Ecofeminism In Postmodernist Context

Among the environmental movements in contemporary Western society, ecofeminism is a strong social and cultural trend arising from both environmental movements and feminism. Ecofeminism concerns mainly of the intrinsic connection between women and natural rule in Western capitalism world. Since 1974 when French scholar d'Eaubonne first coined the concept, "eco-feminism", the concept has devleloped rapidly in Western society.Ecofeminism connects the resolve of eco-environmental crisis with women's liberation, they argue that a parallel exists between the domination and oppression sufferd by nature from humans and the oppression suffered by women. The status of women oppresion becomes even more serious, for the Western cultural tradition, in particular the establishment of modern industrial civilization and development. Therefore, ecofeminism advocates women to act against the destruction of the natural environment, and to tightly integrate their own fates with nature, that only when the harmonius develoment relationship between man and nature are reached, will the unequal treatment suffered by women be really resolved.Reexamine on the history of Western society development, ecofeminists pointed out that traditional "patriarchal" view of the world and the "binary" way of thinking is the source for patriarchal social domination and oppression of nature and women. To change the status of being exploited and oppressed of women and nature, inevitably depends on the harmonious development of biology system, and the oppose of all forms of dominations and oppressions.The thought of ecofeminist evoluted for nearly 40 years. The theory continue to grow throughout the world, and has a considerable influence in China and Western academic circles. Ecofeminism performs as different characterisitcs as time and places changes. Therefore, different stems of ecofeminism exist. But different regional and thought branches share the same starting point, that women and nature share a special connection, and environmental equality and gender equality are pairs. Thus, ecofeminism provides new ways and means to solve ecological crisis and female liberty.At the same time, ecofeminism has a diverse cultural perspective. The feature of the theory is unfixedness. Ecofeminism was born in postmodern world, so it shares a common feature - anti-trandition. However, ecofeminism and postmodernism do not coincide. Ecofeminism, to some extent went beyond postmodernism, further developed, and formed its unique ideas.In this paper, based on the theoretical basis, realistic basis and the current state of ecofeminism, the reason for the emergence, theoretical meanings and the main features of ecofeminism are highlighted. Based on these, we compared it with postmodernism and pointed out that the unique characterisitsc of ecofeminism within postmodern field. And in the end, we tried to reveal the theoretical value of the trend and the practical siginificace of its existence.