WTF Is An Ecofeminist And Should You Be One?

This is your weekly instalment of WTF is going on because, these days, a lot can happen in a week…

At the Preen show at London Fashion Week eco feminism was the order of the day. 'You hold the power of the future' signs declared 'you are an ecofeminist…you are in tune with the natural world'.

Ok great but, what, exactly is eco feminism? Is it yet another empty buzzword that will be tokenistically co-opted by designers and sold back to us at a premium or is it something we should actually be getting on board with?

According to their show notes, Justin Thornton and Thea Bregazzi were inspired by the Haenyo aka 'the Amazons of Asia' - a group of women divers who can be found in the South Korean province of Jeju. These women dive for valuable shellfish without breathing apparatus well into what we would call old age while the men in their community stay at home and carry out the childcare.

After seeing photographs of the Haenyo, Preen were sold on their ecofeminist credentials and used the collection to 'pay tribute' to their dedication to the environment.

Whether or not Preen are co-opting another culture with their luxury scuba-inspire brocade or playing tribute to it, is up for debate. But, beyond the catwalk, now more than ever, we do need ecofeminism, especially when it comes to our clothes.

As far as movements go, ecofeminism is actually quite tricky to pin down. There are several of strands, and they don't all agree (see radical ecofeminists and ecowomanists). However, at its most basic, ecofeminism is school of thought which links human domination of nature with the exploitation of nature. It looks at climate change and environmental issues through the lens of gender which, when you break it down, is crucial. The concept emerged as a philosophy in the 1970s at a time when nascent green politics were on the rise. The French feminist Françoise d' Eaubonne originally coined the term 'ecological feminisme' in 1974 as a call to attention for women's potential to bring about what she hoped would be an ecological revolution. In the 80s and 90s, ecofeminism emerged as a distinct philosophical position which links feminism and environmentalism, seeing damage to the natural world as directly related to the exploitation and lack of empowerment of women.

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According to the Stanford Dictionary of Philosophyecofeminists will 'defend a notion of the self as a relational, ecological being who is a member of the larger biotic (living, organic, ecological) community'. But, how many of us self-described feminists are thinking about how we slot into a global ecological community when we pop into Zara at lunch time to binge on fast fashion? We know thatZara factory workers have gone as far as to sew pleas for help in lieu of labels into the clothes they make and yet, still we spend.

Today feminism is almost as ubiquitous as fast fashion, ironically even appearing on cheap slogan t-shirts which may or may not have exploited women somewhere in the world in the making. The average consumer bought 60% more clothing in 2014 than they did in 2000 but only kept each item of clothing half as long as they would have done in the past.

But as much as it is about seeing yourself as part of something bigger than your immediate community, ecofeminism is also about the exploitation of the environment and how this impacts on women in particular.

We worry about whether or not to go vegan, use refillable coffee cups and frown on single use plastics but turn a blind eye to the fact that our insatiable desire for new, affordable clothes has caused water stress and pollution. Did you know that it takes 2,700 litres of water to make just one cotton t-shirt? According to the Water Footprint Network, in Central Asia the Aral Sea has nearly disappeared because cotton farmers draw excessively from the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers. And, as if that wasn't enough, it's thought that around 20% of the world's industrial water pollution is a direct result of the garment manufacture industry. Who suffers when safe water is scarce? As the charity One points out, in just one day, it is estimated that more than 152 million hours of women and girls' time is taken up by collecting water. That's time that could be spent at school or in work.

Ecofeminism has to be more than a buzzword. It needs to be a commitment and not just a concept paid lip service during fashion week. Instagrammable as Preen's fashion week manifesto was, their idealised references to the pastoral way of life of the Haenyo are a far cry from the problems presented by the fast turnaround of the fashion industry today.

So, next time you find yourself on the high street/your phone impulse-buying an item of clothing you don't really need, stop. Consider its environmental footprint because the environmental impact of fast fashion is a feminist issue. Feminist fashion has to be ethical fashion and there's no doubt that we should all be ecofeminists.

The real question, perhaps, is not whether we should all be ecofeminists but whether we can afford to be? After all, there's a reason why we're all looking for cheap, quick fashion fixes and it's because we don't have huge disposable incomes. I'm as guilty as they come on this one. Perhaps being an achievable ecofeminist could be as simple as buying a bit less and thinking a bit more.

Follow Vicky on Twitter @Victoria_Spratt

This article originally appeared on The Debrief.