Contenu du sommaire : Pratiques écoféministes

In order to highlight how some of the ecofeminist theoreticians conceptualize work in a capitalist regime, whether salaried, agricultural or domestic, subsistence feminism refers to a group of theoreticians such as Françoise d'Eaubonne, Marie Mies, Silvia Federici, Vandana Shiva and Starhawk, who all link feminism, activism and implementation of ecological alternatives that are a form of vernacular feminism. This materialistic, but also spiritual approach to ecofeminism is based on anthropological and historical research that distinguish work producing self-consumed goods for both genders and female domestic work preparing industrialized goods in economic and political terms. Environmental destructions caused by industrialization of needs are correlated to the end of the last peasant societies of the South and the inequitable international labor division in the production of vital ressources, of which women are the first victims.

This paper aims to bring back a piece of history. It tells the story of thousands of women who gathered in peace camps and parades in the early 1980s in order to stake a feminist claim against nuclear warfare and the capitalist economics of destruction. It takes a close look at the first ecofeminist gathering in Amherst (1979) and the ensuing Three Mile Island Parades ('80), Pentagon Actions in Washington DC ('80 & ‘81) and San Francisco ('81). It also examines women's peace camps, in particular those of Greenham Common near Newbury, England (‘81-'87), of Puget Sound, Washington and of Seneca, New York (1983). Rather than arguing the importance of these protests, the paper describes them. The paper draws on the protestors' testimonies using their own published writings and archival data to show how ecofeminism is above all an innovative, transformative and life-affirming way of doing politics. The paper emphasizes emotions, not only of anger and fear but also of joy, and shows how these emotions fueled the protests. It revives the enthusiasm of crowds and small groups resisting together while paying attention to the clever organizing that allowed these women to gather in the first place. In sum, the paper excavates and details the story of the ecofeminist camps and parades so that we may learn from them for political action today.

One usually remembers the absence of an ecofeminist movement in France and the weak adhesion of French people to the fight against nuclear weapons in the 1980s. However, the local approach of the Circauds center, a training center for non-violence created at the beginning of the 1970s, makes it possible to analyze the diffusion and the imbrication of feminism and ecology in spaces around social movements. This article focuses on summer camps that were organized as non-coed by the women of the center between 1976 and 1978, and the role they played in the emergence of a European, feminist and pacifist movement and in the spreading of an ecofeminist sensibility that added a critical approach to gender relations to the criticism of modernity, a practice of medicine perceived as male, the pharmaceutical industry and capitalism. This analysis of the ecological and feminist press, just as the interviews of ex-Circauds members, reveals heterodox feminist practices and everyday DIY solutions that solve the contradictions of the women which, in the 1970s, wanted to merge their various commitments.

This article is based on the ethnography of three rural places (two farms and a lodging) managed by lesbian and/or queer women who rally an ecological and anti-capitalistic critique of society while questioning gender and sexual norms. It questions the meaning of these alternative life choices in reference to the actresses' identities and the way they contribute to the understanding of the constellation of ecofeminist movements. We observe that moving from cities to the countryside, from salaried work to subsistence agriculture, they must implement new strategies to fight isolation and integrate locally. At the same time, this return to the land offers them new opportunities of emancipation, commitment and support from women and minorities. Agricultural work, feminist commitment and bringing politics into everyday life are different facets of a single project: that of looking for a fairer and more durable way for our society.

We present a monographic study of a network of practitioners of self-gynecology in the Paris area, counting women aged 20 to 40 who belong to a new generation which could be described as intersectional feminist. What is at stake here is showing how intersectional feminists can make ecofeminist paradigms their own through speeches as well as practice. For this new generation, the practice of self-gynecology is actually difficult to claim: centered on female genital organs, it can induce that “the woman” defines herself in reference to anatomy and is therefore accused of essentialism by intersectional feminists who have wished to go beyond gender deconstruction of the 1970s. The case of this self-gynecology network, which manages to articulate this practice with an intersectional positioning, shows how ecofeminism can integrate theoretical and practical syncretisms. It mixes a revamping of feminist action to defend contraception and abortion, the contributions of the queer theory and of Black feminism, a certain vision of ecology, and sometimes an anti-capitalist engagement.

Stereotype deconstruction has become a recurrent clue to the fight against inequalities in the schooling system. That measure can be understood as inspired by libertarian or “egalitarian” feminism. However, implementation of the political and theoretical principles of this feminism can lead to a number of dead-ends, which are directly linked to the concept of gender inherent to this model, focused on gendered roles and the individual ladder. Materialist feminism, inasmuch as it apprehends gender as a dividing and hierarchical macrosocial system, seems to avoid those theoretical drawbacks that characterize the liberal model. However, what does it result in when applied, and what are its practical consequences in the field of education? The study of a sexist violence prevention program run by Violence against women watch of the Seine-Saint-Denis county shows that adopting materialist feminism brings female educators who promote gender equality to make adjustments. A number of hybridizations are thus created on the field in which feminist perspectives are combined to clearly divergent assumptions.

This article approaches the history of French female work under war occupation through integration to the German economy of war. The work policy of having French women work for Germany worried the Vichy government, since it clearly counters their restoration project of family order. From Germany's point of view, this recruitment policy of a foreign labor force preserves gender relations in Germany by shifting the weight of war production on foreigners' shoulders. When tensions around labor force provision intensify, the question of French women's forced recruitment arises, but it is finally pushed away, and a constrained work policy is applied to women in France. This study highlights how interesting it si to take a transnational approach when taping gender work politics.