Samen bevrijd uit de onderdrukking: ecofeminisme in de jaren zeventig en tachtig in Nederland

Abstract

In this thesis I explore three feminist movements within the second feminist wave, to discover how they relate to common oppression of women, nature and animals. I will examine whether and how radical feminists, socialist feminists, and anarchists and anarchist feminists have incorporated ecofeminist thought in their theories in the seventies and eighties in the Netherlands. Ecofeminism combines feminism and ecologism, arguing that the oppression of women and nature or animals originates from the same patriarchal hierarchical structures in society and therefore needs to be addressed and overthrown simultaneously. Radical feminists used to relate the issue to the idea of broad liberation, including the oppression of others, such as children and elderly. Socialist feminists did not incorporate ecofeminist thought. Anarchists and anarchist feminists were concerned with environmental pollution, preached for a non-hierarchical society and therefore problematised the higher status awarded to humans in comparison to nature and animals. The second feminist movement in the Netherlands was partially concerned with the common oppression of women and nature. However, only anarchist feminists explicitly viewed both as products from the patriarchy and capitalism. This thesis examines the ecofeminist history of the seventies and eighties in the Netherlands.