Staying Alive Women, Ecology and Survival in India

Taking the three related concerns of development, ecology and gender, this book argues that there is an intimate link between the degradation of women and the degradation of nature in contemporary society. Both arise from assumptions that guide maldevelopment, also known as economic development. This maldevelopment - and consequently, science, technology, politics - is exploitative by definition, and every area of human activity guided by it marginalises and burdens women and nature. The author argues that there is only one path to survival and liberation for nature, woman and man, and that path is the ecological one, of harmony, sustainability and diversity, as opposed to domination, exploitation and surplus. In developing her thesis she explores the unique place of women in the environment, both as its saviours and as victims of ecological maldevelopment. Her analysis differs from most conventional analyses of environmentalists and feminists, which have focused on women in the Third World as special victims of environmental degradation. Shiva discusses the challenges that women in ecology movements are creating, and explores how their struggles constitute a non-violent, non-gendered and humanity-inclusive alternative to dominant science, technology and development paradigms.