dear Mother, your daughters have failed you.

Ecofeminism and examining how the constant abuse of the Earth is relative to women’s struggles under patriarchy and capitalism.

Spring by Harmonia Rosales.

The Earth is our Mother. She granted us a place to lay our heads after birth, water to fill our mouths and food to hold our stomachs. She brings up the trees to make our houses, or the papers you read at school. She births the resources we used to sustain ourselves and our economies, with the only wish that we give back. That we replenish her soils, and protect the same ecosystem that keeps us safe.

Yet, sadly, we rape her.

Currently, global temperatures are raising and record breaking heat-waves are sweeping through continents. Polar ice in Greenland and Antarctica are shrinking drastically, to which its end results would be nothing but costal flooding across regions. Globally within this year, a wide range of natural disasters have been recorded; from floods, catastrophic hurricanes, earthquakes, and wild fires.

All these aren’t birthed from some mare coincidence—it’s signs that the Mother is angry at our failure to give back all what we’ve taken from her. It’s her rage towards the constant drilling, the release of co-emissions, fossil fuels and the depletion of her ozone layer that is meant to protect us. More recently, with the raise of AI use and the establishment of data centers all across the world, we are running her water dry too, and soon enough, we’ll be left with nothing.

However, I want to observe this tragedy from a feminist lens. Although, yes, the reaping of the earth is as a result of the constant pursuit of wealth on a finite planet, the question is, why do we disregard the very thing that protects and sustains us, despite knowing the consequences of it?

A plethora of answers can emerge from this question but I want to focus on one—which is the fact that the abuse of the earth, is closely tied to the subjugation and and oppression of women within the patriarchal and capitalist arrangement of our society.

This idea is what is known as Ecofeminism; which can be defined, at is core, as the belief that the domination of women and and destruction of the earth are interwoven.

This outlook is very essential in regards to the pursuit of breaking down and dismantling the patriarchy as such can not be achieved whilst standing on the very ground that is observed through a patriarchal view.

To quote Vandana Shiva in Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Development “The earth and the women of the earth are being treated as commodities to be exploited. The destruction of nature and the subjugation of women are linked.”

A video on Instagram piqued my interest, where the speaker was highlighting how continents are granted feminine names (Antarctica , Asia, Africa, America) and how she thinks this makes it easy for people and capitalists to easily topple and destroy it, in regards to how society treats femininity and women.

I’ll go further and also examine how most countries use the pronoun “her”, in contrast to the patriarchal use of “male”, “man” or “mankind” to define a collective that puts masculinity as first. This is because, as explained above, the earth nurtures and nourishes and such is also the patriarchal definition of women and their roles.

However before the introduction of capitalism, colonialism and patriarchy, this was firstly never the case. Within indigenous native tribes and African communities—earth as a mother and a giver had been revered and worshiped. This can be observed in the devotion of several deities (Ayè as a spiritual force in Yoruba Mythology. Ala, the goddess of earth in Igbo spirituality, fertility and mortality) as well as the worship of rivers, tress, and nature in general. To take from her indiscriminately was an abomination and had spiritual consequences.

Although I would acknowledge that this is a double edged sword, because it also created symbolic expectations for women tied to their abilities to give and nurture, but the truth still remains that the worship of women and the divine feminine—unlike what is going on today—is still deeply powerful and challenges capitalism and patriarchy that as seen her as something to plunder.

Fast-forward to the emergence of colonial exploitation, lands were turned to commodities, only meant to reap natural resources for the expansion of the Industrial Era. Communal land systems were then replaced with the ownership of it as private poverty, treating it as something to dominate. For the sustenance of a few private individuals, came the release of dangerous gasses into the atmosphere and pollution of water. Earth no longer became something to revere, but to exploit and abuse.

Furthermore, with the arrival of Christan missionaries came the abolition of such spiritual practices that worshipped the things of nature, tagging it as demonic and replacing female deities with masculine religious figures.

The arrival and establishment of capitalism and colonialism turned earth into a resource and made people loose the respect it once had for her.

Now, as explained before, the reason why this is so catastrophic to human-kind in general, is simply because the way we have destroyed earth, is synonymous to how we destroy women under the patriarchy, due to it being tied to femininity.

The patriarchy expect women to be endlessly caring, and meant to give all her time, labour and affection without limits. Furthermore, we’re told to experience hardship quietly, and our consent, well-being and boundaries are not cared for.

Isn’t there a striking similarity?

Thus it makes it easy for us to loiter, for us to not care about her. For the companies to poison our waters and kill our fish. For them to hack down our trees, that strip the animals from their homes, and kill them too. It’s so easy to abuse her because she is tied to womanhood and such demands a labor that never ends.

Climate justice is also gender justice and removes the harmful ways we’ve come to view women in the society. However, this is not to say we should continue viewing women as nurturers and this would only stilt our roles in society as thus, but rather recognize the shared struggle against our domination.

As feminist and as human beings in general, fighting for climate justice should also be part of our core missions for building a better world rooted in justice and care, because the fight for the liberation of women and climate action are not separate struggles—they are simply the same.