Ecofeminism Is Here To Say. And Here is What Women Have to Say About Saving Mother Earth
This Earth Day, it’s time for the world to turn to the wise words of women activists for guidance. Girls and women activists like Greta Thunberg and author Mary Mellor have taken the lead in the modern environmental and climate change movements across the world and the following Earth Day Quotes pulled from their speeches and writings are inspiring.
So what is Ecofeminism? Ecofeminism explores the connections between women and nature in culture, economy, religion, politics, literature and iconography, and addresses the parallels between the oppression of nature and the oppression of women. Ecofeminists are at the forfront of the environmental and climate change movements. Here are some hand-picked Earth Day quotes that express what they have to say about how we can move forward and create the kind of world we all want to see our youth grow up in. Happy Earth Day!
Eco Feminists & Earth Day Quotes
1. “Ecofeminism is a movement that sees a connection between the exploitation and degradation of the natural world and the subordination and oppression of women.” — Mary Mellor in her book Feminism & Ecology
2. “We are either going to have a future where women lead the way to make peace with the Earth or we are not going to have a human future at all.” —Vandana Shiva
3.“The environment, after all, is where we all meet, where we all have a mutual interest. It is one thing that all of us share. It is not only a mirror of ourselves, but a focusing lens on what we can become.”— Lady Bird Johnson
4. “Every aspect of our lives is, in a sense, a vote for the kind of world we want to live in.”— Frances Moore Lappé
5. “Domination of women has provided a key link, both socially and symbolically, to the domination of earth, hence the tendency in patriarchal cultures to link women with earth, matter, and nature, while identifying males with sky, intellect, and transcendent spirit.” — Rosemary Radford Ruether
6. “If this world is to be healed through human efforts, I am convinced it will be by ordinary people whose love for life is even greater than their fear.” — Joanna Macy
7. “Ecofeminism is an integral facet of the women’s movement because it addresses the severing of Women and Mother Nature, and the exploitation of both.” — Lissa Brown
8. “To be whole. To be complete. Wildness reminds us what it means to be human, what we are connected to rather than what we are separate from.”— Terry Tempest Williams
9. “A healthy ecology is the basis for a healthy economy.”— Claudine Schneider
10. “What is acted out on the female body parallels the larger practices of domination, fragmentation, and conquest against the earth body, which is being polluted, strip-mined, deforested, and cut up into parcels of private property. Equally, this pattern points to the fragmentation of the psyche, which ultimately underlies and enables all of this damage.” — Jane Caputi
11. “Intersectional ecofeminism also underscores the importance of gender, race and class, interlinking feminist concerns with human oppressions within patriarchy and the exploitations of a natural environment that women are often more reliant upon but also its guardians in many cultural contexts.” — Fatimah Kelleher
12. “This earth is my sister; I love her daily grace, her silent daring, and how loved I am. How we admire this strength in each other, all that we have lost, all that we have suffered, all that we know: We are stunned by this beauty, and I do not forget: what she is to me, what I am to her.” — Susan Griffin
13. “Women must see that there can be no liberation for them and no solution to the ecological crisis within a society whose fundamental model of relationships continues to be one of domination. They must unite the demands of the women’s movement with those of the ecological movement to envision a radical reshaping of the basic socioeconomic relations and the underlying values of this [modern industrial] society.” — Rosemary Radford Ruether
14. “Because people and especially men feel superior, the environment, animals or women can be exploited.” — Emilie Hache
15. “The liberation of the earth, the liberation of women, the liberation of all humanity is the next step of freedom we need to work for, and it’s the next step of peace that we need to create.” — Vandana Shiva
16. “I don’t want you to be hopeful, I want you to panic” ― Greta Thunberg
17. “But I’ve learnt that no one is too small to make a difference.” ― Greta Thunberg
Related Content
