Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Socio economic factors that affect health and wellbeing
Gender, eco-feminism and the environment
Gender, eco-feminism and the environment
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Environmental Justice: Some Ecofeminist Worries About A Distributive Model
ABSTRACT: Environmental philosophers, policy-makers and community activists who discuss environmental justice do so almost exclusively in terms of mainstream Western distributive models of social justice. Whether the issue is treatment of animals, human health or property, wilderness and species preservation, pollution or environmental degradation, the prevailing and largely unchallenged view is that the issues of environmental justice are for the most part distributive issues. I think this wholesale framing of considerations of environmental justice solely in terms of distribution is seriously flawed. Drawing on both ecofeminist insights into the inextricable interconnections between institutions of domination and Iris Young’s work on the inadequacy of distributive models of social justice, I argue for the twofold claim that a distributive model of environmental justice is inadequate and that what is needed is an additional nondistributive model to supplement, complement and — in some cases — take precedence over a distributive model.
Introduction
Environmental philosophers, policy-makers, and community activists who discuss environmental justice do so almost exclusively in terms of mainstream Western distributive models of social justice: Environmental justice is about the fair or equitable distribution of environmental goods, services, and "resources."
I think this wholesale framing of environmental justice issues solely or primarily in terms of distribution is seriously problematic. Drawing on both ecofeminist insights concerning the inextricable interconnections between institutions of human oppression and the domination of the natural ...
... middle of paper ...
...as helped me think through my own ecofeminist worries about how issues of environmental justice have been construed. So I use what I take to be the salient features of Young’s critique to sketch both the limitations of such a model for environmental issues and the reasons for saying that what is needed is a supplementary nondistributive model.
(9) See, for example, my two essays, "The Power and the Promise of Ecological Feminism," Environmental Ethics, Spring 1990, vol. 12 (3): 125-146, and "A Feminist Philosophical Perspective on Ecofeminist Spiritualities," in Ecofeminism and the Sacred, ed. Carol J. Adams (New York: Continuum Press, 1993): 119-132.
(10) Young: 18.
(11) Young: 4.
(12) Anthony Weston, Toward Better Problems: New Perspectives on Abortion, Animal Rights, the Environment, and Justice (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1992): 141.>
Solis, Hilda. “Environmental Justice: An Unalienable Right for All.” Human Rights 30 (2003): 5-6. JSTOR. Web. 13 February 2014.
Shriver, Thomas, and Gary Webb. “Rethinking the Scope of Environmental Injustice: Perceptions of Health Hazards in Rural Native American Community Exposed to Carbon Black.” Rural Sociology 74.2 (2009): 270-292. EBSCO Host. Web. 12 December, 2009.
In her 1990 book, Justice and the Politics of Difference, Iris Young draws attention to the fact that “contemporary philosophical theories of justice… tend to restrict the meaning of social justice to the morally proper distribution of benefits and burdens among society’s members. Young believes that this is too narrow a conception of justice, and proposes that those interested in truly understanding justice need to look beyond the distributive paradigm. Her critique goes right at the heart of liberal political theory, and as such has been the subject of intense scholarly discussion. In this paper, I will examine her criticisms of the distributive paradigm in order to determine which of them can be reconciled with conventional liberalism and which require a radical reconception of the bases of liberal moral theory.
Ecofeminism deals with ecological and feminist analyses and movements. It shows the relationship between women and nature in the view of historically, human-earth, patriarchal social structures and world views interconnected with oppression of women and nature. Feminist analysis mainly focused on Liberal, Marxist or Socialist, Cultural, Radical, Post-colonialist and Post-modernist approaches. Political ideology of feminism makes an effort to make women a self-conscious category, and it gives a power to generate a rational sensible attitude towards women, an approach to view the women in their own positions as well as own perspectives. Eco-feminist movements look for non-violent solutions to world problems. They always consider that feminine
Wild Law: A manifesto for Earth Justice is a book by Cormac Cullinan that proposes recognizing the natural order of communities and ecosystem from a legal prospective. He attempts to show an integration of different fields of study like world politics, Environmental legal theory, physics and how teachings from the ancient world can create an appealing notion for the need for change in today’s environmental understanding. This book has been influential in informing and inspiring the global movement to recognise rights for “Mother Nature”. This movement Cormac Cullinan preaches is destined to shape the 21st century as significantly as the human rights movements shaped the previous century.
Most Americans conjure imagery of a planet replete with pristine wilderness, crystal blue oceans, fresh air, and verdant forests when they think about the natural environment. In recent decades, this description is becoming increasingly applicable only to certain areas of the United States because poor and minority communities are overwhelmingly subjected to dangerous environmental hazards. As such, the concept of environmental racism has become a major issue affecting every aspect of their lives because of their placement and proximity to environmentally dangerous areas such as landfills, toxic waste sites, and other forms of pollution. The environmental justice movement seeks to remedy this problem by recognizing the direct link between economic, environmental, race, and health issues. The biggest aim of environmental justice is for all people to live, work, and play in clean, and environmentally safe communities. However, in mainstream American environmentalism, poor and minority communities are typically ignored in environmental communication because their white counterparts dominate the discourse. Recent scholarship suggests that people of color play a crucial role in fighting environmental discrimination because their cultural traditions, experiences, and histories allow them to uniquely communicate environmental risk and health concerns within their communities.
...roblems and turned a great number of people against the monarchy. These events lead to the resentment that was another key factor in beginning the French Revolution. The end of King Louis XIV’s rule was especially disastrous. After the death of his advisor Colbert, King Louis XIV made even more horrible and costly decisions. He further enlarged the military and entered into many wars in which he lost a great deal of her newly acquired territories and increased the national debt even more.
According to Gordon Walker there are three concepts of justice: Distributive, which conceives justice in terms of the distribution or sharing out of goods (resources) and bads (harm and risk), Procedural, which conceives justice in terms of the way in which decisions are made, who is involved and has influence, and finally justice as recognition, which conceives justice in terms of who is given respect and who is and isn’t valued (Walker, 10-11). In this particular case study I believe that all aspects of justice need to be discussed in order to fully obtain overall environmental justice for the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. For there is not one aspect of justice that is actively being represented in this case study. The three concepts of justice for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe will be approached through
Warren rejects emotional appeal in a very Vulcan like manner; devout to reason and logic and in doing so has created a well-written paper based solely on this rational mindset. Works Cited Warren, Mary Anne, and Mappes, D. DeGrazia. On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion. Biomedical Ethics 4th (1996): 434-440. Print.
Many would argue that they have not, in fact hiked the AT. The critics would argue that because they did not completely finish the trail they cannot say that they have hiked it. This is w...
In Belmont’s article “Ecofeminism and the Natural Disaster Heroine” she notes that the definition of ecofeminism stems from the “theory that the ideologies which authorize injustices based on gender, race, and class are related to the ideologies which sanction the exploitation and degradation of the environment” (351). In Jurassic Park, the film makes clear distinction of gender boundaries. For instance, when the group first meets th...
When we think of environmental justice, we often focus on the ecosystem in which we as humans live, and the natural resources and non-human animals that live there. We tend to think about ethical uses of natural resources, and the effects it has on the non-human animals, such as animal rights, endangerment and extinction, loss of habitat, deforestation, erosion, and pollution. Environmental justice is another factor that is concerned with environmental protection and social justice, including humans into the mix of the complex ecosystem. Environmental justice considers the fair and equal distribution of cost and benefits between humans and the natural world. (1) Environmental justice is also defined as the fair treatment of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income and no particular group should have to bear more than their fair share of the burden of negative environmental consequences from industrial pollution or
Senanayake, Pramilla, and Karen Newman. "The Politics of Abortion in the Modern Age." Conscience 23.3 (2002): 12. ProQuest.Web. 27 Feb. 2014.
In a world facing climate change and other environmental threats, intersectional approaches are critical to solving these challenges. In particular, environmentalism and feminism have ideological and historical roots that crucially inform the understanding of one another. While conventional environmental ethicists maintain that anthropocentrism is the root cause of environmental degradation, ecofeminists build upon their position. They argue that anthropocentrism has historically functioned as androcentrism and that this reality must be addressed within the study of environmental ethics.
Gender and the environment don’t sound like two things that would be well together. Surprisingly they do very well, starting with the article, “Gender and Place: Women and Environmentalism” written by Gottlieb we find out that it took women years for them to be recognized as main workers in the work place as well as major forces who fought for the environment. An example would be Cora Tucker, a huge activist who unfortunately found out, “…that environmental issues were white issues.” (Gottlieb 276). This is extremely wrong because every race has a voice about the environment. She goes on to saying that those in power who try to change small communities have no business doing it themselves because they have no idea what the people are going