Contenu du sommaire : Genre et environnement

The author responds to criticisms of environmental philosophy that have been made by feminist philosophers. She argues that the problem arises out of the fact that environmental philosophy has adopted hypotheses drawn from rationalist and ethnocentric analyses that are biased by a gender prejudice, and which view reason as being radically distinct from the body and emotions, and destined to exercise control over them, over women, the body and nature. In opposition to the thesis identified as that of the divided self, the author develops the idea that those things that are close or personal to us (our trees, our rivers) play a key role in the acquisition of a moral life and of a sensitivity to the environment, in consonance with feminist approaches based on a self-in-relation. Rejecting deep ecology, which she views as posing the problem of a metaphysic of indifferentiation, the author offers a conceptualization of the relationships intrinsic to humanity, inviting her readers to go beyond the theory of masculine “separation” and traditionally feminist theories of “fusion”.

This article retraces the ecofeminism of Australian philosopher Val Plumwood (1939-2008). Ecofeminism develops an environmentalist critique of the ideal of the domination over nature, by highlighting the gender distinction that operates within it. I show how this domination is associated with the modern, dualist ideals of masculinity, then I present some non-dualist alternatives, including the ethics of care.

Ecofeminism is a movement that has mainly developed in English-speaking countries, and which, by highlighting the connection between the oppression of women and the domination of nature, seeks to combat both simultaneously. However, feminism has largely developed in opposition to the naturalization of both biological sex and gender. An ecofeminism might thus open up the risk of naturalization. By examining ecofeminism first in its (mainly American) cultural form, and then in its social form (which is more present in the Global South, since it connects the domination of women and nature with colonialism and imperialism), this article shows how feminist theorization on nature tends to call into question the self-evidence of nature itself, without discarding it as a reference.

This article aims to show the transformative power of a feminist ethics of care for environmental issues, and, reciprocally, to show how the environmental question is THE current locus for redefining the issues at the heart of care. By giving value to moral characteristics that are identified as feminine – attention and care for others – the ethics of care has contributed to placing vulnerability at the heart of morality, but it has also shifted and extended its field. What care might teach us about the environmental question is that the development of our wealthy Western societies was only possible on the basis of their dependence on nature and resources – on animals and human beings. The climate crisis is an opportunity to rethink the idea of sustainable development by adopting a care perspective.

The nuclear catastrophe in Fukushima raised fundamental questions regarding the care of human beings, but also of the earth itself. Examining the care practices currently being applied in the Fukushima area seems to be a very effective tool for understanding what is being experimented with in terms of the relationships between nature and human beings. However, the usual conceptual frameworks available appear to be of no help. In this article, some possible conceptual attempts are critically explored to suggest that the dominant trends in Japanese feminism, which are divided between maternalism and anti-maternalism, and ecofeminism, which tends to imagine a typically Japanese nature, are not offering the proper analytical tools that might allow us to understand the reality of care in an irradiated environment. The nuclear catastrophe has triggered a crisis in feminist knowledge.

Inequalities based on gender may be perceived in the indiscriminate use of the most ordinary equipment. These inequalities are inscribed within all kinds of technical structures that members of both sexes understand and manipulate differently. In this article, we examine the equipment of passers-by, and more precisely the phenomenon of carrying bags in an urban environment, from the perspective of gender relations. We will see that the bags we carry have a lot to say about our identity and our relationships to others, that they are particularly good illustrations of the gendered division of urban activities, and reveal precious information about the socialization processes that are at work in our societies. Indeed, handbags do speak : men and women reveal – through their adoption and use of various pieces of equipment – the outlines of the social injunctions that influence their behaviour.

The artist's life can be characterized by a double concurrence of times : on the one hand within the professional space (between creative, administrative, communication and teaching activities etc.) ; and on the other hand between this professional space and the domestic one. This article puts forward an analysis of the terms and conditions governing how musicians and plastic artists articulate their working and private time. It shows in particular that this articulation is based on implicit arrangements corresponding to a compliance with social norms that bring into play dominant models for the distribution of time and social tasks, involving unquestioned assumptions about social relationships that imply social and professional inequalities on the one hand, and gender inequalities on the other.