The Soteriology of Ecofeminism: Redemption, Myth, and Ideological Control: From Maternal Redemption to Ideological Mutation

Part One: The Soteriological Structure of Ecofeminism

Ecofeminism emerges as a profound ideological synthesis, uniting ecological consciousness with feminist critique. It does more than merge environmental and gender concerns; it articulates a redemptive vision of history, a moral cosmology in which salvation is offered through a renewed relationship between the feminine and the natural world. This is not merely political theory—it is a soteriology. Beneath the surface of policy, activism, and rhetoric lies a spiritual narrative: the Earth, feminized and wounded, calls for healing through the restoration of feminine values. Ecofeminism does not just analyze oppression; it promises redemption.

Central to ecofeminism is a dual mythic structure in which women and nature are portrayed simultaneously as victims and saviors. Both have been historically violated—by patriarchy, capitalism, colonialism, and the mechanistic rationalism of modernity. The Earth has been raped, women subjugated, and both reduced to resources to be exploited. Yet within this narrative of suffering lies a paradoxical elevation: the very status of victimhood becomes a moral credential, a source of legitimacy and authority. It is precisely because women and nature have suffered that they are now portrayed as capable of redeeming the world. Women, aligned with the rhythms of the Earth, are imagined as bearers of a lost wisdom—empathic, relational, and life-giving. The feminine thus becomes both the subject of injustice and the agent of cosmic restoration.

This structure operates through a grammar of inversion and essentialization. The traits traditionally associated with patriarchal civilization—rationality, abstraction, domination, and technological control—are recast as destructive and alienating. In their place, ecofeminism celebrates the feminine attributes of intuition, embodiment, care, and relational thinking. These are not presented merely as alternatives, but as moral correctives to the existing world order. A symbolic equation unfolds: Earth equals Woman; Woman equals Good; Good equals Life, Care, and Truth. This essentialist mapping, though often couched in poetic or postmodern language, rests on deeply ontological claims. The salvation of humanity is imagined to lie in a return to what is deemed feminine, organic, and natural. It is not enough to change structures or policies—what is needed is a spiritual reorientation toward a sacralized, feminized nature.

The moral logic of ecofeminism unfolds through the lens of guilt, reparation, and ritual purification. There is a call to recognize one’s complicity in systems of harm, particularly those rooted in Western, patriarchal modernity. Confession becomes a political act. One must renounce the destructive legacies of industrial capitalism, colonial extraction, and masculine domination. In their place, ecofeminism prescribes reparation—not just economic or social, but spiritual and ecological. Activist engagement, eco-conscious behavior, and symbolic rituals of purification become the vehicles through which individuals and societies seek redemption. Environmental ethics, then, become more than a matter of science or policy—they are refigured as moral commandments in a quasi-religious framework.

But ecofeminism does not remain in critique. It also offers a visionary utopia—a future healed by feminine values. This future is imagined as one in which care replaces conquest, cooperation replaces competition, and sustainability replaces growth. Political systems would be restructured around ecological ethics, often drawing on maternal or communal forms of organization. Knowledge itself would be transformed: instead of privileging detached rationality, it would center embodied wisdom, indigenous traditions, and spiritual insight. The feminine is enthroned not just as morally superior but as epistemically authoritative and metaphysically redemptive. In this vision, women—and the values associated with the feminine—do not merely participate in shaping the future; they become its condition of possibility.

While ecofeminism is not as institutionally dominant as other strands of feminism, it increasingly exerts influence through cultural, educational, and activist channels. Environmental education often carries ecofeminist assumptions, embedding the moralization of nature and the feminization of ecological care into curricula. Climate activism, particularly among youth movements, elevates figures who embody a kind of feminine moral innocence—offering not technocratic solutions, but moral denunciation. The rhetoric of “climate justice,” infused with intersectional awareness and emotional urgency, channels ecofeminist themes even when not explicitly named. Through these pathways, ecofeminist soteriology seeks a broader cultural and political universalization under the banner of ecological crisis.

At the metaphysical core of this worldview lies the figure of Gaia. Revived from ancient mythology, Gaia is not merely a metaphor but a quasi-divine archetype—a symbol of life, balance, and totality. She is the ultimate mother, a sentient Earth being who has been violated but remains capable of healing. The Earth is not inert matter but a living organism, infused with sacred femininity. This sacral ontology underwrites the moral urgency of ecofeminism: to harm the Earth is not just to be unwise or unsustainable, but to violate a sacred being. Gaia provides both the mythic foundation and the redemptive horizon of ecofeminist thought.

Closely tied to Gaia is the broader motherly discourse at the heart of ecofeminist ethics. The mother becomes the archetype of moral authority—not just in relation to children, but in relation to the Earth, future generations, and the moral fabric of society itself. Maternal care, empathy, and sacrifice are not seen as private virtues but as public and planetary imperatives. The politics of care becomes a theology of salvation. Campaigns that invoke “Mother Earth” or legal frameworks that grant rights to forests and rivers all partake in this maternal moral grammar. Justice is redefined as reparation to the mother, and law is imagined as nurturance rather than enforcement.

In sum, ecofeminism presents a compelling and deeply mythologized soteriology. The Earth is re-imagined as a sacred feminine being. Women, as bearers of ecological wisdom and moral care, are positioned as the agents of planetary salvation. A spiritual reorientation is called for—one that elevates feminine values, honors maternal ethics, and returns humanity to an organic, reciprocal relationship with nature. Gaia and the mother are not peripheral symbols in this vision—they are central theological figures, reconfiguring ecological discourse into a spiritual and political mission of redemption.

Radical and Cutural Ecofeminism

Radical ecofeminism and cultural ecofeminism both represent significant currents within the broader ecofeminist movement, each contributing to the soteriological narrative in distinct but complementary ways. While they differ in emphasis—radical ecofeminism focusing on structures of domination and liberation, and cultural ecofeminism emphasizing inherent feminine values and spiritual reconnection—both reinforce the central vision of salvation through the feminine principle.

Radical ecofeminism brings a sharper political and philosophical critique to ecofeminist soteriology. It views the domination of nature and women as a systemic outcome of patriarchal, capitalist, and technocratic power structures. Radical ecofeminists argue that these systems are not merely flawed or imbalanced but inherently violent and oppressive. Their soteriological contribution lies in the call for revolutionary transformation: the dismantling of these dominating systems in favor of an egalitarian, decentralized, and ecologically harmonious society. Here, salvation is framed not only as healing but as liberation—from male-centered ideologies, mechanistic worldviews, and exploitative economies.

This current often integrates influences from anarchism, anti-colonialism, and Marxist feminism, but its uniqueness lies in the link it draws between ontological domination (the domination of being itself) and the gendered metaphysics of Western thought. In this view, male subjectivity has historically positioned itself as transcendent, rational, and mastering—over the female, the body, nature, and the "Other." Radical ecofeminism seeks to overturn this metaphysical hierarchy by exposing its internal violence and by elevating alternative epistemologies rooted in relationality, mutuality, and embodied experience. Thus, its redemptive narrative calls not for reform but for rupture—a rupture with patriarchal civilization and its death-dealing logic.

Cultural ecofeminism, in contrast, does not primarily seek political revolution but rather a cultural and spiritual return. It emphasizes the intrinsic connection between women and nature, celebrating what it sees as the life-affirming qualities of the feminine: nurturing, intuition, empathy, cyclical understanding of time, and reverence for the sacredness of life. While often accused of essentialism, cultural ecofeminism reframes this essentialism as a source of moral and ontological truth. Women are not merely victims of history; they are portrayed as keepers of an ancient, often suppressed wisdom—one that predates patriarchal civilization and offers a path back to harmony with the Earth.

In this view, salvation lies in remembering and reactivating this lost feminine knowledge. Rituals, goddess spirituality, and indigenous cosmologies are all reclaimed as tools of re-connection. The Earth is not merely a resource or even a political entity but a sacred being—Gaia, the ultimate mother. This sacred being is wounded by the violence of masculine modernity but remains capable of renewal through the love and care of those attuned to her rhythms. Cultural ecofeminism thus sacralizes both woman and Earth, fusing the two in a mythic grammar of restoration.

Together, these two strands reinforce the ecofeminist soteriological vision from different angles. Radical ecofeminism provides the critical fire—the exposure of systems of domination, the denunciation of patriarchal logic, and the revolutionary call to action. Cultural ecofeminism offers the healing balm—a vision of spiritual return, maternal ethics, and cosmic reconciliation. The one seeks to overthrow a death-dealing system; the other to restore a life-giving order. In combination, they present a powerful dual narrative: one of confrontation and one of communion, both animated by a belief that the feminine principle holds the key to planetary salvation.

Thus, the broader ecofeminist soteriology is enriched, not conflicted, by these internal variations. Radical and cultural ecofeminism each articulate a different face of the feminine savior—one as the liberator and destroyer of oppressive systems, the other as the nurturer and restorer of sacred balance. Their convergence lies in a shared cosmology: that healing the Earth requires not only new politics but also new myths, new ethics, and ultimately a new reverence for the feminine as the redemptive force of history.

Ecofeminist Soteriology and the Threefold Model: Cosmic Struggle, Moral Rapacity, and the Manichean Binary

Ecofeminism, especially in its cultural and radical currents, does not merely advocate for environmental justice or gender equality—it operates within a deeply mythological framework that recasts the world through the moralized dualism of gender and power. In doing so, it aligns seamlessly with the Threefold Model of Cosmic Struggle, Moral Rapacity, and the Manichean Binary. This model functions as the symbolic architecture of ecofeminist soteriology, organizing its vision of history, morality, and redemption through archetypal oppositions and salvific narratives.

Cosmic Struggle: Earth as Sacred Feminine, History as Violation

At the core of ecofeminism lies the mythos of the sacred Earth—often personified as Gaia—who represents life, wholeness, and relational harmony. The Earth is not neutral matter but a living, feminized organism violated by the masculine principle of domination. This principle is expressed through patriarchy, capitalism, colonialism, industrialism, and technocracy—systems that are seen as inherently male-coded and fundamentally destructive.

This narrative establishes gender as a metaphysical axis around which history turns: the feminine symbolizes life and nurturance, while the masculine embodies exploitation and rupture. The ecological crisis thus becomes a cosmic struggle, in which the fate of the Earth hangs upon the restoration of the feminine principle. It is not merely a political struggle over policy but a spiritual war over reality itself. Feminine values—embodiment, intuition, care, and communion—are not just preferable; they are redemptive forces in a broken world.

Moral Rapacity: Patriarchal Man as Predator and Defiler

Ecofeminism draws moral power from the dramatization of harm. Patriarchy is framed not only as unjust but as inherently rapacious—a violator of bodies, peoples, ecosystems, and truths. The recurring metaphor of rape serves to portray male domination as not simply systemic but primal and moral. This metaphor is extended to the Earth, frequently depicted as a "raped body," an "extracted womb," or a "colonized terrain." In this way, men—or more precisely, masculinity coded as control, logic, and conquest—are cast as the metaphysical enemy.

Both radical and cultural ecofeminists reinforce this vision. Radical ecofeminism connects all systems of oppression to male domination and seeks revolutionary transformation through the destruction of patriarchal structures. Cultural ecofeminism, more spiritually inclined, elevates the feminine as a sacred archetype, with women positioned as moral healers and natural stewards of the Earth.

This moral economy constructs womanhood as a vessel of purity and redemptive potential. Men become the fallen, women the path to healing. Moral rapacity thus operates not only as critique but as identity: to be male-coded is to be complicit in destruction, while to be female-coded is to embody the possibility of salvation.

Manichean Binary: Mythic Gender Dualism as Moral Grammar

Underlying this worldview is a rigid Manichean binary. It is not merely a distinction between masculine and feminine traits but a moral architecture: male/female becomes synonymous with bad/good, domination/liberation, death/life, falsity/truth. Ecofeminism speaks the language of nuance and intersectionality, yet its symbolic structure often reverts to archetypal clarity.

The sacred feminine is aligned with Earth, intuition, care, community, and interdependence. The profane masculine is associated with violence, abstraction, hierarchy, rationalism, and separation. These binaries are essential to the ecofeminist vision of redemption. It is through the reassertion of the feminine and the purification or rejection of the masculine that the Earth can be saved. The binary is not questioned but sanctified.

This dualism legitimizes asymmetrical moral and political claims. Feminized knowledge systems—such as indigenous cosmologies, spiritual intuition, and maternal ethics—are presented not merely as alternatives but as redemptive truths. Masculinized institutions—science, law, capitalism, nation-states—are either demonized or placed under moral suspicion, to be feminized or dismantled.

Myth as Morality, Gender as Destiny

Ecofeminism, particularly in its cultural and radical forms, should not be understood merely as a political movement but as a soteriological system. It narrates a world broken by masculine domination and in need of feminine restoration. Through the Threefold Model of Cosmic Struggle, Moral Rapacity, and the Manichean Binary, it offers a compelling but totalizing grammar of salvation: woman as Earth, Earth as mother, and mother as redeemer.

What emerges is not just critique, but a quasi-religious vision of moral inversion: the feminine must rise to correct, purify, and save a fallen world. In this way, ecofeminist soteriology reproduces a symbolic universe of asymmetrical moral authority—casting gender not merely as a site of politics, but as the very axis of cosmic and moral order.

Ecofeminist Soteriology in the Historical Progression from Gynocentrism 3 to Gynocentrism 4:

Myth, Apotheosis, and the Feminine Messiah

Ecofeminism, especially in its radical and cultural variants, is not merely a social or ecological movement—it is a soteriological framework, a redemptive myth that reconfigures reality through the sacred elevation of the feminine. At its core, it represents a mature stage of Gynocentrism 3: a symbolic matriarchy grounded in mytho-political inversion, preparing the world for Gynocentrism 4—a possible actual matriarchy where power, law, and ontology are re-centered around the female principle.

This ecofeminist vision does not emerge in isolation. It forms part of a larger historical trajectory—one that progresses from feminist critique to feminine apotheosis, from symbolic reverence to institutional supremacy, and from narrative inversion to ontological revolution.

From Symbolic Matriarchy to Ontological Dominion

Gynocentrism 3 represents the mytho-symbolic elevation of woman as a sacred authority: woman as Earth, as source of life, as moral center, as emotional compass, as existential measure. Ecofeminism contributes to this phase by framing the Earth itself as a feminized being under assault, with men—coded as rationalist, extractive, and domineering—cast as cosmic violators. This symbolic structure recasts history as a gendered eschatology: masculine domination as Fall, feminine resurgence as Redemption.

But ecofeminism also prepares the path toward Gynocentrism 4: the actual institutionalization of female power. Through its moral binaries and spiritualized narratives, it doesn’t merely criticize patriarchy—it creates the moral infrastructure for the rise of the feminine as ontological authority and final arbiter of truth, morality, and justice.

The Process of Female Apotheosis

Ecofeminist thought mirrors the fourfold process of apotheosis:

1. Feminine as Cosmic Principle: The Earth is coded as Gaia, Sophia, or Shakti—feminine as the metaphysical ground of existence.

2. Woman as Embodiment: Real women become incarnations of this divine principle—moral guides, ecological stewards, spiritual redeemers.

3. Claiming the Ground of Being: Woman is no longer just symbolic but becomes ontologically central—the measure of being itself, with masculinity framed as deviation or corruption.

4. Institutional Matriarchy (Gynocentrism 4): The political and ideological culmination is a regime—real or symbolic—where woman becomes law, state, and salvation.

This is not merely metaphysical, but political and civilizational. It calls for a remaking of all institutions in the image of the feminine—compassion, care, Earth-centeredness, and relationality—while marginalizing or reprogramming all systems seen as patriarchal.

The Messianic Vision of Guillaume Postel: Feminine Eschatology

This process is uncannily echoed in the work of Guillaume Postel, the 16th-century Christian mystic and esoteric thinker. Postel envisioned a Fourth Monarchy—an age of cosmic and spiritual transformation governed by a Feminine Messiah, Sophia, divine wisdom personified as woman. Unlike symbolic or poetic feminization of God, Postel’s vision was literal and eschatological: a real woman would emerge as the redemptive agent of history, ushering in an era of justice, harmony, and divine rule.

Ecofeminism, particularly in its spiritual and radical expressions, operates within a secularized Postelian frame:

1. Woman as redeemer and healer of a corrupted world

2. Earth as the feminized divine body, under assault by masculinity

3. History as moving toward a feminine culmination—whether through environmental salvation, spiritual awakening, or institutional matriarchy

4. Redemption as the return to the sacred feminine, not merely as complement but as telos—final end and purpose

This feminine messianism, which has its roots in Guillaume Poste's esoteric theology, though secularized, recasts women as not merely victims or leaders but as redeemers and final judges. Woman is the vessel of truth, Earth is her body, and history is her proving ground.

Integration with the Threefold Model

This historical and eschatological context fully aligns with the Threefold Model of Cosmic Struggle, Moral Rapacity, and the Manichean Binary:

1. Cosmic Struggle: Masculine systems (capitalism, science, patriarchy) are the metaphysical enemy of a feminized Earth.

2. Moral Rapacity: Patriarchal man is not merely dominant, but deviant and desecrating—a violator of life and truth.

3. Manichean Binary: A redemptive dualism where feminine equals sacred, nurturing, and true; masculine equals profane, violent, and false.

This structure functions as the moral architecture of Gynocentrism 3, while preparing the psychological and ideological conditions for Gynocentrism 4—a final inversion where the woman, once the “other,” becomes the ground of law, culture, and cosmos, which echoes Postel's fourth epoch of female messianism.

Part Two: Meta-Critique and Deconstruction

Ecofeminist Soteriology as Ideological Myth: A Synthesis of Malmi's Reverse Strategy and the Ecofeminist Soterioligical Metastatic Framework

This section synthesizes the Ecofeminist soteriological conceptual framework—particularly the threefold model of ideological inversion, the metastatic mutation of meaning, and the mytho-symbolic analysis of ideology—with critical insights from Pasi Malmi’s theory of reverse strategy. Together, they reveal how contemporary ecofeminist thought operates not merely as a discourse of justice or environmental ethics, but as a soteriological narrative: a secularized redemptive myth through which modern ideological power structures are morally reconfigured and epistemologically redefined.

As Pasi Malmi writes, the ideas as we discussed were simplified and mutated into the meme of the reverse strategy, which claims that women are actually better than men in almost all human tasks and skills. The strongest manifestations of the reverse strategy are found, according to Malmi, within cultural feminism and ecofeminism, which tend to be ideologies promoted by the less academic and less theoretical feminists, meaning that they belong to the theoretical periphery of feminism. Cultural feminism, as he states, is a relatively essentialist memeplex that emphasizes the differences of men and women, and the superiority of women, women’s cultures and femininity over men, men’s cultures and masculinity. It aligns with the essentialist interpretation of cultural ecofeminism, which perceives women as “closer to nature”, “privileged in understanding nature” and “more empathetic than men”, while men are considered to be the gender that is engaged in the patriarchal and masculine “raping of the Mother Earth”, as we have already discussed in the context of the Maichean creation myth withingvthe threefold modrl in which men were created by the Demiurge and raped the divine feminine from the realm of the real God sent to appease the world and bring solace to it.

Malmi continues and describes how the memetic degeneration of the difference theory to somewhat essentialist generalizations of the superiority of women compared to men has been amplified by the feminist standpoint epistemology, which claims that women’s feelings and intuition are a better source of information and knowledge than the traditional quantitative studies performed within the “male science". This epistemology according to him led to the tendency of the scholars of women’s studies to target their interviews and surveys to women only.

Malmi further states that this created a tradition, in which the feminine bias of the female target group was taken as a reliable source of information, while men’s opinions and experiences were given no value. This bias against men, as Malmi points out, seems to have led to several scientifically shaky and sexist generalizations of men and women. Malmi correctly explains that these generalizations present men as selfish, violent, irresponsible, unloving and lazy (in the context of domestic work), while building the stereotype of women as unselfi sh, peaceful, responsible, loving and hard working. They also led to the belief that women are the (only) discriminated gender and to the general hatred against men by feminists, and in the medial. These sexist stereotypes of men and women, and the general misandry against men, have also lead to the discrimination of men in courts, since the judges are not willing to believe that the female suspects of violence or other crimes could have possibly done anything bad, while the male suspects of violence and other crimes are treated harshly by the judges.

In ecofeminism, as Malmi writes, women are pictured as the gender with a higher capacity for caring, loving, nurturing and sensing other people’s needs. This generalization was then supported by the theories that emphasized men’s tendencies towards violence or towards sexually irresponsible behaviors such as rape and incest. In Malni's view, the final weapon against men, in the context of divorce, was given in the form of the feminist theory of social work, which pressures social workers to identify with their female customers, and which suggests that the interests of women and children are synonymous. This theory leads to the conclusion that the interests of the child may be found out by interviewing the mother. Together, these ideas inspired by the diff erence theory, have led to the weakening of the status of men in the context of divorce, custody disputes and criminal court, although the original ideas of the equality feminists might have had the opposite eff ect to the status of men.

Furthermore, the feminist memeplex, according to Pasi Malmi, that characterizes all men as a threat to women and girls in the form of rape and domestic violence is based on essentialist and social constructionist arguments. Th e essentialist arguments are grounded on sexist discourses and interpretations within sociobiology, psychoanalysis and the study of the male hormones and the male brain. They also appear in the form of essentialist ecofeminism, which has a high resemblance with the sexist discourses of maternalism. The social constructionist arguments are based on the theory of patriarchy, which has led to the stereotype of men as tyrant, violent and possessive patronizers, and to the symbolic idea that all men rape women by their codes and by their male gaze.

Pasi Malmi brings the example of Wrangham, whose book “The Demonic Males” is understood by him as a feminist venture which. It is, in fact, a direct derivative of the threefold model. This suggests that essentialist criticism against men is generally considered coherent with the core ideas of feminism. In a similar fashion, the belief that testosterone is a poison also enjoys wide popularity in the theoretical periphery of feminism: According to the Feminist Dictionary (1985), “until now it has been thought that the level of testosterone in men is normal, simply because they have it. But if you consider how abnormal their behavior is, then you are led to the hypothesis that almost all men are suffering from “testosterone poisoning”. As Malmi correctly identifies, this criticism against men is also supported by essentialist ecofeminism, which is based on the idea that the women, due to their womb and breasts, are closer to nature, reproduction, caring and altruistic love, while men are essentially more distanced from love, caring and unselfishness. Some ecofeminists also use psychoanalytical arguments for explaining why boys gradually become detached from emotions, and why they distance themselves from feminine virtues such as love, caring and unselfi shness .

Furthermore, Malmi's exegesis shows how psychoanalytical arguments are also used by those feminist scholars of incest, who claim that biological fathers cause a threat to their daughters in the form of incest and rape. Although this argument is partly social constructionist, it is also based on the psychoanalytical idea that sexuality is such a strong force in the life of man that incest is actually a natural principle, which is only disguised and barely controlled by the habits, traditions and norms of our society. The essentialist arguments about men’s tendency to rape their daughters are amplifi ed by misinterpretations concerning the sociobiological theories that point out the interest of men in younger females. These theories are commonly misinterpreted as a proof of  men’s tendency to have sexual attraction towards girls who have not yet reached their puberty, although the sociobiological theories clearly point towards the interest of men in fertile women.

In Malmi's research also explains that this misinterpretation gains support from the statistics showing that the majority of men, who are suspected of sexual abuse of children, are biological fathers. Although this may be true for the suspects of abuse, it does not prove anything of the actual perpetrators of incest: One must recognize that the majority of accusations concerning incest appear in the context of divorce, which means that the accusations contain a very subjective and potentially biased element . Despite the fallacy of equating suspects with convicts, the Finnish Governmental Optula Institute claimed in 2006 that “The typical perpetrator of sexual abuse against children is the father”, based on statistics concerning suspects. This statement is likely to give the impression that biological fathers pose a threat to their daughters in the form of sexual abuse, although only 0.2% of surveyed 9th grade Finnish girls reported that they had been victimized by the sexual abuse of their biological father.

The feminist difference theory is described in Malmi's research as having produced discourses in which women and femininity are valued higher than men and masculinity. Malmi determines that according to Kuusipalo, these discourses represent the reverse strategy in feminism. The term reverse strategy is based on the idea of reversing the gender hierarchy. Th lis reversing appears commonly, for example, in the feminist stand point epistemology. Th e reverse strategy also has strong connections to maternalism and ecofeminism, which both glorify women’s altruistic, loving, caring and responsible nature. It is also supported by all the discourses that demonize men, as it is obvious that women are the superior gender, if men are characterized as violent, sex crazed, selfish, irresponsible and unloving. Reverse strategy also appears in cultural feminism, which praises women’s cultures, and perceives them as a positive alternative to men’s competitive and hierarchal cultures

Finally, according to Malmi, the appearance of the misandric and discriminative memes in sexism, welfare state ideology and feminism seems to follow the synthetic theory of the sociocultural evolution. In almost all cases, the discriminative and misandric memes seem to be produced by memetic mutations, simplifi cations, exaggerations, recombinations, and misinterpretations of some more moderate and complex memes. For example, the idea that “men have all the power” is a simplifi ed and radicalized conclusion of empirical results, which give a much more complicated picture of the distribution of power to men and women. In a similar fashion, the reverse strategy can be accidentally produced by combining memes from the feminist diff erence theory, which claims that women are better than men in many ways, and equality feminism, which claims that men are not essentially better than women in any ways. Another hypothesis that gained support from this chapter was the idea that sexism, feminism and welfare state ideology form opportunistic coalition discourses. For example, the idea of reverse discrimination appears in feminism and welfare state ideology, but it also gains support from sexism, in the form of the special gentlemanly treatment of women. In a similar fashion, the reverse strategy gains rhetoric support from sexist maternalism and chivalry, and from the sexist interpretations of sociobiology and psychoanalysis.

Expanding on those insight of Pasi Malmi, we can say that at the heart of this ecofeminist soteriology lies a mythic inversion: man, traditionally associated with reason, order, and creation, is recoded as the agent of destruction, domination, and alienation. Woman, long linked in patriarchal cultures to nature, emotion, and immanence, is elevated not only as a counter-force but as a redemptive power. This narrative structure draws implicitly on Gnostic and Manichaean cosmologies, which are now revived in secular, ideological form. In this transformed metaphysical landscape, the male becomes the demiurgic figure—a fallen creator whose technological prowess and rational abstraction rupture the harmony of nature and society. The female, reimagined as a kind of modern Sophia, brings intuitive gnosis, moral healing, and ecological salvation. The Earth, along with children and other symbolic innocents, represents both the victim of masculine violence and the medium through which redemption must occur.

This ideological mutation reproduces a triadic structure central to the author's analysis: the male as the demonic-fallen force, the female as divine-redemptive, and the child/nature as innocent-redeemable. These categories are not merely symbolic but are strategically deployed in policy, cultural narratives, and institutional assumptions. Through this framework, ecofeminist ideology achieves what the author calls a "metastatic inversion"—a mutation of originally descriptive categories (such as sex, care, rationality) into normative, redemptive hierarchies. In this mutated form, the ideological function is no longer to balance or reconcile opposites but to reverse and purify: to demonize the former dominator and sanctify the historically oppressed.

Here, Malmi’s theory of the reverse strategy intersects powerfully with this redemptive logic. The reverse strategy describes a pattern in which historical victimhood is not merely addressed or rectified but transformed into a justification for contemporary supremacy and domination by the formerly subjugated group. Within the ecofeminist framework, the historical subjugation of women becomes the moral foundation for a new ideological regime in which femininity is ontologically superior and masculinity is guilty by default. This reversal is not only political; it is metaphysical and epistemological. It recodes being (ontology), knowing (epistemology), and doing (praxis) through the moral prism of feminized redemption.

In the epistemological sphere, this manifests in what the author calls maternal epistemology: the privileging of care, emotion, experience, and intuition as superior forms of knowing. Feminist standpoint theory and ecofeminist ethics argue that women’s ways of knowing—shaped by embodiment, caregiving, and ecological sensitivity—are not just different from male rationality, but morally superior. This epistemic valorization functions as a kind of secular gnosis: a salvific knowledge possessed by women, enabling them to guide humanity out of crisis. In contrast, male knowledge—based on logic, abstraction, and control—is seen as corrupted, dehumanizing, and spiritually sterile. This gendering of truth becomes the moral epistemology of the liberal ideological order in its metastatic stage, institutionalized through education, law, and media.

The deployment of such structures reveals a deeper ideological myth: that salvation—whether ecological, social, or spiritual—will come only through the ascendency of the feminine principle. This idea is not only cultural but systemic. In legal systems (especially family law), in academia, and in environmental policymaking, the presumption of female moral authority and male moral deficiency has become deeply embedded. These are not mere stereotypes but institutionalized mythologemes: recurring narrative forms that construct and enforce ideological meaning.

This soteriology also weaponizes the concept of guilt. Masculinity becomes a site of inherited sin—what the author calls a “memetic original sin.” The modern figure of the “toxic male” is not merely a psychological or sociological type; it is the moral inheritor of the demiurge myth, a necessary scapegoat in the redemptive drama. Male redemption, in this framework, is only possible through self-negation: a form of moral submission to the feminine standard of truth and care. In practice, this takes the form of reeducation, deferential political behavior, and institutional exclusion.

Ultimately, the synthesis of Malmi’s reverse strategy and the author’s metastasis theory exposes the deeper function of ecofeminist soteriology: it offers a totalizing cosmological narrative, secularized and moralized, in which ideological inversion becomes the engine of salvation. It no longer merely critiques domination but reconfigures it in reverse. Thus, the liberal order—through the ecofeminist vector—mutates into a post-rational, post-patriarchal regime of redemptive inversion. This is not the realization of equality but the institutionalization of vengeance as justice, and of feminine supremacy as historical inevitability. In this way, feminist eco-soteriology becomes a key mythopolitical driver of the Liberal feminist welfare state in its metastatic phase.

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