I haven't participated in the list 'til now, but I've been thinking about
ecofeminism a lot lately, and I wanted to throw out a question on just
what constitues ecofeminism.
I'm part of an ecofeminism working group at the Ontario
Public Interest Research GRoup (OPIRG), here in Guelph. I wrote an
article for the OPIRG newsletter this week on the topic of ecofeminism
because it's still an unknown term and philosophy for many people, even
those in environmental and social justice movements. My problem was
this: our working group spent much of its energy after its inception on
exploring for ourselves the ideas behind ecofeminism. One of the more
inspired definitions was "the 'ism' to replace all other 'isms'".
While
the term ecofeminism itself links only ecology and feminism, the members
of our group come from various activist and academic backgrounds and
could not help but "make the links" between sexism (masculism),
ecological destruction, AND other forms of oppression--racism,
colonialism, heterosexism... We see similarities in the
oppressive stuctures and ideologies behind the repression/ aggressive
devaluing of nature and various groups of people. In our view, the
movement toward health in our relations with each other and with the
earth involves all people working for true sustainability;
community decision-making; aboriginal justice; human rights; true and
meaningful equality
between the sexes, the races and ethnicities, the north and south, the
differently-abled, gays, lesbians, bisexual and heterosexual people.
My questions have been arising because ecofeminist theory, what I have
read until now, incorporates some of these "links," but no where have I
yet found an entirely holistic view. Our group works under the label of
ecofeminism, and I have begun to wonder if it is wrong to make an
ideology into something it is not--though, at the same time, I'm not
convinced that is exactly what we have done.
Tzeporah--(if you have time to read this)--I am wondering if, in your
work compliling an ecofeminism bibliography, you have come across ideas
about the interconnectedness of most (if not all) forms of oppression (and,
conversely, movements for liberation), and the place of this analysis in
ecofeminism. I'd love to read on this topic. [P.S. I noticed you were
living on Bowen--I'm a west coaster (born on Texada Is., in the Georgia
Strait) transplanted in Southern Ontario. I miss the wind, the cedars, and
the islands.]
Juniper Glass
>From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tue Nov 15 12:40:10 MST 1994
Tue, 15 Nov 94 14:43:12 GMT-5
From: "Brian A. Luke" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Organization: University of Dayton
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue, 15 Nov 1994 14:42:49 EST
Subject: rape and the state
>
> >> How would you deal with a rape case
>
> >This presupposes that the present system effectively reduces rape.
> >It doesn't. It's not designed to. Rape is intricately linked with
> >male dominance, and the police/prison system helps to maintain male
> >dominance.
>
> How does the prison system help to maintain male dominance in this context? If
In this context, one could mention the historical and present
treatment of rape by the legal system, namely as a crime of one man
against another man, by damaging "his" property. This perpetuates
male dominance by furthering the notion of women as men's
possessions. Also, rapism is furthered, not countered, by the prison
system. In prison, as in society at large, rape is a means of
establishing power, directly over the person raped, and indirectly
over all the others terrified of being raped. Outside prison, all
women are targets for rape, and all women are taught to be afraid of
rape and constrict their behavior "appropriately." Prison recreates
this system. There are no women in men's prisons, but an underclass
completely analogous to women is created from amongst the younger,
smaller men. Not all of them are raped, but all men in prison are
afraid of being raped, and this fear functions as a control mechanism
is prison just as it does for women in general outside prison. This
is relevant to the establishment and maintenance of patriarchy
because patriarchy, or "father rule" is not just men over women, but
older men over younger men (white men over black men, rich men over
poor men, etc.). In fact the two hierarchies, men over women and men
over other men, are intricately linked to each other.
> rapists can rape with impunity, how many more men would commit rapes? Studies
> indicate that a lot more would (at least they say they would).
I've seen those studies. The problem is that the police/prison/legal
system, if it's deterred any rapes it's only been those that
destabilize patriarchy, ie., one man raping a woman "belonging" to
another man (a "faithful" wife or a virginal daughter). This creates
the impression that other women can be targetted for rape, including
prostitutues, those perceived as promiscuous, and one's own wife or
girlfriend. Recently because of feminist agitation some states have
recognized marital rape as a crime, which is a step in the right
direction.
You just don't
> answer my question. I suggested that rape cases would be impossible for
> "concerned citizen groups" to deal with. You answer by saying that our current
> system doesn't reduce rapes. First of all, you are skirting the question.
Woman-centered self-defense training, speak-outs, educative efforts,
women's self-defense networks (e.g., the group of women at some
college (Brown?) who told each other which men were rapists--this
organizing was stamped out by the administration, I believe.),
men's anti-rape groups, etc.
> Secondly, if you don't think our system reduces rapes, consider the amount of
> rape that occurs when no authority is around to punish it. Consider the amount
> of rape in Bosnia, as just one example. In fact, it is not government, but
> anarchy that maintains male dominance.
This statement is an exact reversal of reality. Military rape
occurs because the officers either directly order it (as in Bosnia)
or tacitly condone it (as in most american wars), or both. The
preparation of the male soldier for rape starts the first day of boot
camp, where the boys' sexual energy is harnessed for aggression. The
default enemy is always the woman, the default weapon is the penis.
This is why militarism and rape always go together.
Left to themselves, the uncivil amongst
> males are going to assert their physical dominance to the fullest extent.
>
Conservatives make statements like this all the time, to defend the
status quo, whereas if a feminist made this statement, she'd be called
a man-hater or a reverse sexist, because it implies that men are
naturally evil. Human males are not naturally evil, we're taught to
be that way. There are societies in which no men rape. They are
societies in which women are respected, not societies with violent
centralized governments.
Brian
>From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tue Nov 15 14:18:04 MST 1994
X-NUPop-Charset: English
Date: Tue, 15 Nov 94 15:19:58 CST
From: "Mary Elizabeth Braun" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Ecofem bibliog.
To Tzeporah et al. The bibliographic essay in the June 1993 issue of
CHOICE magazine is "Remapping the Terrain: Books on Ecofeminism." I'm not
familiar with much of the literature on ecofeminism, but the essay does
discuss many books. It's written by Linda Vance, a professor of
environmental history, women's studies, and environmental ethics at Vermont
College.
Mary Braun
Geography, UW Madison
>From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tue Nov 15 18:44:39 MST 1994
Date: Tue, 15 Nov 1994 17:47:58 -0800
From: Sue vanHattum <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Anarchism, briefly
well, i'm about a week late, but i wanted to respond on this. i always
think about the anarchist position on voting when it comes time to vote.
i voted against the nasty propositions, and for money (taxes) for
schools. is that inherently in contradiction to my sense that i'm an
anarchist? i'm not sure... ;-)
emma goldman spoke out against women's struggle for the vote in the
decade before it was won (1910-1920). i haven't read those
speeches/essays recently, so i can't say what her resoning was, exactly.
i am currently reading love, anarchy, and emma goldman, by candace falk,
and enjoying it. emma goldman is one of my heroes.
sue
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Institute for Global Communications **PeaceNet*EcoNet*ConflictNet*LaborNet**
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