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Eco-Feminism

Many women's ways of leadership, prosperity, spirituality and creativity are based on models of cooperation found in nature. In this round-table discussion, women from very diverse ways of life will voice the wisdom of their experience and the truth of the five basic Eco-Feminist principles:

• A belief in the interconnectedness of all forms of life and that each act effects the whole.

• Because of this interconnectedness, all forms of oppression affect us all. There are two kinds of power: power over, and power within. Power from within is empowerment, and is unlimited and renewable.

• Process determines outcome. This involves less of how to lay out rules and more of how to listen.

• Diversity is needed in the system to maintain stability. (This is true for political and economic systems also.)

• All life is sacred; therefore, all is interconnected with the sense of the sacred.

Facilitator/Organizer:

• Patricia DuBose, DuBose Natural Farm, 8801 Scarlet Circle, Austin, TX 78737; (512) 288-6950; fax: (512) 288-3374.

Other Participants:

• Christina Rawley, Director, Ecologic, Box 1440, North Falmouth, MA 02556; (617) 495-9478; (508) 563-5980. Christina Rawley has been working in ecology since 1968. Her first project was the joint US/USSR Ground Fish Survey. She worked with New Alchemy Institute in designing the bio-shelter, and in 1982-83 worked in the Peoples Republic of China on a United Nations project. She is founder of Ecologic, a consulting project based on Eco-Feminist principles that does work all over the world. She has been an Eco-Feminist organizer since 1979, was a founding member of Women and Science, and serves in the Massachusetts State Office of Science and Technology.

• Winona LaDuke, 358 Moose Factory, Ontario, Canada P0L 1W0; (218) 573-3049; (705) 658-4731; fax: (705) 658 -4487. Winona LaDuke is a member of the Anishiabe of the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota. She is the founder and president of the Indigenous Women's Network. She is published in a wide variety of magazines, and is an effective grass roots and community worker and organizer.

• Agnes Williams, Burning Springs Road, Perrysburg, NY 14129; (716) 881-2800. Agnes Williams is a member of the Seneca Nation. A single parent of two daughters, she is working on a PhD in American Studies at the University of Buffalo. Her dissertation topic is Retraditionalization of Indigenous Women as an Empowerment Strategy. She is 40 years old, and has her masters degree in social work.

• Ella Alford, Ozarks Resource Center, General Delivery, Brixey, MO 65618; (417) 679-4773. Ella Alford was raised in an affluent East Texas family. A major part of her path has been self-healing as she puts it, "for addictions to peoples, places and things." She has lived in Arkansas and Missouri for 30 years, and has 3 children. She is a founder of the Ozarks Resource Center (formerly New Life Farm), which as been important in establishing the Bioregional Congress. She is also a founding member of the Threshold Foundation.

• Dorothy Leake, Rt. 2, Box 29, Aurora, MO 65605; (417) 723-5702. Dorothy Leake is 96 years young, and has a PhD in Biology from the University of Oklahoma. She taught at Southeastern Oklahoma State University in Durant. She has helped to write and illustrate three books on wild plants: Plants of the Southwestern Desserts and Mountains, Handbook of Rocky Mountain Plants, and Wildflowers of the Ozarks. Dorothy belongs to a "stream team" with whom she monitors a small stream to protect it. She is a well-honored eco-feminist. We appreciate her excellent work.

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