Do women notice some features of nature that men do not? Do women experience nature differently than men? What about the way they write about nature is gendered?
Whether that "difference" is understood as biological (i.e. women are more "in tune" with nature because they are inherently more "natural"), or as cultural (i.e. women are more cooperative), or as political (i.e. women are more likely to suffer environmental injustice), how do women intervene in thinking and writing nature?
Sammy
ReplyDeleteIn Women Writing Nature, the authors of these short pieces use nature writing as a means by which to create a space in which they feel comfortable expressing themselves in a creative way while illuminating their connection to the natural world. Women attempt to refute the patriarchal myths of the need to dominate nature through the creation of their own myths. As Steele states in “Touching the Earth: Gloria Anzaldua and the Tenets of Ecofeminism”, “… in order to change our future trajectory and to overpower the right hand of patriarchy before it is too late, we must rewrite those stories and change them into life stories…” (103). I would argue that women attempt to notice features of nature that men do not because it is part of their agenda. Women want to break the chains of nature domination. Women nature writers are overtly attempting to expose the connections between the feminine and the natural in order to better understand how to confront the oppression they feel. The women in the pieces we read are most definitely placing a gender upon nature complement the connection between the oppression that women and nature share. I feel as though women nature writing is somewhat composed of women attempting to prove that they are being oppressed by men first by showing all the ways in which women and nature are connected, and then using that connection as a tool to give them strength to battle the subjugation they feel. I started to wonder why it is easier for women to better understand their oppression through understanding the similarities between themselves and the domination of nature? Why does their need to be an external medium in the feminist battle, do we have to have something bigger than ourselves on our side? Is the ecofeminist movement a symbiotic relationship of women and nature connecting and gaining power together, or is it nature being used as tool once again? Ultimately I think women nature writing can be very powerful, and I think that it is important to be constantly recognizing the connections to the natural world, but I can help but see it as a tool as well.
Although Women Writing Nature makes the claim that women have a greater connection to nature due to their gender, I would argue that their connection comes from their status as a marginalized group in our patriarchal society. The idea that women are more “natural” by virtue of their biology has its roots in patriarchal domestic archetypes and perpetuates the same gender myths that this books purportedly attempts to do away with. Oppression, on the other hand, lends itself to a return to nature because oppressed groups are more likely to reject the tenets of their society and look towards their roots. From this viewpoint, queer and transgendered people have a greater connection to nature than do heterosexual cis-gendered women in our society. The greater connection to nature is entirely a cultural phenomenon and hardly, if at all, based on gender.
ReplyDeleteThis book made too many sweeping generalizations for me to be very comfortable with its agenda. The underlying tone of spirituality was alienating to me, a woman, because it implied that this was necessary to connect to nature in any meaningful sense. By pushing the label of Other off on other groups of people, I think this book did more to alienate its readers than to elevate the nature writing of women to a place of equality with the nature writing of men.
Women Writing Nature introduces the frontier of ecofeminism and women’s nature writing. The highlighted women in this book use “nature” as a source for empowering the subjugated (women, minorities, ecosystems, etc.) and resisting the dominant patriarchal models of oppression and mythmaking.
ReplyDeleteFor example, Gloria Anzaldúa emphasizes the interconnectedness and spirtedness of all entities. She is quoted, “Every cell in our bodies, every bone and bird and worm has a spirit” (99). Her writing is meant to heal the wounds inflicted by the domination of colonialism and patriarchy upon women, other minorities and the Earth.
The examples presented in this book displayed the value of scholarship as a form of political activism, but there were some concepts that I would take issue with. Sammy noted that “nature” almost takes up the role of a “tool” for the battle of feminism. Having only the brief survey experience of these women’s texts may not be enough for me to venture a critique, but I would say that using “nature” as a rhetorical device by which to capitalize within an economy of oppression is a re-application of the tools of domination that have been deployed within the dominating patriarchal model – “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house” (Audre Lorde).
I was also concerned about the idealizing of nature. Reading things like “a validation of non-himan nature as an independent entity with a core essence” (96), and “she erases God’s figure and voice […] to replace it with nature’s” (99), remind me of Salvoj Zizek saying that ecology will become the new opium of the masses and also that nature as an ideal harmonious entity that is affected by the stupidity and irresponsibility of human beings is simply a secular appropriation of The Fall.
The authors that Barbra Cook critiques in Women Writing Nature bring up a similar trend that we can, with a great deal of attention, attune ourselves to. This is nowhere more explicit than in Gloria Anzaldua who promoted the Chicana’s and other Others’ “ability to see non-human nature as wholly significant as an entity within itself by way of establishing a relationship with it and feeling the need to hear it’s voice.” (Cook 97) Both Cook and Anzaldua recognize the social construction of an essence of nature so we must assume that the voice she speaks of is tuned towards the Chicanas specifically as their own constructed essence of nature or that this voice is encompassing of all oppressed and subjugated peoples. In the Wretched of the Earth Franz Fannon suggests that the antithetic bond of the oppressed can often come unraveled before the violence of revolution is ended. Fannon wrote about the Algerian Revolution during and after the subsequent Algerian Civil War where the ideals of African Nationalism had been replaced in the instantaneity of a colonial withdrawal towards much more rigid ethnic or religious lineation and the creation of a nation for every subsequent division. These ideals beg the question can such large segments such as, African Nationalism and Ecofeminism, imply an ethic that would encompass the groups necessarily involved? Is the unity of the oppressed fully lost in the dissolution of the antithetical bond of resistance? Can the voice of nature, regardless of its message, be a universal characteristic of being-in-the-midst of this world?
ReplyDeleteIt may be that the construction of an essence of nature is far more personal. While we go through similar processes in each culture the conditions that color our cultural experience may differ in individuals. If such is the case then there may be no foundation for a common environmental ethic. At this existential level we may turn to Albert Camus who argues in The Myth of Sisyphus that the quality of experience cannot be measured so we should move towards a quantity of experience. This may imply an ethic already in use by ecologist and conservation biologists; the use of biodiversity as the core value and telos of their work. Conversely, I am a white, American male and my concern with Anzaldua speaking for a mass may be a symptom of the hyper-individuality of my own culture, or other cultural coercions that drive division and lineation.
In Barbara Cook’s Women Writing Nature, the author reflects on a series of ecofeminist writings, elaborating on their successes and shortfalls. Cook begins with an explanation of ecofeminist philosophy and readings of early ecofeminist writers of the 20th century. A common theme through these early authors was the rejection of the western creation story and embracing creation stories of the American southwest that were centralized around a mother earth figure.
ReplyDeleteIn a following chapter, more specifics of the ecofeminist movement are uncovered through the perspective of Gloria Anzaldua, a chicana woman. She asks for women of her heritage, who she believes are more in tune with nature, and other Others to reconnect with the environment and create new myths to better represent their belief systems. In the concluding chapter, we read Rosemarie Rowely’s short narrative of the changing world. She equates the poor relationship between her and her husband to the one between man and earth. She reports that modern technology and science, industrialization, and man’s greed are to blame for the poor state of the environment.
I agree with the sentiments of my classmates in that the connection between the feminist movement and the plight of the environment seems forced. Each of these movements are worthy causes independently and don’t appear interconnected to me. I also think that making the white male responsible for the destruction of wildlife and alleviating blame from others gets us farther from a solution. The authors of the literature in WWN and Cook herself draw more borders between humans and the environment than the borders they claim to dismantle.