Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

This groundbreaking work remains as relevant today as when it was when first published. Two of Zed's best-known authors argue that ecological destruction and industrial catastrophes constitute a direct threat to everyday life, the maintenance of which has been made the particular responsibility of women. In both industrialized societies and the developing countries, the new wars the world is experiencing, violent ethnic chauvinisms and the malfunctioning of the economy also pose urgent questions for ecofeminists. Is there a relationship between patriarchal oppression and the destruction of nature in the name of profit and progress? How can women counter the violence inherent in these processes? Should they look to a link between the women's movement and other social movements?

Maria Mies and Vandana Shiva offer a thought-provoking analysis of these and many other issues from a unique North-South perspective. They critique prevailing economic theories, conventional concepts of women's emancipation, the myth of 'catching up' development, the philosophical foundations of modern science and technology, and the omission of ethics when discussing so many questions, including advances in reproductive technology and biotechnology.

In constructing their own ecofeminist epistemology and methodology, these two internationally respected feminist environmental activists look to the potential of movements advocating consumer liberation and subsistence production, sustainability and regeneration, and they argue for an acceptance of limits and reciprocity and a rejection of exploitation, the endless commoditization of needs, and violence.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• 1 Introduction: Why We Wrote This Book Together
• Part I Critique And Perspective
• 2 Reductionism and Regeneration: A Crisis in Science
• 3 Feminist Research: Science, Violence and Responsibility
• Part II Subsistence Vs. Development
• 4 The Myth of Catching-up Development
• 5 The Impoverishment of the environment: Women and Children Last
• 6 Who Made nature our Enemy?
• Part III The Search For Roots
• 7 Homeless in the 'Global Village'
• 8 Masculinization of the Motherland
• 9 Women have no Fatherland
• 10 White man's dilemma: His Search for What He has Destroyed
• Part IV Ecofeminism Vs. New Areas Of Investment Through Biotechnology
• 11 Women's Indigenous Knowledge and Biodiversity Conservation
• 12 New Reproductive Technologies: Sexist and Racist Implications
• 13 From the Individual to the Dividual: the Supermarket of 'Reproductive alternatives'
• Part V Freedom For Trade Or Freedom For Survival
• 14 Self Determination: The End of a Utopia?
• 15 GATT, Agriculture and Third World Women
• 16 The Chipko Women's concept of Freedom

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Mies and Shiva, internationally respected feminist activists and writers, have put together a book that forcefully demonstrates the ways in which ecological destruction disproportionately affects women, and particularly women in the developing world. This is not mere coincidence, they argue; the oppression of women and the degradation of nature spring from the same ideological roots. Although this is hardly a new argument, the book's value lies in its application to questions of international development, which both authors contend is merely a furtherance of the colonial projects of an earlier age. What is really needed, they claim, is a return to local self-governance with an emphasis on subsistence production, both in the developing South and the industrialized North. For Mies and Shiva, consumer liberation movements, women's cooperatives, and grassroots activism all offer models for an ecologically sustainable and women-friendly future. Readers looking for an introduction to principles of ecofeminism, or for sustained philosophical analyses will not find them here, but the book would still be a good addition to environmental studies and ecofeminist collections. General readers; undergraduates. L. Vance; Vermont College