Throughout this essay I will explore the work of Helene Aylon and Ana Mendieta, ecofeminist artists, focusing on the art they produced since the 1970s. The extent to which their lives and their work influenced not only ecofeminism, but feminism on an intersectional level, will be analysed and discussed in this essay. I plan to explore the relationship between feminism and ecology and identify the impact that ecofeminism has had on both healing the split between nature and culture and the equality of those who have been oppressed by a patriarchal society. I will also be exploring women’s environmental movements as a way to compare and correlate the link between environmental rights and women’s rights. The political and philosophical nature of ecofeminism will be addressed through the understanding of women’s environmental movements that emerged on a global level from the 1970s to present day.

Ecofeminism, as defined by the Oxford Dictionary, is ‘a philosophical and political theory and movement which combines ecological concerns with feminists ones, regarding both as resulting from male domination of society’.1 The first use of the term is widely attributed to Françoise d’Eaubonne, who used ‘ecofeminismé’ in her book Le Féminisme ou la Mort in 1974.2 d’Eaubonne used the term as a way to link the exploitation of nature, the domination of women, and the oppression of subordinate groups as a result of a male-dominated, patriarchal society. d’Eaubonne encourages women to take the power from the ‘patriarchal man’ and replace it with ‘egalitarian management of a world to be reborn’.3 Her text, however, was not translated in its entirety until fifteen years later, the 1980s translation did not even include the word ‘ecofeminism’.4 Nevertheless ‘ecofeminism’ was already beginning to spread across the globe. Rather than a single writer influencing the world, people became more aware of the world around them and the changes that needed to be made. Asidentified by Mary Mellor in Feminism and Ecology, ecofeminism grew in the US following two main streams. One was ‘radical/cultural/spiritualism feminism’ that stressed the ‘natural affinity of women to the natural world’, and the other that had more ‘social constructionist and radical political perspectives’.5 Although Mellor suggests that there are philosophical and theoretical differences within ecofeminism, there are still apparent connections between the women’s movement and the ecology movement. Rosemary Radford Ruether suggests in New Woman, New Earth that ‘women must see that there can be no liberation for them and no solution to the ecological crisis within a society whose fundamental model of relationships continues to be one of domination’.6 Therefore there is an underlying concept that the issues relating to ecology are similar to those faced by women trying to gain equality. The nature- culture split enables the oppression and exploitation of female and non-human bodies by those in power and able to influence outcomes, who are predominantly men.

To understand the relevance of Aylon and Mendieta’s work, it has to be understood in the context of the global environmental movements initiated by women on a larger scale than just art-making. The Chipko movement, initiated by twenty-seven women of Reni from northern India in 1974, saved 12,000 square kilometres of sensitive watershed by hugging trees in a peaceful protest.7 This movement can be seen as an example of women connecting with their environment and protecting it from industries that try to claim the land for themselves. In 1977, on World Environmental Day, the Green Belt Movement, led by Wangari Maathai, planted the first trees in Nairobi to ensure conservation and development of the environment.8 Maathai has been awarded over fifty awards in her lifetime, with outstanding achievements such as Women of The World Award from WomenAid in 1989 and The Nobel Peace Prize from the Norwegian Nobel Committee in 2004.9 Celebrating the work of women who are protecting the rights of the environment, is a powerful indicator of the combination of feminism and ecology. In 1978, in Love Canal, New York State, Lois Gibbs led her community in protest after discovering their housing estate had been built over a toxic waste site.10 Alongside her success for getting 833 families relocated, the protest also resulted in critical environmental legislation.11 Gibbs’ example shows that an ‘average’ person can change the lives of an entire community, and to an extent influence ecofeminism on a global level.

The 1980s brought more environmental movements led by women, a few of which will be discussed. Perhaps, as suggested by Noel Sturgeon, the most influential initiating event of ecofeminism in the US was the ‘Women and Life on Earth: Ecofeminism’ event in 1980, organised by Ynestra King and other women from anti-nuclear, environmental, and lesbian- feminist movements.12 The conference had workshops and panels with over 650 women attendees. This same year, the Women’s Pentagon Actions group was formed, an ecofeminist, anti-militarisation and anti-nuclear organisation.13 Argued by T.V. Reed, ‘the extent that some feminisms have managed to focus on...race, class, colonialism, sexual orientation, and environmental devastation, as well as...analysis of gender’ has allowed ‘important radical perspectives from which to undertake future political thought and action’.14 The suggestion that combining issues that fall under the umbrella of traditional feminism with the environment can be radical and powerful, is encouraging for ecofeminism. In 1985, Katsi Cook created the Akwesasne Mother’s Milk Project, to understand the dangers of toxins in water affecting women’s breast milk.15 Her awareness for the environment and how it can effect women, certainly implies that the environment and its mistreatment could be a feminist issue.

It is evident that the influence of ecofeminism was spreading across the world and beginning to have a political impact on people’s lives. During this time, some feminist artists were beginning to explore ecofeminism and the works of Aylon will be critiqued in relation to impact and influence on the ecofeminist movement. The beginning of what could be regarded as Aylon’s transition into making ecofeminist art, was the creation of Wrestlers in 1980. At this point, Aylon had moved on from her ‘process art’ years to creating art that responded to the threat of nuclear war, becoming an eco-activist artist.16 Wrestlers was created in the early days of ecofeminism, where Aylon travelled to the desert and created a photographic series in response to searching for a foremother.17 Aylon says she was ‘looking toward the land for truths about the ancient history of womanhood’ and that she was ‘identifying the very body of woman to the body of the land’.18 This work can be understood as a reflection of ecofeminism. Although it seems Essentialist, a common criticism of ecofeminism, it allowed Aylon to create a religious art form as an orthodox Jewish woman. In 1981, Aylon led a collaborative art piece in the Middle East which involved Arabic and Israeli Jewish women who filled sacs with rocks.19 One woman who was part of the performative piece said, ‘when they pull apart the knots and look inside, they will discover women’s unity’.20 This piece, involving nature and women, is an admirable symbol of ecofeminism and the positive impact that it can have on women’s lives.



There is a real sense of continuity to Aylon’s work when, in 1982, she began to create what is known as Earth Ambulance. For this politically-driven piece she drove to twelve S.A.C. (Strategic Air Command) sites across America, in an attempt to ‘rescue’ the earth near the missile sites. People met her along her journey, bringing pillow cases (sacs) on which they wrote their dreams and nightmares about the nuclear war, and then proceeded to fill the bags with the earth. The trip ended on June 12 1982 at the United Nations during the UN Special Session on Disarmament.21 This work might be realised as an environmental piece, but as a woman who includes the oppression of the environment in her work, it becomes ecofeminist art. Following on from using sacs in her work, Aylon made the piece two sacs en route in 1985, a video piece on the forty year anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.22 The video showed sacs filled with seeds floating down the river to these two sites, and in 1995 the video was shown on the Sony Jumbotron in New York’s Time Square.23 Aylon’s work spans many decades, encouraging waves of feminism to look towards ecofeminism, a feminist thought that can perhaps consider more than just human oppression. Her involvement and contribution towards the Earth and the dangers surrounding it, are inspiring for ecofeminism and making feminism a more intersectional cause.



To understand the work of Mendieta, her death must first be noted. Mendieta’s death is incomprehensible, the mystery still ongoing today. Betsy Damon once said, ‘I cannot forget this death. I can not forget the dehumanisation of men that causes the brutalisation of women’.24 The inconceivable death of Mendieta, is not the topic in this essay, but the suspicion surrounding her death highlights such a valuable point in the history of feminism. Her husband, Carl Andre, was accused of murder as he was present when she fell from a thirty-four storey apartment in Manhattan.25 Although Andre was acquitted of murder, Mendieta has not and will not be forgotten. Assuming that she died at the hands of her husband, this highlights the effect of domestic violence against women. It seems ironic that the representation of herself in her art, has strong symbolic relevance to the way in which she died: a body lying in the earth. The police took no photos of her body as it lay on the pavement26, yet all through her career she was creating art using her body and the earth.

 

The Silueta series took place from 1973 to 1980 and explored her relationship, and human relationship, with the earth by creating silhouettes of her body amongst the earth’s natural elements. It can be seen that Mendieta is using repetitive ideas throughout the Silueta series to explore binaries in life and society. Her work suggests ideas that two things that are believed as separate do not have to be, for example the binaries of: nature/culture, female/male, birth/death, and time/timeless. As suggested by Jane Blocker, her Silueta work of herself in the snow, represents both birth and death.27 By placing her body in the snow, Mendieta allows the work to die in the winter and be reborn in the spring. The work has a romantic element to it, yet as discussed by Mellor, ecofeminism was often criticised for its romanticism.28 Although it can be argued that Mendieta produced ecofeminist art, she relied heavily on the ideas that women and nature are associated on a higher level. This suggests that women are nurturers and carers, which challenges the concept of freedom and autonomy that so many women are fighting for. Cecile Jackson states that by conserving these ideas that women are responsible for nature, ecofeminism can ‘hardly claim empowerment for women’.29

Ecofeminism arose to challenge oppression of women and nature by giving them a voice. However differences within ecofeminism about affiliation of women and nature, makes it hard for ecofeminism to be understood as a united political movement. By suggesting ideas that women are nurturers because of their biological makeup, is what women have been told for centuries by a patriarchal society; and they have been oppressed for it. To advocate that women must now reclaim this belief in order to protect the environment, is understandably rejected by some feminists. Although I believe in ecofeminism as a movement, I can recognise that considering women’s rights and environmental rights as a movement together, comes from privileged ideologies. Feminism for many women, including women of colour and those living in poverty, is much more about being able to obtain human rights, avoid disease, being safe from domestic violence and physical, sexual, financial and emotional exploitation, and to obtain safe work without resulting in disability or death. However many women’s environmental movements have highlighted the issues for women of colour and women from poorer communities, who are subject to environmental discrimination and mistreatment under a patriarchal society. They have become politically involved in order to make changes for their environment. Therefore it can be seen that protection of the environment can sit alongside protection of those who have been oppressed. Through exploring the works of Helene Aylon and Ana Mendieta I have found great inspiration from the ecofeminist movement. Aylon’s political nature towards conserving the Earth, not only strengthens ecofeminism, but also the intersectionality of feminism as a wider movement. Mendieta created art forms that, although can be criticised for perpetuating the idea of women as nurturers, still represented something quite powerful. The ability to nurture and care, should be embraced by all people, in the hope that one day nothing on our planet will be undervalued and overridden in the way that women’s rights have been for so many years.

1 Oxford English Dictionaries [online], ‘Ecofeminism’, https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/ definition/ecofeminism [accessed 17 April 2018]

2 Niamh Moore, ‘Eco/feminist genealogies: renewing promises and new possibilities’, Contemporary Perspectives on Ecofeminism, p. 25

3 Isabelle De Courtivron and Elaine Marks, New French Feminisms, p. 15

4 Moore, ‘Eco/feminist genealogies: renewing promises and new possibilities’, p. 26
5 Mary Mellor, Feminism and Ecology, p. 45

6 Rosemary Radford Ruether, New Woman, New Earth: Sexist Ideologies and Human Liberation, p. 51

7 Karen Warren, ‘Taking Empirical Data Seriously: An Ecofeminist Philosophical

Perspective’, in Ecofeminism: Women, Culture, Nature, p. 5

8 Jytte Nhanenge, Ecofeminism: Towards Integrating the Concerns of Women, Poor People, and Nature into Development, p. 379

9 Green Belt Movement, Biography, http://www.greenbeltmovement.org/wangari-maathai/ biography, [accessed 18 April 2018]
10 Mary Mellor, ‘Gender and the Environment’, in The International Yearbook of Environmental and Resource Economics 2000/2001, p. 196

11 Katie Gibson, ‘Lois Gibbs’s Rhetoric of Care: Voicing a Relational Ethic of Compassion, Inclusivity, and Community in Response to the Toxic Disaster at Love Canal’ in Green Voices: Defending Nature and the Environment in American Civic Discourse, p. 212

12 Noel Sturgeon, Ecofeminist Natures: Race, Gender, Feminist Theory and Political Action, p. 26

13 Bron Taylor, Encyclopaedia of Religion and Nature, p. 536
14 T. V. Reed, Fifteen Jugglers, Five Believers: Literary Politics and the Poetics of American

Social Movements, p. 121

15 Jill Nicole Doverspike, ‘Mother’s Milk Project’, English 487W Blog: West of Everything, http://www.personal.psu.edu/cjm5/blogs/english/2012/04/mothers-milk-project.html [accessed 18 April 2018]

16 California, ‘The Best Laid Sands’, in California, Volume 14, Issues 9-12, p. 20

17 Helene Aylon, ‘Wrestlers’, http://www.heleneaylon.com/wrestlers.html [accessed 18 April 2018]

18 Aylon, ‘Wrestlers’, http://www.heleneaylon.com/wrestlers.html [accessed 18 April 2018] 19 Judith E. Stein, ‘Collaboration’, in The Power of Feminist Art, p. 237

20 Aylon, ‘Stone sacs’, http://www.heleneaylon.com/stone_sacs.html [accessed 19 April 2018]

21 Aylon, ‘Three Earth Ambulances’, http://www.heleneaylon.com/earth-amb.html [accessed 19 April 2018]

22 Northern California Jewish Bulletin, ‘Jewish filmmakers link torment of Japanese, Jews in WWII’, in ‘Northern California Jewish Bulletin, Volume 135, p. 25

23 Jewish Women’s Archive, ‘Opening of “Two Jewish?” Exhibit featuring work of artist Helene Aylon’, https://jwa.org/thisweek/mar/10/1996/helene-aylon [accessed 19 April 2018]

24 Jane Blocker, Where is Ana Mendieta?: Identity, Performativity, and Exile, p. 1 25 Blocker, Where is Ana Mendieta?: Identity, Performativity, and Exile, p.1

26 Bridget Quinn, Broad Strokes: 15 Women Who Made Art and Made History (in That Order), p. 145

27 Blocker, Where is Ana Mendieta?: Identity, Performativity, and Exile, p.66 28 Mellor, Feminism and Ecology, p. 45

29 Cecile Jackson, ‘Radical Environmental Myths: A Gender Perspective’ in New Left Review, p. 129

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De Courtivron, I. And Marks, E., New French Feminisms (New York City: Schocken Books, 1988)

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Gibson, Katie, ‘Lois Gibbs’s Rhetoric of Care: Voicing a Relational Ethic of Compassion, Inclusivity, and Community in Response to the Toxic Disaster at Love Canal’ in Green Voices: Defending Nature and the Environment in American Civic Discourse (Albany, SUNY Press, 2016)

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Moore, Niamh, ‘Eco/feminist genealogies: renewing promises and new possibilities’, in Contemporary Perspectives on Ecofeminism, ed. by Mary Phillips and Nick Rumens (Abingdon: Routledge, 2015) pp. 19-38

Nhanenge, Jytte, Ecofeminism: Towards Integrating the Concerns of Women, Poor People, and Nature into Development, (Lanham: University Press of America, 2011)

Northern California Jewish Bulletin, ‘Jewish filmmakers link torment of Japanese, Jews in WWII’, in ‘Northern California Jewish Bulletin, Volume 135 (San Francisco: San Francisco Jewish Community Publication, 1986) https://books.google.co.uk/books? id=XeRNAQAAIAAJ&q=helene+aylon+two+sacs+on+route&dq=helene+aylon+two+sacs+on +route&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwipw6_Bvs7aAhXPb1AKHeptBsoQ6AEISDAH [accessed 18 April 2018]

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Ruether, Rosemary Radford, New Woman, New Earth: Sexist Ideologies and Human Liberation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995)

Stein, Judith E., ‘Collaboration’, The Power of Feminist Art, ed. by Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrard, (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1996) pp. 226-240

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