Negotiating in a World of Change: Ecofeminist Guideposts for Leisure Scholarship

Abstract

The changing nature of global society indicates that topics such as environmental quality, women's rights and status, the liberation and economic realities of people of the so-called developing countries, and the care and protection of children have profound ramifications for leisure scholarship. For example, environmental destruction leads not only to a lowering of status for women but a reduction in leisure opportunities in a natural setting. The production of leisure goods bought in some countries is directly related to a decrease in the status of women and environmental quality in other countries (Dankelman & Davidson, 1989; Shiva, 1988). Furthermore, if the basic ethical components of leisure scholarship and practice (e.g., quality of life, joy and celebration, enhancement of an individual's and community's potential) are still relevant, then we, as leisure scholars and professionals, are obligated to examine the foundation and assumptions of our knowledge and frameworks and whether our knowledge nurtures or oppresses people and nature. Such a process can be facilitated and enhanced by the insights inherent in ecofeminist perspectives. This paper explores the relevance of a specific ecofeminist philosophical perspective(1) to leisure and recreation.ECOLOGICAL FEMINISMSEcological feminisms or ecofeminisms began in the early 1970s and were shaped by the day-to-day efforts of ordinary women to survive with their families. They simultaneously appeared in several places around the world, primarily in the so-called developing countries, and in 1974 d'Eaubonne first introduced the term, ecofeminisme. Ecofeminisms, first and foremost, acknowledge the connection between women and nature and have been described as philosophies ...made flesh by our passion to create ourselves in deep communion with our planet (Hynes quoted in Rodda, 1991, p. 4). Women have been instrumental in organizing to protect the environment, e.g., Rachel Carson and Silent Spring, Gro Brundtland and the World Commission on Environment and Development, and Wangari Maathai of the Green Belt Movement in Kenya (Rodda, 1991). On the other hand, some connections between women and nature demonstrate how both have suffered. For example, the construction of dams for water, energy and recreation often have corollary results of poverty for women and children as well as degradation of the environment (Dankelman & Davidson, 1989).A basic similarity among all ecofeminisms is the identification of the twin domination of women and nature. Warren (1990) carefully delineated a philosophical and ethical structure of ecofeminisms which characterizes an oppressive conceptual framework, identifies eight minimal conditions, and provides the basis of this paper. Warren focuses on a specific conceptual framework(2) that oppresses both nature and women and provides the basis for all other oppressions. This oppressive conceptual framework revolves around value dualisms, value-hierarchical thinking, and a logic of domination.Value dualisms describe disjunctive pairs in oppositional form and place a higher value on one disjunct over the other. Value-hierarchical thinking places items in an up-down relationship and values that which is up. A logic of domination is comprised of a logical structure and a substantive value system that permits or sanctions the just subordination of that which is subordinate, down, or valued less. Patriarchal conceptual frameworks(3) do not claim that women are any closer to nature than men. They define and link women to nature (partially based upon woman's reproductive labor) in very obvious ways that are also denigrated by patriarchal cultures. Examples of the conceptual connections between women and nature include (1) sexist and naturist language (i.e., language that inferiorizes women and nonhuman nature) which describes women in animal terms (e.g., as chicks, bitches, old bats, pussycats, bird-brains) and nature in female and sexual terms(4) (e. …