous cultures are inherently closer to nature. Throughout the book, Sturgeon gives examples of ecofeminism 'at work' by looking at various direct action movements that exist within ecofeminism: Women's Environment and Development Organisation (WEDO), WomanEarth Feminist Peace Institute, Women's Pentagon Actions (WPA) and Earth First!, among others. A big part of Chapter 2 is dedicated to WomanEarth's founder and influential feminist author Ynestra King. Sturgeon stresses the parallelism of ecofeminism and anti-militarism throughout the book and uses King's four principles of ecofeminism to illustrate this: 1) the subjugation of women and the subjugation of nature are dialectically related, 2) hierarchy justifies domination and must be resisted on all levels, 3) diversity must be maintained ... and 4) dualistic thinking ... supports all kinds of domination... (67). So, every different chapter deals with one specific aspect of ecofeminism and its problems, and Sturgeon, as said before, tries to answer the questions on how to resolve the problems. Disappointingly, the answers, in the end, only seem to amount to a choice between two rather unattractive alternatives: we either just accept and live with the problems within ecofeminism, or we give up on ecofeminism altogether and start another movement for feminist environmentalists. Although this position might seem a little simplistic, it is clear that ecofeminism seems to have such a bad name that serious revisions should be made to the movement's principles so the various problematic issues can be resolved. Attempts have been made to remove the most controversial aspect, essentialist ideas, from the movement, but none have been entirely successful: "[There have been] various efforts to generate a nonessentialising ecofeminist theory by the creation of a new name for such a position. I will look at the theoretical arguments used to purify these new ecofeminism positions from essentialism and show that none of them succeed in elimination essentialism completely ." (my italics) (178). Sturgeon's conclusion is: "... that we do not need to produce a new and more perfect ecofeminism, but rather to recognize as necessary the dance of critique and consolidation that is part of theorizing and political action..." (195). In other words, the conclusion of this survey of ecofeminist theory is that we must accept the problems with theories and put them to our advantage. Because of the movement of history and changing situations in politics and theories, a 'perfect' political movement or a theory can only exist for so long anyway.

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A good start for ecofeminism

Excellent Work!

Ecofeminist Philosophy

Ecofeminsit Philosophy

Ecofeminist Philosophy
Karen J. Warren
Manufacturer: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Ecofeminism

Ecofeminism: Women, Culture, Nature

Ecofeminism: Women, Animals, Nature (Ethics and Action)

Ecofeminism and Globalization: Exploring Culture, Context, and Religion

Ecofeminism and the Sacred

ASIN: 0847692981

Book Description

A philosophical exploration of the nature, scope, and significance of ecofeminist theory and practice. This book presents the key issues, concepts, and arguments which motivate and sustain ecofeminism from a western philosophical perspective.

Customer Reviews:

A good start for ecofeminism.......2005-07-20

I am totally new to this "ism." Thus, I find this book can offer a good review about ecofeminism.

Excellent Work!.......2004-01-08

I read this book for the Jan/Feb 2004 LD Topic: "A government's obligation to protect the environment ought to have precedence over its obligation to promote economic development." I have to say I highly reccomend this book to anyone interested in the connections between the environment and feminism. I especially liked the discussion of how women and the environment are connected through language through the use of word's like "Mother Nature." That use in particular was to put it in a word pimp. Warren covers all areas of ecofeminist thought, and is extremely fair to those critical of ecofeminism. To anyone interested in learning about how our domination of the environment undergirds our domination of other groups this book is perfect. As I said before, this work by a "street philosopher," is simply pimp. Highest recomendations!

Ecofeminist Philosophy.......2001-09-18

ECOFEMINIST PHILOSOPHY
A WESTERN PERSPECTIVE ON WHAT IT IS AND WHY IT MATTERS
By Karen J. Warren

A Review by Wendell G. Bradley

Warren calls herself a `street philosopher'. And, true to her calling, this professor of philosophy at Macalester College reaches the ordinary reader on important issues.

Ordinary philosophy is already superseded in chapter one entitled: `Nature is a Feminist Issue'. Women, world-wide, are shown to experience environmental harm disproportionately. And, they are organizing, as women, against related dominations.

For Warren, dominations tend to follow whenever (allegedly) ethically relevant hierarchies designate their `others' as inferiors. Subordinations, however, have to be first justified by `a logic of domination'. Humans, for example, might be deemed superior to nature because they have the ability to manipulate it. But, without a logic of domination, `superiority' could just as well lead to stewardship.

Patriarchy provides our current logic of domination. Under its conceptual framework, men become associated with reason and volition (read: intelligence and public roles). The result is a prevailing male-other bias that links women and nature--women too naturally something, to be allowed this or that. Accordingly, Warren recognizes both gender and ecology as good points of departure for an environmental ethic, hence ecofeminism.

Warren begins her `quilting' of an ecofeminist philosophy in chapter three. Here, she masterfully interrogates and reconceptualizes the reductive and essentialist rationality of today's male-other bias. Various belief examinations arise from the `cognitive dissonances' she brings to light in an examined patriarchy. At a minimum our loss of ecological integrity has required justification via a logic of domination. Our human spirit, however, can become caring enough to resist oppressions and destructions, especially in one's home place.

Accordingly, Warren introduces a `care-sensitive' ethic. It is characterized by a `loving eye' that focuses on a contextual orientation, a more optimistic understanding of self, an inclusivist ethical pluralism, incorporations of emotional intelligence, and a nonprivileging social justice. Through our spiritual ability to care, these qualities combine to make nature `morally deserving'. Thus, Warren's care-sensitive ethic makes a fundamental contribution to a possible ecological flourishing.

The idea of ecofeminism, itself, is not particularly new, but Warren's insights, clarifications and arguments are. Her overall philosophical synthesis is both refreshing and convincing.

Wendell G. Bradley, is a retired professor of Human Ecology and author of `The Gift of Morality'.

Ecofeminsit Philosophy.......2001-09-16

ECOFEMINIST PHILOSOPHY
A WESTERN PERSPECTIVE ON WHAT IT IS AND WHY IT MATTERS

By Karen J. Warren
Rowman and Littlefield, 230 pages
A Review by Wendell G. Bradley

Warren calls herself a ýstreet philosopherý. And, true to her calling, this professor of philosophy at Macalester College reaches the ordinary reader on important issues.

Ordinary philosophy is already superseded in chapter one entitled: ýNature is a Feminist Issueý. Women, world-wide, are shown to experience environmental harm disproportionately. And, they are organizing, as women, against related dominations.

For Warren, dominations tend to follow whenever (allegedly) ethically relevant hierarchies designate their ýothersý as inferiors. Subordinations, however, have to be first justified by ýa logic of dominationý. Humans, for example, might be deemed superior to nature because they have the ability to manipulate it. But, without a logic of domination, ýsuperiorityý could just as well lead to stewardship.

Warren begins her ýquiltingý of an ecofeminist philosophy in chapter three. Here, she masterfully interrogates and reconceptualizes the reductive and essentialist rationality of todayýs male-other bias. Various belief examinations arise from the ýcognitive dissonancesý she brings to light in an examined patriarchy. At a minimum our loss of ecological integrity has required justification via a logic of domination. Our human spirit, however, can become caring enough to resist oppressions and destructions, especially in oneýs home place.

Accordingly, Warren introduces a ýcare-sensitiveý ethic. It is characterized by a ýloving eyeý that focuses on a contextual orientation, a more optimistic understanding of self, an inclusivist ethical pluralism, incorporations of emotional intelligence, and a nonprivileging social justice. Through our spiritual ability to care, these qualities combine to make nature ýmorally deservingý. Thus, Warrenýs care-sensitive ethic makes a fundamental contribution to a possible ecological flourishing.

The idea of ecofeminism, itself, is not particularly new, but Warrenýs insights, clarifications and arguments are. Her overall philosophical synthesis is both refreshing and convincing.

Book Description

In the 1980s, ecofeminism and the U.S. Green movement seemed to offer some of this country's most powerful and promising solutions to problems of social and environmental justice. A decade later, ecofeminism has become more a perspective than a movement, and divisions within the Greens have deepened as its national focus has shifted from issue-based politics to party building. Why have these movements faltered?

A member of both movements, Greta Gaard bases her analysis on her personal experience as well as extensive secondary sources and interviews with key theorists, activists, and speakers across the United States. By allowing each movement's members to speak for themselves, she traces the separate origins and development of each movement, explains their connections, and reveals the light that each can cast upon the other and on the difficulties facing social action in general.

Beginning with the ecofeminists, Gaard describes the paths—environmental causes, the feminist peace movement, the feminist spirituality movement, the animal liberation movement, and the anti-toxics movement, as well as experiences of interconnectedness—that have led women (and a few men) to articulate an ecofeminist perspective. Tracing the movement from the 1980s to the present, she defines its present strands as liberal ecofeminism, radical ecofeminism, socialist ecofeminism, and social ecofeminism.

Gaard illustrates the development of the U.S. Greens from a national movement into a political party. She defines the various factions—the Left Greens, the Youth Greens, and the Green Politics Network—that influenced the movement's direction and underlay the debates during Ralph Nader's 1996 presidential campaign. She shows how the history of these three groups can be seen as stages in the transition from a leftist and sometimes anarchist focus to an emphasis on electoral political action that places the Green movement squarely within the pattern of other social movements around the world.

Despite the significant influence that ecofeminists have had in shaping the Greens as a national movement, many have chosen to withdraw from the Greens. Gaard looks at the reasons for member disaffection and draws disturbing conclusions about the compatibility between liberal feminism, cultural ecofeminism, and patriarchal politics. She also presents the divisions within the Greens as ongoing battles within the new left, the radical ecology movement, and various social justice movements. She focuses on three general areas—conflicts over philosophy, conflicts over representation, and conflicts over strategy—to make suggestions for how to bring about the kind of social transformation envisioned by both the Greens and the ecofeminists. Arguing that the Concord Principles represent a populist form of liberal democracy that fundamentally betrays both ecofeminism and Green philosophy, she uses the 1996 Nader campaign as a departure point for developing an ecofeminist theory of radical democracy and to speculate on future directions for Green politics and for ecofeminism. Her analysis illuminates the nature and direction of each of these important movements and the pressures and conflicts experienced by all social movements at the end of the twentieth century.

Customer Reviews:

Mixed feelings on Gaard's opus against the Green Party.......2000-03-19

I read this book in hope of some illumination of the history and direction of the Green Party. And I did receive quite a detailed history of the contentious period for the party in the early 90's. Gaard is the only author I know of who has given some specific information on the development of Green Youth organizing in America, something I am particularly pleased with. Gaard's exploration of the ecofeminist Green perspective was also refreshing.

However, Gaard's clear and unending bias against the electoral expression of the Green movement, namely the Green Party, limits her ability to give credible counsel to the direction of the Party. The direction Greens have gone in clearly has not been pleasing to Gaard, but the fact that Ralph Nader will again be a Green national candidate is pretty clear. I hope that she decides to get her hands 'dirty' and join us in the trenches to fight for a democratic & feminist Green Party and for a Greener government.

Charles Douglas Arcata, CA Coordinator, Campus Greens of Humboldt State University Member, Coordinating Committee, Green Party of California

Greta Gaard has written a tremendously helpful book........1998-12-21

Greta Gaard has written a tremendously helpful book that examines the development of Green politics in the U.S. from the first murmurs of ecofeminism and of animal rights, and the joining of radical ecologists and anti-nuke activists into a Committee of Correspondence in the 1980ís, to the conclusion of the Nader for President campaign and the subsequent split in 1996. She brings a particular perspective to these struggles, which could be called a a cooperative social ecofeminism, with a grounding in animal rights. She is unequivocally anti-capitalist, and not simply a populist asking for corporate account-ability and other reforms within the capitalist system. As critical as she is of the Left Greens, in the larger picture she is certainly an ally of the left. Of that larger picture, it reminds her of the allegory of the six blind folks who grasp different parts of an elephantís body and tell each other of the totality they are witnessing first-hand. As a theorist, Gaard skillfully weaves a Social Ecofemninist interpretation into a demonstrably fair history of the main currents within the Greens. And she illuminates some of the smaller eddies and whirlpools that have, unfortunately, been spun off in the rush toward the mainstream. Walt Sheasby

Important book for understanding the Greens movement.......1998-12-04

Book Review: Ecological Politics, Ecofeminists and the Greens, by Greta Gaard, Philadelphia, Temple University Press, 1998 Ecofeminists are often marginalized by the patriarchal Greens and Animal Liberation movements. I read Greta Gaard's new book in the hope that it would help me understand the dynamics of the Greens movement so that I might extrapolate this information to perceived problems within the Animal Liberation movement. Professor Gaard details the ideological complexities of the Greens and Ecofeminist movements, and their interactions, with detail and clarity and from every angle. This informative and thought-provoking new book details the authors' involvement in the Greens movement and political party. It chronicles in detail the philosophical differences within the Greens movement and within Ecofeminism, the effect that these differences have had on the course of the Greens movement to date, and demonstrates how the Nader, 1996 presidential campaign betrayed both Greens and Ecofeminist Philosophy.

Professor Gaard begins with a graphic representation and description of the sources of Ecofeminism, which she points out is fundamentally a feminist theory with deep connections to the environmental and peace movements, but including feminist spirituality, animal liberation, environmental, anti-toxics, radical feminist, womanist, socialist ecofeminist, social ecofeminist and activist ecofeminist activism. She describes the growth of the Ecofeminist and Greens movements, and their parallel development, in detail. Information presented in one chapter is reworked and presented from a different perspective in another to give clarity to this enormously complex subject. There are complete appendices giving the chronology of developments within Ecofeminism and the Greens and a substantial, relevant bibliography.

Sexism had been recognized as a major problem in the German Greens party, and Ecofeminists predicted that the success of the U. S. Greens movement would depend on an ability to recognize and uproot patriarchy. This was an especially important point since, from the start, all branches of the U. S. Greens movement have been predominantly white, male, heterosexual and middle class. The movement has been marked by struggles over Feminist and Ecofeminist issues, and separate women's caucuses have been formed. Women also had to struggle with masculinist styles of work, debate and leadership, and it soon became apparent that the endless debates about the representation of various constituencies were being fought over contentiously by the men in the movement, while the women focused on cooperation and building.

Animal Liberation concerns within the Greens have met with little success, and by 1990 it had become apparent that the Greens movement was not a suitable place for an Animal Liberation activist, and indeed many had already left. Many Greens activists are unable to confront their own speciesism and, for many, it is perfectly possible to discuss non-violence while eating animal flesh. Professor Gaard points out that Ecofeminism is the only radical environmental theory to adequately address issues of animal liberation.

With the decision among the Greens to form a political party and run a Presidential candidate, there was a shift in focus away from grass roots that was accompanied by a corresponding decrease in importance of the Ecofeminist presence within the movement. The scope of electoral campaigns and the practices of electoral politics in general are such that the focus is on quickly obtainable, visible, vote-getting changes, rather than the kind of long-range, radical change envisioned by the Greens. The Green's original vision of grass roots democracy, decentralization and post-patriarchal values was betrayed by the ill-advised Nader campaign. Nader was not a Green and never intended to run on a Green platform. Ignoring gay and other rights and not addressing the concerns of workers, his philosophy tended toward "one liberation fits all." This philosophy served the needs of the dominant group, subordinating the interests of marginalized groups. As the Greens made a transition from grassroots movement to political party, Ecofemism began to be seen as a subsidiary to the Greens movement rather that a philosophy and movement valuable in its' own right.

Given the amount of energy that women in the Animal Liberation movement often find themselves spending on battles over whether feminist of Ecofeminist issues are "really animal issues," this book is very relevant. A strong network of Ecofeminist women is needed in this movement also, as a source of strength, nurturance, and empowerment. Those working for radical change would do well to read the histories of other movements and learn from them. The author points out that both Greens and Ecofeminists need to form alliances with other progressive movements such as the Social Justice, Anti-toxics, Labor and Queer movements, in order to build a progressive movement through an inclusive network alliance of diverse groups based on solidarity rather than unity. She concludes that: "A radically democratic movement for social and ecological justice will be larger than ecofeminism and larger than the Greens." She also concludes that, as long as women continue to be oppressed in a patriarchal society, they will be oppressed in a progressive movement also. I would add: "Amen" to that. Ecofeminists working within a mixed gender organization can be overruled or ignored, so that an autonomous Ecofeminist movement is necessary.

In the space allotted, it is not possible to do justice to this important book, which is extremely detailed. I would recommend that every Ecofeminist and everyone working working in the Animal Liberation movement read it carefully and learn from it.

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