Across many marginalized communities, there is a recognition that the degradation of the environment and the oppression of women are not separate struggles, but entangled realities, rooted in the same systems of power. In rural Kenya, the forests of India, and the urban peripheries of Brazil, the consequences of environmental harm fall most heavily on women, not because of biology, but because of longstanding structural inequalities that position women as both the stewards of natural resources and the least empowered to protect them.
One recurring theme in this week’s material is the intimate knowledge women possess of environmental damage, because they are the first to see and feel its effects. As Wangari Maathai explains in her article “Speak Truth to Power”, “if the well goes dry, [women] are the ones concerned about finding new sources of water and those who must walk long distances to fetch it” (2000). When water is polluted, food becomes scarce, or forests are cleared, it is women who must absorb the burden of care and adaptation. Despite the often romanticized and abstract connections between women and nature, this is a real and political issue. It’s about who has responsibility without power and who labors without recognition.
Ecofeminism emerges here to challenge the logic that sees women and nature as passive, exploitable resources. Ivone Gebara writes in “Ecofeminism: A Latin American Perspective”, “feminism lies inside this common utopia with its own particular struggle and will also be a particular utopia for all women living in hierarchical structures in different cultures” (2002). This vision is not about elevating women’s suffering, it’s about recognizing their agency. In many communities, the simple act of planting a tree becomes a revolutionary act, one rooted (pun intended) in practical power. Wangari Maathai describes this type of grassroots activism during the Green Belt Movement: “Tree-planting empowered these women because it was not a complicated thing. It was something they could do and see the results of” (2000). This is a clear example of how beyond flowery existential debates, women have the ability to take control of their environment and their future.
However, these efforts are rarely welcomed by patriarchal power structures. When feminists challenge environmental exploitation, they also threaten the culture that enables it. Maathai was dismissed by officials as part of “a bunch of divorcees and irresponsible women” and her group faced threats of genital mutilation for “refusing to behave like women should” (2000). These are blatant attempts to discredit women’s claims to public space and quiet their voices.
At the heart of the material this week is a shared critique of the structures that serve to disempower women. Material deprivation and cultural loss do not occur in a vacuum, they are the outcomes of systemic exclusion. “Daily life for most poor women is like a jail,” Gebara writes. “You have to live there as a prisoner without choosing alternatives for a better life” (2002). The destruction of ecosystems is mirrored in this lack of autonomy, especially for women in rural and poor communities. The connection here is clear: environmental degradation reinforces disempowerment, and vice versa.
We can free women from these jails, we can strengthen and empower them through activism, but it begins with awareness. In the Green Belt Movement’s educational programs, the metaphor of the “wrong bus” is used to help people understand systemic failure. “If you are afraid, you can get onto the wrong bus. If you are arrogant… if you are not mentally alert… There are many reasons,” writes Maathai. In other words, misinformation, fear, and illiteracy all conspire to put people on the wrong bus, the one that reinforces the cycles that perpetuate their circumstances. But once people realize they are on the bus, they can decide to get off, to act, to plant, to organize, to resist. This is the seed that plants the action.
Stories of grassroots ecofeminist movements show us that meaningful activism is deeply practical. They show that healing the earth is not separate from healing relationships with our community and ourselves. As Wangari Maathai puts it, “the clarity of what you ought to do gives you courage, removes the fear… and now you are out of the bus and moving in the right direction” (2000). These movements intentionally critique but also offer pathways forward that are paved with the urgency of lived realities. In this light, environmental degradation is not only a scientific or economic issue, it is a moral and political one. And women, often pushed to the margins, are speaking up in that conversation. Not through grand speeches or platforms, but through daily, deliberate acts of resistance.
Works Cited
Gebara, Ivone (2002). Ecofeminism: A Latin American Perspective. Theology, Ecology, and Feminism: A Conference Honoring Rosemary
Radford Ruether. Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary.
Maathai, Wangari (2000). Speak Truth to Power. Green Belt Movement. https://www.greenbeltmovement.org/wangari-maathai/key-speeches-and-articles/speak-truth-to-power