The Development of Ecofeminist Theory:
Silent Spring, 1962
Carson’s controversy from “Silent Spring”. Source: New York Times and Pittsburgh Press, 1962.
The publication of ‘Silent Spring’ by Rachel Carson in 1962 is particularly significant to ecofeminist ideology, most especially due to its reception from male dominated disciplines and how this underlines the restrictive and rigid means of a patriarchal societal system. Being the book that ‘laid the foundations for the environmental movement’(McKie,2012,p1), its relevancy can be justified right through to contemporary times, with regards to our ongoing and escalating environmental, climate crisis. Observing the alarming phenomenon of environmental health, massive bird deaths, Carson used scientific methods to trace various avenues for sustenance in the songbird’s lives, that being air water food and habitat, only to discover that overexposure to pesticides was the lethal agent. ‘Silent Spring’ acts as the literary argument for an end to pesticides.
Facing strong corporate assaults on her work whilst battling breast cancer, an illness later found to hold great links to the synthetic chemicals she studied, Carson’s pledge was highly controversial (McKie,2012,p1). ‘Silent Spring’ was particularly unpopular with farmers and male agricultural workers who were comfortable continuing the misogynistic outlook which saw patriarchal dominance over the land and its cultivation. Although the term ‘ecofeminist’ did not appear until a decade after her death, Carson’s work exemplifies ecofeminist praxis; the inseparability of theory and practice. Carson’s intersectional approach, linking environmental issues with social concerns, anticipates and paves the way for ecofeminist concerns. This is contextually relevant to my practice as this publication was crucial to the development of ecological, ecofeminist practices and the ongoing liberation of women from patriarchal, mysogenistic constraints/ oppressive environments.
Alfred Eisenstaedt, 'Rachel Carson Talking with Children in the Woods by her Home', 1962