The ecofeminist movement was founded on the insight that the way our culture treats the Earth and the way it treats women are linked. Starhawk notes that “both are identified with the flesh, the body, the bloody and messy processes of bringing life into the world and its inevitable end in death, decay, and rot. When that cycle is devalued, when what is sacred is abstract, removed from Earth, transcending life and death without being marked by the cycles of life, the Earth and women are both denigrated, and both become victims of exploitation, assault, and rape” (Starhawk, 2005).

Through the dualistic worldview, Starhawk offers the ecofeminist movement a holistic way in which to view humanity and its impact on the planet, emphasizing the importance of both positivist and humanist methods of understanding the Earth. Above all, the layered lens of the acrostic eye over one that views the world in a more rigid way encourages the discussion of all possibilities, and thus all solutions.

In her book The Earth Path, Starhawk encourages the reader to open their minds, intimating that whenever an area of knowledge is considered suspect, the mind is constricted. She writes that “the universe is too big, too complex, too ever-changing for us to know it completely, so we choose to view it through a certain frame – one that screens out pieces of information that conflict with the categories in our minds. The narrower that frame, the more we screen out, the less capable we are of understanding or doing” (Starhawk, 2005)

Starhawk. (2005). The Earth Path: Grounding Your Spirit in the Rhythms of Nature. Harper San Francisco.

Photo Credit: https://sustainableworldradio.com/creating-a-future-we-want-to-live-in-an-interview-with-starhawk/