82 mcconnell ecofem and future humanism

ECOFEMINISM AND THE FUTURE OFHUMANISM

Joy McConnell

He says that woman speaks with nature. Thatshe hears voices from under the earth. That windblows in her ears and trees whisper to her. Thatthe dead sing through her mouth and the criesof infants are clear to her. But for him this dia-logue is over. He says he is not part of this world,that he was set on this world as a stranger. Hesets himself apart from woman and nature. Andso it is Goldilocks who goes to the home of thethree bears, Little Red Riding Hood who con-verses with the wolf, Dorothy who befriends alion, Snow White who talks to the birds,Cinderella with mice as her allies, the Mermaidwho is half fish, Thumbelina courted by a mole.(And when we hear in the Navajo chant of themountain that a grown man sits and smokes withbears and follows directions given to him bysquirrels, we are surprised. We had thought onlylittle girls spoke with animals.) We are the bird'seggs. Bird's eggs, flowers, butterflies, rabbits,cows, sheep; we are caterpillars; we are leavesof ivy and sprigs of wallflower . We are women.We rise from the wave. We are gazelle and doe,elephant and whale, lilies and roses and peach,we are air, we are flame, we are oyster and pearl,

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we are girls. We are women and nature. And hesays he cannot hear us speak. But we hear.

-Susan Griffin, Woman and Naturel

The ecofeminist concern is a concem for the fate ofour species and all life on Earth. "It is clear. toecofeminists that the whole culture is free floating-from the lack of grounding in the natural world, fromthe lack of a sense of belonging in the unfolding storyof the universe, from the lack of a healthy relationshipbetween the males and females of the species. "2

In their book, Dialectic ofEnlightenment,Horkheimer and Adorno write of the Enlightenment:

[Women] become the embodiment of the bio-logical Function, the image of nature, the sub-jugation of which constituted that civilization'stitle to fame. For millennia men dreamed of ac-quiring absolute mastery over nature, of convert-ing the cosmos into one immense huntingground. It was to this that the idea of man wasgeared in a male-dominated society. This wasthe significance of reason, his proudest boast. 3

Women's issues are not separate from environmen-tal issues but part and parcel of a just, caring, andresponsible way of living on the earth and relating toall life, including human life. Humans are not a sepa-rate order of beings. We are an integral part of the

1 Susan Griffin. Woman and Nature: the Roaring inside Her (NewYork: Harper and Row. 1978). 1.2 Charlene Spretnak. "Ecofeminism: Our Roots and Flowering."in Irene Diamond and Gloria Feman Orenstein. eds.. Reweavingthe World: the Emergence of Ecofeminism (San Francisco: SierraClub Books. 1990). 9. .

3 Quoted in Ynestra King. "The Ecology of Feminism and theFeminism of Ecology." in Judith Plant. ed.. Healing the Wounds:the Promise of Ecofeminism (Philadelphia: New Society. 1991).18.

Ecofeminism and the Future of Humanism / 113

earth. What we do to the earth and other people we doto ourselves.

The world culture at the present time seems to beincreasingly inhospitable to the nurturing of the earthand life, including that of human beings-children,women and men. It is a culture that is, in the words ofYnestra King, "founded on the repudiation and domi-nation of nature. . . .The hatred of women and the ha-tred of nature are intimately connected and mutuallyreinforcing."4 Global and national economic and po-litical forces have been oblivious to the connectionsbetween the way we live-the goals we strive for, theamassing of power and wealth for the few, the jugger-naut of technological progress, the wanton exploita-tion of natural and human resources-and theconsequences on the environment and on peoples'lives. It is no longer possible to live so heedlessly andsurvive.

Using their critical rationality, as well as their otherhuman functions-sensing, feeling and intuition-women know that life must be nourished and cher-ished if it is to survive, grow, flourish, and reach itsfull potential. For thousands of years women's majorrole in civilizations around the world has been thebearing and nurturing of children and the welfare offamilies. Women have seen through our own experi-ences that everything is interconnected and interde-pendent; everything we do has an immediate effect onthe people and the environment around us as well asincalculable, long-range effects.

Historically, women have been the primary carri-ers of socialization, the first caretakers and nurturersof all human potential. What happens to mothers ispassed on to children and families, to all of humanity,just as what happens to the earth is passed on to allthat is part of the interdependent web of life. In a

4 ibid.


very deep sense women, as mothers, are the hub ofhumanity, just as the earth is the hub of life. How wetreat women is how all people are treated. Whenwomen are abused, deprived of basichuman neces-sities, education and influence over their own lives,their children and families suffer. As children and fami-lies suffer, so do the cultures of which they are a part.When women are kept from reaching their full humanpotential, when they are relegated to limited roleswithin society, when they are treated as chattel, notonly do they and their families suffer but so do thosewho are seemingly the beneficiaries of such a system.It is not only the oppressed who suffer but the oppres-sors as well; the humanity of both is diminished. Whenthe roles of both women and men are narrowly cir-cumscribed and limited, neither women nor men canreach their full potential. When men's roles have ex-panded to include parenting and nurturing of childrenand family, more of their full human potential has beenactualized just as when women have entered the widersphere of community, commerce, industry, the artsand govemment.

Women know that only a cooperative, collaborative,appreciative, nurturing, caring and responsible ap-proach to living will save our environment and ourspecies. We know that too much of the world's re-sources and wealth is being used to perpetuate warand violence as solutions to human conflict. We arehorrified that "human progress" has brought us to thebrink of nuclear annihilation and environmental di-saster. We know that there are more constructive waysthan violence and war to resolve conflict and maintaindiversity in a complex world. We are repelled by poli-cies that allow govemments to finance the building ofbombs and the mobilizing of armies but not the ad-equate nutrition, health care, or education of children.Economic and political practices and systems thatstress competition, efficiency, unlimited growth, and


wasteful use of resources at the expense of humanand environmental welfare are dooming themselves toobsolescence. Any system that doesn't care for thoseupon whom it depends for its success is doomed toeventual failure. That is the precarious state in whichwe find ourselves at the present time. I agree withCharlene Spretnak when she writes:

I cannot imagine a challenge greater than thataddressed by ecofeminism. We know that we are.of one fabric on this glorious blue-green planet,that the elements in our bodies and in the worldaround us were forged by the fireball at the mo-ment the universe was bom, and that we haveno right to destroy the integrity of the Earth'sdelicately balanced ecosystems, whose historiesare far longer than our own. 5

I would like to close with a beautiful poem by AliceWalker from Her Blue Body Everything We Know6

We have a beautifulmotherHer hillsare buffaloesHer buffaloeshills.

We have a beautifulmotherHer oceansare wombsHer wombsoceans.

5 ibid.. 13.6 Alice Walker. "Her Blue Body Everything We Know." in JudithBoice. ed. Mother Earth through the Eyes of Women. Photogra-phers and Writers (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books. 1992). 6.


We have a beautifulmotherHer teeththe white stonesat the edgeof the waterthe summergrassesher plentifulhair.

We have a beautifulmotherHer green lapimmenseHer brown embraceetemalHer blue bodyeverythingwe know.

Note: Giving this presentation, I consciously chosea clearly feminist and non-traditional approach to pre-senting a paper in a humanist setting. I would prefer tocall this plank "eco-humanism. " However, I believed thatit was important to present a feminist critique of thetraditional attitude toward women and nature becauseit is distinct from the scientific approach toward ecol-ogy and solving environmental problems. Ecofeminismsees that the fundamental problem is the Western/Pa-triarchal/Scientific belief that nature is totally under-standable, predictable and therefore controllable byhuman beings, science and technology. I understandthat I have also oversimplified the feminist critique here

for the purposes of brevity and effect and that I havealso presented an argument in part from a traditionalfeminine perspective that would be eschewed in a radi-cal ecofeminist critique.

Ecofeminism and the Future of Humanism / 11 7

Additional Reading

Anderson, Lorraine, ed. Sisters of the Earth: Women'sProse and Poetry about Nature. New York: VintageBooks, 1991.

de Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex. New York: AlfredA. Knopf, 1952.

Dinnerstein, Dorothy. The Mermaid and the Minotaur:Sexual Arrangements and Human Malaise. NewYork: Harper and Row, 1976.

Eisler, Riane. The Chalice and the Blade: Our History,Our Future. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1987.

Merchant, Carolyn. The Death of Nature: Women, Ecol-ogy, and the Scientific Revolution. San Francisco:Harper and Row, 1989.

Roberts, Elizabeth, and Elias Amidon, eds. EarthPrayers from Around the World. San Francisco:Harper. 1991.

Seed, John, Joanna Macy, Pat Fleming, and ArneNaess. Thinking Like a Mountain: Towards a Coun-cil of All Beings. Philadelphia: New Society Publish-ers, 1988.


"The Eco-Humanism of the Future"Report of the Caucus Responding on Ecofeminism

Participants: Edd Doerr, Roger Kuhrt, Andy Mayo, JoyMcConnell (facilitator), Howard Radest, Carol Solomon

The major issues/questions/concems of the group:

Geometrical human population growth

Pollution/ destruction of environments and spe-cies / depletion of resources / degradation ofnatural systems

Does humanity have a right to despoil the envi-ronment?

Dominance over nature versus harmony with na-ture

How should we balance human needs/demandswith the effect of their fulfillment on the en-vironment?

The role of ethics, morality, and politics in eco-humanism

The arrogance of anthropocentrism-short-sightedness-greed, species and personal self-aggrandizement

Is there a way to create a human culture thatcan sustain an environmental balance andbio-diversity?

Both men and women becoming more fully func-tioning-using a variety of functions and abili-ties, exploring potentialities

Issues/ questions/ concems brought up by one or moreindividuals:

We are all collaborators in the destruction of theenvironment


Reluctance to see humanity as a disease on theface of the earth

Dislike of the excesses of modem ism-totally ra-tional, rigid, objective

Deep ecology versus temporality of the system;that which has been nurtured ultimately isself-reflective consciousness; what does thatmatter if the earth and all else will eventuallyend? Are our concerns irrelevant?

The conflict between having material things andrelatedness, connection and unity

Thinking Toward Solutions:

This is an integrated problem which will needintegrated solutions.

We need to have humility about our ability topredict infallibly the outcomes of our prac-tices on the environment.

Economic-adequate and fair compensation forall work for all people; when industries andbusiness compute costs, they should includelong-term environmental and human costs.

Education-there needs to be increased educa-tion about the realities of the crisis we arefacing; consciousness-raising about the ef-fects of our life-styles on the environment andas a source of oppression. We must know andlive according to the United Nations Interna-tional Declaration of Human Rights.

Politics-We must create political/economicstructures (reinforcements) to bring aboutchanges in lifestyles, habits, commercial/ ag-ricultural/industrial practices; humanistsmust form coalitions with like-minded groupsin order to exert more power and influence inmaking changes.


Personal-What would a humanist lifestyle looklike if the environment really mattered? Weshould model our values in the way we liveand create inclusive, egalitarian communitieswhich embody values for humane sustainableculture.

Gender-women need to have control over theirown bodies and reproduction; number of chil-dren per family decreases with the increasein economic well-being and education; womenneed to have economic equality.

Communal Living-We need to celebrate our ex-perience as earthly, sensuous, thinking, feel-ing, conscious beings.

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