Bernard Shaw's Ecofeminism Movement

Although ecofeminism as a movement started around 1970s much after Shaw’s death, his plays depict how foresighted he was with regard to the association that existed between nature and women that started this movement. His plays are mostly scene in the light of reformation of society at which they are aimed but they also abound in instances that reflect the undeniable association and dependence, women and nature share with each other. This aspect of his writings has been largely overlooked. This paper had been written with the aim to explore and unearth this association in two of Shaw’s plays Pygmalion and St.Joan. The paper indicates how Shaw’s plays provide an insight to the objectives of Eco-feminism and its off-shoots like vegetarian ecofeminism.

This undeniable association between women and nature gave rise to ecofeminism, a movement that can be seen as one stemming out in reaction to androcentricism and anthropocentricism. Ecofeminism describes movements and philosophies that link feminism with ecology. The term is believed to have been coined by the French writer Françoise d 'Eaubonne in her book Le Féminisme ou la Mort (1974).

Ecological feminism, or ecofeminism, is an interdisciplinary movement that calls for a new way of thinking about nature, politics, and spirituality. Ecofeminist theory has particular and significant connections between women and nature. Ecofeminism interprets the repression of women and their exploitation in terms of the repression and exploitation of the environment. Ecofeminists argue that traditional androcentered approaches involving exploitation of and supremacy over women are echoed in patriarchal norms and discourse with respect to the

The framework described is intended to establish ways of viewing and understanding our current global situations so that we are better able to understand how we arrived at this point and what may be done to better the situation. “The four sides of the frame are: the mechanistic materialist model of the universe that resulted from the scientific revolution and the subsequent reduction of all things into mere resources to be optimized, dead inert matter to be used, the rise of patriarchal religions and their establishment of gender hierarchies along with their denial of immanent divinity, self and other dualisms and the inherent power and domination ethic it entails, and capitalism and its intrinsic need for the exploitation, destruction and instrumentalization of animals, earth and people for the sole purpose of creating