The author suggests that the environmental movement will fail if it does not address its own authoritarianism and depression and if the idealisation of nature as so-called feminine is not moderated. A study of Margaret Atwood's novel Surfacing introduces the reader to a new kind of political figure called the female Trickster. This leads to a discussion of a form of politics based on parody and masquerade and a further example of this is given in the activities of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires who helped to bring down the Argentinian junta. The paper concludes with some reflections about changing ‘human nature’.