Val Plumwood (1939-2008) was an environmentalist and philosopher who went against the grain. She was a pioneering thinker in ecofeminism. She believed that the western human-centric approach to life devalued nature, and she advocated for an alternative, more expansive way of life.
Val Plumwood (1939-2008) was an environmentalist and philosopher who went against the grain. She was a pioneering thinker in ecofeminism. She believed that the western human-centric approach to life devalued nature, and she advocated for an alternative, more expansive way of life.
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Hello! From Wonder Media Network, I’m Constance Zimmer. And this is Womanica.
This month, we’re highlighting Eco Warriors: women fighting for conservation and ecological justice.
Today we’re talking about an environmentalist and philosopher who went against the grain. She was a pioneering thinker in ecofeminism. She believed that the western human-centric approach to life devalued nature, and she advocated for an alternative, more expansive way of life.
Let’s talk about Val Plumwood.
Val Plumwood was born Val Morrell on August 11, 1939, in Sydney, Australia. She was born into a family of meager means. Her parents owned and operated a small poultry farm in the northern suburbs of Sydney. When the farm failed, the family moved to Collaroy, Sydney so that her father could find work. They eventually landed in a southern suburb called Kogarah. Here, Val was a top student at St. George Girls High School.
With an academic scholarship, Val attended the University of Sydney where she studied philosophy. In 1958, she married fellow student, John Macrae. Their marriage did not last long as financial and emotional burdens took a toll on the young couple. They had two children during their brief marriage, both of whom tragically died young. After their divorce, Val returned to the University and graduated with honors in 1965.
Toward the end of her undergraduate studies, Val met and married her second husband, Richard Routley. They traveled around the world before settling down back in Australia. Upon their return, Val and Richard became involved in the Australian environmental protection movement. They advocated for preserving biodiversity and stopping deforestation. Val was part of a group of philosophers at the Australian National University who formed the first wave of Australian environmental philosophy.
In the 1970s, Val and Richard’s studies contributed to the development of the discipline of environmental humanities. This was an area of study that used human-centered questions about values, ethics, and culture to confront environmental issues. Val and Richard co-authored a number of papers tackling anthropocentrism – the belief that humans are the most important entity in the universe.
Val’s background in philosophy and her love of nature culminated in a question that she would spend the rest of her life wrestling with - “is there a need for a new, an environmental, ethic - an ethic of nature?” Val realized that anthropocentrism relies on the belief that there is a divide between humanity and nature and the reason for that divide is the mind. Val fought adamantly against such “hyperseparation.”
In Val’s view, the divide between humans and nature created a power imbalance. Humans had “mastery” over the environment. And she saw how this fanned out into other parts of society – like the imbalance between oppressors and the oppressed. Val concluded that we cannot separate environmentalism from social justice struggles. This is a core theme in her 1993 publication, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, which demonstrates the effect this dualism has on traditional western thought and practices.
Val’s affection and knowledge of the environment grew even deeper after she and Richard divorced. The two had built a stone house in a rainforest in southern Australia and after their divorce, Val continued to live there by herself. Being so embedded in nature lent itself to Val’s interest in botany and animal behaviors. During this time Val changed her last name to Plumwood, the name of the mountain where she lived. The mountain itself was named after the Plumwood tree, a species local to the area.
In February of 1985, Val would come face to face with the power of the nature she felt so at home in. On a warm, rainy day, she was canoeing along the backwaters of the Kakadu National Park, hoping to find an Aboriginal rock art site. She had been warned about the crocodiles, but kept to safer waters. Still, she felt uneasy. And after coming across a different rock formation, she decided to head back. Paddling down the channel, Val spotted what appeared to be a floating stick in her path. When she realized the stick had eyes and it was actually a saltwater crocodile, it was too late. The crocodile struck her canoe again and again. She attempted to escape, but the crocodile grabbed her in its jaws, dragging her underwater. She later wrote: “I was seized between the legs in a red-hot pincer grip and whirled into the suffocating wet darkness.”
Val endured three crocodile death rolls in the water before she was able to get away. With severe injuries, Val crawled for hours, into the night, before she came across help.
The attack landed her in the intensive care unit for a month. It also altered her view of the hierarchy of beings. The experience showed Val that humans aren’t always the predators. Instead, they’re just another part of the food chain.
In her book, Human Vulnerability and the Experience of Being Prey, she writes “I glimpsed a shockingly indifferent world in which I had no more significance than any other edible being. The thought, This can't be happening to me, I'm a human being. I am more than just food! was one component of my terminal incredulity. It was a shocking reduction, from a complex human being to a mere piece of meat.” The crocodile attack was the first time Val realized that no matter what happened to her in that moment, the world would continue on without her.
Over the course of her career, Val published four books and more than 100 papers on ecofeminism, logic, and the environment. She played a key role in bringing these topics to the forefront of the conversation.
Val Plumwood died on February 29, 2008 at the age of 68.
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Special thanks to Jenny and Liz Kaplan, who invited me to guest host.
Talk to you tomorrow!