"THE earth-body and the womb-body run on cosmological time. Just as the flow of earth's life-giving waters follows lunar rhythms, so too follow the tides of a woman's womb. No culture has failed to notice these connections or the related feats of elemental power: that the female can grow both sexes from her very flesh and transform food into milk for them, and that the earth cyclically produces vast bounty and intricate dynamics of the biosphere that allow life. Cultural responses to the physical connections between nature and the female range from respect and honor to fear, resentment, and denigration. Whatever the response, it is elaborately constructed over time and plays a primal, informing role in the evolution of a society's worldview." -- Charlene Spretnak, "Critical and Constructive Contributions of Ecofeminism"

{Virginia Beach and Nags Head, summer nights, circa 1990-96}

The waves rock the pier, and I fear for how rickety it is, gazing at the far end where a piece of it is separated by a chasm of hurricane damage. The lights of the tall hotels remind me of how artificial this place is, but the sea and the fish remind me otherwise. The pier is covered with blood, bits of bait, spit, seagull poop, empty beer cans. I am surrounded by men, including my father, the only one I feel I can trust. I am outnumbered by men, and some of them are drunk. I fear them somewhat of the way I fear catching a shark, but the dangers from men do not excite me. I catch one small fish after another, croaker, gray trout, fifteen in all taken up out of the ocean, and thrown back down wounded, perhaps dying, because I do not eat them. I do this for sport, I take from the mysteries of the sea for the surprises it offers me, but this plundering has become monotonous, and it is broken only by the unwanted catch, a sting ray (this native species does not actually sting but I am afraid of its thrashing presence on the deck anyway, and a strange man near me unhooks it as a favor). I am tired of fear. I am tired of being a coward. I am tired of being seen as needing help. I am in a man’s world especially here and I feel that I have dared that I have sinned that I am in a universe of rednecks and that sometimes dreaming of fish, of seeing the rod tip move or the tug of war by invisible line with the unknown depths or the sinuous silver form undulating as it is raised on a swaying cord from the water in the imagination is so much more satisfying than the bloody, smelly, unheroic business at hand, where the battle is almost never fair and you never pull Moby Dick or Jaws out of the water but instead merely steal the dinner of another, slighty bigger fish, who does not have the money for pole rental.

Why am I pulling creatures from the sea with a strand of false spiderweb and a phallus?

The dualism of traditional thought divides the world into categories and dicotomies: culture / nature, human / animal, reason / emotion, mind / body, light / dark, man / woman. The problem too often comes when these separations are seen as absolute, and mutually exclusive with no part of one in the other, and most terribly when one category is viewed as superior to the Other. Nature presents a problem to rigid dualist thought, because it is both the "me" (humans are natural beings) and the "not-me" (humans and society are in some way cut off from nature, and often justify its destruction by this). Women are associated with nature in patriarchal dualist thought, and seen as closer to nature. This kinship to nature implies inferiority in the traditional hierarchy, which also associates racial minorities and indigenous peoples with nature (i.e. less "civilized"). Male-dominated societies seem to have the same trouble rationalizing who women are as they do with defining nature, and exaggerate the differences and separations and deny the similarities and connections.

Ecofeminism draws parallels between the subjugation of women and the exploitation of nature, and demands change and respect for both.

Water is also both the "me" and the "not-me" for human beings. We cannot naturally survive in an aquatic habitat, but it is essential for life and forms a major part of our bodies. We develop prenatally in the sea--for the amniotic fluid of the uterus is nearly identical to the water of the ocean. Water can nourish us or engulf us, much like the arche-/stereotypes of women as all-giving mothers or all-destroying sorceresses. But water is seen as the domain of men, who ravish in it ships once named for women and whose industries pipe out waste.

Naturism: "the unjustified exploitation of the natural environment" (Karen J. Warren)

[This "naturism" is not to be confused with the use of the term to describe nudism!]

Patriarchal dualism is the chosen opponent of ecofeminist philosopher Valerie Plumwood. Her colleague Karen J. Warren takes on the issue of violence and power in relation to women and the environment, and has created a theory of ecofeminist peace politics. My presentation of ecofeminism here draws much from their works, combined with my own interpretations. There are also several important male ecofeminists, such as Jim Cheney, who is seen as the philosophy's third major voice, and the Warren/Plumwood/Cheney school of ecofeminism was very well defended by Donald J. Buege against accusations by social ecologist Janet Biehl.

{Gordonsville, Virginia, summer '93}

My two best friends and I had invaded this psuedo-exclusive resort that my parents were then members of (and getting ripped off by). We walked down the hillside towards the lake, which was artificial, made from this valley during the '40's. Supposedly there was still a barn at the lake's bottom, 60 feet below the surface, and this story I told them, which I could not prove to be true. On the facing hill there was an antebellum mansion which the resort had purchased, and rented only to old people. We were in the shadows of history and its injustice and within sight of the destruction of the future, with the other side of the lake being clear-cut for a golf course. The red clay was visible as exposed flesh, more muscle than blood. We reached the small dock which went out over the water in a T-shape, and we took off our shoes and put our legs into the brown water. We were nearly out of high school and idealistic in our hatred of society, and what we thought then was rebellion. I don't remember whose idea it was to leap into the lake, to swim in its inviting waters away from the sticky heat of the day, but I don't think it was mine. I complied, reluctantly, afraid of snakes which I had seen before in this water. We swam in our clothes, in the shallow water. I felt more of a sense of adventure in that than in many more dangerous or unique things that I have since. We had in some way taken on the rules, we had violated the order of exclusion that we knew so well, and some part of us had returned to where we knew we belonged, in the cool breast of the water which calmed our confused hearts. I wonder now if this was wrong, if our swim did some damage. But I am sure that though the lake was not meant for the impulsive dips of a trio of adolescent women, it was even more not meant to receive the errant golf ball and the muddy runoff of such commerce.

"to channelize the river for large barges. But even this downgraded program would have had radical consequences on the dynamics of the river’s natural flow : channelization accelerates the sinking of the riverbed and the drying up of the precious floodplain forests, as well as the disparition of oxbow lakes and backwater habitats, which have a great role in the prevention of floods and the improvement of water quality... " RIVERFAX November 1996, report on river channelization in Germany

"As many as 100 to 114 million girls and women in over 30 countries of Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia suffer from the consequences of female genital mutilation. Rooted in traditions surrounding childbirth, puberty, or marriage, female genital mutilation poses serious dangers to the health of girls and women, including shock, blood loss, infection, painful intercourse, and difficulties in childbirth. Female genital mutilation was prominently featured on the agenda for ICPD, where a resolution was passed calling for governments to prohibit and urgently stop the practice: 'Female genital mutilation is a basic rights violation.'" PATH (Program for Appropriate Technology in Health) FGM page

"Sexism [is] the most central symbol of that distortion of human relations that turns the making of love into the making of war.... ....Our vision of a new society of social justice must reckon with the ecological crisis. ...If women and oppressed classes and races are not to be cheated of their future in a world of dwindling resources, hoarded by the present power holders, we must seek the fundamental reconstruction of the way resources are allocated within the world community." -- Rosemary Radford Ruether, New Woman New Earth

Many ecofeminists have chosen a spiritual route, turning to Goddess worship and a veneration of a primordial matriarchy which they say existed long before male-dominated society. Some of these views stray from feminism, however, and while worshipping an Earth Mother they accept the "feminine principle" uncritically, swallowing whole the notion that women are intrinsically, naturally different from men -- and too often claiming to speak for all women. However the Goddess image, and the uncovering of repressed non-patriarchal myth, can be liberating when used to contradict the tradition view of religion as sanctioning the domination of women and nature by man.

 

"A world-wide symbol of the Great Mother was the pointed-oval sign of the yoni, known as vesica piscis, Vessel of the Fish.... Fish and womb were synonymous in Greek; delphos meant both. ....Some claimed the fish represented Christ because Greek ichthys, "fish" was an acronym for "Jesus Christ, Son of God." But the Christian fish-sign was the same as that of the Goddess's yoni or Pearly Gate: two crescent moons forming a vesica piscis." -- Barbara G. Walker, The Women's Encyclopedia of Myths & Secrets

[Disclaimer: This is not meant as disrespect of anyone's personal religious views. This is theory.]

The "care ethic" and the Gaia image do lead to problems in both the ecological and feminists aspects of ecofeminism, however. This is explored in great detail by Christine J. Cuomo's "Unravelling the Problems in Ecofeminism."

Water has long been associated with religion, however, especially in the Christian tradition. The sacrament of baptism originally immersed the convert very near to the point of drowning, so that the experience would be visceral, violent, and perhaps include a rehash of their life prior to conversion. The idea of being "born again" held by many fundamentalist and evangelical Christians emphasizes not only a belief in transformation by faith, but also an implict contempt for the natural process of birth by women, opting instead for a "spiritual birth" in Christ and the usually male clergy. This attitude of spirit as apart from and superior to the body has been shown by ecofeminists to be connected to the patriarchal dualist thought assuming superiority of the male, who is associated with the spirit and God, over the female who is associated with the body and Nature.

"In my dreams I look / into this water, / the deepest water / I have seen. All / that is beneath the surface / looks back at me, / bright and marvelous. / Close to me / the fish are dazzling, I / cannot resist. Though / two sharks haunt the distance / my heart pulls me down, / I sink / into this water." -- Susan Griffin, from "Immersion," Unrembered Country

Water also represents "the Other" even in ecological discourse. Most discussions of ecology focus on "the land" and employ descriptions of water as a sidenote or as the means for weighty symbolism. Human arrogance and the ignorance of natural complexity has led to laws requiring developers who destroy wetlands to recreate them, which is not possible, any more than it is possible for humans to truly create life by unnatural means (cloning requires DNA, and in vitro fertilization requires the egg and sperm), and how would waterfowl breed in such a Frankenstein marsh? Humans create lakes, and often they are capable of sustaining life, but they are usually made for human use, for recreation and for scenery. The supposed reasons for the existence of these lakes is similar to the patriarchy's view of women as sex objects--they are to be looked at and to be used. A woman with breast implants usually loses all sensation in her breasts, turning them from active sources of erotic pleasure to completely passive, male-centered objects, a sort of biological pornography. Several ponds that I have seen being excavated are for businessmen in upscale office parks to gaze contemplatively on while they ruthlessly pursue the green of the dollar.

Still, why are all of my passages so self-centered?

The problem with the breakdown of patriarchal dualism is, how do we think afterwards? This structure has dominated for centuries, and its abscence threatens the construct of "logic." But logic as we see it now has often been defined by the white male perspective, which is by no means the universal human experience. Much of the challenge of the post-modern era has been the breakdown of tradition into uncertainity. But uncertainity is the reality of human life. We do not know, we cannot know, everything. We must simply deal with the world as it is and repair what we have made it, and try to improve conditions for our descendents.

Nature is both the "me" and the "not me," the female and the male, and includes both nurturing and predation, and order and chaos. It is a continuum, like all things. Even this technical, artificial web page is part of nature, as are your thoughts and feelings right now.

[Virginia Beach, summer, '96]

The wave overtakes me. I was not expecting it, but I had been watching. I imagined tsunamis, cresting overhead at one hundred feet, the all-destroyer, even before they became popular for disaster movies. The water takes me into itself, a world of salt and seaweed and unknown fishes, the few unafraid of these strange huge bare creatures. For a moment all is chaos. I cannot breath. Then the sun breaks through the water and I reach air again. I sputter, I gasp. I was in no danger of dying, this time. But it is enough to remind me that I am alive, and that the nature of life is just such chances, and a primal excitement breaks through into my consciousness regardless of the artificiality of this fragile human stakeout on the edge of the ever-incroaching ocean. Life and nature are all such confusion, and I resolve to end my fear.

---

More Links:

Ecofeminist Bibliography - Loads of Resources!

Quotes from Karen J. Warren, Judith Plant, Val Plumwood, and Rosemary Radford Ruether

U.S. Public Interest Research Groups' Clean Water Act page

Environmental Inequality page

Citizens Clearinghouse for Hazardous Waste overview page