Ariel Salleh

FE NOTE: The following exchange concerns an interview done by Ariel Salleh with German ecofeminist author-activist Maria Mies, titled “Patriarchy and Progress: A Critique of Technological Domination,” and printed in FE #338, Winter 1992.

In a generally excellent issue, FE #338, Winter 1992, the interview with Maria Mies was disturbing in a number of ways. I would like to focus here on one major problem, her distortion of Marx’s ideas, which enables her to present him as a patriarchal techno-fixated materialist with no moral principles (as if he were indistinguishable from your average capitalist).

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The eco-feminism of Maria Mies stands at the crossroads of feminist, ecological and colonial liberation movements. Mies attempts to bring Marxian theory face to face with the newly emerging political crises of the late 20^th century. This has involved further investigation of Marx’s texts in the light of modern anthropology and what she calls “object-relations.” But Mies is as much an activist as academic sociologist. Her concerns range from prescriptive essays on methodology in social science and empirical studies of exploitation among Indian women lacemakers, to organized campaigns against pornography and the reproductive-technology industry in West Germany.

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