1.  How does Warren define ecological feminism (126)?  What does Warren argue the power and promise of ecological feminism is (126 italics)?   Note that the top paragraph on page 126 gives a nice roadmap for the essay.  (Note the abstract at the beginning of the article as well.)

2. According to Warren, why is environmental degradation a feminist issue (127)? Do you agree?  A related question is, Who is her audience?  Note that this article was first published in the journal Environmental Ethics in 1990.  How would the perspectives of women in the two-thirds world (India, Kenya, for example) support or challenge Warren's views?

3. What is a conceptual framework as Warren defines it (127)? What are the three significant features of oppressive conceptual frameworks (127-29)?

4. Outline the oppressive conceptual frameworks of patriarchy and of the exploitation of nature as Warren depicts them (129-30).

5. Respond to point B1, at the top of page 130. How would you justify this assertion? How would you criticize it?

6. What do you think of Warren's argument C1-3 on p. 133? Do you think she is right in her conclusion?

7. Identify Warren's four reasons why first-person narrative is useful to both feminism and environmental ethics (135-36). Do you agree with all of them?   How effective do you think Warren's climbing narrative and Sioux narrative are?   Do they accomplish anything that the standard argument forms she uses do not?

8. Be familiar with the eight "boundary conditions" of a feminist ethic (138-41), and the corresponding framework for a feminist environmental ethic (141-43).  How does her framework speak to issues we have covered before such as monism/pluralism and pragmatism?  Does it add any dimensions missing in earlier discussions we have read?

9. Do you think environmental philosophers we have read would fine Warren's framework for a feminist environmentalist ethic useful?  Has she convinced you that environmentalism and feminism are intertwined?

If you are interested in a book length treatment of Warren's more developed views, see Ecofeminist Philosophy: A Western Perspective on what it is and why it Matters. Rowman & Littlefield, 2000.  ISBN 084769299X, 9780847692996 which is largely viewable on googlebooks.  Chapter 2 of that book gives an overview of various types of ecofeminist positions.

Overall Discussion Questions for Cuomo and Warren

1.  What struck you as most interesting or puzzling about each piece?   How would you summarize each in five or six sentences per reading?

2.  How would you compare and contrast the key points Warren and Cuomo make?  How are their conceptions of ethics, of feminism, of ecofeminism similar and different?

3.  What similarities and differences do you see between the approaches of Warren and Cuomo and those of other authors we have read this semester?

4.  What strike you as key strengths and key weaknesses of each piece?

5.  Given these two pieces, does it seem necessary to you that environmentalists be feminists and that feminists be environmentalists?