CLASS, RACE, AND GENDER DISCOURSE IN THE ECOFEMINISM DEEP ECOLOGY DEBATE

While both ecofeminism and deep ecology share a commitment to overcomi ng the conventional division between humanity and nature, a major diff erence between the two is that deep ecology brings little social analy sis to its environmental ethic. I argue that there are ideological rea sons for this difference. Applying a sociology of knowledge and discou rse analysis to deep ecological texts to uncover these reasons, I conc lude that deep ecology is constrained by political attitudes meaningfu l to white-male, middle-class professionals whose thought is not groun ded in the labor of daily maintenance and survival. At a micro-politic al level, this masculinist orientation is revealed by an armory of def ensive discursive strategies and techniques used in deep ecological re sponses to ecofeminist criticism.