International journal of studies in humanities and social science

Ecofeminism: How Women and Nature Are Both Exploited in Colonial or Capitalist Systems

Marjan Heidari — 2025-11-19

Ecofeminism is an interdisciplinary framework that explores the interconnected oppression of women and the environment within patriarchal, colonial, and capitalist structures. This paper investigates how the mechanisms used to dominate nature mirror those historically and contemporarily imposed on women through gendered, economic, and social hierarchies. By reviewing literature from 2020 to 2025, this study demonstrates that ecofeminism remains relevant in analyzing environmental degradation, extractivism, and gendered labor inequalities linked to colonial and capitalist ideologies. The findings reveal that women—particularly indigenous and marginalized groups—experience heightened exploitation due to environmental destruction, resource commodification, and unequal socioeconomic systems. This paper contributes to existing ecofeminist scholarship by identifying a research gap concerning the quantification of women’s ecological labor and the measurable effects of environmental policy on gendered well-being. Numerical results provided through hypothetical data modeling illustrate how environmental degradation disproportionately affects women in post-colonial and capitalist economies. The study concludes that ecofeminism offers a critical lens for understanding the socio-ecological consequences of profit-driven systems and proposes future areas for empirical and policy-oriented research.

Intersecting Challenges Emotion Regulation and Social Problem-Solving in Women with PTSD and Addiction

Ahmed Al-Faisal — 2025-12-22

This study investigates the intersecting challenges of emotion regulation and social problem-solving in women diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and co-occurring addiction. Prior research indicates that emotion regulation deficits are central to the development and maintenance of PTSD and substance use disorders (SUD), and maladaptive emotion regulation strategies are linked with increased severity of PTSD and drug use severity in women after trauma. Additionally, women with comorbid PTSD and addiction show distinct patterns of negative and positive emotion regulation and social problem-solving deficits compared to women without addiction. Using a cross-sectional study design of 250 adult women with PTSD and addiction symptoms, we measured emotion regulation (via the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale) and social problem-solving skills (via the Social Problem-Solving Inventory) and examined their associations with PTSD severity. Results demonstrated significant negative correlations between severity of PTSD, emotion dysregulation scores, and impaired problem solving, with women exhibiting higher emotion dysregulation also showing poorer social problem-solving capacities (r = 0.58, p < .001). These findings highlight the compounded psychosocial difficulties in this population and emphasize the need for integrated interventions targeting both emotion regulation and problem-solving skills.