Abstract: Our era is characterized by the end of easy-to-extract oil reserves. Unconventional and risky extraction techniques are proliferating. Oil extraction as motor of an economy has always had significant consequences for social and political organization, which are best understood if one looks at the different stages of oil exploitation, from prospection through production, processing and finally consumption, which can be viewed as the social metabolism of oil. Women have not only been at the forefront of resistance against oil drilling in many parts of the world, they also suffer specific effects of oil-centered economies. Not only are women’s livelihoods deeply affected in the territories sacrificed to the drilling of oil.
Key words: extractivism, neocolonialism, redistribution, ecological costs

This media entry was a contribution to the special session "Beyond development and resource extractivism: Feminist perpectives" at the 4th International Degrowth Conference in Leipzig in 2014.