Feminism or death: How the Women's Movement Can Save the Planet by Françoise D'Eaubonne (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Feminism or death: How the Women's Movement Can Save the Planet by Françoise D'Eaubonne Miao Li D'Eaubonne, Françoise. Feminism or death: How the Women's Movement Can Save the Planet. Ed. and Trans. Ruth Hottell. Verso, 2022. Pp. [i]-xxxii; 310. ISBN 978-1-83976-440-0. $26.95 (paper). Published in French in 1974 and appearing for the first time in English, radical feminist Françoise d'Eaubonne's Feminism or Death contends that due to the limitation of contemporary feminism that demands "fragments" of world management instead of wholly establishing a new humanism, ecofeminism will be the only possible salvation from the two most serious dangers facing the world: population growth and the destruction of the environment, both with a common root in "phallocracy"—a society dominated by males, considered superior. D'Eaubonne surveys women's conditions worldwide in actual and fictional contexts throughout history and claims the universality of misogynist discourse. Comparing women to other disadvantaged groups like Jews, black men, and the proletariat, she supposes that "feminitude," or the tragic state of being a woman suffering from social, economic, and cultural discrimination (including but not limited to various forms of prostitution and rape), is caused by institutions of male domination. Biological difference, however, should not serve as a pretext for social differentiation. She then points out that the two most immediate threats of death—overpopulation and the destruction of the environment—are both rooted in the patriarchal system (and not in capitalist or socialist society) which exploits, suppresses, and destroys women's bodies as well as the natural environment. According to D'Eaubonne, the male has seized control of the soil, its fertility, and later through industry, of women's fecundity. It was logical that the overexploitation of one and the other would result in this double and paralleled peril. D'Eaubonne sees in feminist combat an issue of life or death for humans and the planet. Moving beyond the idea of revolution to a "mutation," the solution of ecofeminism defeats not just phallocratism—a mental structure and political and social factor dated historically, necessitated most probably by men's takeover of agriculture, which was up until then women's domain—, but the system of power itself. She suggests contraception and abortion as a response to overpopulation and finds that the male mentality toward "productivity" and "consumption" has caused environmental destruction. The only mutation that can save the world, therefore, is the "great upheaval" of male power that brought about agricultural overexploitation and industrial expansion. She does not suggest a matriarchy, but rather the destruction of power by women, and finally, an egalitarian administration of a world reborn. Translated by French feminist scholar Ruth Hottell, this edition includes a foreword by Carolyn Merchant, contextualizing the work within feminist theory and recognizing its contemporary influences which confirm that the current developments of ecofeminism find their origins in the early-1970s movements from which d'Eaubonne drew and elaborated on in this book. The scholarly introduction by ecofeminists Myriam Bahaffou and Julie Gorecki values the role of ecofeminism in history while stating the limitations of the radicalistic ideas [End Page 162] presented in this book and cautioning other ecofeminist readers against patterns of thought rooted in hegemonic feminism. One may argue that certain passages, such as the simplification of disadvantaged groups to Jews, black men, homosexuals, and the proletariat, no longer reflect the current context, due to the transformations that occurred worldwide over the past fifty years. However, d'Eaubonne provides countless examples that appeared in history, whether in literature or in real life, and invites readers to consider the oppressive system that marginalizes groups based on their ethnicity, race, sexuality, religion, and so on, in a comprehensive way. Indeed, gender, social and environmental issues need to be viewed collectively especially in the contemporary context in which we face urgent issues such as climate change and a diminishing of human rights. Miao Li University of Calgary Copyright © 2023 Women in French Studies