Towards a Queer Ecofeminism

Abstract

The present paper proposes a shift in ecofeminism. If this theorethical perspectivealready criticized the women-nature symbolic connection, it has not explored yet the connectionsbetween sexual diversities and nature and the discussions about our heteronormative projectionsin nature. Gaard states that Western culture has its grounds in a fear or hatred not only ofhomosexuals and their sexual intercourse, but of eroticism in general. She names it erotophobia,and it is because of erotophobia that non-reproductive sexual acts are viewed as moral deviationor perversion. To show us how pervasive erotophobia is she analyzes the history of Christianity andthe colonization of America to highlight the conections between different forms of oppression (ofwomen, of queer sexualities, of non-white people, of nature). What characterizes a queerperspective in ecofeminism is exactly the attention to thinking those interconnections and a willto rethink and liberate the erotic as a form of power.