Abstract

Ecofeminists maintain that the oppression of nonhuman nature, and specifically animals, is connected to the oppression of women. My aim in this dissertation is twofold: I clarify this claim and I argue that it is a reasonable one. When ecofeminists make this claim they very often describe the connection as a conceptual one. So I begin by distinguishing material and formal conceptual connections. Focusing on the latter form of connection, I elaborate on and defend the views of two influential ecofeminists who give accounts of such a connection between oppressions. To further clarify the foundational claim of ecofeminism, I then offer an analysis of the concept of oppression which elucidates both the conceptual and cultural features of oppression. Oppression, I argue, is a wrongful and harmful institutionalized hierarchy wherein the members of a subordinate group suffer ultimately for the benefit of persons in a dominant group. Further, a dominant cultural ideology maintains and attempts to justify this unjust social arrangement. The claim is that the oppression of women and the oppression of animals, for example, are conceptually connected because the ideologies that inform and even constitute part of their oppressions share important and necessary features. ;After I clarify this basic ecofeminist claim, that the oppression of women and the oppression of animals are connected, I argue that this claim is reasonable. Using my analysis of oppression, I argue that it makes sense to ascribe oppression to the condition of animals because both the conceptual and cultural features of oppression apply to the condition of animals in the United States. Given that it is reasonable to describe animals as oppressed and given that the oppressions of women and animals are connected by a common structure of oppressive ideology, the treatment of animals is a feminist issue