For feminism this means that we need both new theoretical responses and political strategies. It is my contention that at this theoretical and political juncture, ecology and feminism must necessarily converge. The solution is not a return to forms of ecofeminism that attempt to merely preserve “an external nature” and condemn the development of biotechnology as inherently bad. As I have tried to show, capitalism has already run away from such attempts. However, a feminism that does not critically engage with our relationship to nature is in danger of rapidly becoming politically irrelevant.
Neil Smith (2007, 19) concludes his article by inviting us to consider what kind of social power it would take to democratize the production of nature: “As the global capitalist class arrogates to itself comprehensive power over the production of nature, a power camouflaged in the language of markets, private property and free trade, an adequate response must be just as ambitious… if the production of nature is a historical reality, what would a truly democratic production of nature look like?” Similarly, I want to suggest that the question that eco-feminists need to ask today is: what would a truly gender-egalitarian production of nature look like today?