“Life on Earth is an interconnected web, not a hierarchy. There is no natural hierarchy; human hierarchy is projected onto nature and then used to justify social domination. Therefore, ecofeminist theory seeks to show the connections between all forms of domination, including the domination of nonhuman nature, and ecofeminist practice is necessarily antihierarchical.” (King, 1989)
The ecofeminist intersectionality perspective I believe most simply broken down in the quote above. The prefix in the word is eco or an environment, translated from the Latin oceo or household. Thus you have ecology, the study of environmental connection, and how animals interacted with each other and the environment around them. The idea of intersectionality is that we are all interacting with one another, our social spaces come in and out, we move from groups historically majorly oppressed groups to groups that may have benefitted or been the oppressor, constantly being connected and brought together by society; but we are also connected to nature, more so than we are to the social structures that we create. A true ecofeminist believes that not only due we have a connection but a duty to nature, to care for our planet even at the downsizing of human society. I think the idea of the interconnection of species is very nicely summarized by Mufasa in The Lion King:
“Everything you see exists together in a delicate balance. As king, you need to understand that balance and respect all the creatures, from the crawling ant to the leaping antelope…When we die, our bodies become the grass, and the antelope eat the grass. And so we are all connected in the great Circle of Life.”
We must think about ourselves as not humans as us against nature, against the wild but rather as one with nature and apart of it. We must realize that when we die, life goes on when we must not take more from the Earth than what will be left for the next person circle and so on. We rely on the Earth to provide the air we breathe, the food we grow, the animals we eat, the land we build not just houses but homes on, the views we take in, and the adventures we seek. Life as we know it can not go on without a habitable planet with food, water, and oxygen; life existence in a balance, and when you throw the balance off, the repercussion can be drastic. The ecofeminist ideology believes that we are all connected, and all to nature, that to build long-lasting survival, we must take care of one not only one another but nature as well, and each will repay the favor.
The other part of intersectionality is what is known as the intersectionality Axes of Privilege, Domination, and Oppression, depicted below.
This web describes how people can go from social, class, group, majority, sect, whatever, as quickly as taking a step or interacting with various people. At the same time, the web sets the line of those who are oppressed or live in dominant groups, to those who do not. Although it does slightly contradict the true ecofeminist view regarding intersectionality, because of the idea that human hierarchy does not or should no matter, we should live in a way that respects nature and the life created on this planet. So in pure ecofeminist eyes, the web should not even have to exist because we should be looking out for one another and the Earth. But the idea of the web is that for ecofeminist to want to end sexism may not be enough, because the oppression will continue to other impact groups in our society. Being that we are all connected, we cannot truly thrive until we all succeed, if sexism end and things like classism, homophobia, transphobia, then social injustice still exists and ecofeminism still serves a purpose.