AS THE PAGE TURNS
As America, since January 20, 2025, turns the page on its story, and moves into its new existence, it behooves us to ask several questions.
First question:
Why have we been hearing and witnessing serious throwbacks on women's rights and cancellations of environmental protections? What is going on?
There appears to be a desire to return to an earlier time when men ruled and women were subservient to men—and the Earth was seen as Mother, always providing, offering her fruits—subservient—solely there for the use of the humans who dominated.
Second question:
Could there be a sweet spot in the human psyche for this kind of world (found predominantly in males, but far too often evident also in females)?
There is an established system that operates to massage that sweet spot. It is called patriarchy.
On Women and Patriarchy:
Gerda Lerner, in her well-researched, well-regarded, and enlightening book The Creation of Patriarchy (1), offers this definition:
Patriarchy in its wider definition means the manifestation and institutionalization of male dominance over women and children in the family and the extension of male dominance over women in society in general.
It implies that men hold power in all the important institutions of society and that women are deprived of access to such power.
It does not imply that women are either totally powerless or totally deprived of rights, influence, and resources. (p. 239)
Lerner offers a surprising insight:
The system of patriarchy can function only with the cooperation of women.
For nearly four thousand years women have shaped their lives and acted under the umbrella of patriarchy, specifically a form of patriarchy best described as paternalistic dominance or paternalism. (p. 217)
Paternalistic dominance describes the relationship of a dominant group, considered superior, to a subordinate group, considered inferior, in which the dominance is [made less severe] by mutual obligations and reciprocal rights.
The dominated exchange submission for protection, unpaid labor for maintenance. (p. 239)
Women have for millennia participated in the process of their own subordination because they have been psychologically shaped so as to internalize the idea of their own inferiority. (p. 218)
This cooperation is secured by a variety of means:
—gender indoctrination
—educational deprivation
—the denial to women of knowledge of their history
—the dividing of women, one from the other, by defining 'respectability' and 'deviance' according to women's sexual activities
—by restraints and outright coercion
—by discrimination in access to economic resources and political power
—and by rewarding class privileges to conforming women.
(p. 217)
Satirical Image of
The Perfect 1950’s American Housewife
Roots
Lerner also mentions a significant note about historical roots in relation to women and American slavery:
She states that:
…the subordination of women by men provided the conceptual model for the creation of slavery as an institution….(p.89) Men learned to institute dominance and hierarchy over other people by their earlier practice of dominance over the women of their own group. This found expression in the institutionalization of slavery….(p. 9).
Lerner further states that:
[t]he precedent of seeing women as an inferior group allows the transference of such a stigma onto any other group which is enslavable. (Lerner, p. 99)
The Other
A major arm of the practice of domination calls for marking the target group as “other”. Stereotyping that “other” group as inferior to the dominant group supports the cause of domination.
Below is an example of the marking of one group as “the other” in this “Cathy” cartoon from 1987. (“Aqueduct”)(2)
Cartoon by Cathy Guisewite—click on her name to see her site
Going back to that aforementioned “sweet spot,” I will conclude with some unsettling and hopeful quotes by Eleanor Rae, Karen J. Warren, and Carol P. Christ, all from Eleanor’s book Women, the Earth, the Divine.(p. 46) (3)
Eleanor states that:
[t]he ethic of our eroding patriarchal structure may be characterized as an ethic of domination: whether it is the domination of the male over the female and/or the domination of the human over nature.
In agreement with Gerda Lerner, Eleanor states that while this domination is sometimes presented in paternalistic terms, this does not negate the fact that, at its base, there lies an ethic of domination. (Rae, p. 46)
Using the term “logic”, Warren states similarly that “the Western ‘patriarchal conceptual framework [is] characterized by a logic of domination.’”
(Rae, 46) (Warren) (4)
It is extremely important for us to remain positive and hopeful! There is a rising Sun!
Karen Warren goes on to say that “‘[t]his logic of domination must be replaced by a meaningful notion of difference.’”
She refers to Carol P. Christ’s words: “‘There are no hierarchies among beings on Earth.’” (Rae, 46)
As we continue our exploration, we will expand on the hopeful conclusion, referring especially to Eleanor’s work on Women, the Earth, the Divine, which will have much to offer us, and others.
Stay tuned!
Perhaps YOU might have something to add to our exploration!
Please check our wish list below!
...To be continued
We plan an exploring two movements—
the Women’s Movement and the Environmental Movement—as they exist, and are linked, in a patriarchal world.
We’ll do this with two posts a week for a few upcoming weeks:
Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Patriarchy, Oxford University Press, 1986.
Christian Women: Quo Vadis? newsletter “Aqueduct”, Winter 1988/89.
Eleanor Rae, Women, the Earth, the Divine, Orbis Books, Maryknoll, NY, 1994.
Karen J. Warren, “The Power and the Promise of Ecological Feminism,” Environmental Ethics 12:2 (1990):144.
Our Wishes:
We are hoping for a guest writer or two on the subjects of women and the Earth in a patriarchal world!
Could this be you?
Do you have something to say that we might publish in a post?
Perhaps you have a new perspective?
Perhaps from a diverse culture?
Maybe:
— a short essay
—a prayer
— a poem
— a drawing
— a cartoon
— a resource that you would like to suggest on these topics
Please do add your thought in the comments section on our website, however brief you wish it to be!
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Of course, you can always mail us a paper copy!
