The Feminist Freethinker: The Ecofeminism Edition

Global warming. Pollution. Deforestation. Species extinction. We are in environmental crisis right now. But how is this a women’s issue?

Well, for starters, women and nature share the same historical origins of oppression. The Great Chain of Being—the hierarchical ordering of beings from greater to lesser value—has always placed man at the top, and women, animals and nature at the bottom. This belief has been integral in the development of Western philosophy. There is a logic of domination at work here: men are associated with reason and women are associated with emotion. Reason is thought to be greater then emotion. Therefore men are thought better then women. Animals are subordinated according to the same logic. They are thought to be incapable of rational thought, and are therefore of little value.

Val Plumwood writes that she sees more and more people stepping outside the influences of this philosophy and recognizing the logic of domination. In “Women, Humanity and Nature” she observes “a growing awareness that the Western philosophical tradition which has identified, on the one hand, maleness with the sphere of rationality, and on the other hand, femaleness with the sphere of nature, has provided one of the main intellectual bases for the domination of women in Western culture.” (qtd. in Warren)

The ecofeminist has many objections to this hierarchical ordering of beings. Why is there are hierarchy at all? Why can’t there just be a diversity of beings? Are women emotional? Do animals have a strictly physical existence? If this is all true, why do we look down upon the emotional and the physical? Why the historical subordination of the physical to the intellectual, the emotional to the logical in the first place?

Ecofeminism is a highly relevant theoretical answer to our culture’s tendency to subordinate the other- both woman and nature. The Great Chain of Being is the philosophy that underlies much of what we do. It is at work in the way we value nature only as “resources.” It is at work in the way that we care not about the preservation of nature as an end in and of itself—but only for the sustained provision of resources for culture. It is at work in the way we treat our women. In our slang we equate women to animals while simultaneously subordinating both: Bitch. Pussy. Beaver. Cow. Yes, these words are artefacts of the Great Chain of Being. So are the words wo-man, and fe-male: through these words we regard woman literally as subsets of the male, in keeping with the hierarchy. Our culture is ripe with artefacts of the Great Chain of Being.

So ecofeminists object to this conceptual, philosophical subordination of women and nature. But ecofeminism is also grounded on the very real way that women and the cultural other are affected by irresponsible development. In “The Power and the Promise of Ecological Feminism,” Karen J Warren talks about how the domination of Aboriginal land in the Americas has destroyed the mode of living for Aboriginal people. In “Development, Ecology and Women”. Vandana Shiva talks about how Western development in third world countries “destroys wholesome and sustainable lifestyles and creates real material poverty, or misery” with the colonial domination of, or the resource exploitation of their environments. “The needs of the Amazonian tribes are more than satisfied by the rich rainforest; their poverty begins with its destruction” (qtd. in Warren). The key here is that feminists, who deny the logic of domination behind sexism, cannot deny the logic of domination that is ripe beneath naturism. The feminist who premises her ideology on a criticism of oppressive logic and systems cannot be indifferent to the exploitation and subordination of ecosystems and the societies that depend on them.

In “In and Out of Harm’s Way: Arrogance and Love,” Feminist Marilyn Frye writes: “the loving eye is a contrary of the arrogant eye. The loving eye knows the independence of the other.” This view proposes that there are two ways to perceive—to see—the other. First, there is the arrogant eye, which is quick to subordinate and dominate the other. Alternatively, there is the loving eye, which recognises and appreciates the other’s differences and does not seek to control the other. The loving eye is the ecofeminist alternative to the Great Chain of Being.

Ecocritic Don MacKay defines ethics as “the calling-into-question of our freedom to control, process, or reduce the other.” Ecofeminism employs this ethic in matters of culture, the environment, and gender relations.

The Feminist Freethinker: The December 6th Edition

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December 6, feminism, Montreal Massacre, Violence against women

Image © Sandy Kowalik, Purple Ribbon Campaign Coordinator
PEI Advisory Council on the Status of Women

On December 6, 1989, at the École Polytechnique in Montreal, Quebec, a man name Marc Lépine entered a classroom with a gun in his hand. He ordered the male and female students to stand at opposite ends of the room. “I am fighting feminism,” Lepine said, “You’re women, you’re going to be engineers. You’re all a bunch of feminists. I hate feminists.” He then shot the women from left to right, killing six and injuring three. He then moved quickly through the rest of the school, looking for more women to shoot. In total, fourteen women were killed, ten more injured, and four men were injured. Finally he turned on the gun on himself and ended his own life. His suicide note accused feminists of ruining his life.

The Montreal Massacre dramatizes the ideological war against feminism. Problematically, most demonizations of feminism rely on a misunderstanding of what feminism actually is. Lépine was motivated by the belief that feminism was oppressive, and that, in culture, it is women who oppress men. This is a gross skewing of the most essential facts of feminism. While feminism encompasses a wide range of ideological positionalities, the uniting definition of feminism is distinctively anti-oppression: feminism is “the advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of sexual equality” (OED). That’s right: feminism is anchored in the ideal of equality. Feminism seeks to eliminate oppression, not to be the hand that administers it. As for Lépine’s belief that it is women who oppress men in society, just think on the fact that there were fifty men in that engineering class that day, but only nine women, and think of the Montreal Massacre as one of the countless acts of violence targeted disproportionately at women by men. Lepine’s war against feminism was saturated with a dreadful irony: he attacked feminism by re-establishing the patriarchy that was already ripe in the scene.

We at Antigone remember the women who were killed and the men and women who were injured with solemnity, sadness, anger and love. And we ask that when you encounter someone who demonizes feminism, that you invite them to think critically about their beliefs and to learn more about feminism at Feminism 101.

The Feminist Freethinker: Take Back the Night edition

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culture, power, Rape, relationships, Sexual Assault, women's issues

The “Take Back the Night” campaign to end sexual assault and abuse has the best intentions. But it is problematic because it perpetuates the idea that women’s sexual assault and abuse follows the dark night, man-behind-the bushes-with-a-knife narrative. In reality, the “night” is a constructed demon. All too often abusers closely mimic the warmth and appearance of sunshine.

Traditional stereotypes for profiling bad guys completely fail us when it comes to identifying abusers. Abusers come in all shapes and sizes, and oftentimes they capitalize on their normal appearance and normative success in order to persuade us of their goodness. The “Take Back the Night” campaign is a symbolic reduction—an oversimplification—of the experience of assault and abuse. It implies that women are assaulted suddenly by a stranger when they are alone at night.  In reality assault and abuse can be short to long term projects where the predator chips away at the victim’s protective walls. According to Statistics Canada, 80% of sexual assault survivors knew their abusers (Statistics Canada 2003). Assault and abuse are usually psychological as well as physical projects, leaving the victim distressed with complicated grief.

So it isn’t a particular profile or scene we need to avoid in order to protect ourselves. Instead, it is a particular pattern within our existing relationships that we need to look for: a pattern of power asymmetry. Sexual assault and abuse is a function of unequal pattern relations; it happens when the abuser establishes dominance over you. We need to work on strengthening our discriminatory power until we become pros at identifying the problematic power structures that constitute assault or abuse. The fact is that women are not educated enough about their rights. Certainly, we are familiar with and celebrate the equality we are entitled to in politics and law, but many of us forget that we are entitled to the same equality in the relationships that comprise our everyday lives.

Inequality in romantic relationships has become so normalized in our culture that we now romanticize the idea of the man that yields power over us. The popular Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer portrays power asymmetry as an enviable relationship dynamic. Bella’s obsession with Edward shows that he yields enormous power over her, and his paternalistic babysitting is patronizing. The idealization of an unequal power relationship sends a negative message to women. Women today should be taught that a healthy relationship should leave them feeling empowered, not disempowered.

In preparation for the traditional rape narrative we have rape whistles. But there is no simple tool for blowing the whistle on everyday toxic relationships. We want to ask you if you have any ideas on how we can help facilitate a better understanding of the importance of power symmetry in relationships. You can suggest a conceptual theory, a slogan, or even a symbolic artefact.