A body of theory relating gender to environment, in a variety of classic (essentialist) and contemporary forms.
Ecofeminism is a term that links feminism with ecology. Its advocates say that paternalistic/capitalistic society has led to a harmful split between nature and culture. Early ecofeminists propagated that the split can only be healed by the feminine instinct for nurture and holistic knowledge of nature's processes. Modern ecofeminism, or feminist ecocriticism, eschews such essentialism and instead focuses more on intersectional questions, such as how the nature-culture split enables the oppression of female and nonhuman bodies.